Memorandum for Secretary of State Edward Stettinius

UNNUMBERED FOR STETTINIUS FROM BOHLAN AND BLAKE: OUT AT 150410Z The following draft prepared by MacLeish and Stevenson: "The Anglo-American armies under the command of General Eisenhower have met the Soviet forces where they intended to meet - in the heart of Nazi Germany. The enemy has been cut in two. This is not the hour of final victory in Europe, but the hour draws near, the hour for which all the American people, all the British peoples and all the Soviet people have toiled and prayed so long. The union of our arms in the heart of Germany has a meaning for the world which the world will not miss. It means, first, that the last faint, desperate hope of Hitler and his gangster government has been extinguished. The common front and the common cause of the powers allied in this war against tyranny / and inhumanity has been demonstrated in fact as it has long been demonstrated in determination. Nothing can divide or weaken the common purpose of our veteran annies to pursue their victorious purpose to its final allied triumph in Germany. Second, the junction of our forces at this moment signalizes to our- selves and to the world that the collaboration of our nations in the cause of peace and freedom is an effective collaboration which can surmount the greatest difficulties of the most extensive campaign in military AND ? history succeed. Nations which can plan and fight together shoulder to shoulder in the face of such obstacles of distance and of language and of communications as we have overcome, can live together and can work together in the common labor of the organization of the world for peace. Finally, this great triumph of Allied arms and Allied strategy is ARS