Office of the Historian

662.001/3–1152: Telegram

No. 66
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Gifford) to the Department of State1

secret priority
London, March 11, 1952—7 p.m.

3964. Prelim FonOff reaction Sov note on Ger2 at deputy under-secy level fols. FonOff reps believe essential reply be guided by over-riding consideration of preventing delay in contractual and EDC negots. Best we cld hope to accomplish wld be a reply which wld satisfy Ger public opinion but be rejected out of hand by Sovs [garble] but wld appear impossible devise such a reply. Worst that cld happen wld be to get involved at this time in face to face conf with Russians which they cld string out indefinitely.

FonOff reps believe reply must associate West powers at least as strongly as Sovs with necessity for unification of Ger and peace treaty, and since first things come first must concentrate on unification. [Page 173] They were not clear in their own minds whether reply shld incorporate Adenauer’s 14 points but did not exclude this possibility.3

FonOff reps were strongly inclined to believe that reply shld not take up merits of Sovs proposed principles to govern peace treaty but shld take note of Sov expressed readiness to consider other possible proposals on this ques and say that West powers will be prepared to consider principles and advance proposals when essential prelims as to unification settled.

Emb ventures suggest that altho other considerations obviously involved problem of West powers in devising reply to Sov note is in large measure similar to that of FedRep in devising answer to Grotewohl–Volkskammer proposal of Sept 15,4 which led to formulation Adenauer’s 14 points.5

Gifford
  1. Repeated to Paris, Moscow, and Bonn.↩
  2. Supra.↩
  3. For documentation on Chancellor Adenauer’s 14-point program for all-German elections, made to the Bundestag on Sept. 27, 1951, see Foreign Relations, 1951, vol. iii, Part 2, pp. 1747 ff.↩
  4. For documentation on the Volkskammer proposals of Sept. 15, 1951, see ibid.↩
  5. On Mar. 12 Gifford reported that Eden had invited him and Massigli to lunch that day and had expressed himself along the lines of this telegram. The British Foreign Secretary also suggested that the three powers consult with Adenauer in Paris at the time of the Council of Europe meeting (Mar. 19) to decide on parallel replies to the Soviet note. (Telegram 3987 from London, 662.001/3–1252) The note was also discussed briefly with Hallstein during his visit to Washington in March; for a record of his conversation with Byroade and Acheson, see the memorandum of conversations, Document 143.↩