Office of the Historian

Dulles files, lot 54 D 423, “United Kingdom”

No. 476
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by John Foster Dulles, Consultant to the Secretary of State

confidential
[Washington,] January 16, 1952.

Subject:

  • Release of December 24, 1951 letter from Prime Minister Yoshida

Participants:

  • Sir Oliver Franks
  • John Foster Dulles

Sir Oliver said that London felt that it was “on the spot” because of the publication in Tokyo of Yoshida’s letter to me, which took them somewhat by surprise. He said that he had told only Eden of the existence of the letter and no one else. He recalled that the letter itself was not a matter of discussion at the meeting of Eden, Secretary Acheson and myself, and that probably his Government would merely take the formal line of saying that the letter had not been discussed. He hoped that we would do nothing to give a contrary impression.

I told Sir Oliver that, while it was true that the letter itself had not been discussed, the subject matter of the letter had been discussed and that if I was put in a position where I had to speak on the subject, I would have to say that the letter had been shown in advance of the meeting to Sir Oliver.

Sir Oliver recognized that that was the situation but said he hoped that we would not volunteer this fact or mention it unless we were queried on it in a way which did not permit of any avoidance. He said he would like “until the present storm blew over” to be able to take the technical position that “The Yoshida letter had not been discussed between Eden and Acheson”.

I said that I did not myself foresee any occasion to make any statements whatever at the present time.1

  1. In a memorandum of a telephone conversation held later on Jan. 16 Dulles stated:

    “At about 12 o’clock, after talking with Mr. Rusk and Mr. White, I called back Sir Oliver and was told that he had gone to the station to meet Mr. Churchill, so I spoke to Mr. Tomlinson, saying that I hoped whatever statement his Government made about the Yoshida letter would not be couched in such a way as to give rise to any indication of bad faith on our part as that might require a reply. While it was technically true that the text of the letter had not been discussed, the letter and its text were known in advance to Sir Oliver and Mr. Eden, and the Japanese position, as set out in the letter, had been a major topic of discussion. It seemed to me, therefore, better that any statement they made should concede that the subject matter of the letter had been discussed although the text itself had not been mentioned.” (Memorandum attached to the source text)

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