Office of the Historian

740.00119 European War 1939/1370

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State

[Washington,] March 22, 1943
Participants: Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, Mr. Anthony Eden,
British Ambassador, Lord Halifax,
Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull.

The British Foreign Secretary came in this morning accompanied by the British Ambassador and Mr. William Strang, Assistant Under Secretary of the British Foreign Office. I had asked Mr. Welles to be present but he had found it impossible to join us because of previous engagements. Mr. Winant, Mr. Atherton,39 and Mr. Dunn40 were present, and Mr. Norman Davis joined us later in the conversation.

Mr. Eden brought up first the general question of the refugee problem and said that his Government desired that this matter be examined and that he wished to make the final arrangements, if possible, with respect to the recent British proposal that representatives of his Government and of the United States meet with a view to discussing the general subject.41 I referred to the assistance we were giving at present to the refugees in Spain and the refugees in Persia. I spoke of the assistance we were giving to the conveyance of refugees from France now coming into Spain and Portugal in proceeding to North Africa. Mr. Eden said that one of the principal problems was the matter of Jews in Axis occupied countries in Europe, and that this problem was nowhere near solution but that there were some immediate [Page 29] aspects which might be taken care of. It was for this purpose that the British proposed conversations between the two governments on the general subject. Mr. Eden said that this proposed meeting might be informed of some of the projects the British are now planning to carry forward, among them the movement of 30,000 Jews from eastern Europe into Palestine. The arrangements with respect to moving these persons to Palestine is now in the process of discussion through the Swiss Government. When I raised the question as to the attitude of the Arabs with regard to this movement, Mr. Eden stated that this number would be accepted by the Arabs as the plan had already been announced by the Colonial Secretary and was possible under the present quotas, that is, under the numbers as set forth in the British White Paper. Mr. Eden further stated that with respect to western Europe it was his understanding that there were about 6,000 refugees composed not entirely of Jews but of all western European nationalities and Poles now in Spain and Portugal. The question arose as to what disposition could be made of these refugees. Mr. Eden also spoke of the importance of assuring neutral countries which were now taking care of refugees that these refugees would be returned to their countries when the present upsetting conditions had been eliminated. He said it was particularly important to give assurances of this kind to Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Sweden, who were now carrying the burden of many refugees in this connection. I pointed out that in my opinion there were two aspects of this problem. One was to find a place for these refugees to go, and, two, how to get them there. I recalled in this connection that we are now contributing a sum amounting to about $3,000,000 for the transportation of refugees from Persia to Mexico. Mr. Eden inquired as to the nationalities and character of these refugees, and I said that from our information they were almost entirely Poles who had come out of Russia.

Mr. Eden then discussed the matter of where the conference would take place between the British and American officials as both he and Lord Halifax had the impression from word received from Ottawa that the Canadian Government did not desire the meeting to take place in Canada. There was some discussion of the points on which agreement had been reached with respect to the agenda of the meeting of these British and American officials on refugees and as to whether some announcement could be made by the British Government in view of insistent demands in Parliament with regard to some information with regard to developments in this respect. I then suggested that Mr. Strang and Mr. Atherton might consult with Mr. Long42 on this subject and endeavor to draw up the sense of an announcement which might be made in the British Parliament in this regard. Mr. Strang [Page 30] and Mr. Atherton thereupon withdrew to proceed with the drafting on the subject.

Mr. Eden then stated that he was leaving this afternoon with General Marshall43 and Sir John Dill44 to visit army camps and installations in the south and expected to be back here Wednesday evening for dinner at the British Embassy. He said that he had arranged to devote Thursday to inspection of Navy installations and that he would then be available on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday for talks with me and was at my complete disposal for that purpose.

I then told Mr. Eden and Lord Halifax that Senator McNary45 had informed me that he felt that the situation with regard to the whole field of the organization of peace should be kept before the public and that he was most anxious that the final result would be substantial cooperation on the part of the United States in the organization and maintenance of world security. I also told them that Senator McNary was prepared to get behind the renewal of the Trade Agreements Act when that came up for consideration, and as they knew, that matter would come before Congress in the fairly near future. I said that Senator McNary had expressed a desire to have a resolution which would be acceptable to the administration and which might be possible of receiving the support of all those Senators of good will toward the difficult problem of organization of the peace. I then read a draft of some language I had written down which might be useful in that connection. I told Mr. Eden and Lord Halifax that from their own experience I was sure they fully understood how necessary it was to obtain the cooperation of all the individuals in a large body who would be important in the consideration of such a proposal, and that I felt very much encouraged now that, with proper and careful management and taking up of this matter individually with the Senators concerned, we could feel every assurance that some resolution will come through the Senate in a manner which will express approval of the creation and maintenance of an international permanent peace organization. I said that of course the matter had to be handled with extreme care and delicacy and that I now felt sure that there would be no draft which would be brought up for serious consideration without previous discussion with all those concerned including myself, and that in this fashion the collaboration of the State Department could be secured. I again reverted to the procedure with which they in their experience must be fully conversant—that any such matter must be completely organized with the greatest detail in advance, that at times it was a matter of touch and [Page 31] go because it revived old controversies including the discussions on isolationism and even more ancient matters of contention. We were thus proceeding to go along our own way in this regard and that the methods of proceeding must be selected most carefully and carried forward with the most complete discussion and exchange of views with the Senators concerned.

