Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Volume III

701.0090/1593½

Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hamilton) to the Assistant Secretary of State (Long)²¹

[Washington,] May 7, 1943.

Mr. Long: FE²² offers for consideration observations on the Japanese reply to our proposal of February 4²³ for continuing the exchange of nationals. As all related data are not yet available to us, these observations of course are of a general and preliminary character.

1. It is evident that the Japanese Government is ready to effect one more exchange and perhaps further exchanges thereafter.

2. The Japanese still insist that they select the Japanese for the second exchange. We believe that the Japanese attitude in this respect is not due essentially to the Japanese Government’s desire to get particular individuals for its war effort but is due (a) to commitments to repatriate designated Japanese made to families and employers in Japan and (b) to a feeling that national honor is now involved in the issue. Having established priorities for repatriation in accordance with what the Japanese believe to be a right under the exchange agreement and being bound to families and business concerns to repatriate designated individuals, the Japanese Government apparently considers that both its national prestige and duty require it to insist on its established priorities.

3. It is believed that, if we accept the Japanese list, the Japanese will be disposed to make important concessions to us with respect to the composition of our list for the second exchange, for instance, the inclusion of a block of say 500 women, children, and sick from the Philippines. (The Japanese have indicated to the British Government a willingness to have 1,000 British women, children, and sick from Hong Kong included in the forthcoming second British-Japanese exchange.)

4. It is our opinion that the consummation of the second exchange will facilitate the negotiation of further exchanges looking to the repatriation of the greater part of our people in the Far East. A popular sentiment has developed in Japan, due to stories in Japan of suffering and maltreatment of Japanese in enemy countries, to repatriate as many Japanese as possible. Because of this development and because it is thought that the Japanese now feel that reciprocal repatriation of civilians is the “correct thing” for civilized nations nowadays to carry out, it is believed that the Japanese will be disposed to continue the exchange movement.

5. It appears likely that the British Government will be successful in working out a second exchange. If it does and this Government does not, there will be difficulty explaining why this Government was not able to do something which the British Government was able to do. It is learned informally from an officer of the British Embassy that freedom of repatriation was the unquestioned principle of the first Anglo-Japanese exchange and that the British had no interest in preventing the return to Japan of anyone on the Japanese list, which was drawn up by the Japanese Government.

6. There is no question in our minds that the alternative to general acceptance of the Japanese list for the second exchange is the breakdown of the whole repatriation project, or at least suspension for a very long time.

7. A breakdown of the repatriation project will remove an important means of sending relief supplies to American prisoners of war and internees in Japanese hands.²⁴

M[axwell] M. H[amilton]

21. Marginal notation of May 8 by Mr. George L. Brandt, Executive Assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Long: “I think this is a very acceptable statement and should be of use in taking up with ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence] cases of listed Japanese whose repatriation is objected to.”
22. Division of Far Eastern Affairs.
23. See telegram No. 291, February 4, to the Minister in Switzerland, p. 868.
24. For correspondence on Japanese treatment of American prisoners of war and civilian internees, see pp. 953 ff.; for correspondence on American efforts to ship relief supplies to these persons, see pp. 1012 ff.