Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943

J. C. S. Files

Report by the Joint Strategic Survey Committee¹

secret
J. C. S. 533/1

[Washington,] 22 October 1943.

Preparations for the Next United States-British Staff Conference

Reference: J. C. S. 533²

1. It is recommended that a Combined Chiefs of Staff Conference be held in the near future, but not until the results of the current discussions in Moscow are available.³

2. The proposed Conference should retain the continuity of the series of conferences, in that it follow precedent as to organization, procedure and scope.

3. It is considered important that the Quadrant paper⁴ be made the basis for the discussions and that the paper resulting from the new conference follow the same form, being complete in itself and replacing the Quadrant document.

4. It is recommended as a general line of action to be followed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they strongly support the Over-all Objective, the Strategic Concept and the Basic Undertakings in support thereof, as stated in Articles I, II and III of the Quadrant paper.

5. In general, discussion should be preceded by full report [reports?] from all theaters and operations and current estimates on enemy capabilities and intentions.

6. It is recognized that the principal discussions will concern Section IV of the Quadrant paper—Execution of the Over-all Strategic Concept. Under this heading it would seem that the European and South East Asia theaters will require the most attention, and that the war in the Pacific will not require substantial modification at this time.

7. There is attached for approval, as Enclosure “A”, the proposed agenda prepared in collaboration with the Joint Staff Planners and the Joint Logistics Committee.⁵ Discussion and recommendations of items on the agenda will be submitted separately.⁶

1. Approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for planning purposes October 26, 1943.
2. Not printed herein.
3. For those aspects of the military discussions of the Moscow Conference which concern subjects referred to the planned Conference of the Heads of Government, see post, pp. 121–129, 134–144; for other aspects, see Deane, chapter ii.
4. The records of the First Quebec (Quadrant) Conference of 1943 are scheduled to be published subsequently in another volume of the Foreign Relations series. The “Quadrant paper” referred to is the Final Report of the Combined Chiefs of Staff to Roosevelt and Churchill, August 24, 1943. Extensive extracts from it will be found in Ehrman, vol. v, pp. 1, 8–10, 12–15. A summary of the military decisions of the First Quebec Conference appears in Leahy, pp. 177–178.
5. Not printed at this point. The proposed agenda was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was submitted to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on November 22, 1943; see post, p. 368.
6. Not printed herein; one of the papers submitted separately was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for discussion with the British and, in final form, became C.C.S. 380/2, November 6, 1943, post, p. 157.