740.00119 EAC/9–1744: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 17—8:43 p.m.]
7680. Comea 90. My 7630, September 15, midnight. Subsequent to Friday’s EAC discussion of Bulgarian armistice terms, Foreign Office has today raised formally with me and Soviet Ambassador the question of making prior Bulgarian evacuation of Allied territories a prerequisite for the armistice. The British believe that the Bulgars should be required to give an undertaking to evacuate their officials and forces but not nationals from Greek and Yugoslav territory within 15 days, and that only when that undertaking had been given would armistice negotiations with the Bulgars begin. Likewise fulfillment of this undertaking, to be verified by a tripartite commission sent to Sofia, should be a prerequisite for actual signature of the armistice. Such a requirement would, Strang felt, be similar to that imposed on [Page 424] the Finns. According to Strang’s information, Molotov had told Clark Kerr on September 14 that he fully shared the British view that Bulgaria must evacuate Greek and Yugoslav territory. Above was communicated today by Strang to Gousev.
Certain points raised in Friday’s discussion were also reviewed informally by Strang with me, who stressed that views expressed below were not yet policy.
- 1.
- British are now inclined to accept Ankara as the place of negotiation with the Bulgarians.
- 2.
- They contemplate proposing a double signature, by a representative of the Soviet High Command, and a representative of SACMED.
- 3.
- They would like to avoid a formal recognition of Bulgarian co-belligerency, perhaps by including in the armistice terms a requirement that Bulgaria furnish a definite number of divisions, that the rest of the Bulgarian forces be demobilized, and that Bulgarian forces would not be employed on the territory of an Ally except with the consent of that Ally.
- 4.
- With respect to the Control Commission, they are inclined to give the Russians the major role but would want a larger share than in the Rumania-Finnish cases; their experts were working on the formulation of this problem.
I have informed Strang of the Hungarian approach (Department’s 7524, September 15, 9 [8] p.m.85) in the sense of your telegram.