Office of the Historian

740.00119 Control (Austria)/10–1444: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)

Washington, October 17, 1944—8 p.m.

2453. British Embassy here informs us that its Government considers it essential that a tripartite control commission be at once established in Vienna as soon as that city has been occupied by any Allied forces, with a view to an eventual tripartite control of the whole of Austria. The British Government has therefore suggested that the United States join them in approaching the Soviet Government to state that whatever forces reach Vienna first, the other Governments should be invited at once to send representatives to establish tripartite control.

The Department has advised the British Embassy that it will make a parallel approach along these lines to the Soviet Government. You are therefore requested to concert with your British colleague and, [Page 467] making reference to paragraph 2 of the Joint Four-Nation Declaration,90 to the Declaration on Austria (both emanating from the Moscow Conference) and to discussions in the European Advisory Commission on Austria, to bring this question to the attention of the Soviet authorities as indicated above.

Hull
  1. Declaration of Four Nations on General Security, November 1, 1943, Annex 1 to the Secret Protocol of the Moscow Conference of 1943; for text, see Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. i, p. 755.↩