Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, General, Volume I

740.00116 E.W./11–2844

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Chief of the Division of British Commonwealth Affairs (Achilles)

[Washington,] December 2, 1944.

Participants:	Mr. G. R. Ranken, British Embassy31
	Mr. Bailey—SWP
	Mr. Achilles—BC

Mr. Ranken called at our request in order that a preliminary reply to the Embassy’s Aide-Mémoire of November 29 [28] could be given him.

He was advised that the War Department was interested primarily in avoiding possible mistreatment of American prisoners in Germany should the German in question be tried or punished as a war criminal at this time, that it believed that the prisoner should be interrogated and the results of the interrogation filed for future use, that the interrogation should be exclusively Anglo-American but that the results of the interrogation might be communicated to other Governments should this eventually be found desirable. He was also advised that this Department felt strongly that the prisoner should not be brought to the United States.

He was advised that the War Department was advising SHAEF of the views of the two Departments.

Mr. Ranken’s attention was also called to the stipulation in the Moscow Declaration concerning war crimes to the effect that war criminals would be returned to the scene of their crimes to face justice and that it might accordingly be necessary, should interrogation reveal that the prisoner had been guilty of war crimes within the territorial limits of USSR, to turn him over to the Soviet authorities.

31. G. R. Ranken, Third Secretary of the British Embassy.