811.014/9–2048
The Acting Secretary of State to the Secretary of Defense (Forrestal)
My Dear Mr. Secretary: There are at the present time approximately twenty-five islands in the South Pacific which are claimed by the United States and which are also claimed by the United Kingdom or New Zealand. In an effort to resolve these disputed claims it was suggested in April, 1947, in the course of informal talks in the State Department2 with members of the British Embassy, that if the United Kingdom Government would surrender its share of the condominium over Canton and Enderbury Islands and recognize United States sovereignty over Christmas Island, the United States might be prepared to relinquish its claims to the rest of the islands in dispute.
The British Government has offered, as a counter proposal, to grant the United States a ninety-nine year lease of the area on Christmas Island in which the present United States Base is situated and of a small surrounding strip of land for the purpose of the subsequent development of the Base, to extend the present fifty years condominium over Canton and Enderbury Islands to ninety-nine years and to agree that the United States should have exclusive possession of the Bases in both Canton and Christmas Islands and all necessary powers of control. This British proposal is conditional upon the United States being willing to abandon its claims for the cession of the islands in dispute.
It is my understanding that the Base on Christmas Island is now in process of being closed and that the Army and Air Force personnel who have been stationed there are being withdrawn. Aside from this fact, acceptance of the British proposal would afford tacit recognition of the validity of the British claim to Christmas Island with attendant prejudice to our claim, not only to Christmas, but to the other islands as well. The question would seem to resolve itself, therefore, as to [Page 17] whether it is of sufficient importance from the strategic viewpoint to ensure Base rights at Christmas and Canton to warrant jeopardizing our claims to Christmas and the other disputed islands.3 In this connection, in the event we decide not to accept the British proposal we would, of course, continue to assert our claims to the islands and endeavor to reach some satisfactory agreement with the British with respect to the question of sovereignty.
Sincerely yours,
- A memorandum of the principal conversation of April 11, 1947, is in Department of State file No. 811.34590/4–1147.↩
- Secretary Forrestal in his reply of October 20 stated that Christmas Island and Canton Island were of strategic importance, but that the matter of pressing now for base rights on these two islands was not of such urgency as to warrant jeopardizing other basic United States claims.↩