THREE-POWER ALLIANCE LIKELY

Chronicle (Levin), 22 December 1947, Page 5

THREE-POWER ALLIANCE LIKELY

( N.Z.P.A .-

-Reuter,

UNITED STATES, BRITAIN AND FRANCE WORKING OUT PLAN FOR GERMANY

, Copyright)

Received Monday, 9.20 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 21. Britain, the United States and France may shortly negotiate a three-power allianee. They may also negotiate a fusion oi' the French and Anglo-American zones in Germany, the economic cession of the Saar to France and the future of the Ruhr, says the Observer's diplomatic correspondent.

To avert the threatening deadlock about the Ruhr, the United States is believed likely to offer France something like a new version of the guarantee of her borders which President Wilson promised in 1919, but which the United States Senate reftised. The French Foreign Minister, M. Georges Bidault, when questioned in the National Assembly yesterday about such an American offer, said nobody had talked to him about it, "but I *don't say I would refuse such an arrangement." The statement by the chairman of the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee, Senator A. H. Vandenberg, that no more German factories will be used for reparations to the U.S.S.R. or its satellites, has caused some embarrassment in London. The British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin, recently reiterated that Potsdam binds Britain to send factories to the U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia as capitai reparations. Mr. j Bevin did not suggest that the ' Potsdam Agreement was voi'd ; because the Russians had violated i its terms. There is likely to be an immsdiate Anglo-American exchange of' messages at the highest level to smooth out the difficulties. i

• The Sunday Times' diplomatic j corrc-sponuent says the Western 'powers are nicely to cancel immeai;uteiy an iurtner shipmencs of reparations I'roin Gerinanys western zones to Russia as tne United 'Staces has alreaay done. They are aiso nkeiy, hrstiy, to introduce a new, German currency and revalue 'the mark to eliminate the debased mark wnich the Russians have :been printing wholesale, seconctiy, to mtegrate the French zone imo Bizonia; thirdly, to recognise French economic inregration oi the saar; fourthiy, to draft a constitution for Western Germany based on the regional principie and eventual creation of a German Government operating under Allied control; and, fifthly, to specially develop the Ruhr coai anu , steel in co-ordination with the iMarshall plan. I Russian reaction to the Western plans may be vigorous. Berlin's Communist newspaper has already openly ninted that the present four-power control there win become analogous. A big westward movement of Germans In the Allied sectors of Berlin, who do not feel safe at the prospect of coming ■ under Russian ruie, has already begun.