I then asked whether there were any suggestions as to ways we might be able to aid in keeping down in this country any sentiments against Great Britain. I gave as an example that during the critical discussions of the Indian matter we did our best to keep down the discussions here in every possible way, and made every effort to prevent this question from becoming a matter of serious contention and general discussion here. Mr. Eden said that he found this Government so generally very helpful in all matters of that kind that he did not have any particular suggestions in that regard. He said that perhaps the only matter he had run across during his visit here was the possibility of criticism arising in connection with the Colonial administration by the British Government, and he said that it might be possible to be helpful in this field in connection with some agreement with regard to the Colonial declaration which had been the matter of discussion back and forth between the Governments within the last six months or so. I said that I had given very careful consideration to this matter and that I had only just recently left with the President a draft46 of my latest suggestions on this declaration, that I was not in a position to speak for the President but that the President would no doubt take the matter up with Mr. Eden while he was here. Lord Halifax then referred to the draft for the Colonial declaration which the British Government had just recently sent to me,47 and said that this had been drawn up after discussion with the Dominions, whereupon I asked whether it coincided with the ideas General Smuts48 had expressed. Mr. Eden and Lord Halifax both replied that Smuts had been consulted and had agreed to the recent [Page 32] draft, and that after agreement had been reached between the British and American Governments with regard to the form of Colonial declaration, the British would bring in the Dominions for consultation before final acceptance, and would also desire to consult with the Dutch and perhaps other powers who were directly interested in the subject. I said that I would await the President’s final action in this matter, and suggested that the President might bring it up at the luncheon Mr. Eden was having with him today. I said that as far as I was concerned it was my thought that Colonial peoples should be given the opportunity to establish their basis for study and experience in the political and economic field in order that they might start a general forward movement on the part of the peoples themselves with a view carefully to working out the formula for the solution of their own problems in their own way without interference of other countries and without weakening their own position to the extent of becoming a prey to economic or political pressure from other countries.

[Here follow discussions on the possibility of the establishment of a unified French authority which could deal with questions affecting all territories then under French control. The portion of document here omitted is printed in Foreign Relations, 1943, volume II, page 78.]

At this point Mr. Atherton and Mr. Strang returned with the draft of the statement with regard to the refugee conference which was cleared all around although Mr. Long had asked to have an understanding of one reservation which was that the omission of the reference to pass on the matter eventually to the International Committee on Refugees (Evian Committee) was not to be taken as having been decided one way or the other as to whether this committee would be called upon to take the question under advisement.

I then referred to the Finnish-Russian situation.49 I explained that in our dealings with the Finnish situation we had based all of our actions on getting the Finns away from the Germans, and I felt that we had been a restraining factor in keeping the Finns from linking up even more definitely with the Germans than they had up to the present time. We had recently suggested to the Finns our acting as intermediary for the bringing of the Finns and Russians together. I asked whether any questions, military or political, in the present war situation from the British point of view would be affected by such a move. Mr. Eden said that he was in accord with any attempt along these lines; that when the Swedes had spoken to him about the matter, which they did from time to time and as recently as when the Swedish Minister in London recently left to return to his country, he had advised the Swedes to tell the Finns to go direct to the Russians. I said that we were entirely in accord with the British effort to have the Finns go direct to the Russians as we knew the Russians did not care to have any [Page 33] other nation in such discussions, and I understood that, provided we had not gone further than an attempt to initiate such discussions, Mr. Eden was entirely in favor of our actions.

I was interrupted at this point for a press conference and on my return I informed Mr. Eden and Lord Halifax that I had called attention in my remarks to the press when questioned about my impressions of the British Prime Minister’s speech50 that the Prime Minister had stressed the necessity for applying ourselves to the primary purpose of the prosecution of the war both in the west and the east. The Foreign Secretary and the Ambassador both agreed that it was a good point to bring out the necessity for considering the prosecution of the war in both the east and the west, and that they themselves had remarked the absence of a reference to China in the text of the speech. I then dwelt on the insistence on the part of China of their desire to participate in the fighting in connection with Burma, and all aspects of the war in Asia, and pointed out my feeling that it was advisable to keep China in the picture and not to lose the value of their cooperation and spirit of resistance in the eastern situation.

