Dispatch 9/46 WASHINGTON, 25 January 1946

In various telegrams during the third quarter of 1945 I had the
honour to report to you trends of opinion in the United States on
the subject of the future control of islands in the Pacific which
might have value as military, naval and air bases. You will recall
that at the time of the San Francisco Conference, and in the
months following, there was evidence of conflict within the United
States Administration and Congress, and confusion in the minds of
the public, regarding the relative importance to the United States
of these island bases, and the lengths to which the United States
might appropriately go to ensure their future employment for the
defence of the American continent. Recent public statements and
comment here serve to indicate that much disagreement and
uncertainty still exists, and that there is considerable substance
in your impression that United States policy on the question of
bases, at least as regards the Pacific, has not yet crystallised.

There have been rumours to the effect that the United States
Delegation to the United Nations Assembly in London has a draft
plan prepared in the State Department, but there is no hint of its
specific provisions and no indication whether it has the blessing
of the Army and Navy. To judge from your telegram No. 69 [1], it
seems possible that you may have received from London some inkling
of definite United States proposals. I am endeavouring to obtain
copies of Dominions Office telegrams Nos. D-2214 [2], D-2215 [3]
and D-2230 [4], which so far have not been repeated here from
London.

The Administration is now under heavy pressure to state explicitly
its policy and intentions on the question of Pacific bases. Press
despatches from London telling of lack of co-ordination on Pacific
Islands policy among the United States delegates have moved the
President and the Acting Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, to
issue statements apparently aimed at clarifying the position of
the United States, but it is doubtful whether these have done much
more than revive public speculation and renew Congressional
criticism.

Until its recent resuscitation, the topic of bases had lain in the
background since August, 1945, when President Truman, on his
return from Berlin, had hastened to correct publicly any
impression that his earlier statement that 'there is not one piece
of territory that we want out of this war' precluded the
acquisition of bases in the Pacific. Within the Administration,
however, it was evident that a struggle between the more assertive
government departments continued behind the scenes. In this
connection, Drew Pearson's column published on 15th October, the
text of which is enclosed, is not without interest, even though
its accuracy in every detail may be doubted.

It was not until the appearance on 15th January of this year of a
press despatch from London to the 'New York Times' expressing
misgivings at the alleged lack of agreement among the American
delegation on trusteeship policy that the issue again became a
live one to the public. The despatch in question contrasted the
willingness of the United Kingdom Government to accept the
principle of placing mandated territories under the supervision of
the Trusteeship Council with the lack of any statement of
intention from the United States regarding the future of Pacific
islands wrested from the Japanese. The United States Delegation
was represented as not only failing to agree on the matter but as
having widely different views on it. It was stated that the State
Department advisers in London were divided, and that in the
absence of a clear lead from Mr. Byrnes, General George Kenney,
the War Department's adviser to the Delegation, was talking about
the need to annex all the islands which the United States might
want, a recommendation which was at variance with that of Admiral
Turner, Navy adviser.

It is being said that President Truman's statement of policy at
his press conference on the following day was made at the behest
of Mr. Byrnes with the object of rebutting the impressions
gathered by American press correspondents in London. Whatever its
object, it cannot be said to have made the Administration's policy
appreciably clearer. It is riot possible to obtain a verbatim
record of what the President actually did say, and the press are
precluded from quoting the President directly on such occasions
without his consent. However, it appears that the President began
by saying that the United States intended to keep all the islands
it needed, and to hand over the remainder to U.N.O. trusteeship.

Under further questioning, he developed the idea of a permanent
sole United States trusteeship of bases essential to American
defence. He appears at least to have made it clear that however
exclusively and possessively the vital bases might in fact be
controlled by the United States, it was the intention that these
areas should be held in the name of the U.N.O. and under the
authority of the Security Council. Annexation was not being
considered. No islands were identified by name, and the President
said that no decision had been made as to which islands might be
considered vital to America's defence.

Press commentators hastened to look up the terms of the
trusteeship provisions of the United Nations Charter and sought to
reconcile the maintenance of unobstructed United States control
with the exercise of the veto in the Security Council by one of
the great powers. The conclusion was reached that when once the
United States had agreed to place a strategic base under the
authority of the Security Council, its own control over that area
would be circumscribed by the veto power in the Council; but that
the United States could name the terms on which it was prepared to
submit such an area to the authority of the Council, and that
until such terms were accepted the United States was within its
rights in remaining in sole control. In other words, the United
States was protected by the terms of the Charter from having to
surrender unlimited possession of former Japanese islands on other
than its own conditions.

