Office of the Historian

740.00119 Control (Japan)/11–1545

The British Minister (Sansom) to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent)25
undated

We hope that Mr. Byrnes in your conversation with him yesterday will have given you an indication as to the line which United States Government intend to follow in further discussion of the proposals put forward by the Soviet Government. We have already secured withdrawal of the Parliamentary question asking whether His Majesty’s Government had been consulted or kept informed about President Truman’s discussions with the Soviet Government about Allied control of Japan but we cannot put off a reply indefinitely. We should accordingly be glad to have early information about the [Page 853] manner in which the State Department propose to handle the matter publicly.

  1. Handed by Sir George Sansom to Mr. Vincent on November 15. Mr. Vincent in a memorandum on November 20 said: “Having, been authorized beforehand to do so, I brought him pretty well up to date on our exchanges with Moscow regarding the Far Eastern Commission and the Allied Council. I also told him that we would make every effort to give the British Embassy advance notice of any plans we might have for handling ‘the matter publicly.’” (740.00119 Control-(Japan)/11–1545)↩