Council of Foreign Ministers Files: Lot M–88: CFM London Documents
Note by the Senior Secretary of the Joint Secretariat (Brook) to the Council of Foreign Ministers
Drafts for a Protocol of the Present Conference
1. The Protocol Committee met last night, as instructed by the Council, to prepare a draft of the final Protocol.
There was a difference of view between the Delegations regarding the form in which the Protocol should be prepared. Three different arrangements were suggested:—
- (a)
- by subject matter, as in the Protocol of the Berlin Conference and other Conferences of Heads of Governments held during the war;
- (b)
- purely chronological, setting out in chronological order extracts from the approved Daily Record of Decisions arranged in four groups—first, general questions affecting all five members of the Council; secondly, the Italian Treaty affecting only four members of the Council; thirdly, Treaties with Bulgaria, Hungary and Roumania affecting only three members of the Council; and lastly, the Treaty with Finland affecting only two members of the Council;
- (c)
- chronologically by subject matter, setting out in chronological order, but under subject headings, the extracts from the approved Daily Record of Decisions.
2. The representatives of the Soviet Delegation said that they were under instructions to prepare a draft Protocol by dividing the Daily Record of Decisions into four groups, viz: decisions affecting all members of the Council, four members, three members and two members. They had no authority to assist in the preparation of a draft [Page 515] Protocol in any other form. They therefore preferred the form described in (b) above; but were prepared to collaborate in the preparation of a draft Protocol in form (c) above, if it were divided into these four groups.
The representatives of the French and Chinese Delegations, on the other, hand, had no authority to collaborate in the preparation of a draft Protocol which would pre-judge the question, to be discussed by the Council to-day, whether there should be one Protocol or four. They were, therefore, unable to assist in the preparation of a draft Protocol in either of the forms in which the representatives of the Soviet Delegation were authorised to prepare it.
3. In these circumstances it was impossible for the Protocol Committee, as such, to submit any document for consideration by the Council at their meeting to-day. In order that the Council may have some document as a basis for their discussion at to-day’s meeting, I put forward—on my own responsibility—alternative drafts of a Protocol—
C.F.M.(45) 7244—arranged by subject matter, on the model of recent Protocols, but using to the fullest possible extent the language of the agreed Daily Record of Decisions;
C.F.M.(45) 7344—an arrangement of the agreed Daily Record of Decisions, chronologically under subject headings, in accordance with the suggestion at 1 (c) above.
4. The Protocol Committee agreed that I should put forward these drafts on my own responsibility as a basis for the Council’s discussion at their meeting to-day. Neither of the drafts has been agreed with the other Delegations; but the second (C.F.M.(45) 73) is no more than an arrangement of the agreed texts of the Daily Record of Decisions, and the first (C.F.M.(45) 72) follows to the fullest possible extent the language of the Daily Record of Decisions. Both drafts are so arranged that they could be signed, as they stand, by all the members of the Council or, if the Council so decided, could be divided into groups affecting, respectively, five, four, three and two members of the Council.