Reference: My WA-946 of March 14, 1951.?

1. When I saw Mr. Dulles on March 14th he told me that he expected shortly to be able to give to the representatives of governments which are members of the Far Eastern Commission and to the representatives of Indonesia, Ceylon, and Korea the text of a suggested draft of a Japanese Peace Treaty, together with an explanatory memorandum. Mr. Dulles asked me to see him this morning in order to receive these documents. These I enclose, in duplicate.⁸ I have not yet had time to study them carefully. As it is desirable to forward them by today's diplomatic bag, this despatch is confined to a report of my conversation with Mr. Dulles.

2. In handing me the text of the draft Treaty, he drew attention particularly to the footnote at the end of Chapter 4 dealing with security in order to emphasize that it was contemplated that the provisions of the Treaty must be supplemented by a bilateral agreement between the United States and Japan and also by wider security arrangements among certain Pacific states. He repeated that any bilateral arrange­ments which would permit the stationing of United States forces in Japan after the inclusion of the Treaty would be of an interim character only until Japan could provide the ground forces necessary for home defence.

3. He also drew attention to a brief footnote which appears towards the bottom of page 6 dealing with reparations, explaining that this was inserted mainly because of the strong objections taken by the Philippine Government to any renunciation of reparation claims.

4. As to procedure, he said that he had already handed these documents to the Embassies of the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, and would give them this week to the representatives in Washington of the other countries named in the first paragraph of the covering memorandum. The Soviet Embassy would be the last to receive them, and as the Soviet Government now took the position that it refused to discuss the Japanese Peace Treaty with the United States the documents would merely be delivered by note to the Soviet Ambassador. He hopes that the recipient governments will all make known their views in writing within three or four weeks so that the draft may be reviewed in the light of the comments received. I told Mr. Dulles that I thought it likely that the Canadian Government would be able to comment on the draft within the period which he mentioned.

5. Mr. Dulles went on to say that so far as he could judge the points of difficulty were not numerous. There were the objection of the Philippines over the surrender of reparation claims, an objection made fairly strongly by the United Kingdom with support from Australia and New Zealand over the absence in the draft of any admission of war guilt, and the desire of the United Kingdom to bring about through the Treaty a reduction in Japanese ship-building capacity. These were the main differences which had been brought to his attention, except for the compre­hensive objections of the Soviet Union.

6. I asked Mr. Dulles whether any effort was being made to bring about the con­clusion of some security arrangements in the Pacific in advance of the conclusion of the Japanese Treaty, mentioning in particular the part which these issues were playing in the Australian general election. He said that he had not been approached recently by the Australian Government, although he understood that that govern­ment was applying some pressure on the United Kingdom to secure strong support for arrangements on the lines discussed during his recent visit to Canberra. He added that there was no possibility that anything could be settled before the Austra­lian elections, saying that the matter had not yet been considered by the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff as he wished to be able to present to them more con­crete proposals than was now possible. The outline of what he now has in mind does not differ from that given in my WA-947 of March 14th t reporting my earlier talk with him on this subject. While the inclusion of the Philippine Government in any arrangements cannot be regarded as firm, he feels strongly that they should be included in order to avoid any suggestion of a colour bar as well as for other rea­sons. At present he contemplates that whatever may come out of these discussions should be signed at the same time as the Japanese Treaty.

7. I took this opportunity of informing Mr. Dulles, as authorized by your message EX-597 of March 22nd,⁹ that the Canadian Government agreed with the general objectives of the proposals discussed at Canberra by him with Messrs. Spender and Doidge, adding, however, that we were rather puzzled about the suggested addition of the Philippines. I shall be sending you shortly a more comprehensive reply to your message on this subject.

8. I asked him whether he expected there would be any difficulty about making Korea a party to the Treaty, inasmuch as the formal renunciation of Japanese "rights, titles and claims to Korea" would be incorporated in the Treaty itself. He said that he considered that the independence of Korea has been so widely recog­nized since the end of the war that it cannot sensibly be argued that it must be based on the Peace Treaty. The establishment of diplomatic relations with Korea by many countries and the contents of several resolutions of the General Assembly provide a broad enough legal basis to rebut any juridical objections that might be taken.

9. Finally, Mr. Dulles said that he hoped that the secrecy of the draft Treaty itself would be preserved during the next stages of its discussion. He had no objection to some publicity being given, as the need might arise in dealing with parliamentary and public enquiries, to the general terms of the proposals; it would be unfortunate, however, if the draft itself were to be made public, as that would make it harder for it to be altered in the course of negotiations. He told me that he will be outlining the ideas contained in the draft and the reasons for their inclusion in a speech which he is to deliver in Los Angeles in a few days. He remarked that there could be no assurance that the draft would not leak to the press, mentioning in passing Mr. Romulo's "admirable press relations". He agreed also when I said that it might be broadcast to the world by the Soviet radio, as had been done with the text of the brief Statement of Principles which he had circulated last autumn in New York.

10. If on perusal of these documents points occur to you on which you desire further information, I can readily secure this from Mr. Dulles or Mr. Allison.

H.H. WRONG

⁸ Voir/See United States, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, (FRUS), 1951, Volume VI, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1977, pp. 944-950.

⁹ Voir le document 943./See Document 943.