Memorandum by Mr. Harry L. Hopkins, Special Assistant to President Roosevelt 52a
The President stated that he wanted no negotiated armistice after the collapse; that we should insist on total surrender with no commitments to the enemy as to what we would or would not do after this [Page 35] action. The President stated that he doubted if a peace treaty should be signed for some time after the collapse of Germany and Japan.
Eden raised the question, in a delicate way, as to the President’s Constitutional powers, during this interim while we are still technically at war with Germany, to agree to forming an independent Austria, as an example. The President replied that he thought he did have the power without reference to the United States Senate—at any rate, enough power to make the independence of Austria stick. It was clear from Eden’s reply that he had some doubt about this. After lunch he told me he thought it a matter of great importance because England, China, Russia and the other United Nations want to be sure of the President’s power to reach any agreement which would be binding prior to the actual signing of a peace treaty, which treaty, of course, would have to go to the Senate for confirmation.
We discussed the same situation with regard to East Prussia being turned over to Poland and the President’s power to agree on a new eastern boundary line for Poland.
The President told Eden again that he did not like the idea of turning the Baltic States over to Russia and that she would lose great deal of public opinion in this country if she insisted on this action. The President said he thought the old plebiscite was probably a fake and while he had no doubt that the Baltic States would vote to ally themselves with Russia, he thought Russia should take the trouble to go through the motions of getting that done, in the meantime having an agreement with Great Britain and the United States that Russia would control the foreign affairs and their finances until the new plebiscite could be taken. Eden again told the President that he thought Russia was going to be pretty insistent on the Baltic States.
Eden said he hoped the Japanese Mandated Islands would be turned over to us, preferably in outright ownership. The action would be approved by the United Nations. The President has always felt that these islands would be put under some kind of trusteeship, but it becomes clearer all the time that Eden thinks very little of a trusteeship and would rather have the full responsibility in the hands of one country.
Eden stated that in his conference with Hull this morning, Hull had told him he thought Churchill had made a serious mistake in his speech yesterday by not mentioning China amongst the great powers. Both the President and Hull agreed on this point. The President told Eden he thought that China might become a very useful power in the Far East to help police Japan and that he wanted to strengthen China in every possible way. Eden expressed a good deal of doubt about this on the theory that he doubted very much if China could stabilize herself and may well have to go through a [Page 36] revolution after the war. He said he “did not much like the idea of the Chinese running up and down the Pacific”. This was not further pursued but from what Eden said it made me think the British are going to be pretty sticky about their former possessions in the Far East.
Eden is coming to the White House to spend the weekend and will be at lunch on Saturday.52b
I raised the question as to where our armed forces would be expected to be after the fall of Germany and, indeed, during the whole period of our policing the aggressor nations. The President said our armies, of course, would have to be in Germany and Italy and he assumed that the British and Russian troops would be there also. He said that so far as the other strong points of the world that had to be held were concerned, we should split up our troops—the British, for instance, would be in Tunisia or Bizerte and we would be in Dakar and, probably, Formosa. Eden seemed to agree to this although he made no comment in regard to it except to say that he was glad to hear the President say our troops would be in Germany.