740.00119 EW/4–2645
The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Truman 23
16. You will no doubt have received some hours ago the report from Stockholm by your Ambassador on Bernadotte-Himmler talks. I called the War Cabinet together at once and they approved immediately following message which we are sending to Marshal Stalin and repeating through usual channels to you. We hope that you will find it possible to telegraph to Marshal Stalin and to us in the same sense. As Himmler is evidently speaking for the German State, as much as anybody can, the reply that should be sent him through Swedish Government is in principle a matter for triple powers, since no one of us can enter into separate negotiations. This fact however in no [Page 762] way abrogates General Eisenhower’s or Field Marshal Alexander’s authority to accept the local surrenders as they occur.
- Neither the time of dispatch nor the time of receipt is indicated on the file copy of this telegram. In his memoirs Prime Minister Churchill suggests that it was sent in the morning, London time (Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 536). The transcript of the telephone conversation between Mr. Churchill and President Truman, infra, indicates that this telegram had not been received in Washington by 2:10 p.m., Washington time (8:10 p.m. London time). The paraphrase here reproduced was transmitted to H. Freeman Matthews, Director of the Office of European Affairs, by Michael Wright, First Secretary of the British Embassy in Washington, on April 26.↩