SECRET PACT

Grey River Argus, 20 March 1947, Page 5

SECRET PACT

BY BIGTHREE REVEALED AT MOSCOW

LONDON, March 18. Yesterday, M. Molotov, at a meeting of the Foreign Ministers at Moscow, released the terms of a secret protocol said to have been concluded by the Big Three at Yalta in 1945, containing a first Great Power agreement on German reparations. This agreement, the text of which the British Foreign Office confirms, is of major importance to the present discussions, because it includes 1 a provision that reparations may be taken from current production. . The text said that Britain, the United States and Russia agreed: 1. Germany must pay in kind for the losses she has caused to the Allied nations during the war. Those countries, which bore the main burden, suffered the heaviest losses, and organised victory, should receive reparations in the first instance.

2. Reparations are to be exacted from Germany in the following forms:—

(a) Bulk removal within two years from Germany’s surrender of reparations from Germany’s national wealth located in German territory itself, besides outside German territory, including equipment, machine tools, rolling slock, German investments abroad, shares of industrial transport and other enterprises in Germany, these removals to ’be carried out chiefly for the purposes of destroying Germany’s war potential. (b) Annual deliveries of goods from current production 'after the end of the war for a period to be fixed. (c) Use of German labour.

3. An allied Reparations Commission of representatives of Russia, Britain and America was to be established in Moscow for the working out on the principles enumerated of a detailed plan for the exaction of reparations from Germany. 4. Russia and America agreed: "The Moscow Reparations Commission should take in the initial stages, as a basis for discussion, the Soviet Government’s suggestion that the total sum of reparations should be £5,000,000,000, 50 per cent, of which should go to the Soviet Union. The British delegation was of the opinion that pending the Reparations Commission’s consideration, no figure of reparations should be mentioned”. The Soviet Tass News Agency stated that the protocol was signed by Mr Churchill, Mr Roosevelt and M. Stalin.

M. Molotov, commenting on the protocol, said it was impossible to accept the attempt now being made to interpret the reparations agreement achieved in Berlin in the sense that it replaced all previous reparations agreements. He added that the Berlin conference’s decision stated that it was accepted “in accordance with the Crimea decision”. The Berlin conference’s decisions concentrated on the removal of equipment as the main problem, but "this does not contain a single word against reparations from current productions as envisaged at Yalta”.

Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent says the disclosure of a second hitherto secret agreement concluded by the Big Three at Yalta caused astonishment in London, because on March 19, Mr Noel-Baker, then Minister of State, answering a question in the House of Commons', said: “I am not aware of another secret agreement concluded at Yalta”. The other secret agreement at Yalta related to the Russian entry into the war against Japan. MOSCOW, March IS. The Foreign Ministers’ deputies agreed to establish four committees to

aid the drafting of the preliminary peace treaty for Germany, but Russia blocked participation by other Allied nations except the Big Four, despite British and American contentions that such Allies should be included. This question remains unsettled.

The American delegate, Mr Murphy, and M. Vyshinsky clashed frequently over this question. Mr Murphy, citing Canada as an example, said the question was not one of “favours”, but of “rights”. He said Canada entered the war before the Soviet Union and the United States, and she made a substantial contribution to Germany’s defeat. M. Vyshinsky replied that he did not question that Canada played a considerable part in the war, but special exceptions could not be made. “More blood flowed in the Soviet Union during the war than water flows in Canadian rivers”, he said. Mr Murphy retorted that the United States considered the question one of top priority, and would continue to press it strongly. BUDAPEST, March 17. The American representative on the Allied Control Council for Hungary, General Weems, has sent the Russian commander, General Svidirov, a second note protesting against the arrest of Bela Kovacs, formerly secretary-general of the Smallholders Party, alleging that the Communist minority groups are attempting to seize power in Hungary by extra constitutional tactics, thus threatening the continuance of democracy in Hungary. The Note again urged that the political situation in Hungary should be investigated. It says the United States considers the Powers who signed the Yalta agreement are obliged to act in concert to investigate political conditions in Hungary. The Note adds that the Communistdominated police have so far conducted an investigation of the plot against the Hungarian State, and the court trying the alleged plotters consists of three representatives of parties aligned in the minority bloc, as against one responsible to the majority party, the Smallholders. It seems clear, the Note says, that the minority groups under the Hungarian Communist Party are attempting to seize power through extra constitutional tactics. BUDAPEST, March 18. The Russians for the second time in less than two weeks, have forbidden Hungarian newspapers to publish the United States Government’s Note protesting against Russia’s unilateral action in Hungary. American sources say that the Hungarian Government informed them that, a Russian capta'.n called on the Prime Minister, Ferenc Nagy with an order requiring that publication be withheld until th? Russians were prepared to reply to the American Note. The Russians withheld the publication of a similar Note for three days. BELGRADE, March 18. It is authoritatively disclosed that the United States Government has rs fused to send relief grain to Yugoslavia cn the grounds there is no stock available and that Washington believed there is no real threat of starvation in Yugoslavia. U.N.R.R'.A. simultaneously announced that the United States had cancelled 16,000 tons of 24,000 tons of potatoes which had been ordered for Yugoslavia because of transport bottlenecks and the allocation of all available shipping to send potatoes to Germany.