Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, General: The United Nations, Volume I

IO Files

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Dependent Areas (Gerig)

[Washington,] April 7, 1945.

Subject: Conversations on Territorial Trusteeships.

Participants:	S—Mr. Raynor
	DA—Mr. Gerig
	Major Correa, of the Navy Department27
	Mr. Harvey Bundy, of the War Department28

Mr. Raynor and I went to the Navy Department this morning to show Major Correa and Mr. Bundy the draft memorandum which had been prepared for the President,²⁹ recommending that the four Cabinet Officers³⁰ should present to the President the various aspects of the issue concerning conversations on territorial trusteeship. Mr. Raynor stated that we wished to make certain that the references to the position taken by the Secretaries of War and Navy were correctly stated in the memorandum.

After reading the memorandum, Mr. Bundy and Major Correa said that the memorandum, in effect, means that the Secretary of State had changed his position from that agreed to last Monday,³¹ and that he was now proposing that the conversations should not be postponed, and that the present draft plan on trusteeship should be taken as a basis of American policy.

Mr. Raynor stated that the Secretary of State had taken the advice of a number of officers and had come to the conclusion that, in view of the Yalta agreement to discuss this question,³² he could not recommend postponement, and that instead he urged that both the views of the War and Navy Departments and the differing views of the State and Interior Departments should be laid before the President for decision.

After discussing several minor points to which they objected in the memorandum, it became clear that the disagreement is not over the trusteeship plan but with the discussion at this time of any trusteeship structure or arrangement. The view of the Secretaries of War and Navy is that it is impossible to discuss trusteeship machinery without reference to specific territories, and further, that such discussion might seriously interfere with the success of the Conference.

We replied that there was some risk in this, but that there was perhaps a greater risk in not taking up the subject of trusteeships at all, in view of the fact that the public has already been informed that such discussions would take place and that the Yalta agreement required that the discussions be held. They agreed that the decision to hold discussions had been taken at Yalta but still hoped that after reconsideration the discussions could either be postponed or confined merely to a resolution at San Francisco that the question be considered by the United Nations Organization after its establishment.

We agreed that the only fundamental difference between us was the question of postponing the conversations, and that the remaining differences in regard to the trusteeship plan (Document D-1k, March 22, 1945³³) are quite easily reconcilable.

The differences in regard to the plan boiled down essentially to:

1. That the trusteeship arrangements should be negotiated by the Security Council instead of the General Assembly; and

2. That a policy statement should be made when the plan is presented, so that the public would clearly understand that strategic rights, especially with respect to the Pacific areas, are fully safeguarded and that the trusteeship principle in these areas is applied in form but not in substance. They believe that candor in this respect is necessary and desirable.

Within an hour after this conversation, Mr. Bundy telephoned a supplementary statement to our draft, setting out in somewhat more detail the recommendation of the War and Navy Departments. At the same time, he suggested the addition of a paragraph at the head of Recommendation 2³⁴ and suggested one or two slight verbal alterations which have been inserted in the second draft for the President.

He asked that the revised copy should be given to him on Sunday or Monday morning, in order that he could clear it with the Secretary, in the hope that he would agree on laying only one memorandum before the President rather than having the War and Navy Departments submit a separate memorandum.

27. Maj. Mathias F. Correa, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy.
28. Harvey H. Bundy, Special Assistant to the Secretary of War.
29. Draft not printed. See telegram of April 9 from the Secretary of State to President Roosevelt, p. 211.
30. Secretaries Stettinius, Stimson, Forrestal, and Ickes.
31. For data on the meeting of April 2, see extracts from the Diary, 18 March-7 April, p. 140; see also extract from the Diary, 8–14 April, p. 209.
32. See press release of April 3 on this subject, Department of State Bulletin, April 8, 1945, p. 601.
33. See memorandum by the Secretary of State to President Roosevelt, April 9, and footnote 59, p. 214.
34. For recommendation 2, see telegram of April 9 from the Secretary of State to President Roosevelt, p. 211, paragraph numbered 2.