794.00/8–1154: Telegram
No. 788
The Secretary of
State to the Embassy in
Japan1
priority
300. Ur 318.2 From Secretary for Ambassador. I do not think it wise for me to send personal message from me to Ikeda partly [Page 1703] because there is not time to do this adequately and partly because so important a pronouncement should await a more measured appreciation of just what Ikeda said and what significance should properly attach to it.
There is no harm in talking to him along lines Point 4 my Los Angeles speech June 11.3 Assuming Congressional concurrence, which would have been sought, US was prepared to fight in Indochina but could not obtain necessary concurrence British and French.
There was at no time anything weak in our position. The dispatch of our aircraft carriers to Hainan and their conduct there should dispel any doubts on this score.
We are eager have Japan develop a sense of mission and of destiny and to develop for itself a role in Far East. I have been grievously disappointed that so far Japan has been listless and drifting and apparently expecting merely to be taken care of by U.S.
If Japan does want to have a destiny and future of its own it will have to find it within free world which tolerates and welcomes diversity. It will never find it in dependence upon Communist world which accepts only conformity and domination by Soviet Communist Party as the “General Staff of the World Proletariat.”
If Japan has any ideas about Far Eastern policy we would like to know them and exchange views with them and we would not exclude possibility of ourselves profitting from such an exchange of views.
It is quite proper you should speak along lines your paragraph 3b, but I suggest caution on reference to Japan’s industrial defense buildup since I am informed prospects for OSP are dim.
- Drafted and approved for transmission by the Secretary.↩
- Document 786.↩
- For text, see Department of State Bulletin, June 28, 1954, p. 971.↩