Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Germany and Austria, Volume VII, Part 1

Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 210: Telegram

No. 481
The United States Delegation at the Berlin Conference to the Department of State¹

Berlin, February 14, 1954.

Secto 136. Department pass OSD. Following is text of Secretary’s statement, 17th session Foreign Ministers meeting, February 14:²

Mr. Chairman, I have listened attentively to your presentation and to the proposals which you submitted. Some of the proposals involve technical treaty changes, and I cannot fully appraise them until I have seen the texts. However, I think I have seized the general import of what you have said.

The Austrian treaty which we are considering concluding is a treaty which imposes very heavy economic burdens upon Austria, economic burdens which we believe are not justifiable to be placed upon Austria. But the Austrian Foreign Minister has indicated that his government is prepared to assume these heavy burdens in order to get independence.

It is the proposal of the Soviet Union as I understand, that Austria should be compelled to make all these payments and then get nothing in the way of independence at all. The whole heart and core of independence is being able, if you want, to have foreign troops off your soil; or, if you want, to invite foreign troops to your soil as allies. Both of these privileges of sovereignty are denied to Austria by the Soviet proposed treaty, so she will have paid, and gotten nothing for what she has paid.

The United States is not prepared to be a party to trying to compel Austria to pay a great price for independence, and then denying that independence.

We believe that would be a fraud, and we are not prepared to be a party to such a fraud.

The Soviet Foreign Minister makes a very curious argument, yet seeks to justify requiring Austria to accept for an indefinite period the presence of foreign troops, which he says are not occupation troops.

But they certainly are occupying Austria. They do not stay suspended in the air somewhere; they are in Austria. They occupy Austria.

There is no parallel between that and the so-called United States bases, which Mr. Molotov is constantly referring to. If having foreign troops in a country is comparable to a base system, and is as evil as Mr. Molotov suggests, then why does he insist on perpetuating that system and inflicting it upon Austria?

The United States, and France, and the United Kingdom, want the elimination of troops from Austria. That, I would think, would be in line with what the Soviet Foreign Minister professes to be good international policy. But all of a sudden, he is the one who is contending for imposing a base system upon Austria.

It is, however, not a base system as the United States understands it, but something infinitely different and infinitely worse. There is no sovereign state in the whole world where the United States has any troops except at the express invitation and will of the sovereign country which asks us to be there as a contribution to its own defense.

There is really a difference, although the Soviet Foreign Minister seems not to appreciate it, between being in a country at a freely given invitation of that country, and imposing oneself on a country forcefully, which is a form of subjugation. This the United States will have no part of, and it will have no part of it in relation to Austria, an Austria which is subjected to the conditions which the Soviet Foreign Minister proposes would not become free and independent Austria which all of us have solemnly promised time after time after time.

It would be an indefinitely subjugated country and that would be to make a mockery of all of our promises.

The Soviet Foreign Minister constantly uses the word “temporary” in order to make his proposals sound a little less harsh and brutal than it is.

But “temporary” is a word which, under the conditions which are prescribed, could more accurately be put “indefinitely”. I recall the “temporary” nature of the stationing of Soviet forces in Hungary and in Rumania. They were only to stay there until an Austrian treaty would end the Austrian occupation. Now that an Austrian treaty is in sight, the Soviet forces are to stay in Austria until there is a German treaty. And no one in the world can tell what new conditions will be imposed if it ever seems likely that there will be a German treaty—rather Soviet Union to permit the all-German free elections which are the indispensable foundation for a German treaty.

Reference has been made to the reason for the delay in the concluding of a treaty with Austria. Anyone who is familiar with the record knows that it has been repeatedly made clear to the Soviet delegation over the past several years that the Western allies were prepared to accept the provisions of the treaty, to which we now formally indicate agreement, and every time that that suggestion has been made the Soviet Union has thought up some other reason as to why it could not proceed with the treaty—Yugoslavia, Trieste, the failure to settle its bill for the dried peas. One after the other excuse has been brought up.

Now we could understand that that shabby performance could be carried on at meetings of the deputies, which had largely ceased to attract the public’s attention, because they had been going on so many years.

But we really did not think that that performance would be repeated here, at the meeting of the four Foreign Ministers themselves, with the eyes of the world focused on what we do, and that new excuses would be thought up, new reasons given, not to conclude the Austrian treaty, just at the moment when it seemed to be in our grasp.

I really would like to urge on the Soviet Union’s Minister that he drop these new proposals, which were never heard of before we came here a few days ago, and allow this great humanitarian task to be completed, redeeming our promise to give freedom and liberation to Austria.

In conclusion, I recall that the United States’ proposal³ stated that the United States was prepared to accept certain articles in the form proposed by the Soviet Union on the condition that the four Foreign Ministers would confirm their past acceptance of article 4 and article 33, among others.

The Soviet Foreign Minister has proposed basic changes in both article 4 and article 33, which had previously been accepted. I take it he refuses to confirm their acceptance as proposed by the United States. If that is the case, that would involve a rejection of the United States’ proposal, because the United States is not prepared itself to accept the changes in articles 4 and 33 which have been proposed by the Soviet Foreign Minister to impose “neutralization” and continuing occupation.

There are some other changes he has proposed which are technical and on which I do not pronounce myself, dealing only with the two major proposals relating to the change in the previously accepted articles 4 and 33.

1. Repeated to New York, London, Paris, Bonn, Moscow, Vienna, and CINCEUR.
2. For a report on the seventeenth plenary, see Sectos 144 and 145, Document 479 and supra.
3. FPM(54)63, Document 520.