894.60/11–1347
The Assistant Secretary of State (Saltzman) to the Under Secretary of the Army (Draper)
My Dear Mr. Draper: You will recall that at the conference of October 28 on Japanese reparations Mr. Martin referred to the desirability that the Departments of the Army and of State should receive the Interim Reports of Overseas Consultants, Inc. As was stated in General Hilldring’s letter of July 28, 1947, to Mr. Petersen, the Department of State is most anxious that these reports be made available on the same basis as they are made available to SCAP, and as regularly as possible, in order to assist in the formulation of our official position in the FEC and for our general guidance on Japanese economic matters.
I would appreciate it if you could have dispatched to SCAP a cable along the lines of the attached proposed draft on this subject.47
[Page 439]You will also recall that mention was made in the course of the conference of the question whether population increase had been taken into account in the determination of levels of industry by the FEC. There appears to be a serious misapprehension on this point in Tokyo, which is revealed by the quotation attributed to Sebald in the FEC Weekly Summary of Information on Japanese Economic and Financial Affairs C2–026/42 15 October 1947. Sebald was quoted as stating before the Allied Council for Japan that the FEC decision to set Japanese post-war industrial level at 1930–34 was too low because of failure to allow for population increase.
I would appreciate it if the substance of the attached draft cable on that subject could be dispatched to SCAP.
Sincerely yours,
- Not printed.↩