740.0011 PW (Peace)/5–2748
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
| Participants: | Mr. M. E. Dening, Assistant Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, British Foreign Office |
| Mr. H. A. Graves, Counselor, British Embassy | |
| The Under Secretary—Mr. Lovett | |
| Mr. G. F. Kennan, Director, Policy Planning Staff | |
| Mr. W. W. Butterworth, Director for Far Eastern Affairs |
After the usual pleasantries, I referred to Lord Inverchapel’s letter,1 and asked Mr. Dening what he had gathered on his tour of the Dominions. Mr. Dening indicated that his trip had been occasioned by the fact that Mr. Marshall and Mr. Bevin had decided, in principle, in London that it would be desirable to extend the secret conversations which had taken place as regards the Near East2 to the Far East and Mr. Marshall had also agreed, in principle, that the latter talks should be participated in by the concerned Dominions of Australia, New Zealand and Canada and that Mr. Bevin had considered that in these circumstances and as a follow-up to the Canberra Conference, he should visit the Dominions in question, stopping in Washington on returning to England. Mr. Dening pointed out that he had also traveled through Pakistan and India and talked with the responsible heads of government there and although he had questioned them about their attitude towards the Japanese situation, he had not acquainted them with the interchange between Mr. Marshall and Mr. Bevin nor had he done so in Australia, New Zealand or Canada. However, in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, he had discussed with the Prime Ministers the possibility of having talks with the U.S. regarding the Far Eastern situation and indicated that he was en route to Washington to raise the matter there. Mr. Dening, in passing, mentioned that although Pakistan and India both felt that the question of the future of Japan as an Asiatic power was a matter which such Asiatic powers as themselves should actively adjudicate, nevertheless they were so preoccupied with their own internal problems and intra-Indian difficulties that they would not in practice at this stage undertake active roles. Mr. Dening went on to make a great point that he had not told the English speaking Dominions that there had been an interchange between [Page 783] Mr. Marshall and Mr. Bevin but only asked them if they were, in principle, agreeable to participating in such Far Eastern discussions indicating that he would raise the question in Washington. He said that the Prime Ministers of all three English speaking Dominions were, in principle, agreeable and only awaited the U.S. reaction to the proposal. (Despite these protestations, it was clear that if no pentagonal talks do transpire as a result of Mr. Dening’s journey, it will be ascribed by the Dominions to a reluctance on the part of the U.S. not the U.K. to their being undertaken. [)]
I pointed out to Mr. Dening in some detail the difficulties and dangers of holding formal consultations of this nature during this preelection period und the unwisdom of undertaking such a step at this time and, in passing, inquired as to Mr. Dening’s views as to degree of security to be counted on from Australia. I touched on the quixotic attitudes of the Australian representatives on the Good Offices Committee in Indonesia and on the United Nations Temporary Commission in Korea which certainly could not be described as directed towards fostering the purposes of security in the Pacific.
Mr. Dening vouchsafed that he had found the high ranking officials in Mr. Evatt’s Ministry and Mr. Evatt himself somewhat unrealistic as regards Communist designs and methods and although he was prepared to attest to the soundness of the views of the Prime Minister,3 he could give no assurance regarding the security of the Australian Government as a whole. Mr. Dening reiterated that he had not been authorized to commit anybody to anything and that the Dominion Governments were only aware that he was coming to Washington to explore bilaterally the situation as regards Japan and the question of holding pentagonal talks. He also said that in fairness to Mr. Evatt, he must state that Mr. Evatt had made mention of our impending elections as a possible impediment to the holding of such conversations. I then expressed the opinion that we were prepared to discuss informally, and at this stage tentatively, with him and with the representatives of other friendly FEC countries our views; that we had started off in Japan on the basis of assumptions; that after three years, it was possible to reassess the position and to proceed on the basis of past experience and not assumption; and that this past experience had been augmented by various missions sent to Japan, including Mr. Kennan’s trip. We had been evaluating our experience and consulting with the other agencies of the Government concerned and it was our intention to discuss through diplomatic channels with the friendly FEC countries the evolved policy and seek their suggestions and cooperation. Mr. Dening said that the British Government had assumed [Page 784] that these deliberations were going on and that the U.S. had concluded that (1) in the present impasse with Russia, it was undesirable to withdraw the occupation forces and (2) Japan must be moved to a position of self-support in order to relieve the unanticipated burden on the American taxpayer, and that in the view of his Government, any new point of departure of U.S. policy should be founded on a firm moral basis. Mr. Dening went on to describe the feeling of uncertainty in the English speaking Dominions and India and Pakistan regarding American intentions in Japan which, on questioning, did not seem to add up to more than the fact that the anticipated peace treaty was not on the tapis. I reiterated that we would be only too glad to exchange informally views on the situation as we have delineated it to date and that as our views became firm, we would be prepared to continue with conversations both with the U.K. Government and with other friendly FEC countries. Mr. Kennan referred to his conversations with the British Ambassador in Tokyo explaining that he had informed Ambassador Gascoigne at the time of his visit that as soon as he returned to Washington and his report and tentative recommendations had been considered within the Executive Branch of the Government and a concerted policy formulated it was the Department’s intention to initiate discussions through diplomatic channels with the U.K. and thereafter with other friendly FEC countries.
There was some talk about the peace treaty, Mr. Dening advancing the view that some members of the House of Commons thought that the U.S. should take a further initiative in this respect. It was pointed out that the U.S. had advanced a proposal, approved by the Canberra Conference but disapproved by the Chinese and Russians; that, aside from transmitting these notes of disapproval to all concerned, there seemed no constructive action that this Government could take. It was a moot point as to whether it would be in all of our interests to undertake a peace treaty with Japan without Russian participation, giving Russia the ability to undercut it. In any event, it was quite unlikely that Russia would participate without the veto, not to mention the fact that if China participated in a peace conference without Russia and thus called into question the Sino-Soviet peace treaty, she would require a price in protection. To all this, Mr. Dening made no definite reply.
In reiterating that there existed a sense of uncertainty in the Dominions he had visited as regards the developing situation in Japan, Mr. Dening went so far as to imply that the absence of a Marshall Plan for Asia was a just cause for complaint. Mr. Butterworth then enumerated the extent and kind of assistance that we were individually extending to such Far Eastern countries as China, Korea, Japan, the Philippine Islands, and the Netherlands East Indies mentioning the [Page 785] indirect benefit which would be reflected throughout the Pacific area as a result of ERP. He made clear we had no intention of sponsoring a Far Eastern Marshall Plan.
At this point in the conversation, it became incumbent upon me to attend to certain urgent matters and it was agreed that informal conversations would be held with Mr. Dening and Mr. Graves by Mr. Kennan and Mr. Butterworth beginning the following morning.
This initial conversation left me with the impression that Mr. Dening was on a fishing expedition and the fact that he had embarked on a tour of the Dominions and sounded them out about pentagonal conversations when London had during the past seven months received no encouragement from the U.S. as to the desirability of such conversations, together with the gaps in his logic, gave me cause to wonder what was in the back of the British Foreign Office’s mind.
- April 27, not printed; see memorandum of May 10, p. 751.↩
- For documentation on “The Pentagon Talks of 1947” between the United States and the United Kingdom on political, military, and economic subjects concerning the Near East, see Foreign Relations 1947, vol. v, pp. 485 ff.↩
- Joseph B. Chifley.↩