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    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 39-48, France's German Policy",
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    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 39-48, France's German Policy",
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        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 29,
            "logicalDate": "1848-12-29",
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            "year": 1848
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{
    "seq": 10,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "SECRET\nnations concerned to make compromises in order to reach agreement and have given\nconsiderable impetus to collective action and security in Europe.\nOn the other hand, France will unquestionably attempt, while pursuing a \"joint\npolicy,\" to obtain fuller consideration of its aims in regard to political decentralization,\nand will remain suspicious and obstructionist in regard to US economic policy in Ger-\nmany. In order to give weight to French views as opposed to US on various issues, par-\nticularly those concerning European economic interests, France will probably attempt\nto utilize continental solidarity. French public opinion toward the German question\nhas been created by bitter historic experience. The London Agreements were accepted\nin the French Assembly by a narrow margin of votes and only after bitter debate and\nthe attachment of five reservations. These called upon the government to press its\ndemands in regard to: political decentralization, allocation of reparations, control and\ninternationalization of the Ruhr, and guarantees of security through military agree-\nments with the US and UK.\nIn connection with those reservations, any French Government, particularly a\nGaullist one, is likely to delay, by overt and covert means, the completion of a German\nConstitution. Such delay would be intended to achieve a high degree of decentraliz-\nation in the final version and to extend, in favor of the federal principle, the provisions\nin the London Agreements for the \"political organization\" of Germany. Although for-\nmally stating the principle of federalism and decentralization, the wording and in-\ntent of these provisions, necessitated by the consideration of their effect on German,\nas well as French opinion, did little to allay French suspición and fear of the develop-\nment of a centralized Germany.\nFrance will, furthermore, oppose any revision of the program for dismantling of\nprohibited industries, and will attempt to maintain a high list of reparations and the\npresent ceiling on German industrial capacity. This policy will be particularly effec-\ntive and serious from the US point of view, in regard to the Ruhr. To France, the In-\nternational Authority for the Ruhr represents the means of: (1) preventing a re-\ngrowth of the German industrial war potential; (2) preventing future German control\nof this potential through international control of management and ownership; and\n(3) favoring the development of the French economy over that of the German. France\nwill attempt to set high quotas for coal export from the Ruhr in order to encourage\nthe expansion of steel industry elsewhere in Europe and force curtailment of steel\nproduction in Germany. This policy runs directly counter to US policy, which be-\nlieves that a revival of the Ruhr steel industry is necessary not only to restore the\nGerman economy, but also is essential to a healthy Western Europe. The US has\nbeen strongly opposed to an extension of the International Authority's powers of con-\ntrol over Ruhr industry, a policy which France will continue to push with great deter-\nmination.\n5.\nContinuation of a Joint Policy.\nThe question of the Ruhr, and other fundamental issues in the US-French conflict\nof policy in Germany, will be resolved only by the same type of compromise on both\n7"
}