Office of the Historian

740.00119 Potsdam/7–2145

No. 1025
The Political Adviser to the Representative on the European Advisory Commission (Mosely) to the Assistant Secretary of State (Clayton)

secret
[Babelsberg,] July 21, 1945.

Memorandum for Mr. Clayton

Subject: Maisky Proposal for Internationalizing the Ruhr

1.
During May and June Mr. Churchill urged strongly that the Allied forces should stand on the May 7 line of demarcation between them and the Soviet forces, in order to use the withdrawal as a bargaining counter during the current conference.1 The President insisted, [Page 998] and rightly so, on the fulfillment of the Agreement on Zones of Occupation2 and declined to press Russia to accept a smaller zone in Germany. The U. S. forces were withdrawn into the assigned zone in accordance with our pledged word and without seeking political advantages for ourselves from the fulfillment of an undertaking already given.
2.
Maisky’s proposal of July 203 for immediate internationalization of the Ruhr amounts to a proposal for revising the Agreement on Zones, this time at the expense of the U. K. Zone. It would remove from that zone the larger part of its resources. While we may promise to study sympathetically any concrete proposals which the Soviet Government may wish to put forward, we should be careful not to box the British in by agreeing “in principle” or in any other way to this proposal, as we would then be in the position of approving a Soviet proposal to cut down the British Zone immediately after having blocked a British proposal to raise the question of a revision of the Soviet Zone.
3.
Our best position would be to press the Russians for immediate implementation of the Agreement on Control Machinery,4 just as we have carried out the Agreement on Zones. We could point out that the four-power control machinery has not yet been put into operation; that Allied objectives in Germany cannot be achieved unless the Control Machinery works well and rapidly; that the moment when the agreed machinery is about to begin operation is no time to change it drastically and suddenly by creating new four-power machinery in one part of Germany, particularly in one which cannot be disconnected from the surrounding areas without requiring a large number of adjustments both within the Ruhr and the rest of Germany; that experience in working the control machinery in Germany during occupation will provide a better basis for planning and operating a permanent four-power control of the Ruhr.
P[hilip] E. M[osely]
  1. See Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 601–609.↩
  2. Signed at London, September 12, 1944. For text, see Treaties and Other International Acts Series No. 3071; United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, vol. 5, pt. 2, p. 2078; Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, p. 118.↩
  3. See notes on the meeting of the Economic Subcommittee, July 20, ante, p. 183.↩
  4. Signed at London, November 14, 1944, as amended by a further agreement signed at London, May 1, 1945. For texts, see Treaties and Other International Acts Series No. 3070; United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, vol. 5, pt. 2, p. 2062. Text of the agreement of November 14, 1944, also in Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, p. 124.↩