Memorandum from Edwin Pauley to President Harry S. Truman

110 DEGLASSIFIED JUN RECÉIVED 11 P.M. sentence Dept. E.O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) By of State letter, Aug. 10, or (2) NOTHA NARS Date 2-15-75 1972 PARIS JUNE 11, 1945 TO: THE PRESIDENT FROM: PAULEY ARCHIVESAA "NATIONAL SERVICE RECORDS The matter of restitutions versus reparations can be greatly abused by every country and every individual and every corporation in all of Europe unless carefully watched. It is my urgent suggestion to you that all matters of restitution be made subordinate to reparations particularly insofar as the US policy on the subject is concerned. Therefore I respectfully present the following: One. In the discussions of restitution to the EAC the idea of restitution has been confused by the French with reparations. In effect the French proposals for restitution now expanded to what they call "restitution in kind" are proposals for full scale reparation programs. The views of some of the other previously occupied nations tend to run along those same lines. Two. Although Ambassador Winant has stated that restitution must be confined to identifiable looted property any restitution except as an integral part of a comprehensive reparation plan is bound to result in unwarranted preferences to those nations receiving restitution (A) There is no valid dis- tinction between those claimant countries whose property, or the property of whose nationals, is discovered and those claimants whose property is never identified. (B) Since looting by the Germans generally took form of purchase for "fair value" the claim of these countries may more properly be classified as a claim based on them forced furnishings of occupation costs to the Germans than a claim to particular items of property. (c) The claim of those countries which