¹ Comment contained in report by C. H. Johnston to Foreign Office, 15 May 1951, FJ1022/405 (FO371/92549). For examples of issues where the two countries were in disagreement see Ovendale, R., ‘Britain, the United States, and the Recognition of Communist China’, The Historical Journal (03 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wolf, David C., ‘“To Secure a Convenience”: Britain Recognizes China—1950’, Journal of Contemporary History (04 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² A number of monographs on the Japanese peace settlements are in the offing. For work in progress see later footnotes. It should be noted that the Japanese Diplomatic Record Office has yet to release the bulk of its files.

³ George Kennan to Under Secretary of State Lovett, 12 August 1947, 740.0011 P.W. (Peace)18–1147, Box 82, Record Group 59, Japan confidential file 1945–49, State Dept. records, National Archives, Washington DC.

⁴ John Davies Jr to George Kennan, 11 August 1947, Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ For text see Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS) 1948, vol. vi (Washington DC, 1974), pp. 858–62.Google Scholar NSC advised that ‘a final United States position concerning post-treaty arrangements for Japanese military security should not be formulated until the peace negotiations are upon us. It should then be formulated in the light of the prevailing international situation and the degree of internal stability achieved in Japan.’

⁷ Joseph Dodge to General Marquat (head of Economic and Scientific Section, SCAP GHQ), 16 September 1949, Dodge papers 1949, box 2 (Kolko collection, copies in LSE). Dodge, president of the Detroit Bank, was sent by Truman to sort out the Japanese economy.

⁸ William Sebald, MacArthur's political advisor (the title was something of a misnomer), felt of Dodge's austerity plan that ‘the Nine-Point Stabilization Program is perhaps the most unpopular measure the occupation has imposed on Japan, however much it is for Japan's ultimate well being.’ Sebald to State Dept., 26 November 1949, 740.0011 P.W. (Peace)/11–2649, Box 3593, R. G. 59, Japan internal file, National Archives.

⁹ Sebald had noted in 1948 that the Diet resolution favouring an early peace was supported by all political parties, albeit for differing reasons. He thought it was very widely felt that ‘a peace treaty will prove a kind of magic formula by which many of the economic maladjustments now plaguing the nation will be automatically solved’. Sebald to Sec. of State, 9 December 1948, 740.0011 P.W. (Peace)/12–948, Ibid.

¹⁰ See UK record of Bevin-Acheson meeting, London conference, 10 May 1950, FJ1021/73/G (FO371/83830) and Bevin's personal papers (FO800/449). Additional material on Japan from Bevin's own files can be anticipated as alphabeticized records are released by the PRO.

¹¹ H. Graves to Scarlett, 26 January 1950, FJ1021/16 (FO371/83828). Secretary of Defence Louis Johnson was seen to be supporting Voorhees against Acheson.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Douglas to Acheson, 13 July 1949, 740.0011 P.W. (Peace)/7–1349, Box 83, R.G. 59, State Dept. records. The Foreign Office noted influential advocates of an early peace in the American press. Stewart Alsop in the Washington Post and C. L. Sulzberger in the New York Times agreed that delay was hurting U.S.-Japan ties. Graves wrote to Assistant Under Secretary Esler Dening that Alsop's article ‘The Logjam’ (Washington Post, 20 March 1950) ‘could have been culled from my letters to you written since the beginning of November last’.

¹⁴ Gascoigne told Dulles that Britain was thinking in terms of ‘a simple and straightforward document with few restrictive clauses’. Sir Alvary Gascoigne to F.O., 22 June 1950, FJ1021/97 (FO371/83831).

¹⁵ Dulles-Gascoigne conversation, ibid. Dulles was assisted by his east Asian advisor John Allison.

¹⁶ For initial Commonwealth peace preparations see Buckley, , Occupation Diplomacy: Britain, the United States and Japan, 1945–1952’ (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 142–58.Google Scholar

¹⁷ The British Mission in Tokyo (UKLIM) welcomed U.S. schemes to place Japan ‘permanently within her sphere of influence … and to guarantee, in some form, the security of these constitutionally disarmed islands against attack from outside.’ UKLIM annual review for 1949, FJ1011/1 (FO371/83798).

¹⁸ U.S. thinking on a possible security pact evolved slowly. In November 1949 the State Department saw this as only one of a number of options, which also included an ‘International Armed Forces Contingent’ and handing the problem over to the U.N. Security Council. See Howard to Butterworth, 20 November 1949, 740.0011 P.W. (Peace)/10–2049, Box 3593, R.G. 39, State Dept. records.

