Office of the Historian

Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 192

No. 372
Minutes of a Meeting of the Tripartite Working Group, Berlin, January 28, 1954, 10:30 a.m.

secret
BER MIN–5
January 28, 1954
  • Present
    • united states
      • Mr. MacArthur
    • france
      • M. Seydoux
    • united kingdom
      • Sir Frank Roberts
      • Sir Derek Hoyer Millar
1.
Tactics in Thursday’s Quadripartite Session. Sir Frank explained that Mr. Eden planned to try to pass over item 1 today having said all that he could on this subject. The French indicated agreement with this position.
2.

Plan for Reunification of Germany in Freedom (BER D–4/42b1). Sir Derek had given this document to Blankenhorn who had no personal comments. Dr. Grewe, who was taking the document to Chancellor Adenauer, had raised the following points:

(a)
Would it be desirable to take a stronger line so that under Soviet pressure it would be possible to fall back to the present draft which should be considered a minimum position. (Working Group agreed that this was not a serious point and that it was not desirable to build straw men to knock down.)
(b)
Dr. Grewe expressed preference for ending the plan on the note that the peace treaty would be freely negotiated. (It was noted that this idea had already been expressed at the beginning of the document and no action need be taken on this subject.)
(c)
Regarding the penultimate paragraph in Section IV, Dr. Grewe believed the present wording regarding the rights of each of the four powers could be construed to imply that the four powers might be obtaining more rights under this plan than they now possessed. His suggestion was to insert the word “respective” before “rights”. (The Working Group agreed to make this insertion.)
(d)
In connection with the last sentence in Section IV, Dr. Grewe had suggested that no stipulation be made as to the manner of voting. (The Working Group agreed that the stipulation on voting was essential but the three governments could give private assurances to the Germans that this sentence did not apply to the Constitution.)

[Page 852]

Representatives from the three Delegations will meet with Dr. Grewe when he returns from Bonn this afternoon. Mr. Morris will attend this meeting for the US.2

It was agreed that Mr. Eden would table the Plan at the first opportunity he had to speak on item 2 of the agenda. If it were not Mr. Eden’s turn to speak at the beginning of consideration of item 2, the proposal would be circulated at that time through the international secretariat by the British. It was planned that the document would be given to the press with Mr. Eden’s presentation remarks.

3.
Letter from Mr. Molotov regarding German Participation.3 It was agreed that Mr. Eden would merely acknowledge Mr. Molotov’s letter and its enclosure without describing the enclosure. The intention was to leave the raising of this question in the quadripartite sessions to the Soviets.
4.
Declaration of Intent (BER D–4/4a4). It was agreed that the German experts would continue work on this document, particularly with regard to the preamble and comments by Mr. Eden.
5.
Press Arrangements. It was agreed that the press officers of the three delegations would get together at 2:40 today to make sure that all press treatment was identical among the three. It was noted that some of the press had been receiving running accounts of the quadripartite sessions.
6.
Work Schedule for Sunday. It was agreed that the three working group principals would recommend to their ministers that Sunday would not be a working day.
  1. For this document, presented by Eden on Jan. 29 at the fifth plenary meeting of the conference and circulated as FPM(54)17, see Document 510.↩
  2. For a report on this meeting, see Secto 50, Document 379.↩
  3. Not identified further; regarding German participation, see Secto 28, Document 364.↩
  4. Not found in Department of State files. A copy of BER D–4/4c, dated Feb. 1, 1954, is in Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 200.↩