Editorial Note
During September, October and early November 1947, the officers of the Department of State engaged in the preparation of reports on the principal subjects likely to be discussed at the forthcoming session of the Council of Foreign Ministers in London. These numbered reports bore the following titles: CFM No. 1, Germany: Democratization; CFM No. 2, Form and Scope of Provisional Political Organization for Germany; CFM No. 3, An Economic Program for Germany; CFM No. 4, Germany: Disarmament and Demilitarization; CFM No. 5, Territorial Questions; CFM No. 6, Limitation of Occupation Forces in Germany; CFM No. 6a, Possible Soviet Proposal for Total Withdrawal of Occupation Forces from Germany; CFM No. 7, Transfers of Population; CFM No. 8, Procedure for the Preparation of the German Peace Treaty. The reports took the form of (1) a statement of the problem, (2) a discussion, and (3) recommendations of actions to be taken or positions to be adopted by the United States Delegation at the Council session. Appended to the reports were more extensive studies of the issues involved. Officers of the Department of State, the Department of the Army, and Office of Military Government for Germany conferred in Washington during October on the subjects covered in the Department’s reports. At the request of the Department of State, OMGUS prepared more than thirty detailed studies which were subsequently included as annexes to the Department’s draft reports. The reports, which went through a number of drafts, were never formally approved by the Secretary of State nor can they be said to represent the final views of the Department of State or the United States Government. Sets of the reports and annexes, each of which comprised several thousand pages, accompanied the United States Delegation to the Council session in London. Sets are included in the CFM Files, Lot M–88, Box 86. The views and proposals of General Clay with respect to the guarantees of German [Page 728] democracy, the establishment of a provisional German government, the establishment of a self-sustaining German economy, permanent German demilitarization, and the settlement of the German boundaries, prepared at the request of the Department of State, were transmitted to Assistant Secretary of State Saltzman under cover of a letter of November 12, 1947, from Major General Noce, none printed (740.00119 Council/11–1247).