740.00119 PW/12–2844
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Grew)
Major General George V. Strong, United States Army, called on me today at his request and handed me a set of papers27 covering the proposed Japanese surrender terms which had been drawn up by the Joint Post-War Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Strong said that his Committee was not altogether satisfied with the German surrender terms,28 which he felt had not been given sufficient study and mature consideration. He, therefore, felt that we should waste no time in determining the surrender terms to be offered Japan, and he would be glad to have our views on these papers before they are submitted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recognized the fact that these terms were purely military and that the Department of State would wish to presents its views concerning the political and economic phases of the terms.
I said to General Strong that, as he knew, our people had been working for the better part of two years on post-war planning with reference to Japan, and that we were considering the procedure to be adopted for bringing our papers to the attention of the War and Navy Departments. I assumed that the problem before us would be to integrate the two sets of papers. General Strong said that his [Page 498] Committee would be happy to do whatever might be desired. I mentioned in this connection the Liaison Committee, to which our papers might be referred. I undertook to let General Strong know in due course the procedure which we might follow concerning our own papers.
- Infra.↩
- See report of the European Advisory Commission dated July 25, 1944, Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, pp. 110–118.↩