740.0011 Stettinius Mission/59: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

[Extracts]

3387. Deles 30. For the Secretary from the Under Secretary. Winant and I spent two hours and a half with Eden, Law75 and Cadogan in the Foreign Office this afternoon (Monday76). The following matters were discussed.

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3. European Advisory Commission: I outlined and emphasized your feeling that it was inadvisable for the EAC to assume additional duties at this time because of the large amount of work still to be done on surrender terms, etc., and mentioned the position of the US Military opposing the placing before the Commission of matters involving military operations. Eden expressed great disappointment with this view. He felt it is not in accordance with the agreement [Page 34] reached at Moscow, and is not in keeping with the scope laid out and agreed upon there. Moreover, he expressed the view, to which Winant agreed, that the present attitude of our Government is conducive to whittling down the standing of the Commission in Moscow, and if this is continued it will be more and more difficult to persuade the Russians to bring matters to the EAC table in London. During the discussion of the EAC, we reviewed the status of the surrender terms. Winant produced a new draft within the last three days which has been submitted informally to the Russian representative, and he is expecting to hear momentarily whether it is acceptable as a basis for discussion.

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[Stettinius]
Winant
  1. Richard K. Law, British Minister of State.
  2. April 24.