Lot 60–D 224, Box 65
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Adviser on Caribbean Affairs (Taussig)
The President opened the conversation with a reference to the Yalta Conference, saying that he had had a successful time. He then said, apparently referring to our last meeting at luncheon, “I liked Stanley”.48 He thought that Stanley was more liberal on colonial policy than Churchill. He then asked me if Stanley was going to San Francisco. I said I did not know. The President said he hoped he would. I told him that, although Stanley was hard-boiled, [Page 122] I felt there was a genuine streak of liberalism in him, and that under his leadership, the British would make some substantial changes in their whole colonial policy. I told the President of the £120,000,000 appropriation that Parliament had made for Colonial Development over the next ten years, and gave him some little detail of the debate in Parliament (February 7, 1945).50
Trusteeship
I outlined to the President the discussion on the above subject between the General Staffs and the State Department as it had developed in the Committee on Dependent Area Aspects of International Organizations. I outlined the agreement that had been reached on the general category of strategic areas, and told the President that the military had indicated that they would interpret strategic areas as an entire area—for instance, all of the Japanese islands north of the Equator, that might come under the administration of the United States. I told him that under their interpretation, the entire group of islands irrespective of whether they were fortified or not would be exempt from substantially all of the international agreements pertaining to civilian populations; that the military had been unwilling to agree to divide strategic areas into two categories—closed areas and open areas.
The President said that he would favor these two categories and that the open areas should be subject to international agreements.51 He said that if the military wanted, at a later date due to change in strategy, to make all or part of the open area a closed area, it should be provided that this could be done with the approval of the Security Council.
The President then asked me, “What is the Navy’s attitude in regard to territories? Are they trying to grab everything?” I replied that they did not seem to have much confidence in civilian controls. The President then asked me how I accounted for their attitude.
I said that I thought that the military had no confidence in the proposed United Nations Organization. The President replied that he thought that was so. I told the President of the letter that Admiral Willson showed me addressed to the Secretary of the Navy, referring to the need of sending representatives to San Francisco in order to protect themselves against “the international welfare boys”. The President then said that neither the Army nor the Navy had any business administering the civilian government of territories; that they had no competence to do this.
[Page 123]I then referred to the Cole Bill52 which would turn over the administration of all our territories to the Navy. The President said that he had not been informed about this bill, and appeared to be interested.
I told the President about the conversations I had been having with the Under Secretary of the Interior, Abe Fortas, regarding the possibility of the United States, at an auspicious time, volunteering to have our own territories report to the Organization, and also to respond to requests from the Organization for specific information. The President said he would approve of this and that it might provide a useful trading point at San Francisco.
Arabia
The President said that one of the most important goals we must have in mind for the post-war world is to increase the purchasing power of great masses of people who now have a negligible purchasing power. He said a case in point was Arabia.
He spoke of his meeting with Ibn Saud.53 The President said that he had told Ibn Saud that essentially he, the President, was a businessman; that he had been the head of a big insurance company—the Maryland Casualty; that as a businessman he would be very much interested in Arabia. He told Ibn Saud that he knew considerable of the history of Arabia and had always been interested in that country; that Arabia needed irrigation projects; that it had plenty of water about sixty feet below the surface; that it had oil; that, using their own oil for fuel as operating pumps, they could develop an irrigation system in Arabia. He said that he told the King that if he, the President, were in the pump business, he would regard Arabia as a great potential market, and that the development of irrigation projects would increase the productivity of the land and considerably increase the purchasing power of the country which would be of great benefit to the world.
Caribbean Bases
I told the President of my recent trip to the Caribbean bases with General Brett,54 and outlined in brief to him the substance of my report to the State Department.55 The President reacted to the report by saying, “We must keep the bases active and leave no room for doubt that we are there to stay.”
[Page 124]The Peoples of East Asia
The President said he was concerned about the brown people in the East. He said that there are 1,100,000,000 brown people. In many Eastern countries, they are ruled by a handful of whites and they resent it. Our goal must be to help them achieve independence—1,100,000,000 potential enemies are dangerous. He said he included the 450,000,000 Chinese in that. He then added, Churchill doesn’t understand this.
Indo-China and New Caledonia
The President said he thought we might have some difficulties with France in the matter of colonies. I said that I thought that was quite probable and it was also probable the British would use France as a “stalking horse”.
I asked the President if he had changed his ideas on French Indo-China as he had expressed them to us at the luncheon with Stanley. He said no he had not changed his ideas; that French Indo-China and New Caledonia should be taken from France and put under a trusteeship. The President hesitated a moment and then said—well if we can get the proper pledge from France to assume for herself the obligations of a trustee, then I would agree to France retaining these colonies with the proviso that independence was the ultimate goal. I asked the President if he would settle for self-government. He said no. I asked him if he would settle for dominion status. He said no—it must be independence. He said that is to be the policy and you can quote me in the State Department.
- Col. Oliver Stanley, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, who had lunched with the President and Mr. Taussig on January 16; see memorandum of January 13 by Mr. Pasvolsky, p. 18.↩
- Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 407, col. 2092.↩
- For a statement on some observations made by President Roosevelt at a Cabinet meeting of March 9, 1945, about his conception of the trusteeship idea, see The Forrestal Diaries, p. 33.↩
- H. J. Res. 55, providing for administration and protection of territories and possessions of the United States by the Navy Department, introduced by Representative W. Sterling Cole of New York; no action was taken on this Bill.↩
- For a report on the President’s meeting with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, see Department of State Bulletin, February 25, 1945, p. 290. For documentation on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. viii, pp. 1 ff.↩
- Lt. Gen. George H. Brett, Commanding General of the Caribbean Defense Command and of the Panama Canal Department.↩
- Not printed.↩