Word: molotovs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Britain's Ernie Bevin and France's Georges Bidault approved the Byrnes plan in principle, but Russia's Viacheslav Molotov promptly countered that before he discussed a treaty to assure Germany's disarmament he would have to know just how far Germany had been disarmed. Tass, the Soviet news agency, was more explicit. It asked whether all Nazi military units had been "really dispersed" in the British zone and said that U.S. authorities, "for some reason or other," had let the Germans keep secret war enterprises...
Last week Austria was still a shattered monument to the breakdown of Big Three cooperation. In Paris, Jimmy Byrnes, as a key point in the new U.S. positive policy, tried to begin redemption of the pledge. Curtly, Molotov told Byraes that Austria was not on the agenda and refused even to discuss putting it there...
Byrnes at Paris made two proposals on Austria. Would Russia agree that each of the four powers reduce their occupying troops to 15,000 each? (Russia has about 150,000 and Britain, France and the U.S. together have about 50,000 in Austria.) Molotov would not discuss it, although not even Molotov would contend that Austria threatened anyone's security. Byrnes then circulated a treaty guaranteeing Austria's independence, territorial integrity, democratic government and free trade with the rest of the world. Molotov would not discuss that either...
Things actually began better than anyone had hoped. In the first five minutes Molotov agreed to let Host Georges Bidault discuss the Finnish and Balkan treaties-the very issue that had broken up the Foreign Ministers' meeting at London last autumn. Next Molotov budged a little from Russia's insistence that Italy pay $300,000,000 in reparations; he helped pick a committee to decide what Italy could pay. In the sessions that followed he made a series of small concessions on the Italian peace treaty...
...great deal more. On Italy, their first treaty, they face such moot points as Trieste, Tripolitania and the Dodecanese. This week they put the "whole German problem" on their agenda -and no final European settlement was conceivable until Germany's neighbors knew what would happen to her. Molotov wanted to put off consideration of the draft U.S. treaty for Austria, where Jimmy Byrnes wants to get Allied troops (about 75% of them Russian) out of the country. The Balkans were sure to provide fireworks. With such obstacles ahead, optimism had to be well qualified. Asked how the conference...