Allied Control Council for Germany

Quadripartite Activity: During a brief meeting held on July 26, 1949 the deputy military governors agreed to a protocol for future discussion of quadripartite problems. Under the agreement, drawn up to implement the June 20 communiqué of the Council of Foreign Ministers, discussions were to be held on the level of the chiefs of occupation authorities or deputies and a subordinate level of conferences of experts. The commandants were to concern themselves with “consideration of questions of common interest relating to the administration of the four sectors of Berlin with a view to normalizing as far as possible the life of the city†and the experts were to deal with problems such as expansion of trade, economic relations between the western zones and the eastern zone, facilitation of movement of persons and goods, and the exchange of information between the zones. At the August 18 meeting of the commandants there was considerable difference of opinion between Brig. General Frank L. Howley (United States) and General Alexander G. Kotikov (Soviet Union) over a Soviet proposal that any decision made in a meeting would be formalized in a quadripartite agreement. General Howley stated that he opposed the idea because the foreign ministers Paris communiqué had instructed the commandants to come to “points of view†on Berlin problems; not to issue four-power agreements on them and such a procedure as suggested by General Kotikov would turn the meetings back into the Kommandatura procedure.