Editorial Note
No official memorandum has been found relating to the discussion during this meeting. Mackenzie King apparently came to the Citadel for the purpose of asking Roosevelt and Churchill to accept honorary degrees from McGill University (see Pickersgill and Forster, p. 85, and the Log, ante, p. 292). The rest of the conversation is described as follows in Mackenzie King’s notes, reprinted from Pickersgill and Forster, pp. 85–86:
“... Churchill … then spoke to the President about our participation in the war in the Pacific; of our desire to be in the Northern part and have our forces to serve in North Pacific; also our wish to have our Chiefs of Staff have a talk with his. The President replied: Mackenzie and I had a talk together on that, last night.2 That is all understood.
[Page 365]“The President then said something about the Kuriles needing a good deal of patrolling, also Northern China, probably requiring Japs to be driven out later. When he stressed that he would have his divisions leave Seattle, and that Canadian forces could leave Vancouver, Churchill referred again to naval forces coming through the Panama Canal into the Pacific.… I did not want to leave matters to just the North and indicated that we were prepared to operate in the central area as well. Churchill also indicated that we were prepared to go as far South as Burma.
“Churchill said it would not do to have our Canadians fighting in the Tropics. . . .”