Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Western Europe, Volume III

740.00119 Control (Germany)/8–1948

Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State (Carter) to the Secretary of State ¹

top secret

Washington, August 19, 1948.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff have never been officially disbanded, although by Presidential directive shortly after V–J Day their activities were limited to matters resulting from British-American cooperation during the period of hostilities. The only current operation that they now consider is the joint occupation of Trieste. They have had very few formal meetings during the past two years and are to all intents and purposes completely inoperative at the present time.

The War Department has not received any emergency plans for the Allied occupation forces in Germany. Clay has been authorized to do such planning on a tripartite basis with the French and British. This applies only to operations east of the Rhine. The War Department is querying Clay to determine the status of such planning. They have made no plans as to how the emergency plan will be handled when it is received. They agree that Koenig is in the best possible position to inform the French Government as to its status, just as Clay is for our Government.

As to the scope of the conversations in London, the attached summary is the latest word.² There are no present plans envisaged for the London conversations to include a discussion of the tripartite emergency plans for Germany.³

M[arshall] S. C[arter]

1. Prepared in response to a “Memorandum for General Carter” from the Secretary of State.
2. This summary has not been identified, but for information on the scope and progress of the discussions at London, see the memorandum of July 16 by General Gruenther, p. 188, and subsequent documents.
3. This information was conveyed to M. Bonnet on August 20, and in a memorandum of September 7 to Mr. Hickerson, Mr. Achilles recorded that on the basis of further inquiries and messages he had “telephoned the Ambassador that our military did not expect to receive the agreed plan for some weeks, that all they had received was a unilateral American plan and that it was probable that Paris had received either the same plan or a corresponding French one. He seemed satisfied and said that he would probably not need to see the Secretary but would try to soothe his Foreign Office on the basis of what I had told him.” (740.00119 Control (Germany)/9–748, top secret)