Office of the Historian
  1. Home
  2. Historical Documents
  3. Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, The British Commonwealth, The Far East, Volume VI
  4. Document 890

811.24511B/5–1445

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State

[Washington,] May 14, 1945.
Participants: The President;
Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson;
Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Forrestal;
Senator Millard Tydings;44
Admiral Leahy;45
Admiral Richard Edwards;46
Acting Secretary, Mr. Grew;
President of the Philippines, Mr. Sergio Osmeña.

1. I said to the President that he had approved the suggestion that the question of our needs with respect to the future control of bases in the Philippines could best be taken up by the President directly with President Osmeña. In the meantime the President had received from the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy their respective views regarding such bases and these views had now been incorporated into a document47 which the Secretary of the Navy then submitted. I said that I had suggested this meeting at ten o’clock for a preliminary canter before seeing President Osmeña who was coming at 10:15. The President concurred and read over the paper laid before him.

[Page 1208]

At 10:15 President Osmeña came in, the President explained to him the nature of the document and handed it to President Osmeña. After reading it President Osmeña said that he was in accord with the proposals, whereupon President Truman signed the paper under the words “Agreed to May 14, 1945” and President Osmeña likewise signed the paper. The President asked me to have copies made for his use and to send also to President Osmeña, which I undertook to do.48 All present thereupon withdrew with the exception of Admiral Leahy and myself as I told the President that I had three or four urgent matters to take up with him.

[Here follows an account of discussions on other matters.]

Joseph C. Grew
  1. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs.↩
  2. Fleet Adm. William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the United States Army and Navy.↩
  3. Vice Adm. Richard S. Edwards, Deputy Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations.↩
  4. Infra. ↩
  5. Copies sent to President Truman and President Osmeña on May 14, 1945.↩