462.00R296A/14: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany ( Sackett ) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 12—2:34 p.m.]
214. Department’s No. 195, November 10, 5 p.m. The negotiations in Paris are continuing as indicated in the Embassy’s 213 of November 6. As yet no agreement has been reached. I learned all this today in my conference with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Von Bülow. Next Saturday or Monday he will give me a report upon the discussion, which he expected to be concluded this week. Von Bülow envisaged no important changes in the plan of procedure previously described to me. In the French mind, however, there is a question whether the Basel Committee which is to be summoned should have the range of its authority so enlarged that as an expert body it be allowed to recommend the comprehensive relief which Germany should be granted, or whether the powers of the Committee should be limited strictly to those granted it under the Young Plan, and subsequently have the interested Governments call a conference [Page 342] to make a decision on the wider assistance to be granted. His Government, Von Bülow stated, would be satisfied with either arrangement.
The French, Von Bülow told me in confidence, are seeking a side agreement between France and Germany to be entered into before the Basel Committee is constituted. By this method they would induce German agreement upon a definite amount which the Germans would pay as reparations regardless of what the Basel Committee should eventually recommend. To such an undertaking, however, the Germans have refused to accede.
The Embassy’s telegram of November 6, No. 213, was evidently misread by the Department. The German Foreign Office had not intimated to me any suggestion relative to the discontinuance of debt services on any long-term issues referred to in the Department’s No. 195, paragraph 2. However, because of the newly discovered increased amount of the short-term indebtedness, as described in my No. 209 of October 29,43 there is great difficulty in dealing with the Standstill creditors.
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