Office of the Historian

762.022/10–1754: Telegram

The United States High Commissioner for Germany (Conant) to the Department of State 1

secret
priority
Berlin, October 17, 1954—6 p.m.

260. Re Paris tel to Dept 1558, rptd London 432, Bonn 321.2

I am concerned at Mendes-France’s insistence during his talk with Dillon that any Saar settlement reached with Chancellor be definitive and “would be the settlement in the eventual treaty of peace,” (Ref Paris tel 321), and reports in press he is considering European solution through Brussels Treaty. Question is not merely one of finding formula that would permit French to claim settlement permanent and Gers to say it was provisional With intensified interest in reunification which has followed failure of EDC, Ger political and popular opinion far more sensitive to implications of Saar settlement for Eastern border question, and leaders of Bundestag parties are unanimous in their rejection of settlement which would prejudice outcome of final peace treaty negotiations. In present state of Bundestag opinion Chancellor, who is having increasing difficulties with his own party and coalition partners on domestic issues, cannot consider any solution which can be branded as a sham European solution. FDP leaders raised this point with me Friday at lunch. With hopes for a united Europe now so dim, they cannot consider commitment Saar as future European capital and therefore specifically reject Van Naters plan. Maximum Chancellor can achieve, in my opinion, is FedRep agreement to principle that any settlement will remain in force up to peace treaty when question will again be negotiated.3

Conant
  1. Repeated to Bonn, Paris, and London.↩
  2. Dated Oct. 13, p. 1387.↩

  3. In telegram 1123 from Bonn, Oct. 18, Conant recommended that if the United States and the United Kingdom must give France a guarantee of support at the peace treaty negotiations, such a guarantee must be phrased in terms which would not imperil Adenauer’s “uncertain chances of finding majority on Saar issue in Bundestag.” Conant suggested that any guarantee contain two conditions: 1) no political detachment of the Saar from Germany unless the area became a part of an effective European political community, and 2) the settlement must guarantee political freedoms for the Saar population. (762.022/10–1854)

    The same day Dulles informed Dillon, in telegram 1439 to Paris, that “I do not consider it advisable or even feasible to give French guarantee or advance assurance of our support at peace conference” and that, in light of the French rejection of the EDC which offered prospects of a true European framework, “I am not inclined to go as far in statement of support as envisaged last spring.” (762.022/10–1654)

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