¹⁹ MFN for Japan had already been rejected by Britain, Australia and New Zealand at the London conference of November 1948. For U.S. report see FRUS, 1948, vol. vi, pp. 1050–4.Google Scholar

²⁰ Board of Trade brief for foreign affairs debate on Japanese peace treaty, 25 July 1951, FJ1022/835 (FO371/92571). BOT warned that ‘it is in the third markets, rather than in the United Kingdom markets that Japanese competition will be the hardest to meet’.

²¹ The Foreign Office advised ministers not to attempt to expound on the nature of possible alterations to the Congo Basin treaties in public. This was wise, given the complexities and controversies over a series of multinational accords stretching back to the Treaty of Berlin. The British aim was to shut Japan out of central and east African markets.

²² For the text of the report of the Commonwealth Working Party on the Japanese Peace Treaty, 1 May-17 May 1950, see FJ1021/75 (FO371/83830). On the British draft paper for the London conference see FJ1021/24 (FO371/83839).

²³ ‘A note on Mr Dulles' personality’, Annex A, FJ 1022/496 (FO371/92553) is unaccountably missing from PRO files.

²⁴ Dening could write, for example, of a meeting with Dulles in September 1950 that ‘Dulles began by saying that at long last the United States were ready to push ahead on this subject, and he set forth at considerable length, and in terms which have long been commonplace in the Foreign Office, what he described as the general philosophy underlying United States thinking on the problem’. Dening to Scott, 23 September 1950, FJ1021/128 (FO371/83833).

²⁵ Sir Alvary Gascoigne to Bevin, 22 June 1950, FJ1021/97 (FO371/83831).

²⁶ For the American background see Hosoya, Chihiro, ‘The Road to San Francisco: The Shaping of American Policy on the Japanese Peace Treaty’, The Japanese Journal of American Studies, no. 1 (1981).Google Scholar

²⁷ Dulles-Gascoigne meeting, 26 June 1950, reported to Bevin, FJ1021/98 (F0371/83831).

²⁸ Dulles had told Dening in September that ‘it was essential to secure the cooperation and good will of the Japanese people. Japan … should be encouraged to develop cultural, social and economic relations with the rest of the world as soon as possible. There were, of course, risks in restoring Japan's full freedom of action. Nevertheless the risks must be faced, and the alternative course of repressing Japan was bound to fail.’ Dening to Scott, 23 September 1950 (see n. 24).

²⁹ It was not particularly impressed by receipt of Dulles' ‘seven principles’, since they were couched in ‘very general terms’. See also R. H. Scott to Dening, 28 November 1950, FJ1021/191 (FO371/83833).

³⁰ C.P. (50) 318, 322 and 323.Google Scholar

³¹ Aide-memoire on Japanese Peace Treaty, Foreign Office to State Department, 5 March 1951, FJ1022/108 (FO371/92533). For the immediate State Department reply see U.S. aide-memoire, 14 March 1951, FJ1022/141 (FO371/92534).

³² British aide-memoire (see n. 31). The U.S., quoting the British Chiefs of Staff, added that ‘an additional object must be to ensure, in so far as possible in a treaty, that Japan continues in friendly association with the free world and that the industrial potential and man-power of Japan should be denied to exploitation by those of aggressive and despotic tendencies.’ U.S. aide-memoire (see n. 31).

³³ This included the need for Japan to recognize the independence of Korea; for the Ryukyu and Bonin islands to be placed under U.S. trusteeship; for the renunciation of Japanese rights in China and all its pre-war mandates, and the cession of South Sakhalin and the Kuriles to the U.S.S.R. The exact definition of the northern islands was the subject of much study but little clarity.

³⁴ The ‘gold-pot’ was Japanese money held by SCAP until the Allies could agree on its disbursement. The U.S. calculated the sum to be $20 million and wished the gold to remain in Japan. Over merchant shipping there was anything but agreement. Britain wanted Japanese excess capacity destroyed.

³⁵ The Foreign Office wanted to ‘affirm in the Treaty Japan's right to defend herself and also to state her ability to enter into defence agreements’.

³⁶ Franks to Foreign Office, 6 April 1951, FJ1022/229 (FO371/92539).

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid. Dulles, of course, saw the Japanese peace treaty in a very different light. It was for him the opportunity to re-emerge from his New York senatorial defeat and regain public attention. The consequences, if his party should finally return to the White House, might be alluring.

³⁹ Allison statement at first Anglo-American meeting on the Japanese peace treaty, 25 April 1951, FJ1022/342 (FO371/92545). Allison led the American side and C. H. Johnston of the Japan and Pacific department headed the British team. British reporting from Tokyo stressed Japanese impatience with its occupiers rather than amity.

