Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, China and Japan, Volume XIV, Part 2

794.022/12–154

No. 833
Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the President¹

top secret

[Washington,] December 1, 1954.

Subject:

• Sovereignty of the Habomai Islands

At the NSC meeting on November 15, you requested the Department of State to submit a report to you on the United States position regarding the sovereignty of the Habomai Islands.²

The established position of the United States is that these islands are under Japanese sovereignty. The Japanese Treaty did not involve any renunciation by Japan of sovereignty over these islands. In the Treaty, Japan did renounce any interest in the Kuriles Islands, but the United States view, expressed at the Japanese Peace Conference, is that the Habomai Islands are not part of the Kuriles Islands. This is also the Japanese view.

The Soviet Union, however, is in actual occupation of the Habomai Islands, having moved in pursuant to a decision by General MacArthur, who drew a line between Hokkaido and the islands to the north and allowed the Russians to move down to this line. This line, the so-called “MacArthur line”, includes the Habomai Islands within the Soviet Zone.

I do not know anything we can do to get the Russians out short of war.³

JFD

1. Drafted by Dulles and Robert R. Bowie, Director of the Policy Planning Staff.
2. The request was embodied in NSC Action No. 1271–b. (S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) files, lot 66 D 95) The subject had arisen in connection with an intelligence briefing during the meeting on the shooting down on Nov. 7 by Soviet aircraft of a U.S. B–29. The content of the briefing is not described in the memorandum of discussion at this meeting, prepared by Gleason on Nov. 16. (Eisenhower Library, Eisenhower papers, Whitman file) For documentation on the incident of Nov. 7, see volume viii.
3. In a memorandum to the Secretary, Dec. 2, Cutler stated that he had presented the Secretary’s memorandum to the President on that day. “The President noted the memorandum and asked me to say that he would like to have you consider how the facts might be publicized through the United Nations. He thinks the fact that the Soviets have taken control of these Islands without legal authority, and in opposition to the views of the Japanese, should be made known to the world.” (794.022/12–254)