Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, The Far East and Australasia, Volume VI

740.00119 Control (Japan)/8–348

Memorandum Prepared in the Canadian Department of External Affairs¹

secret

[Ottawa, June 3, 1948.]

United States Policy for Japan

summary of interview with mr. g. f. kennan, united states department of state, june 1, 1948

Mr. Kennan, who is the Chief of the Division of Planning and Policy in the State Department, said they proposed to try out on the United Kingdom and Canada their revised plans for Japan.

A revision of plans had been called for because they could see no satisfactory method of resolving the impasse on procedure for the Japanese peace conference. They were reluctant to press the Chinese to change their views as the Chinese already blamed the United States for the Yalta concessions to the U.S.S.R. They thought that if we went ahead with a conference without the Russians we would have no way of making them observe the terms of our treaty and, furthermore, the Russians might offer the Japanese better terms once they knew ours. The United States was apprehensive lest Japan, turned free by a peace treaty, should lack the economic and military resources to resist Soviet interference. The United States was now thinking in terms of prolonging the pre-treaty occupation period. During that period they proposed to progressively relax controls over the Japanese Government and assist Japan to get on its feet again as an industrial power. Mr. Kennan said this would require agreement among the members of the Far Eastern Commission to a drastically revised reparations programme. The United States had not yet determined how to get that agreement.

To ensure continued security for Japan during the pre-treaty period, the United States advocated the establishment of an adequate Japanese coastguard and the strengthening of the Japanese police forces with some centralization of control. In addition, the United States would continue to station troops in Japan to guard against Soviet interference.

1. Copy transmitted to the Department in a letter of August 3 from Ottawa. The Embassy there had been furnished copy of this and the memorandum of conversation, infra, in a letter of July 29 from the Canadian Under Secretary for External Affairs (Pearson), with the remark that the views expressed were personal and informal. The papers were sent to George F. Kennan for his information.