Office of the Historian

FE Files

Memorandum by the Co-Chairman of the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (Taussig)

top secret
Washington, January 16, 1945.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

hongkong

The President told Stanley1 in detail of his discussions on Hongkong with Churchill at Cairo. Briefly—the British to make a beau gest[e]: announce the return of Hongkong to China; Ch[i]ang “or his successor” in three days time to announce that Hongkong is a free port and open to the entire world on equal terms; no one in Hongkong to be deprived of his property as of the period prior to the Japanese invasion. …

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  1. The reference is to Oliver F. G. Stanley, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, who was in the process of discussing colonial problems with officials of the Department of State; see Notter, p. 389.↩