I then passed on to the situation in the Near East.51 I said that I would pass over the questions of protectorates and mandates which would be taken up at a later stage, but that we now have more immediate questions that come into our consideration of our policies toward that area. It has been our hope that Syria and Lebanon would be given a chance to have more liberal governments, but it appears to us now that the British, while probably having the same attitude toward the subject, apparently may have some agreement with de Gaulle by which they would be turning over a large measure of control of those areas to de Gaulle. Mr. Eden said that it was the policy of the British Government to have Syria and Lebanon set up their independence by treaty, probably much along the lines of the Egyptian arrangement, but they had also in mind that if any foreign power is permitted to come into that picture, that foreign power would be France. I said that it would perhaps be well if Mr. Strang would discuss this matter in more detail with Mr. Murray,52 and would perhaps give, in so far as possible, a rather fuller exposition of the British attitude toward the subject, to which Mr. Eden readily agreed and suggested that perhaps the Free French were talking along lines not entirely consistent with the British lines and the British policy.

I then turned to the subject of the Committee on Administration of Territories, Europe, which is now meeting in London under the aegis of the British War Office. I said that we had a military [Page 34] observer sitting on this Committee in London but that there was not much word which we in the State Department had with regard to these deliberations, and furthermore that there was not much chance of our working with the British Government on political questions with such a method of communication. I raised the question as to whether it would not be possible for both Governments to set up some sort of joint organization in a very small way with not too many officials on it which would have a representative from the British Foreign Office, the Department of State, and the military, in order that we might all function very closely together on subjects relating to political questions having to do with occupied and enemy countries. Mr. Davis at this point said that this was a question which had been discussed in the Security Committee of which he is Chairman, and that there was a real necessity for some sort of intimate cooperation along political lines similar to that now being carried out along military lines between the two Governments. He thought that this sort of organization must necessarily be set up in Washington as the Combined Chiefs of Staff were discussing military questions related to the same areas right here. Mr. Eden brought up the question of discussions along these lines being taken up with the refugee governments and seemed to feel that London was a more convenient place to carry on such discussions than Washington. Mr. Davis and I both expressed the opinion, however, that the first step in such a closer collaboration on political matters should properly be with respect to matters in which there is joint Anglo-American operation, both before the operation is undertaken and after; that this kind of collaboration would go very far toward helping to clarify our relationships with the North African situation, both political and in the economic field, upon which there could be much clearer and closer functioning between the political branches of the two Governments, and that the further question of bringing in other governments could arise as matters relating to their territories came up.

It was decided that Mr. Strang and Mr. Dunn would go into this matter with a view to further exploring the possibilities and reporting to us at a later stage in our conversations.

C[ordell] H[ull]
  1. Ray Atherton, Acting Chief of the Division of European Affairs.↩
  2. James C. Dunn, Adviser on Political Relations.↩
  3. See section entitled “Bermuda Conference to consider the refugee problem, April 19–28, 1943 …, vol. i, pp. 134 ff.↩
  4. Breckinridge Long, Assistant Secretary of State.↩
  5. Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army.↩
  6. British member of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington.↩
  7. Charles L. McNary, Senator from Oregon.↩
  8. For text of United States draft of a declaration by the United Nations on national independence, March 9, 1943, submitted by Secretary Hull to President Roosevelt on March 17, see vol. i, p. 747.↩
  9. On February 4, 1943, the British Ambassador handed to Secretary Hull a draft proposal of a joint declaration of colonial policy noting that while some peoples were far advanced, others were not ready to achieve security and prosperity by themselves, and it was therefore the duty of “parent” or “trustee” states to guide and develop social, economic, and political institutions of the colonial peoples until they were able to discharge the responsibilities of government. It was proposed that regional commissions be established, comprising the “parent” or “trustee” states concerned in the region, as well as other states having strategic or economic interests there, in order to provide effective machinery for consultation and collaboration for the advancement of colonial peoples and the general welfare of mankind. “Parent” or “trustee” states would, however, remain responsible for administration of their territories. (Memorandum of conversation, by the Secretary of State, February 4, 1943, with annex, “Draft of Joint Declaration of Colonial Policy”, filed under 500.CC/2–443.)↩
  10. Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs and Defense, Union of South Africa.↩
  11. See pp. 213 ff.↩
  12. Radio speech of March 21, 1943, on postwar policy; for text, see Congressional Record, vol. 89, pt. 9, p. A1366.↩
  13. See vol. iv, pp. 1–19.↩
  14. Wallace Murray, Adviser on Political Relations.↩