Lot 53D444: Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
Subject: Japanese Peace Treaty
| Participants: | The British Ambassador, Sir Oliver Franks |
| The Secretary | |
| Mr. Jessup | |
| Mr. Butterworth1 | |
| Mr. Thompson2 |
The British Ambassador pointed out that the Colombo Conference provided for the setting up of a Commonwealth Working Party to discuss the question of the Japanese Peace Treaty. He said this group is scheduled to meet in London in the second half of April and Mr. Bevin wished him to inquire whether the United States Government would be able to communicate anything further on United States views on this question by that time. The Ambassador said that it was quite possible in the absence of any further indication of our thinking that views might tend to become crystallized along lines divergent from the policies which we were evolving in the United States.
In reply, I pointed out that I was not in the position to be able to answer his question. I said I had not been idle in this matter and that we were not discouraged. However, the fact is that our Joint Chiefs are away, and they are not expected to return before about the middle of next month. Several of them are going to London and will be talking with the British Chiefs. We did not know exactly what they would discuss, but if they did touch on this question, that might be helpful.
I said I wished to add that I believed it important that we not be put in any public position of blocking the Japanese Peace Treaty. This role was now being filled by the Russians, and I thought it important [Page 1157] that they continue to fulfill this function, I did undertake to get in touch with the Ambassador as soon as we had anything further to communicate on this subject.
- On March 27 the Department announced that Dean Rusk was replacing Mr. Butterworth as Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs and that the latter, retaining the title of Assistant Secretary of State, would henceforth devote full time to Japanese matters. Additional information is in the Department of State Bulletin, May 8, 1950, p. 742. For Mr. Acheson’s account of this change, see his Present at the Creation (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), pp. 431–432.↩
- Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs.↩