763.0221/7–2551
The United States High Commissioner for Austria ( Donnelly) to the Deputy Director of the Office of Western European Affairs ( Williamson)
Dear Francis: The British High Commissioner spoke to me again last night about French and British occupation costs. He had just returned from a long meeting with the French High Commissioner, all of which was devoted to this problem.
The British High Commissioner said that he reported to London that they would require an additional 12,000,000 schillings for 1951 and that the French High Commissioner had said that they would need about 15,000,000 schillings for this year. As regards 1952 the British High Commissioner said that the Frenchmen had spoken in terms of 220,000,000 schillings, indicating that the British would not be opposed to this figure, although they did add that they had not worked out the estimates for 1952. He went on to say that he had asked his Government to inform him as to their decision in respect to 1951 and also that the French High Commissioner had told him that he was referring the matter to Paris with request that Paris initiate conversations with London and Washington with a view to paving the way for discussion of 1951 and 1952 costs at the Allied Council meetings during September.
The British High Commissioner requested my views and I gave them to him in no uncertain terms. I told him that I had no objection to the British and French consulting with our Government but I could tell him that Washington would be very disappointed and they would certainly receive no encouragement from them. I suggested that it was about time for the occupying powers to curtail certain civilian expenditures and others that would not interfere with our real objectives here. I also told him that we were faced with a real problem concerning Austria, namely, the strong possibility of a substantial cut in ECA aid to Austria during the current fiscal year. I explained to him the status of the conversations with the Austrian Government regarding the dollar diversion problem, how serious it was and that I could not predict the consequences. There was one thing that was very clear to me and that was the aid program for 1952 would be considerably below 1951, in which case I could not see where the money would come from to pay added occupation costs.
[Page 1055]It may be presumptuous on my part but I could not restrain myself from telling him I saw no hope of even serious discussions about occupation costs until such time as the British and French remove their Soviet Repatriation Missions from their zones. The Deputy High Commissioner who was present, remarked: “I can not see the connection.” I said: “Well, I can.”
Now that you have had a well-deserved vacation you are probably well prepared to take on the British and French and other problems. I am sorry to pass the buck to you but there is nothing that we can or should do about it here, and we bow to you in this connection.
Sincerely yours,