Office of the Historian

Roosevelt Papers: Telegram

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt 1

[Excerpts]
top secret
London, 22 October 1944.

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt Personal and Top Secret Number 801.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Para 5. Major war criminals U. J. took an unexpectedly ultra-respectable line. There must be no executions without trial otherwise the world would say we were afraid to try them. I pointed out the difficulties in International law but he replied if there were no trials there must be no death sentences, but only life-long confinements. In face of this view from this quarter I do not wish to press the memo I gave you which you said you would have examined by the State Department. Kindly therefore treat it as withdrawn.2

  1. Sent by the United States Military Attaché, London, via Army channels. For other excerpts from this telegram, see ante. pp. 10, 159–160, 206, 328.↩

  2. In reply (No. 632, dated October 22, 1944) Roosevelt commented: “Your statement of the present attitude of U. J. towards war criminals, the future of Germany, and Montreux convention is most interesting. We should discuss these matters together with our Pacific war effort at the forthcoming three party meeting.”

    The text of Churchill’s paragraph 5 was communicated to the Department of State (740.00116 EW/10–2544).

    ↩