Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI, Part 1

Lot 54D423

Memorandum by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Merchant) to the Consultant to the Secretary (Dulles)

secret

[Washington,] November 26, 1951.

Subject: Conversations in London and Paris with the British regarding the future relations between Japan and Formosa.

Summary of Trip

I arrived in London early in the afternoon of November 13 and after conferring at the Embassy with Messrs. Holmes,¹ Penfield² and Ringwalt, I started my conversations that same afternoon in the Foreign Office with Mr. Rob Scott, Assistant Secretary for the Far East. Mr. Eden had not fully absorbed what the Secretary had told him a few days earlier in Paris concerning the purpose of my trip but the Embassy had supplied Mr. Scott with a briefing from your telegram of November 7 to the Secretary.³

Accordingly, I plunged immediately into a frank discussion of the serious difficulties which could be expected in the Senate in its debate on the Peace Treaty with Japan were we still lacking a clearer and more satisfactory indication of the intentions of the Government of Japan regarding its future relations with the National Government of China. Mr. Ringwalt was with me, and Mr. Scott had Mr. Johnston and Mr. Peter Scott present. Mr. Scott displayed a far more understanding and constructive attitude than either the Embassy or I had expected and when we broke up that evening it was decided that he would prepare for discussion the next morning a draft of the points of understanding.

We met again the next morning and went over the draft produced by the British.⁴ It was unsatisfactory in certain major respects. After making some broad critical comments, most of which Mr. Scott was ready to accept on the spot, I said that I wanted more time to study it and we arranged to meet again in the afternoon. At the afternoon session on November 14, I produced a counter draft⁴ which was substantially accepted. It was agreed that the resultant draft memorandum of understanding would be submitted for Mr. Eden’s approval by Mr. Scott immediately upon the former’s arrival from Paris the following day and that I would submit the draft to Washington⁵ for the Department’s approval and later submission to the Secretary if the Department believed that desirable.

Mr. Ringwalt and I dined with Mr. Scott that evening and discussed the situation in the Far East in general terms. Mr. Scott at all times impressed me as having an assessment of the situation which approached much more closely the American view than had been the case in the past with Sir Esler Dening. It was equally obvious that his instinct and desire was to cooperate with us to the maximum extent possible.

Having telegraphed to the Department the draft with comments that evening, I received the following day a query on one aspect of its interpretation, to which I made reply by telegram.⁶ On the assumption that the Department would then approve the draft I made my plans to go to Paris on Friday evening, November 16th, with a view to informing the Secretary over the weekend of the discussions and securing his approval of the memorandum. In the early afternoon of November 16, Mr. Allison informed me by telephone from Washington that the Department had approved the draft agreement for submission to the Secretary and I so informed Mr. Scott, who thereupon undertook to take it up promptly with Mr. Eden. Mr. Scott, who was leaving for Singapore the following evening had given me the distinct impression that he had no reason to anticipate any difficulty in securing Mr. Eden’s approval. Only a few moments before I was due to leave for the airport Mr. Scott telephoned me in considerable agitation to say that Dening in Tokyo (to whom they had cabled for comment a copy of the draft agreement) had come back with an adverse reaction and that Mr. Eden’s reaction had been one of desiring more time to consider the matter. I expressed my surprise and disturbance over this development but assured him that it had been clearly understood that the draft was to have been submitted to Mr. Eden for approval and, similarly, to Secretary Acheson. Mr. Scott said that he would see Mr. Eden again the following day and seemed not unhopeful that he would in the end secure his approval.

It seemed to me that I had best abide by my plan to proceed to Paris, which I did. I thought that by promptly securing the approval of the Secretary to the draft and communicating that fact to the Foreign Office, the most effective additional pressure would be placed on Mr. Eden. The fact that Mr. Eden was hectically preparing to lead a two-day debate in the House on foreign policy further led me to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the advocacy in the first instance to Scott and then count on the Secretary’s talking to Eden on the latter’s return to Paris a few days later.

On Sunday morning, November 18, the Secretary saw me and after careful discussion approved the draft agreement and authorized the communication of this fact to the Foreign Office. This was done. The Secretary asked me to remain in Paris to be present when he saw Mr. Eden on this matter as soon as possible after Mr. Eden’s arrival in Paris on November 21.

