762.00/1–853

No. 328
Memorandum by Sir Frank Roberts to the British Permanent Under-Secretary of State (Kirkpatrick)1
confidential

The French Minister told me last night that a member of the French Embassy staff had a very interesting conversation about the Berlin meeting at lunch yesterday with Mr. Rodionov,2 whom the French regard as the most intelligent and influential member of the Soviet Embassy staff. I should be inclined to support this impression from such conversations as I have had with Mr. Rodionov.

Mr. Rodionov’s general line was that there was clearly little, if any, hope of reaching agreement at Berlin on Germany or Austria. The Soviet Union could not make concessions over free elections, since these would inevitably mean Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Germany. Nor were they likely to give way over the Austrian Treaty, since they could not expect any quid pro quo in Germany. At the same time the Russians realised there was no reason for the Western Powers to abandon their thesis about free elections, etc. Mr. Rodionov said that the account of the Western Powers’ position given by the Times Diplomatic Correspondent yesterday made this quite clear. He spoke of this Western position quite objectively, without any attempt to criticise it as improper.

In these circumstances it might be asked what use the meeting would be at all. Mr. Rodionov’s reply was that the Russians attached real importance to more friendly direct contact between the four Foreign Ministers. The Soviet view was that they should cut the formal proceedings at Berlin as short as possible and go into small restricted session as soon as possible so that they could have a really frank and, he hoped, friendly exchange of views, not so much with the object of reaching agreements as of making each other’s position clear. Mr. Rodionov indicated pretty plainly that the Russians would wish to discuss at such meetings questions going far beyond Germany and Austria, e.g., a Five-power conference, disarmament, and what they describe in their notes as “cause of international tension” generally.

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In the course of this conversation Mr. Rodionov had of course developed on conventional lines the Soviet thesis about the dangers of German rearmament. He had argued at one point that the only really safe solution was a return to Potsdam and to real Four-power control of Germany, or, failing this, control by the French and the Russians together on the basis of a revived Franco-Russian alliance. Mr. Rodionov’s French guest, who was quicker off the mark than Sir Robert Boothby, at once countered by expressing skepticism of Russian fear of Germany alone, and he asked Mr. Rodionov point-blank whether the Soviet Union’s real fear was not the strength of the United States, with Germany figuring only as an important potential addition to the U.S. bloc. After some argument, Mr. Rodionov admitted that this was perfectly true and came very near to giving away the whole case of the new Soviet propaganda line “Europe for the Europeans”.

After this the conversation became much more realistic. Mr. Rodionov admitted that Four- or Two-Power control of Germany was very unlikely and that it would probably be impossible to prevent German rearmament. He said that, accepting this unpleasant fact, the most unacceptable form of German rearmament for the Soviet Union would be full and independent German membership of N.A.T.O. The least unacceptable form, he admitted, was German membership of the E.D.C. But he made it clear that he was thinking only of the Federal Republic, and he ended on the note that the most likely and perhaps, after all, the safest solution of the European problem for the time being would be the continued division of Germany, with the Federal Republic as a member of the E.D.C. and Eastern Germany remaining under Soviet control.

While one must make every allowance for the propaganda line which the Soviet Embassy are so busily developing with all and sundry, the above conversation seems to me to give a pretty fair indication of Soviet thinking and, incidentally, to confirm our own very modest assessment of what we can reasonably expect from the Berlin meeting.

F. K. Roberts
  1. This memorandum, a copy of which was presumably transmitted to the Department of State by the British Embassy was seen by Secretary Dulles, MacArthur, Bowie, Merchant, C. D. Jackson, and Bohlen. The source text is a typewritten copy and is mistakenly dated Jan. 8, 1953.
  2. First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in the United Kingdom.