Pauley Files
The Acting Secretary of State to President Truman
Dear Mr. President: After several very helpful talks between Mr. Edwin W. Pauley and officers of this Department, the purpose of this letter is to bring to your personal attention, with great respect and in full deference to your own wishes and decision, certain considerations regarding Mr. Pauley’s mission which we believe to be of fundamental importance. In the absence of Secretary Stettinius,76 I should be remiss were I to fail to reflect to you what I know to be his views, so that you may have these views before you in coming to whatever decision you may think best.
As I have said to Mr. Pauley and wish to assure you, there is no personal issue whatever involved in this matter. Mr. Pauley has assured us of his intention to work in close harmony and cooperation with the Secretary of State on a basis of mutual helpfulness, especially in matters involving negotiation with foreign countries or having to do with the implementation of our foreign policy under your direction.
The purpose of this letter, therefore, is to lay before you certain principles of organization and procedure which, as I have said, the Secretary of State regards as of fundamental importance in undertaking the responsibilities and in carrying out the duties, under your direction, with which he is charged.
In the letter of April 2777 Mr. Pauley is designated as your personal representative to represent and assist you in exploring, developing [Page 1207] and negotiating the formulae and methods of exacting reparations from the aggressor nations in the current war; to represent you in this matter in dealing with other interested nations; to represent the United States and the President personally as a member of the German Reparations Commission; and on all matters within his jurisdiction to report to you personally.
I am sure that you would be the first to recognize the harmful results of any implication that these instructions were intended to remove from the responsibilities of the Secretary of State the supervision, under your direction, of negotiations with foreign nations in this important field, or the formulation for your consideration of the policies and methods to be employed, which must of necessity be closely integrated with other phases of our foreign policy. The President has, in fact, charged the Secretary of State with the direct responsibility and duty of implementing, under your direction, the Crimean agreements of which the subject of reparations is an important part.
The question then inevitably arises whether the Secretary of State, unless our representative on the Reparations Commission is directed to act under the supervision of the Secretary, to report to him, simultaneously with such reports as you may wish Mr. Pauley to send directly to you, and to be guided by the Secretary’s instructions subject to your direction, can properly and adequately fulfill the responsibilities and duties thus conferred upon him. Confusion has resulted in the past and would inevitably arise in future if there were to be any diffusion of the representation of the United States in dealing with foreign countries and in the formulation and supervision, under the President’s direction, of the foreign relations of the United States.
These responsibilities, as they relate to the post-defeat treatment of Germany including reparations, the Secretary of State has been carrying out in close cooperation with the Treasury, War, and Navy Departments and the Foreign Economic Administration under an authorization from President Roosevelt, which you reaffirmed on April 27 at the time the draft “Directive to Commander-in-Chief of United States Forces of Occupation Regarding Military Government in Germany” was submitted to you for your approval.78
As in the case of all Ambassadors, Mr. Pauley is the personal representative of the President. Yet unless, as in the case of other Ambassadors, Mr. Pauley’s negotiations with foreign countries were to be carried on under the direct supervision of the Secretary of State, interpreting the foreign policy of the United States as formulated by the Secretary under the direction of the President, to whom the [Page 1208] Secretary would report the proceedings constantly and in detail seeking the President’s guidance on every important issue, it appears to be clear that the Secretary would in effect be deprived of the direct and essential authority called for in the fulfillment of his responsibilities for the conduct of negotiations with foreign governments and in the orderly discharge of his duties to the President.
Should the foregoing considerations meet with your approval, you may wish to consider the insertion of a clarifying clause in your instructions to Mr. Pauley. If however your decision is to leave the letter of instructions to Mr. Pauley as it is, please be assured that your wishes will be loyally and cheerfully observed by all of us in the Department of State.79
Faithfully yours,
- Secretary of State Stettinius was in San Francisco, as head of the United States Delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization, April 25–June 26: for documentation on this Conference, see vol. i, pp. 1 ff.↩
- Quoted in letter of September 14 from Mr. Pauley to the Secretary of State, p. 1290.↩
- See memorandum of conversation by the Acting Secretary of State, April 27, p. 503.↩
- In memorandum of conversation dated May 7, Acting Secretary Grew stated that the President had read this letter when it was handed to him at their meeting that morning and then said that he would work the matter out before Mr. Pauley left (740.00119 EW/5–745).↩