FE files, lot 55 D 388
No. 695
Memorandum of Conversation, by the
Secretary of State
secret
[Washington,] October 5,
1953.
- 1.
- Senator Knowland, during his call at my office this afternoon, urged increasing pressure upon Japan to build up a large enough military establishment, so that we could take our own land forces out of Japan. He felt they would increasingly become a subject of irritation in Japanese goodwill.
- 2.
- He urged a clear position on Okinawa, namely, that we were going to hold it. I pointed out that, while there was no intention of giving up Okinawa, there were a number of problems to be worked out in terms of civilian administration and economic and monetary relation with Japan. I was reluctant to see us issue a statement on Okinawa until these matters had been agreed upon. I did not think that we could put Okinawa in a completely closed compartment without economic and social relations with neighboring islands and with acute problems on fishing, etc. Senator Knowland seemed to agree but felt on the whole that we must retain the civilian administration, and he doubted the practicability of using Japanese currency.
- 3.
- He asked what the terms were for our delivery of military supplies to the French. Did they get title or would we retain title so that if anything went wrong we could get the stuff back, not letting it fall into Communist hands if some new French Government tried to pull out and make a deal with Ho Chi Minh.1
- For documentation on U.S. military assistance to French Union forces in Indochina, see vol. xiii, Part 1, pp. 1 ff.↩