EUR files, lot 59 D 233, “Austria, 1952–1955”
No. 919
Memorandum of Conversation, by the
Director of the Office of Western European Affairs (Jones)
Participants:
- The Secretary
- Dr. Karl Gruber, Austrian Ambassador
- Mr. John Wesley Jones, WE
Subject:
- First Official Call of the Austrian Ambassador1
The Austrian Ambassador made his first official call on the Secretary this afternoon at three o’clock. The Ambassador expressed pleasure at being received by the Secretary and said that he wanted to congratulate Mr. Dulles on the magnificent manner in which he had handled the Berlin Conference, particularly with respect to the Austrian question. The Ambassador added that this was the first time that the Russians had been forced to show their hand and that as a consequence the Soviets had received a serious setback in Austrian public opinion.
The Secretary recalled that the Austrian Government’s offer, on the last day of the Conference,2 to accept the onerous Soviet terms for a State Treaty if the Russians would fix a date for the withdrawal of troops, did not receive a minute’s consideration from Molotov before it was rejected. It therefore seemed clear that the Soviets were determined not to withdraw from any territory which they now occupy. Molotov did, at the last minute, suggest that the negotiations on the Treaty be continued by the four High Commissioners in Vienna but, the Secretary said, he had not agreed to this because it indicated that the outstanding issues were minor ones which could be settled by the Deputies where, in fact, there was only one issue, and that a major one, namely, the withdrawal of Soviet occupation forces from Austria. He, therefore, had taken the position that the treaty conversations would be resumed whenever [Page 1959] the Soviets fixed a date for the withdrawal of their troops. The Ambassador agreed that this was a logical and desirable course. He added, however, that some action should be devised within the next few months to give the Austrians hope for the future, such as a report to the United Nations, etc. Dr. Gruber went on to say that he had known Mr. Zaroubin, the Soviet Ambassador here, for many years and that when he had paid his official call on him recently Zaroubin had expressed his regret that a solution had not been found at Berlin for the Austrians. He added that they, the Soviets, had wished to continue the negotiations in Vienna but that the Americans had vetoed this suggestion. Dr. Gruber expressed the opinion that the Soviets delighted in conferences where they could talk indefinitely and thus avoid taking any action.
- Karl Gruber, the newly appointed Ambassador of Austria, presented his credentials to the Acting Secretary of State on Mar. 3. A memorandum of conversation by Muir recording this credentials presentation, dated Mar. 3, is in Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation, lot 64 D 199, “March 1954”.↩
- For a record of this meeting, see Secto 176, Document 505.↩