Office of the Historian

Hull Papers

The Secretary of State to the President

Washington, December 31, 1941.

Memorandum for the President:

Herewith is the Joint Declaration for signature by yourself and Prime Minister Churchill. The text is as you sent it to me yesterday1 except that, at the request of Lord Halifax, the expression “Prime Minister of Great Britain” in the first paragraph has been changed to “Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.2

You may or may not desire to ask Ambassador Litvinov and Foreign Minister Soong to attach their signatures at the White House.

  1. Supra. ↩
  2. Halifax, reflecting the comments of the British War Cabinet, had also suggested (1) that “high contracting parties” be substituted for “Governments signatory hereto”; (2) that “social security” be inserted; and (3) that the final sentence be altered so as to enable such organizations as the Free French to sign document. Hull did not favor any of these suggestions, and in any case he did not feel at liberty to accept any substantive changes without the President’s approval. On December 31 the Canadian Government had also made several suggestions for improving the language of the draft declaration, but the Department of State indicated the undesirability of reopening the draft to further amendment. See Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. i, pp. 23–25; Hull, vol. ii, p. 1123.↩