On November 20 the Secretary received a message in writing from Mr. Eden to the effect that he needed more time to consider the problem posed. The following day, November 21, the Secretary received a second personal message which revealed that Mr. Scott had failed to persuade Mr. Eden.⁷ This message was also considerably flatter than Mr. Ringwalt’s intervening talks with the Foreign Office had foreshadowed.

I discussed the situation further with the Secretary in the light of this development and gave him a short briefing memorandum.⁸ The objective became one of impressing on Mr. Eden the problem we faced; what our attitudes and purposes were, then securing his agreement to leaving the general subject for discussion between Mr. Dulles and Sir Esler Dening in Tokyo, with as much flexibility as possible in the latter’s instructions. A date was made with Mr. Eden for immediately after the close of the three Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Germany on the afternoon of November 21.

At this meeting, as reported by telegram,⁹ the Secretary made clear to Mr. Eden the extent and seriousness of our difficulty on ratification and the consequent necessity of Mr. Dulles’s securing a clear indication from the Japanese Government of its purposes on the matter. The Secretary emphasized the forces at work which made a treaty or agreement with the Chinese Nationalists natural and desirable. He explained that we were thinking of a limited agreement or one with a realistic applicability provision. He also said that while we felt the sooner discussions started between Formosa and Japan the better, we were not thinking of the final conclusion of any agreement which might emerge until the multilateral went into effect.

Finally, the Secretary urged that in the light of this discussion, Ambassador Dening be given considerable flexibility in working out with Mr. Dulles in Tokyo an attitude which would maintain to the maximum degree possible US–UK united front.

Mr. Eden left the general impression of going along with this, though the language of his replies was not too precise. He emphasized that he saw no objection to “de facto” relations but that he would have to object to the development of a relationship which recognized the National Government as the government of all China, or one which (and this was somewhat confused in his presentation) might give rise to the suspicion that Formosa would ultimately return to Japan and the Cairo Declaration be repudiated. He said he would get out instructions immediately to Ambassador Dening in the light of all these conversations and that Dening could then report back to him if any difficulties arose. The Secretary agreed and said that if the latter occurred he and Mr. Eden could communicate further with each other.

The Secretary expressed himself as being anxious not to leave the written record on the basis of Mr. Eden’s last message to him. Accordingly, I drafted a reply for the Secretary which sought to nail down the ground recaptured. The Secretary signed and dispatched this letter¹⁰ the following day to Mr. Eden and I left Paris for Washington on the evening of November 22.

Attachments¹¹

I attach a copy of the letter from our Embassy in London to Mr. Scott, dated November 12, concerning my impending arrival in London;¹² a copy of Mr. Dulles’s memorandum of conversation with Mr. Fitzmaurice and Mr. Tomlinson on August 9;¹³ a copy of Mr. Dulles’s memorandum of conversation with Mr. Morrison, September 9¹⁴ (on both of which I drew heavily in my discussions with Mr. Scott); a copy of the Dulles-Morrison agreement of June 19, 1951¹⁵ (to which the British quite frequently referred); a copy of my briefing memorandum of November 21 to the Secretary in anticipation of his appointment with Mr. Eden; and a complete file of telegrams between Washington, London and Paris on the subject of these discussions, as follows:

[Here follows a list of telegrams.]

Comments and Conclusions

Although the final result was disappointing in terms of what at first appeared possible of achievement, I believe the following has been accomplished:

(1) The British are fully and frankly on notice as to the seriousness of our problem regarding ratification. They know what our attitude is. I told Mr. Scott, for example, that we would not and could not conceal from the Japanese the fact that we regarded the Chinese Communists as a hostile regime defying the United Nations and killing our men in Korea and that, on the other hand, we recognized and supported the Chinese Nationalist Government as the government of China. Our talking to them so frankly, I believe, has dispelled a certain amount of suspicion of us on their part.

