740.00119 EAC/68

The Director of the Office of European Affairs (Dunn) to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)

[Extract]92

My Dear Mr. Ambassador: In response to the request set forth in the final paragraph of your telegram no. 818 of January 29 (Comea no. 20) for material to be used in the sub-committee of the European Advisory Commission on “Dismemberment”, I take pleasure in sending you herewith a set of documents which have been drafted in the Department, and which, I believe, will be most useful to you and your associates in this work.

As you may recall, the question of our attitude with respect to the partition of Germany is still open, and the Department’s position thereon has not as yet been revealed in any definitive manner. You will observe that in the enclosed documentation,93 the weight of the arguments seems to be against partition, but this does not imply that our final position will incline in that direction. I personally feel that this Government will probably not clearly define its attitude until we have had the benefit of discussions in the Commission in London and your comment thereon.

The enclosed documents are not, in these circumstances, intended for presentation either to the sub-committee or to the European Advisory Commission as an American proposal or an American policy. [Page 166] It is, indeed, possible that no such statement of policy will be forthcoming until this question has been thoroughly canvassed in London, and has been referred to the President with the various arguments for and against. In the meantime, we shall look forward with the utmost interest to your reports on this matter, and shall keep you advised of any decisions or developments here.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sincerely yours,

James Clement Dunn
  1. The remainder of this letter is printed in vol. iv, p. 136.
  2. The documentation referred to here was not found attached to the file copy nor to the original letter received by Ambassador Winant in London. It has not been possible to identify the documentation in question, but it may have included two memoranda regarding the dismemberment of Germany, dated October 22 and November 12, 1943, which are filed in the EAC files, Lot 52 M 64, Box 9602, file 136.