Roosevelt Papers
The Secretary of State to the President1
For the President From Secretary Hull:
Cable of November 29 from our Legation in Lisbon again points out Dr. Salazar’s proposal to have Portuguese forces take part in liberating Timor.
It will be recalled that in an aide-mémoire dated October 13, 1943 the British Embassy in Washington, acting on instructions from the Foreign Office, informed the President (through the State Department) that the British Embassy in Lisbon had received a formal expression of Dr. Salazar’s wish in a communication dated October 4, 1943. According to the aide-mémoire of October 13, the Portuguese proposal was under consideration by the British military authorities.
In Lisbon’s cable above referred to, Ambassador Norweb suggests the interesting possibility that Salazar may have had Japan in mind [Page 776] when he told Mr. Kennan that should Portugal enter the war on our side he would not hesitate to grant us all facilities.
In his recent speech2 Dr. Salazar strongly intimated that a modification in his relations with Japan might be imminent.
American Military Attaché at Chungking reports that Changteh is still in Chinese hands although Japanese forces have passed that city on the east and west; that the alleged use of poison gas and presence of Japanese paratroopers, neither of which is warranted in the present situation, suggest the possibility that Japanese are being trained for objectives more important; that sudden large-scale application of this type of warfare is believed sufficient to overrun Chungking and Kunming; but that there are no present indications of Japanese offensive operations in the China theater on a large scale.
Your statement3 went over fine.