47.03.05(348w)

STATEMENT AT NATIONAL AIRPORT1 March 5, 1947

Washington, D.C.

We fully recognize that the negotiations in Moscow will be extremely difficult and the consequences momentous.

The Deputies of the Foreign Ministers have made some progress in drafting the Austrian treaty.2 It should be possible for the Foreign Ministers to consider the Austrian treaty provisions with the hope of completing them.

The situation regarding the German issue is quite different since the Deputies so far have been engaged only in listening to the statements of the Allied countries concerned, other than the Big Four. So we have yet to discuss and reach agreements on the great fundamentals which will be the basis for the drafting of the treaty regarding Germany. If we are successful in reaching agreements on the major fundamental principles, I would be very much pleased.

It would appear now extremely doubtful whether the actual treaty draft for Germany could be completed for consideration at this conference.

Department of State Bulletin 16 (March 16, 1947): 497

1. Marshall made this statement orally prior to his 9:00 a.m.departure for Paris en route to the Moscow meetings.

2. At the end of third meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers in New York (November–December 1946), the ministers created two committees to consider the problems of Austria and Germany. The "Deputies of the Council of Foreign Ministers" met in London between January 14 and February 25, 1947, to hear and report on the views of Allied nations and to submit proposals on procedure. The Deputies for Germany (Robert Murphy [US], Sir William Strang [UK], Fedor Tarasovich Gusev [USSR] and Maurice Couve de Murville [France]) held thirty meetings. A portion of Murphy's summary report of March 1 is in Foreign Relations, 1947, 2: 109–12. The Deputies for Austria (General Mark W. Clark [US], Viscount Samuel Hood [UK], Gusev, and Couve de Murville) held twenty-nine meetings and produced a preliminary text of the "Draft Treaty for the Re-Establishment of an Independent and Democratic Austria" on February 25 and recommended that they resume meetings in Moscow concurrently with the Council of Foreign Ministers. (Ibid., pp. 134–38.)