740.00119 EW 1939/1193½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The British Ambassador called to see me this afternoon at his request. Lord Halifax stated that he had read with particular approval the address I had delivered at the New York Herald Tribune Forum two weeks ago.2 He said he thought it was imperative that some agreement be reached at least on basic principles of post-war adjustments between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union before the armistice period arrived. He said that if such an agreement were not reached before that time he saw no hope of any satisfactory solution and the very great probability that violent discord, suspicion and recrimination will exist between the three leading members of the United Nations. He said that he wanted me to know that Mr. Eden3 and Oliver Lyttelton4 felt exactly the same way that he does on this subject.
He went on to say that the President had spoken with Oliver Lyttelton with regard to certain post-war adjustments, requesting the latter to transmit his views to Mr. Churchill5 solely for the latter’s confidential information. The Ambassador said that, as I would have seen from Mr. Churchill’s speech of yesterday,6 that Mr. Churchill had not yet reached the point where he was considering the possibility of such agreements being reached until after Axis resistance, at least in Europe, had broken down. Lord Halifax insisted that only the President himself could cause Mr. Churchill to change his point of view in this regard. He felt very strongly that the President should take the lead on this issue and should keep the initiative in his own hands. He [Page 2] said that at one time they had considered urging that Mr. Eden be sent to this country for exploratory conversations but that the idea had been discarded for two reasons: first, the group within the War Cabinet which felt the way he did believed that Mr. Churchill would not wish to have Mr. Eden come to the United States on a mission of this character since he might be afraid that he would go further than he, Mr. Churchill, himself would wish him to go; and second, a visit of Mr. Eden to Washington at this time would undoubtedly give rise on the part of the Soviet Union to apprehensions as to secret arrangements or understandings which might be entered into by Great Britain and the United States.
The Ambassador emphasized that he was speaking to me in great personal confidence in this matter, but that he felt so strongly on the subject that he had wished to talk to me in this personal way.
- For text of address, made on November 17, 1942, see Department of State Bulletin, November 21, 1942, p. 939.↩
- Anthony Eden, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
- British Minister of Production.↩
- Winston S. Churchill, British Prime Minister.↩
- For text, see New York Times, November 30, 1942, p. 5.↩