Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Germany and Austria, Volume II

740.00119 Control (Germany)/11–1648

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State

secret

[Washington,] November 16, 1948.

Participants:	Mr. Lovett, the Under Secretary;
	M. Bonnet, the French Ambassador;
	Mr. Beam, Chief, Division of Central European Affairs

In the interview this afternoon, arranged at his request, M. Bonnet restated the familiar French objections to the Clay-Robertson trusteeship plan for the Ruhr industries, namely:

1. The plan was adopted in spite of the protest of the French Government in Berlin, Washington and Paris regarding the provision that a future German government should determine the ownership question.

2. As in the case of the reorganization of the bizonal agencies in January 1948, France had again been faced with an accomplished fact; the machinery for consultation had again broken down.

3. France continued firmly to believe that adequate security control over the Ruhr could only be exercised through international ownership and management; the Germans would do the work under the supervision of an international board comprising representatives of the interested countries.

4. Neither France nor Germany’s other neighbors, including the eastern countries, would be thoroughly assured respecting Germany until genuine international control was exercised over the Ruhr.

I replied as follows:

1. There had been adequate consultation with the French authorities in Germany, starting last August, as shown by the record we had received from Berlin; consultation with the French need not mean that we had to agree with them in each case, and in the Ruhr matter an honest difference of opinion was involved in the question of ownership of the Ruhr properties.

2. We had consistently favored, and had so stated to the French, leaving the ownership question to a German constitutional government to determine; the Germans under their own management would have an interest in increasing production for general recovery in which France would share; since agreement would be difficult to obtain, international ownership and management was impractical and would frustrate the necessary degree of German production to alleviate the financial burden which the United States is carrying almost single-handedly in Germany.

3. We were in thorough agreement with the French regarding the need of security controls over Germany; at London we had agreed to Germany’s continued disarmament and to a form of international control over Ruhr allocations which would make it impossible for Ruhr resources to be used for aggression; we also supported measures for deconcentration of economic power in Germany and for fair treatment of foreign interests; the trusteeship plan provided for adequate Military Government control over the German trustees.

4. Our hope was that western Germany could be made a self-respecting and productive participant in a strong western Europe; under the measures to prevent a renewal of German aggression, this was the best course to pursue to keep communism out of Germany and any tendency on its part to look toward the East.

I mentioned to M. Bonnet that Mr. Schuman would undoubtedly be seeing the Secretary in Paris shortly and I was sure that the Secretary would be glad to go over the problem with the French Foreign Minister.

Robert A. Lovett