740.00119 PW/5–2148
The Secretary of State to the French Ambassador ( Bonnet )
The Secretary of State presents his compliments to His Excellency the Ambassador of France and has the honor to refer to his note of May 21, 1948, and communicates the following information.
The United States Government named China, the Netherlands, the Philippines and the United Kingdom as beneficiaries of the so-called Advance Transfer Program, which the United States Government initiated in April 1947, because these four countries had been at war with Japan at least for as long as the period from December 7, 1941 to September 2, 1945, because their territories were occupied by Japanese armed forces and because, within their powers, these countries fought continuously against the Japanese during periods of occupation. The United States Government regarded these qualifications as justifying the giving of special consideration to the reparations claims of these four countries, and hoped that issuance of an interim directive on this urgent matter would stimulate the Far Eastern Commission to agree upon a comprehensive and final reparations program in Japan. [Page 990] Since the reparations percentage shares assigned to the four designated countries were clearly beyond challenge by any other Far Eastern Commission members and the assigned shares applied to no more than a total of 30 percent of the industrial facilities declared available for removal in the Far Eastern Commission policy decisions embodied in the Interim Removals Program, it was believed that the interests of all reparations claimants were in the meanwhile safeguarded. The interests of other reparations claimants were also protected by the requirement that the four designated countries could lodge claims for particular facilities only if they could provide evidence that such facilities were capable of immediate useful employment.
The United States Government is aware of the dissatisfaction of the Far Eastern countries including, as a matter of fact, China, the Netherlands, the Philippines and the United Kingdom, which results from the fact that the Far Eastern Commission has not reached those decisions on reparations shares and on availability of Japanese assets for removal as reparations which could be the basis for a comprehensive, practical and final reparations program. This Government hopes that at an early time the problem of Japanese reparations may be discussed with the French Government and other governments concerned as a integral program, action upon which will contribute both to the attainment of occupation objectives in Japan and to the satisfaction of the just desires of the Far Eastern countries which were at war with Japan.
This Government does not consider it appropriate at this time to approach reparations problems on anything less than the comprehensive basis outlined above. It therefore seems unwise that additional governments, even though their territories may also have suffered directly from Japanese aggression and occupation, should be given individually the benefit of an emergency allotment as a result of any further action by the United States Government alone.