740.00116 PW/8–647
Memorandum of Conversation, by Miss Katherine B. Fite of the Office of the Legal Adviser (Fahy)
Mr. Everson called and inquired first as to whether Mr. Keenan, the chief prosecutor of the international war crimes trial in Tokyo, [Page 270] was still in this country. I told him that I understood he was on his way to Tokyo. Mr. Everson, referring to his previous inquiry to the same effect last March, stated that he wished this time to speak more freely and confidentially, and said that the associate British prosecutor felt that the prosecution was more smoothly handled when Mr. Keenan was not in Tokyo.
He then said that the Embassy was informed that Mr. Keenan had instructed his American deputies in Tokyo to prepare dossiers on fifty war crimes suspects still being held in Tokyo. He said that though the British prosecuting staff was assisting in preparing dossiers in these cases, they did so reluctantly and that the British did not wish to share the responsibility for the suspects having been held so long without trial. He said further that the British Government wished us to know that they did not wish to participate in any further international war crimes trial in the Far East.
I explained to Mr. Everson, for his confidential information, that General MacArthur had raised the question of the disposition of the fifty suspects, that the War Department was ascertaining the background as to their detention, and that the interested Departments were considering the question of their disposition. I also pointed out that it was possible that some of the fifty suspects had been arrested at the request of Governments other than the American. I explained that I personally anticipated that this Government would not wish any further international war crimes trial. I told him that the question had arisen as to the necessity of obtaining an amendment of the Far Eastern Commission policy decision which appeared to require an international trial of persons charged with crimes against the peace (aggressive war),43
Mr. Everson said that he hoped that the matter would not have to come before the Far Eastern Commission, and that he thought the Soviets would block any amendment and insist on an international trial of Japanese industrialists. He said that he would study the Far Eastern Commission policy decision and get in touch with me again. Meanwhile he said that I was free to inform the War Department that we had received an inquiry from the British Embassy as to the use that was to be made of the dossiers now being prepared by the International Prosecution Section in Tokyo.
- Notation on the original by Mr. Fahy: “We should take steps to obtain a policy decision. C. F.”↩