Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 1

Conference files, lot 59 D 95, CF 100

No. 332
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Dinner Meeting at the British Embassy, January 6, 1952¹

top secret
TCT CONV–2

January 6, 1952

Present:

• U. S.

  • Secretary Lovett
  • Secretary Acheson
  • General Bradley

• U. K.

  • Mr. Churchill
  • Sir Oliver Franks
  • Mr. Eden
  • Lord Cherwell

[Here follows a table of contents.]

Last evening Secretary Lovett, General Bradley, and I dined with Mr. Churchill, Mr. Eden, Lord Cherwell, and the British Ambassador at the British Embassy. After dinner we had discussion around the table from shortly after nine until shortly after one.

Mr. Churchill started the discussion by saying that he wished to talk about three matters: Far East, Middle East, and the atomic bomb.

The Far East: He said that he had been much disturbed by the President’s statement to him the day before that British shipping had been carrying very considerable cargo, including strategic material, to Chinese ports.² He asked on an urgent basis that I furnish him with the memorandum to which the President had referred, saying that he would telephone or cable the information to London, and, if the facts supported what had been said, he would see that it was stopped immediately. He said that his Government, which had been in office only nine weeks, had no responsibility in this matter, but that it would immediately assume responsibility.

Mr. Lovett said that he was working with me on the matter, and that we would furnish a memorandum very shortly.³ Mr. Lovett thought that the information should be drawn together by the intelligence services so that it might be directed more to what was going on at the present time rather than to what had occurred prior to the UN embargo. Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden agreed that this was desirable.

Mr. Churchill then asked me to talk about the situation in the Far East as we saw it and what it was that we thought the British could do to be helpful to us. He said that he wished to do everything that he could to help us carry our great responsibility in the Far East. He hoped that we would take a similar attitude toward helping them in the Near East.

In response to his invitation, I said that our difficulties with the British Government over the past couple of years in connection with China had grown from a generalization which was well enough at one time, but I thought was not any longer helpful in trying to devise policy.

This generalization was that there were inherent conflicts between Russian and Chinese interests and that the object of policy should be to split the Chinese communists from the Russian communists and develop a Tito situation. I said that I had also said this in January, 1950, when it seemed to be a real possibility. However, Chinese intervention in Korea had made this hope very distant and impossible of attainment at the present. I did not think that over any period of time with which we could now be concerned it was possible to create a divergence between the two communist groups. Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden agreed with this.

I said that our policy—and I thought any policy—toward China at the present time had to be pragmatic; we had to go from existing situations as they were, dealing with things which had to be dealt with; and that perhaps, as we went along, the future might become clearer.

The first obvious fact was that we were fighting the Chinese in Korea, had sustained very heavy losses, and were now at a critical point, when we would either have an armistice or would be faced with a most serious development in the Korean fighting.

Mr. Eden interrupted to ask whether I thought there really would be an armistice, and Mr. Churchill asked, “If so, when?” I said that I thought there would be an armistice, and, if I had to make a guess, I would guess that it would come about toward the end of January. General Bradley said that he agreed on both points. Mr. Churchill said that he thought that from a military point of view an armistice was probably a mistake. He thought that the Russians had proposed the armistice because the Chinese were suffering heavily and they thought there might be a rout of the Chinese army. He thought that we had properly entered into discussions; that it was necessary to maintain a solidity with our allies; but he doubted its wisdom from a military point of view. General Bradley then pointed out that regardless of an armistice, he did not think it advisable from a military point of view to advance much further than we were at present. He gave all the reasons with which we are familiar for this, most of which appeared to be novel to Mr. Churchill. But, after listening to General Bradley, he agreed that he had possibly been mistaken in his view.

We then returned to the main thread of the discussion.

I said that the first matter on which we wanted and needed British cooperation was in connection with decisions that would have to be made in the event that there was no armistice or in the event that an armistice entered into was later broken. In either event two things seemed to us essential: One was to carry air war to China; the other one was to cut off all ocean trade with China.

The first matter led to a general discussion of what sort of bombing we were talking about. General Bradley and Mr. Lovett made it clear that we were not thinking of bombing population centers; all the targets would be military targets; and the effort would be to break up transportation and air concentrations. He pointed out about where these were. After considerable discussion of this, Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden seemed to understand the point. Mr. Eden kept saying that the matter had not been put before the Cabinet and they were not in a position to agree. I made it clear that we were not asking them to agree now, but were merely discussing the matter so that they could understand our position more clearly.

We then discussed the blockade. Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden thought that this would [be] futile because we could not and should not blockade Dairen and Port Arthur, and this would render the blockade futile. General Bradley and I pointed out that this was not the case; because, although Dairen was a very large port and could handle approximately 40,000 tons a day, this amount could not be distributed throughout China because, first, the air bombardment would cut the routes out of Dairen and, second, even if they were not cut, transportation out of Peking and Tientsin would be practically impossible. We urged strongly that the blockade was essential in the event of a renewal of hostilities.

The conversation then went on to the subject of the inadvisability, from Mr. Churchill’s point of view of using atomic bombs in Korea or China. This led to considerable talk, in which General Bradley pointed out that it was not our intention to use these bombs, since up to the present time no suitable targets were presented. If the situation changed in any way, so that suitable targets were presented a new situation would arise. So far this was entirely theoretical.

I had intended to go on to discuss again the proposed Japanese arrangements with the Nationalists and other Chinese questions, but, after some further military talk about bombing, Mr. Churchill said that they would consider what we had said; that it had been very helpful; and that he now wished to talk about the Near East.

Near East: There were two points Mr. Churchill wished to make about Iran and about Egypt. In regard to both the essential point was close American support and unity of policy.

Regarding Iran, he said that the British had been kicked out of Abadan in a most humiliating way. If he had been in office, it would not have occurred. There might have been a splutter of musketry, but they would not have been kicked out of Iran. The reason for the weakness of the Labor Government, he was informed by that Government, had come from the refusal of the American Government to support strong measures. He deeply regretted this. While the oil companies may have made mistakes, that was past and was not a reason for weakness in the face of Mossadeq’s impossible conduct. He asked me whether we could not now agree to a united policy.

I said that I did not believe that we could dismiss the past quite as easily as Mr. Churchill had done. While the Persians were undoubtedly difficult, it was nonetheless the fact that out of all the places in the world where the British and we were exploiting oil, Persia was the only one where this sort of trouble existed. It came from the fact that all the concessions which the oil company had made in bringing their dealings with Persia up to what was standard elsewhere had come too late. This had precipitated a national position in Iran which was far more serious and permanent than the mere personality of Mr. Mossadeq.

Mr. Eden interrupted to say that, although the fundamental trouble had been the action of Stafford-Cripps in refusing to allow the dividends to be increased on the oil company’s stock, thus allowing additional royalties to be paid to Persia under the agreement, it was nevertheless true that the offer made by the oil company of a 50–50 arrangement had been made before our companies had made similar arrangements elsewhere in the Middle East. I said that I did not know enough about the details to dispute the historical accuracy of this fact, but it seemed to me that there had been a great deal of foot-dragging on the part of the company when Razmara was Prime Minister. I remembered urging Bevin and Morrison to get the agreement in such shape that it could be put before the Majlis.

1. The first page of the source text is dated Jan. 14, but the first paragraph suggests that the Secretary of State drafted the memorandum on Jan. 7. For another brief account of this meeting, see Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 600.
2. Regarding the President’s statement, see Document 329.
3. Not further identified.