47.03.22B
(1559w)
NOTES ON A CONVERSATION
March 22, 1947
WITH MR. BEVIN
[Moscow, USSR]
Mr. Bevin called on me at 12:45 and left at 2:30. We
had lunch together.
GREECE
He first brought up the question of Greece. Mr. Bevin
stated that the British Cabinet had agreed to meet the
proposal of Mr. Acheson that the British carry the
financial crisis in Greece after March 31, until our
Congress had had an opportunity to act. Bevin said Britain
had committed 18 million pounds for this purpose. He then
stated that he had transmitted my request that the British
not withdraw their military mission and the Cabinet have
agreed not to withdraw it for the time being, and also to
maintain the naval, air and police missions. However, in
order to provide funds for the military mission, it would
be necessary under their system to go back to Parliament,
which would be a very undesirable procedure, having just
obtained an authorization for 18 million pounds additional
on the Greek situation. It was therefore the proposal of
the British that some other arrangement should be made to
meet the expenses of the mission and I believe Bevin said
the British Government also proposed that the cost of the
mission should be defrayed by the Greek Government,
presumably out of money loaned by the American Government.
He did not ask for a reply by me at this time, but
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requested that I give it consideration.
REPARATIONS:
Mr. Bevin stated that he had only attended the Potsdam
Conference during its last four days, arriving Saturday and
the Conference completing work the following Wednesday, and
had a very brief time to gain impressions. He himself was
not clear on the over-riding completeness of the Potsdam
Agreement on reparations in relation to the previous
tentative agreement at Yalta.1 In other words, he did not
feel that reparations from current production were by the
Potsdam Agreement completely barred. Mr. Bevin reiterated
his statements that the British Government would not commit
itself to any reparations out of current production until
Germany had been made self-sustaining.
Mr. Bevin then inquired how fixed our stand was
regarding reparations from current production—to what
extent were we determined to stand on our statement that
there should be no retreat from Potsdam to Yalta.
I told Mr. Bevin that we were clear in our minds,
particularly those gentlemen who had been present at both
Yalta and Potsdam, that the Potsdam Agreement completely
superseded the Yalta expressions regarding reparations. I
summarized our view of the existing situation, that is (a)
the fact that the transfer of plants and machinery
generally had not been a profitable procedure (b) that the
Soviets by their policy of a five-year plan for the
building up of the military potential of their government
now found themselves in a difficult, if not desperate,
economic plight in some sections of the country and
therefore would be the more determined in their
negotiations to obtain reparations from current production,
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particularly during the next two years (c) that we had been
examining the situation to see if there might not be some
procedure such as the operation in Germany of reparations
plants for the benefit of the Soviets, they providing the
raw materials, etc., which would permit a form of
reparations from current production without delaying the
creation of a self-supporting German economy.
I indicated the political impossibility of securing
agreement by an American Congress to a course of action
which involved the indirect payment of reparations and I
opposed this with the view that the Soviet demand for some
form of reparations out of current production during the
next two years would be implacable.
Mr. Bevin said that he felt that it would require very
expert investigation to determine whether or not such a
course of operating reparations plants in our zones for the
benefit of the Russians, they furnishing the raw material,
was practical.2
He then turned to his relations with the French and
explained that he had agreed prior to coming to Moscow on
at least two occasions to delay any cut in the export of
coal deliveries because of critical French election
situations, but finally had been forced to advise Mr. Blum
that he could go along no longer on that basis, that
critical repairs would have to be made in order to really
get ahead on the matter of production and had counseled a
frank statement to this effect by Mr. Blum to the French
people.3 Then Bidault had approached him for another delay
and later had stated that unless a suitable adjustment in
coal was made for France, the French could not go through
with this conference regarding other matters. He had told
Bidault that that was not acceptable procedure and advised
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him not to bring it up in the Conference. However, it had
been brought up and I had heard his remarks on the subject.
He added that they were made as much for Molotov’s benefit
as for Bidault’s—that he was opposing this business of
stating that unless there was an agreement on one point,
they would not go ahead on others, and that it would be his
course throughout the Conference. He would not submit to
such procedure. He stated, incidentally, that Mr. Molotov
had been trying to draw him on the reason for the slow
development of the capacity of the Ruhr mines, which in Mr.
Bevin’s opinion was caused by his concession to the French
to meet their political crisis which had thus delayed the
genuine reconditioning of the mines.
There followed a discussion on the Polish boundaries,
density of population, and related matters, during which
Mr. Bevin gave expression to no definite and important
points of view. He did not state what the stand of the
British Government would be on the subject.
I failed to mention in the first place that I told Mr.
Bevin that the American Delegation felt that it was very
important to make no concessions, especially at this time,
if ever, on the Potsdam Agreements, particularly as related
to reparations.
NA/RG 59 (Central Decimal File, 868.00/3–2247)
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1. There had been considerable discussion at the Yalta
Conference about reparations, beginning at the plenary
session on February 5 when the Soviets first raised the
issue of receiving $10 billion in reparations from Germany.
One of the documents emerging from the Yalta Conference was
the “Protocol on the Talks Between the Heads of the Three
Governments at the Crimean Conference on the Question of
the German Reparation in Kind,” signed by Stalin,
Roosevelt, and Churchill on February 11, 1945. In it they
agreed that “Germany must pay in kind for the losses caused
by her to the Allied nations in the course of the war.” A
US-UK-USSR reparations commission was to be established in
Moscow. The protocol quoted the following agreement by the
Soviet and American delegations: “The Moscow Reparation
Commission should take in its initial studies as a basis
for discussion the suggestion of the Soviet Government that
the total sum of the reparation...should be 20 billion
dollars and that 50% of it should go to the Union of Soviet
Socialists Republics.” The protocol also noted, however,
that “The British delegation was of the opinion that
pending consideration of the reparation question by the
Moscow Reparation Commission no figures of reparation
should be mentioned.” (Department of State, Foreign
Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Malta
and Yalta, 1945 [Washington: GPO, 1955], pp. 619–23
[plenary session], 982-83 [protocol].) Because of the
reparations controversy, the State Department released this
protocol to the press on March 24, 1947.)
Following further discussions of reparations during
July 1945 at the Potsdam Conference, the August 1 “Protocol
of Proceedings of the Berlin Conference” included a section
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on the subject. The Allies agreed that: (1) Soviet claims
to reparations were to met by removals from their zone of
Germany; (2) the Soviets were to settle Polish claims from
their own share of German reparations; and (3) the Soviets
were to receive from the British and American zones “15 per
cent of such usable and complete industrial capital
equipment...as is unnecessary for the German peace economy
...in exchange for an equivalent value of food, coal,...and
such other commodities as may be agreed upon. [And] 10 per
cent of such industrial capital equipment as is unnecessary
for the German peace economy...without payment or exchange
of any kind in return.... The amount of equipment to be
removed from the Western Zones on account of reparations
must be determined within six months from now at the
latest.” (Department of State, Foreign Relations of the
United States: The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam
Conference), 2 vols. [Washington: GPO, 1960], 2: 1485–86.)
A summary of the US position during the Potsdam Conference
is in the extract of “Report on German Reparations to the
President of the United States, February to September 1945,
September 20, 1945,” ibid., pp. 940–49.
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2. Bevin wrote Marshall on March 23 that the British
government would reject “any settlement of the German
problem involving reparation from current production” which
would require the British to increase expenditures.
(Foreign Relations, 1947, 2: 274.)
3. Léon Blum, twice prime minister of France (1936–37,
1938), had been chairman of the Provisional Government and
minister of foreign affairs between December 16, 1946, and
January 22, 1947.
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