47.03.10(1110w)

MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATIONMarch 10, 1947

Secret[Moscow, USSR]

Mr. [Georges] Bidault called on me this morning at his request. After some general conversation about the trip to Moscow and my visit to Paris, he said that he had been informed of the discussions I had had at Paris particularly with regard to coal. I told him that since leaving Paris I had had some discussions with American technicians and had reached certain superficial conclusions. I understood that it is now expected that coal exports from the Ruhr will be increased in April and that exports will be restored to the full level of September 1946 by June or July. I said I further understood there was hope that as coal production further increases there would be probable further increases in exports during the latter part of the year. I hoped this would help to ease the situation in France. Mr. Bidault said that this represented some progress from France’s point of view but he had really hoped that the September export level would be reached by April.

It was relatively easy, I said, according to my understanding to bring up the level of coal production from forty percent of pre-war to around sixty percent, but that any further increases beyond that point, say of eighty or one hundred percent, involved very complicated problems, including substantial increases in transport and in steel production for the mines and equipment.

I said that there was one question on which I believed the French differed from us. American technicians had criticized British methods of increasing production but now feel that the defects are being remedied. They were due in part to the presence of too much British operational direction. I had been told that the French would like to see French and American technicians at the mines in operating capacities and this, we felt, was the wrong way to increase production. We agreed that there should be French, American and British control or supervision at the top, but feel strongly that the way to get coal is to turn the administration and operation of the mines over to Germans. This was the best American technical view, irrespective of other considerations, as to how to get the most coal. Bidault replied vaguely that we could go into discussion of details later and that he was not sure that this was an important point of difference.

I said that there was one way it seemed to me France could help meet her coal needs; that is, by accepting our invitation to join in the bizonal arrangements we have made with the British. If France did that she would have a say on coal problems from the inside rather than being on the outside as is the case today. I said that this seemed to me to give obvious advantages in realizing our common objectives. Mr. Bidault smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said that I was doubtless familiar with the “origins” of the French position and the reason why France had not joined with us and the British. I said that my advisers had not brought this matter to my attention but I could probably divine the reasons. Mr. Bidault made it clear that he had reference to the communist participation in the French Government and their reluctance to permit the French to join. I said that I had had a very interesting talk with Mr. Thorez about coal and found that he knew much about it since he, his father and his grandfather had been miners.1 Mr. Bidault remarked that Thorez was a very intelligent man though a very dangerous one. I asked what he meant by that and he said that it was because Thorez was moderate and reasonable as well as intelligent and that he had “the qualities of a statesman” which made it sort of difficult to oppose him. As to the joining of the French Zone with the British and American, he said that would depend “on how the whole picture develops.”

This was followed by some general conversation on our probable difficulties at the Conference and on the harmfulness of mutual suspicions. Mr. Bidault thought we would waste a good deal of time on questions of procedure and that much patience would be required. I asked how long he thought the Conference would last. He replied that the more progress we made, the longer it would last; if we made no progress it would be a short Conference. I emphasized the importance to the world of the problems with which we are dealing. I said that sometimes it is difficult to see the forest for the trees. Bidault remarked that he had begun his political career working by the side of a man who saw only the forest and wouldn’t look at the trees, namely General [Charles] De Gaulle.2 He said this was equally bad.

He said he looked forward to close association between us and between our delegations during the Conference.

NA/RG 59 (Central Decimal File, 740.00119 Council/3–1047)

1. Maurice Thorez had gone into the mines at age 12. He joined the French Communist Party in 1920, became a party secretary in 1923, and secretary general in 1930. He served in the Chamber of Deputies between 1932 and 1939. When the Communist Party was banned following the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, he fled to the Soviet Union, returning to France in 1944, following a pardon by General Charles de Gaulle’s provisional government. The Communist Party emerged from the 1945 elections with 25 percent of the vote and was the largest political party in France. Thorez served as vice chairman of the provisional government under George Bidault (June 24–December 16, 1946) and Paul Ramadier (January 22–October 22, 1947) until May 4, 1947, when the Communist deputies were forced out of the government.

Secretary Marshall met Thorez on March 6 at a dinner at ElyseePalace. Marshall Carter told his wife that Marshall’s party arranged to be “five minutes late in order to give everybody a chance to get there first, but of course the Communist Vice-Minister Thorez had to come in last--and wearing a blue business suit instead of the tux everybody else had on--but that too was entirely routine and expected by all.” (Carter to Mrs. Carter, March 6, 1947, GCMRL/M. S. Carter Papers [State Department, Moscow Conference].)

2. On August 25, 1944, De Gaulle appointed Georges Bidault, a Resistance leader, foreign minister of his provisional government. De Gaulle resigned on January 20, 1946, but by the time Marshall visited Paris in March 1947 he was preparing for a renewed attempt at power.

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