Office of the Historian

J. C. S. Files

No. 155
The President’s Chief of Staff (Leahy) to the Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (McFarland)

top secret
Washington, 15 June 1945.

Memorandum for the Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The following subjects have been mentioned to the President as likely to be brought up before the forthcoming tripartite meeting.

[Page 175]

Will you please, as a matter of urgency endeavor to obtain from the appropriate agencies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff brief but pertinent and useful recommendations on these questions that will be useful to the President in preparing himself for the conference?—

1.
Dismemberment of Germany.1
2.
Internationalization of the Ruhr and the Saar.2
3.
Arrangements to get coal for other European countries.3
4.
Exchange of commodities between zones of occupation—food from the Russian zone for other areas in Germany.4
5.
Civil government in Germany—when should it be established and how?5
6.
What will be the banking arrangements in Germany? What money will be used, and what exchange arrangements made?6
7.
Establishment of a unified agreed propaganda in Germany.7
8.
What disposition, distribution, should be made of the German Fleet and captured German merchant ships?8
9.
What should [the] American attitude be toward the selection and treatment of war criminals?9
10.
When should we agree to making the peace treaty with Italy and what terms should be agreeable to the United States?10

W[illiam] D. L[eahy]
  1. See documents Nos. 332 and 514.↩
  2. See document No. 403.↩
  3. See document No. 418.↩
  4. See document No. 419.↩
  5. See document No. 333.↩
  6. See document No. 334.↩
  7. See document No. 335.↩
  8. See documents Nos. 391 and 392, post, and vol. ii, document No. 1005.↩
  9. See document No. 396.↩
  10. See document No. 465.↩