The U.S. State Department Analyzes the Soviet Note on Berlin (January 7, 1959)

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3. The agreement establishing the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, signed November 9, 1943, states in article I, paragraph 2:

Subject to the provisions of Article VII, the purposes and functions of the Administration shall be as follows:

(a) To plan, coordinate, administer or arrange for the administration of measures for the relief of victims of war in any area under the control of any of the United Nations through the provisions of food, fuel, clothing, shelter and other basic necessities, medical and other essential services; and to facilitate in such areas, so far as necessary to the adequate provision of relief, the production and transportation of these articles and the furnishing of these services. The form of activities of the Administration within the territory of a member government wherein that government exercises administrative authority and the responsibility to be assumed by the member government for carrying out measures planned by the Administration therein shall be determined after consultation with and with the consent of the member government.

4. The Crimean (Yalta) Conference of the United Kingdom, the U.S.S.R., and the United States, February 4-11, 1945, stated in positive terms in a Declaration on Liberated Europe:

To foster the conditions in which the liberated peoples may exercise these rights, the three governments will jointly assist the peoples in any European liberated state or former Axis satellite state in Europe where in their judgment conditions require

(a) to establish conditions of internal peace;

(b) to carry out emergency measures for the relief of distressed peoples;

(c) to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people; and

(d) to facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections.

These agreements show that the wartime Allies, including the U.S.S.R., were agreed on basic principles to govern their postwar conduct, namely, establishment of a just and stable world order, relief of distressed peoples, and rehabilitation of war-devastated areas.

However, the U.S.S.R. refused to carry out specific proposals to implement the agreements and proceeded to carry out its own plans throughout Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe. For example, instead of cooperating with the Western Allies in the Allied Control Council (the supreme Allied body in postwar Germany) in providing a minimum economic standard essential for survival and future recovery of the German people, the U.S.S.R. delayed and avoided decisions and finally walked out of the ACC in March 1948.