But even this conclusion has not mollified a number of Congressmen
who reacted strongly against the President's statement. The most
vocal of these have been Senators Byrd and Eastland, Democrats,
and Tobey and Capehart, Republicans, who have reaffirmed their
opposition to any relinquishment of undivided American control of
essential bases. These Senators claim that they received verbal
assurances at San Francisco from Mr. Stettinius, Senators Connally
and Vandenberg and Mr. Stassen [5] that the right of the United
States to do whatever it might wish in the islands concerned would
not be limited under the Charter. Senator Capehart has once again
declared that Pacific bases essential to the United States should
be retained 'as sovereign soil' and should not be subject to any
outside control, and both he and Senator Eastland have hinted that
any trusteeship agreement limiting such freedom from control would
have no chance of obtaining Senate approval. To the argument that
the United States retains the power to determine the conditions
under which it will offer bases for trusteeship, Senator Byrd has
replied: 'I think it would be incongruous for this nation to say
to the Security Council that "we propose a trusteeship only on
certain conditions and if you disagree we'll do as we please
anyway". I don't want us to be in a position where we may have
arbitrarily to keep possession of these islands in defiance of
U.N.O. disapproval. I think it would be better if we did not
submit the question.' The rest of his statement retraces familiar
ground: the islands should be America's exclusive property; they
were 'won by the blood of American boys', they are essential to
American security, and their retention is the only thing America
is asking out of this war.

On the other hand, Senator J. W. Fulbright has issued a warning
that the United States cannot expect to cooperate with the rest of
the world on the one hand and act unilaterally in the Pacific on
the other, and Mr. Stassen has urged that the Pacific bases be
placed under trusteeship, pointing out that essential American
security requirements could be safeguarded from the veto in the
Security Council by the exercise of care in the drafting of the
original trusteeship agreement. Even Senator Tobey has declared
that because of his 'deep yearning for world peace' he would not
oppose any treaty because of island control.

Whether or not the State Department was taken by surprise, as some
suggest, by the President's statement, it apparently felt that
some further official clarification of the United States position
was necessary. After declining to comment for several days on the
ground of unfamiliarity with the subject, Dean Acheson, Acting
Secretary of State in Mr. Byrnes absence, gave a press conference
at which he refused to answer specific questions but gave what has
been interpreted as confirmation that if the United States
proposed a trusteeship agreement, and the Security Council refused
to ratify it on United States terms, continued United States
possession and occupation of the area concerned would remain
unaffected. He was silent, however, when he was asked how other
nations might react to American insistence on unilateral control
of an island if the Security Council refused to accept its terms.

On the question of possible retention by the United States of
bases in the category of Manus, Acheson said that such matters
would be discussed with the British Dominions and the United
Nations Organisation if and when they arose.

A number of liberal commentators have during the past few days
deplored this tendency of the Administration, under pressure from
nationalist quarters, to have the best of both worlds by paying
lip-service to the United Nations Charter while undertaking not to
allow United States control to be limited in the Pacific. The 'New
York Herald, Tribune', in recommending trust provisions of the
United Nations Charter as a simple and convenient machinery, poses
the question, 'Are we going to use them to impart some reality
into the idea of an international order in the world, or only as a
lot of handsome window dressing covering our own relapse into as
pure nationalistic power politics as any empire ever played?'
Other voices emphasise the weakening moral position of the United
States, and point again to the inconsistency of demanding a voice
in the control of Europe while seeking to exclude other nations
from sharing control in the Pacific.

Reports of the progress of the Soviet occupation of the Kuril
Islands, which correspondents describe as having all the signs of
intended permanency, have further stimulated discussion and
spurred demands that the Administration disclose its intentions.

There is some speculation as to the exact nature and extent of an
understanding reputed to have been reached with the Russians at
Yalta whereby, it is suggested, the Russians were to have control
of the Kuriles in return for an assurance regarding United States
rights to the conquered Pacific islands. It is feared that the
Russians may seek to use their consent to sole United States
trusteeships in the Pacific as a lever to obtain sole trusteeship
in Tripolitania.

It is noteworthy that throughout all the recent debate there has
been scarcely a reference to the existence, let alone the welfare,
of native peoples on the islands at issue. Those who do
occasionally remember them tend to seek refuge in the comforting
reflection that there are, after all, not many of them.

Meanwhile, a sub-committee of the House of Representatives Naval
Affairs Committee is at present touring all United States naval
establishments in the Pacific. Among its duties, according to its
Chairman, Representative Rivers of South Carolina, is that of
reviewing the findings of the earlier Naval Affairs Sub-Committee
which reported last August and whose report was later sent to the
Department. The investigations of this sub-committee are expected
to have an important effect on the ultimate selection by the
United States Government of the bases in which it wishes to remain
in sole charge.