Endnotes for Chapter VI

1 Interv, Weinberg with Hilldring, Oct. 50.

1a The British considered civilian agency participation unwise at this time (see above, Chapter IV, Section 5). McCloy felt that it would be wise to introduce into certain areas individual civilians who could work with soldiers and gradually replace them as the occasion warranted. Ltr to Hopkins, 30 Sep 43, CAD files, 334, OFEC (5-29-43).

2 For Synopsis of War Department Program for Military Government see above, Chapter I, Section 3.

3 See below, Section 6, Ltr, Stimson to Hull, 29 Jan 44.

4 The difficulty in departing from noninterference as the general rule was not merely one of administrative expediency, as indicated in the Manual. It also reflected the fact that the international law of belligerent occupation, as stated in the Hague and Geneva Conventions, still incorporated the doctrine of noninterference. This doctrine was no longer adhered to in the expressed political aims of the United Nations, but international law as interpreted by conservative jurists had not kept pace with the recent changes in ideology and practice. However, the Civil Affairs Division did transmit both to Charlottesville and the theaters CA Guides, prepared by General Donovan's organization (see above), which suggested a program of defascistization and de-Nazification derived from U.S. and U.N. political aims.

5 This is preceded by paragraphs providing for the discontinuance or suspension of offices unnecessary or detrimental to military government, the suspension of legislative bodies, and the removal, in most cases, of high ranking political officials.

6 As will be seen in ensuing documents, military leaders were keenly intent upon minimizing responsibility and personnel commitment. In the case of France, political policy led the President to be reluctant to commit himself to the FCNL, while the Army urged the necessity of some arrangement which would permit the civil affairs burden to be entrusted primarily to the French. For details on civil administration in the countries of northwest Europe and southern France, see below, Parts Three and Four.

7 The directive was issued on the basis of responsibility placed on SHAEF by the CCS for the co-ordination of all planning for operations to take place in southern France. See Part Three.

8 The British favored turning over the distribution of relief supplies in the Balkans to the Middle East Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, a British civilian agency. The State Department considered that political influences would be less likely to enter into civilian relief if it were entrusted to UNRRA.

9 The State Department by this time had recommended that U.S. military forces be permitted to participate with the British in a combined operation limited, on the American side, merely to the distribution of relief supplies. Since in any case the British would be distributing American Lend-Lease supplies, it appeared to the State Department better that the United States have a hand in controlling policies of civilian relief by contributing civil affairs officers. On 31 January, the date of Mr. McCloy's memorandum, the President approved the State Department's recommendation that U.S. civil affairs officers participate in combined relief activities in the Balkans.

10 At the meeting of CCAC on 27 February, Mr. McCloy stated that it had been decided on the highest United States level that both the procurement and the distribution of relief supplies in the Balkans should be on a combined basis. The views of the War Department and the Joint Chiefs were thus overruled by political authorities. However, the Army succeeded in keeping American personnel participation at a minimum.

11 This exclusion of rehabilitation considerations did not apply to rehabilitation essential to relief, such as the provision of seed.

12 For additional information on this problem, see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1943-45.

13 It was precisely this policy which the War Department, including Somervell, decided not to follow-not even in Germany, and much less in Italy, where cobelligerency immediately introduced political considerations in favor of civilian relief.

14 The revised draft of the manual was not particularly tough but neither was it notably tender and philanthropic. It is, of course, a question whether any military government can be popular.

15 The evidence in this chapter makes clear the Army's intention to lay down the civil affairs task as soon as possible. The irony of the entire history of the U.S. Army's participation in civil affairs is that this did not prove possible during hostilities-or even for years after hostilities had ceased. The explanation of this paradox must be sought in the history of operations.


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