Office of the Historian

740.00119 (Potsdam)/7–3045

No. 1083
Proposal by the British Delegation1
secret

South-East Europe

Memorandum by the United Kingdom Delegation

The United Kingdom Delegation suggest that it might be desirable for the Conference to issue at its conclusion a statement on the following lines:—

The three Heads of Government noted with regret that charges of aggressive action were being made by Governments in South-East Europe against their neighbours, and that fears were entertained of attempts to anticipate the peace settlement by violent and unilateral action. The three Heads of Government would be strongly opposed to any such attempts, which would be contrary to the principles for which the war has been fought and which are embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. They are confident that the Governments of the countries concerned, which have so recently suffered in common [Page 1075] the trials of war and of Fascist occupation, will find peaceful means of solving their differences, and that their people will now be enabled to enter a period of prosperous and democratic development, on the lines laid down in such documents as the Varkiza Agreement2 and the Tito-Ŝubašić Agreement.3

Potsdam , 30th July, 1945.
  1. Attachment 11 to the summary of the Tenth Meeting of the Foreign Ministers, July 30. See ante, pp. 494, 498. This proposal was apparently withdrawn by Bevin at the Eleventh Plenary Meeting, July 31. See ante, pp. 525 (footnote 46), 537.↩
  2. Text in Woodhouse, Apple of Discord, p. 308.↩
  3. See Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, pp. 251–254.↩