740.5/4–1952: Telegram

No. 88
The United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council (Draper) to the Department of State 1

secret

Polto 1177. Personal for the Secretary from Draper. In light my past experience in Germany and recent experience in present capacity, I have naturally been giving thought to latest Soviet note on Germany. I am submitting below for what value they may have to you my thoughts on the general line we should take in discussing with the Fr and UK the reply which would achieve maximum advantage to our policies.

  • First, I believe we should restate formally our policy and our intention to proceed without delay to conclusion of contractual agreements and EDC Treaty.
  • Secondly, I think we should recapitulate the reasons why these projects are necessary, going back to the failure of the Moscow Conference in 1947, to the Berlin blockade, to the fruitless negots over an Austrian Treaty, and finally to the aggression in Korea and the dragging negotiations for an armistice.
  • Thirdly, I think we should emphasize that our policies and actions are entirely defensive in character and necessary for the security and peace of the free world which is threatened from only one direction. This has been stated clearly before but it might be reaffirmed that the free world poses no threat of aggression to anyone and that the very character of its institutions testifies to the impossibility of aggressive action.

It then seems to me important that we straighten out once more the Potsdam record on Germany’s eastern frontier.

I think we should say that we are unwilling to delude the people of the free world and the people of Germany by entering at this time into a conference to discuss with the Soviets a draft peace treaty for Germany which is so out of harmony with reality and the aspirations of the German people and for which incidentally, the Austrian treaty negots provide an unhappy precedent.

We should, however, state that we have always considered that the unification of Germany should be achieved as soon as possible. Our position on this has been made clear many times. However, we cannot accept unification nor do we believe the German people themselves would favor it if the price paid for unification were [Page 214] domination by an outside power of all of Germany in the same fashion that Eastern Germany is now controlled. Nevertheless, we would be prepared to discuss in the future with the Soviets, in a quadripartite conference, the appropriate bases for free elections in all of Germany as the necessary preliminary steps toward a definitive treaty of peace. Before such a quadripartite conference it would be necessary to receive satisfactory clarification by the USSR of what it means by free elections, as well as satisfactory assurances on inspection. Does it mean the type of “free” elections held in Poland, Czechoslovakia and other satellites? Does it mean the type of election in which there is but one slate of candidates? We might also ask the soviets to specify what parties it has in mind which should be suppressed as anti-democratic and how such ground rules can be considered consistent with the concept of free elections.

In conclusion, I believe our reply should state in effect that we intend to pursue the policies which will restore the FedRep to a place in the family of free nations, which will provide the free nations with the security of adequate defenses within the shelter of which they can pursue their overriding objectives of prosperity and peace.

The note, I believe, might end with a statement to the effect that the question of Germany is only one of the problems which exist in the world today by reason of Soviet attitudes and actions. The US, for its part, is willing, as it has stated so many times, to attempt the solution of all of these problems by peaceful means in the UN or within its framework.

Anderson and Merchant concur.

Draper
  1. Repeated to Bonn, personal for McCloy; to London, personal for Gifford; and to Paris, personal for Dunn.