845.01/120
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Welles) to the Secretary of State
The Secretary: This suggested letter for you to send to the President raises, it seems to me, some very important considerations.
Naturally, if point three in the joint declaration of the Atlantic has any real meaning, it should be regarded as all-inclusive and consequently applicable to the peoples of India and of Burma.
But it seems to me that this Government, in regard to this problem, at least at the present moment, is facing a question of expediency. The British have been governing India in one form or another for well over a hundred years. The highest caliber organization of the entire British civil service is that which has been built up by the British Government over the years in the Indian service. From the information which Lord Halifax has personally given to me—and I think it is generally conceded that he has probably been the most liberal viceroy that India has ever had—it is the consensus of opinion of the British civil servants most experienced in Indian affairs that any immediate change in the status of India would immediately create internal dissension in India on a very wide scale and in all probability would give rise to a situation with which the meager number of British now in India could not cope. In other words, the immediate granting of dominion status would create a situation in India exactly the opposite of that which Mr. Murray and those who join him in their recommendation to you forecast.
[Page 187]Deeply as I sympathize with the objective which is sought in this proposed letter, I cannot believe that any officials in our own Government are sufficiently familiar with Indian affairs to make it possible for their judgment and recommendations to be put up against the judgment and recommendations of the competent British authorities themselves.
The status of India is an issue that has been used against the British Government by the extreme fringes of the Left Wing in this country, particularly during the time that the Communist Party was opposing Great Britain, and by the extreme groups among the Irish in this country. I have never yet found that this issue meant very much to public opinion in general in the United States. For that reason it would not seem to me a matter which has immediate political significance so far as public opinion in the United States is concerned. I also have the strong feeling, in view of Mr. Churchill’s well-known and frequently published attitude concerning the status of India, that he would inevitably feel, should this Government intervene even in the informal manner suggested, that the United States was taking advantage of Great Britain’s present situation and her dependence upon this country in order to try to force Great Britain to take an immediate step which he personally has consistently opposed, and to which the overwhelming majority of the British authorities, civil and military, are likewise opposed.
For all of these reasons I recommend against the intervention of this Government at this time in the manner proposed unless we are convinced that some step of this character is imperatively required from the standpoint of our own national policy, and of our national defense.26
- Attached to this memorandum is a note by Cecil W. Gray, assistant to the Secretary of State, for Mr. Murray which states: “The Secretary said he didn’t care to send this out now; that, if you wished, you could take it up again with U[nder Secretary].”↩