(2) The British more clearly recognize and accept that the large and growing importance of trade between Formosa and Japan, the position of the Chinese Nationalist Government in the UN and related organs, and the provisions of Article IV, are all powerful forces now working towards the regularization of relations between Formosa and Japan. The British are not, however, by any means as convinced as we that, in the absence of pressure, the Yoshida government would immediately plump for the Chinese Nationalist Government.

(3) A considerable field for discussion and agreement on the spot with Sir Esler Dening has been cleared, I believe, for Mr. Dulles’ talks with him in Tokyo.

Certain further comments follow:

(1) I believe Dening is the real fly in the ointment and that he has been actively attempting to influence the Japanese, not to a postponement of a choice on their part of which China, but actually to an ultimate choice of the Peiping government.

(2) Mr. Eden impressed me as being surprisingly unfamiliar with the nature and background of this general problem. I believe, however, and Mr. Penfield of our London Embassy agrees, that Mr. Eden will not be so hypersensitive regarding the Dulles–Morrison agreement once the House of Commons has taken the action which constitutes ratification. Mr. Eden said that this would be completed this week before the House recesses.

(3) Mr. Scott emphasized the lack of value in a treaty fairly subject to the later charge that it had been entered into under duress. He cited their present troubles with Egypt. The British accordingly feel that we should in our own interest be careful not to twist the arms of the Japanese to overcome what he considers a reluctance on their part to start immediate negotiations for a bilateral treaty with Formosa. I think this difference in assessment of the Japanese attitude on the part of the British and ourselves requires further examination. I think it may well give point to Mr. Scott’s expressed belief that, however rapidly negotiations might develop between the Japanese and Formosa, some decent interval should elapse after the coming into force of the multilateral peace treaty before any bilateral was formally signed or otherwise came into force.

(4) It was unfortunate I think that Mr. Scott had to leave for Singapore when he did for I felt that he wholeheartedly supported the draft which he and I had worked out.

(5) I made very clear, and Mr. Scott acknowledged, that if circumstances substantially changed, our position necessarily would have to, and that in such case we would of course talk to the British frankly as we now were. I went over in some detail the point which Mr. Dulles had made to Mr. Morrison and Messrs. Fitzmaurice and Tomlinson, to the effect that a situation might develop, for example, under which Japan might in fact possess and could properly exercise independence of choice in concluding an agreement with Formosa even prior to the multilateral’s coming into effect.

(6) Mr. Ringwalt kept notes¹⁶ on our conversations with Mr. Scott but did not plan to make up detailed minutes. The British likewise kept extensive notes, though there was no discussion or thought of having agreed minutes. I did, however, have Mr. Ringwalt go over their minutes in draft to see if there were any inaccuracies or misunderstandings. He found only one, which at our request was corrected.

1. Julius C. Holmes, Minister at the Embassy in London.
2. James K. Penfield, Counselor of the Embassy in London.
3. For Telac 10 to Paris, see p. 1393.
4. What is apparently this draft is attached to a covering note of April 11, 1958 by Harold L. Skean (694.001/12–3151). Neither is printed.
4. What is apparently this draft is attached to a covering note of April 11, 1958 by Harold L. Skean (694.001/12–3151). Neither is printed.
5. In telegram 2337 from London, November 14, p. 1401.
6. In telegram 2369 from London, marked “For Allison from Merchant,” the latter had stated in part: “I do not believe draft agreement wld prevent US reps Tokyo from continuing to leave impression with Japs that entry into discussions with Chi Nats looking toward realistic bilateral treaty (to be concluded after multilateral comes into force) wld seem desirable.” (694.001/11–1551)
7. Both of Mr. Eden’s messages are in telegram 3095 from Paris, November 23, supra.
8. Of November 21, not printed (694.001/11–2151).
9. Telegram 3080 from Paris, November 22, p. 1408.
10. Text in the telegram, supra.
11. None found attached.
12. This letter by Mr. Ringwalt made known to Mr. Scott the entire text of Telac 10 to Paris, November 7, p. 1393.
13. Ante, p. 1249.
14. Ante, p. 1343.
15. In an index titled “China Papers,” found in Lot 54D423, the document of June 19 printed under its title of “Chinese Participation and Formosa” is listed as the “Morrison–Dulles Agreement.” For text, see p. 1134.
16. Not found in Department of State files.