Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Paris Peace Conference: Proceedings, Volume III

CFM Files

United States Delegation Journal

October 4, 1946, 9 p.m.

USDel (PC) (Journal) 62

The record of the 15th meeting was adopted.

The Commission having been convened in final session to adopt the “General Report”, the Chair first gave the floor to Mr. Marjoribanks (U.K.), the Rapporteur, who declared that the several apparent mistakes of a typing or drafting character in the text before the Commission (CP (BUL/P) Doc 13) would be eliminated in the final revision and proposed that the Commission proceed with its consideration of the report.²⁰

At the request of M. Novikov (U.S.S.R.), the following changes were made: (a) Following the reference to the observations of the Bulgarian Delegation (IB, page 2), add the words “which proposed a reference to Bulgaria’s rupture of relations with Germany and her claim to be considered as a cobelligerent”; substitute “rejected unanimously” for “rejected without opposition” on page 3, d (4) to faciliate Russian translation; add a new paragraph to part IV explaining minority view that protection against anti-Semitic measures is not necessary in Bulgaria; add to VI (1), after “Australian Delegation” the words “concerning the reference of disputes to the Treaty Executive Council”; add after “Article 35” in second line on page 9 the words “proposing means for the revision of the treaty”. The Rapporteur agreed with the Australian and Soviet Delegates that the last sentence of section V on page 6 was not sufficiently clear and, following clarification by Australian Delegate of what actually happened, it was decided to delete the sentence entirely and state that the Australian proposal to insert a new article between Articles 7 and 8 was withdrawn, leaving the reference to Article 33 as it stands in Section VI.

At the request of the Yugoslav representative, it was agreed that in Section II (2) the words “to examine the military implications … implied in the amendment” be deleted and replaced by the language of the Greek resolution as adopted by the Commission, i.e., “to examine the Greek amendment in its purely military aspect, with particular reference to the degree of security which would result from the cession to Greece, within the limits of the proposed Greek amendment, of: (a) natural strong-points, (b) general defense positions, (c) necessary depth for defensive strategic movements, and (d) lines of communication”. Upon Yugoslav insistence it was agreed that a further addition be made to Section II (2) specifying that the Delegations of the U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia had voted against the Greek resolution and that they considered the Military Commission not competent to deal with Article 1 of the treaty regarding the frontier, and that the Greek Delegation would draw up a majority report to balance the minority view, both handing their texts to the Rapporteur for inclusion in the report. After some discussion, the Yugoslav Delegation abandoned its request that after the words “Military Commission” in lines 1 and 2 of the last paragraph on page 4 the following be added: “which noted that the resolution referred to it includes political, economic and ethnical considerations not within its competence”.

Discussion of the General Report having been completed, Mr. Jordan (New Zealand), the Vice President, addressed a little speech of appreciation to the President, as well as the Secretariat and corps of interpreters, with which the U.S. and Soviet Delegates associated themselves. The Chairman then declared the General Report “unanimously adopted” and, after a few brief courtesy remarks, stated that the work of the Commission was completed and the meeting closed.

The Commission closed its final session at 10:55 p.m.

20. C.P.(Plen) Doc. 22, October 5, report of the Commission in its final form, is printed in vol. iv, p. 478.