Office of the Historian

Lot 54D423

Unsigned Japanese Government Memorandum1

[Tokyo,] April 23, 1951.

Reparations Claims

The American Draft provides in the last Paragraph of Chapter VI on Reparations and Property: “Reparations claims of the Allied Powers and their claims for direct military costs of occupation shall be deemed satisfied out of the Japanese assets subject to their respective jurisdiction in accordance with the foregoing and out of assets received from the Japanese home islands during the occupation.”

This provision is highly welcome to the Japanese government. But consideration of the following two points are requested.

(a)
Since “reparations claims” are not limited to those arising directly out of the act of war, but should include also those arising in connection with the war, it would seem better to employ a more specific term such as “claims arising out of war.”
(b)
It is necessary to designate specifically the beginning and the end of the period in which the events, giving rise to reparations claims, took place.

Unless these two points are clarified as indicated above, there may, it is feared, arise a situation that will defeat the very purpose of this clause.

  1. Possibly handed by the Japanese to the American side during the conversation documented in Mr. Fearey’s memorandum of April 23, p. 1006.↩