Lot 64 D 563: PPS Files
The Consultant to the Secretary (Dulles) to the Under Secretary of State (Webb)1
Administrative arrangements ought now to be made to handle the following matters:
1. The Secretary of State will presumably desire to submit promptly to the President the text of the four Treaties, i.e., Japanese Peace [Page 1345] Treaty, Japanese Security Treaty, Philippine Mutual Assistance Treaty, and the Australia–New Zealand Security Treaty, with an analysis of the treaties, and presumably the President will in turn want to submit these to the Senate with a request for consent to ratification.
I assume that no effort will be made to secure such consent at the present session of Congress, but it might be wise to get the documentation into the hands of the Senate before the present session adjourns.
In this connection, I would express the hope that every effort be made to preserve the nonpartisan character of this program.
2. Responsibility should now be established for preparing for the hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, presumably next January, in relation to the four Treaties. There will be considerable debate, and effective and impressive presentation should be prepared.
3. Article III of the Security Treaty between the United States and Japan provides “The conditions which shall govern the disposition of armed forces of the United States of America in and about Japan shall be determined by administrative agreements between the two Governments”.
A draft of the prospective Administrative Agreement was prepared in Tokyo on February 92 under the direction of Assistant Secretary of the Army Earl Johnson and General Carter Magruder and was approved by the Japanese Government. However, this was not found satisfactory by the Pentagon and after more than six months of study a revised form of agreement,3 without annexes, was submitted to the State Department through Deputy Secretary of Defense Lovett. This is, in essential respects, unsatisfactory to the State Department, and the annex which is supposed to list the Japanese facilities desired has not yet been submitted to us. So far as we are aware the Japanese authorities have not been consulted at all.
The completion of this administrative agreement is a major task which involves, first of all, reconciliation between the State and Defense Departments and then negotiation with the Japanese. It should receive very prompt attention, so that it can be concluded before ratification.
4. The draft of the Administrative Agreement ref erred to above discloses a disposition on the part of the Armed Services to continue to treat the Japanese as defeated enemies and as orientals having qualities inferior to those of the occidentals. To change this point of view will be a major task of education and it should be begun at once. Discussion on this point was had at San Francisco between Mr. Rusk, Mr Allison, Mr. Sebald and myself, and Assistant Secretary Johnson, [Page 1346] General Magruder and Mr. Nash. It was recognized that the problem was difficult and should be affirmatively dealt with, and it was suggested that Secretary Marshall should be asked to set up a group which would assume the responsibility for positive educational action. This needs to be followed up.
5. The Treaty of Peace provides that the United States may propose a United Nations Trusteeship of the Ryukyu, Bonin and other islands and that, pending administrative action in this respect, the United States will have the right (but not the obligation) to exercise all and any powers of administration, etc., over the territory and inhabitants.
The inhabitants of the Ryukyu Islands numbered nearly a million, and there exist between them and the inhabitants of the Japanese Home Island strong ties, of a sentimental, economic and political character. These cannot be ignored without creating a permanent state of dissatisfaction, both among the islanders and in Japan Proper. On the other hand, it is essential that the United States should have what was referred to in the September 8, 1950 Presidential Directive as “exclusive strategic control”.
The policy to be pursued and the arrangements to effectuate that policy should be given prompt consideration. Congressional Committees are apprised of the problem, and it has been suggested that the President might designate a Commission which would include members of the Senate and House Subcommittees on Far Eastern Affairs, with perhaps a non-governmental chairman, to go to Japan and the Ryukyus after Congress adjourns for the purpose of studying the situation and making recommendations as to what should be done. Prompt action should be taken with reference to this matter, as it is a present source of agitation and communist propaganda.
6. Presumably, the United States, with Canada, will now proceed to negotiate the proposed Tripartite Fishing Treaty4 with the Japanese. The Department has taken the view that this Treaty can be negotiated and initialed now, without awaiting the coming into force of the Peace Treaty, but that the Fishing Treaty would not be formally signed until after the Peace Treaty comes into force. The United States negotiating group should be set up and given appropriate instructions.
7. The impending shift from the authority of SCAP to diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan calls for preparation. The first United States Ambassador should be selected sufficiently in advance for him to become thoroughly familiar with the many [Page 1347] difficult problems which will be pending. Presumably, Mr. Allison will be proceeding to Tokyo in a few weeks to assume his status there as Minister. Presumably, also, Mr. Sebald will be staying on as Political Adviser to SCAP. The relationship between them should be defined.
8. Japan will be pressed to negotiate a series of treaties relating to fisheries, reparation, etc., with various Allied Powers. Also, Italy, Korea, Portugal, etc., will want to negotiate agreements with Japan. In relation to many of these matters, the United States has assumed, either expressly or impliedly, a “good offices” relationship. Consideration should be given to where and how the United States will discharge its moral responsibilities in these matters. In certain cases, e.g., Italy, our “good offices” relationship is shared with the United Kingdom and France.
9. The attitude which Senators will take toward ratification of the Japanese Peace Treaty will to a considerable extent depend upon the attitude which may in the interval have been taken by the Japanese Government toward China. We assume that the Japanese Government can now publicly make clear its known unwillingness to deal with the Chinese Communists. We have told the Chinese Nationalist Government that we could not promote a bilateral treaty with Japan until after the Japanese Peace Treaty was signed and that it could not come into force until after the multilateral treaty came into force. We must be circumspect not to violate our understandings with the British. In this connection I have prepared and given to Mr. Merchant a Memorandum of Conversation5 which I had with Foreign Minister Morrison on the plane returning from San Francisco. In my opinion some reasonable relationship can properly be established, or at least the onus of rejecting a reasonable arrangement should be placed upon the Chinese Nationalist Government.
- Source text found attached to a covering note of September 21, from Philip H. Watts of the Policy planning Staff to other members of the Staff.↩
- See enclosure to Dulles letter of February 10, p. 875.↩
- See the note from Lovett to Acheson, August 22, p. 1281.↩
- See the editorial note, p. 1390.↩
- Of September 9, p. 1343.↩