700.0011 Pacific/28
Memorandum by President Roosevelt to the Secretary of State
This discussion is interesting and inclusive of much information, but may I suggest that it does not fire one’s imagination in favor of neutralization of the islands of the Pacific.
It is, for example, captious to object to the word “neutralization” and suggest the word “non-aggression” for the very simple reason that the laymen of all nations would understand what we were doing if we neutralize the islands of the Pacific against war being waged in them or from them by any of the powers owning them.
Secondly, I throw out agreement type (A) because it means nothing. “Mutual pledges to respect the rights of each signatory in their insular possessions and in their mandated islands in the Pacific” means, in the condition of the world today, exactly nil.
Agreement (B), if you leave out the mutual pledges of non-aggression nonsense, does get us somewhere; “to limit or refrain from erecting fortifications in such islands.” “Why limit or refrain?” Why not agree simply and definitely to erect no fortifications in such islands, and to remove all fortifications, armaments, munitions and implements of war from such islands? That does the trick.
Agreement (C) talks about “outlying dependencies in the region of the Pacific.” Why not list all islands by name which would come under the agreement?
On page #10 the question of possible involvement of the United States is brought up. That can be made perfectly clear by the simple statement that the agreement proposes no enforcement by cooperative action against a violation.
On page #13 the question of the League of Nation[s’] obligations is raised. The agreement I had in mind does not run foul of the League provisions so far as we are concerned.
Page #14 talks about the equilibrium of the Pacific. My suggestion may run contrary to some theoretical equilibrium but it does not run counter to the existing equilibrium under which Japan has a practically “de facto” control in the northwestern Pacific.
The suggestion on page #14 is that nothing should be done because the situation in the Far East may change in the future. Pages #15 and #16 raise the question as to whether other nations would have objections to the plan. Of course, they would.
Page #17—whoever wrote this does not know anything about military and naval facts. The whole tenor of the argument is that this is not the time to do anything; that the proposal is merely idealistic and that an agreement would not be lived up to anyway.
[Page 974]In other words, taking it by and large, this argument all the way through is an argument of defeatism.
Being a realist, I wish you would let me have a talk with the author of this. Will you arrange it?