694.001/1–2450
Memorandum by the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Rusk)
Memorandum for the File
At the close of the meeting of the National Security Council on December 29, 1949, the President said that he wished to make some remarks on the subject of the Japanese Peace Treaty. He recalled that, at the time of the Potsdam Conference,1 the United States, Great Britain and China had drawn up and proposed surrender terms to Japan. These terms were presented through Sweden. In preparing the U.S. position, the United States Chiefs of Staff and the Secretaries of State, War and Navy participated. The Japanese accepted the surrender terms. The President then issued a directive on the occupation forces and got the UK and China to concur. The USSR did not participate in this action, since it was not then at war with Japan. The President then said, a few days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, Russia declared war on Japan and concurred in the surrender terms already offered to Japan.
The President said that the U.S. position in Japan was a partnership affair with the UK and China and that the peace settlement must be a matter which is satisfactory to the United States and the UK. It may be that we shall want to attempt to negotiate such a settlement with the Russians, but he had no doubt that the United States and the United Kingdom could negotiate a peace treaty with Japan whether the USSR participated or not.
- July 17–25, 1945.↩