⁴⁰ Ibid. Both British and American drafts claimed to be based on the Italian peace treaty of February 1947. The contrast, territorial clauses excepted, between the terms imposed on Italy and Japan is marked. For the text of the Italian peace treaty of 10 February 1947 see Wheeler-Bennett, John W. and Nicholls, Anthony, The Semblance of Peace (London, 1972), pp. 657–709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴¹ Franks to Foreign Office, 4 May 1951, FJ1022/366 (FO371/92547). Britain reserved its position over Formosa, Japan's Antarctic claims, war criminals, Pacific fisheries and Japanese overseas assets. The U.S. was equally non-commital over the Congo Basin Treaties, the Bank for International Settlements and wanted the British commercial annexes to the treaty shortened. The State Department communiqué spoke of the discussions as likely to ‘lengthen the original American draft’ but still produce ‘probably the shortest peace treaty ever devised to end a great war’.

⁴² MacArthur did not see Sir Alvary Gascoigne off at Haneda. This slight would still be recalled by former British diplomats thirty years later. MacArthur's act was the result of British official and media criticism of his handling of the Korean war. See Gascoigne to Bevin, 13 February 1951, F1017/5 (FO371/92061) and Gascoigne to Strang, 11 February, F1017/8/G (FO371/92061).

⁴³ See footnote 1.

⁴⁴ Franks to Foreign Office, 16 May 1951, F1022/406 (FO371/92549). MacArthur's earlier attitude towards the British role in occupied Japan had been very different. The general's knowledge of U.S. domestic politics was hardly infallible as his own efforts in the 1948 Republican primaries demonstrated.

⁴⁵ Dulles cited the need to remove ‘unnecessary pin pricks’. One example was Britain's wish that Japan should formally acknowledge its intent to honour outstanding overseas bond payments. The Japanese government was prepared to give any such assurances in order to facilitate future loans.

⁴⁶ Dulles had been a junior member of the American delegation to Paris and referred on occasion to the misfortunes of the Versailles settlement. Franks noted that ‘his experiences at Versailles are obviously a very real part of his thinking’.

⁴⁷ Minute by C. P. Scott, 19 May 1951, FJ1022/406 (FO371/92549) and report on the Washington and Ottawa talks by C. H. Johnston, 15 May 1951, FJ1022/539 (FO371/92549). The British thought that credit for the Anglo-American drafting ought to go to Gerald Fitzmaurice of the FO's legal division.

⁴⁸ Foreign Office to Franks, 15 June 1951, FJ1022/539 (FO371/92556).

⁴⁹ C.P. (51) 166, 19 June 1951.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Korea was unwelcome so far as Britain was concerned since it had not been a belligerent. London would shortly reject a Korean government note on the rights of its citizens in Japan. The Foreign Office was to argue that ‘this is unacceptable because the large minority in Japan are very troublesome and are used by the Communists to create disturbances’.

⁵¹ Morrison-Dulles first meeting, 4 June 1951, FJ1022/498 (FO371/92553). No record exists of a 40-minute private conversation between the two representatives which preceded the staff meeting.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ American versions of events can be seen in FRUS, 1951, vol. vi, pt i, and the Dulles papers at Princeton.

⁵⁵ Foreign Office brief for Attlee on ‘principles underlying U.K. attitude’ [toward Japanese Peace Treaty], FJ1022/496 (FO371/92553).

⁵⁶ Dening, Esler, 7 June 1951Google Scholar, FJ1022/538(A) (FO371/92555). Minute seen by Morrison.

⁵⁷ Morrison, , 19 June 1951, C.P. (51) 166.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Morrison-Dulles, first meeting, 4 June 1951Google Scholar (see n. 51). Dulles reported to Washington that specific limits on Japanese rearmament were the ‘only major surprise’ and ‘directly contrary’ to earlier British stances. See FRUS (see n. 54), p. 1105.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Younger-Dulles, meeting, 5 June 1951Google Scholar, FJ1022/518 (FO371/92554). Kenneth Younger was minister of state at the Foreign Office.

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Ibid. It is hard to imagine that Prime Minister Yoshida would have made any such agreement. For a detailed examination of the subject of Japanese rearmament see Welfield, John, The Historical Evolution of Japanese Foreign and Defence Policies, 1945–1972 (forthcoming)Google Scholar. Dulles insisted the next day that if the British public knew of the U.S. basing arrangements in Japan its fears would dissolve. He could not, however, let these plans out ‘because of the sensitive state of Japanese opinion.’

⁶³ Morrison-Dulles meeting, 6 June 1951, FJ1022/515 (FO371/92554).

⁶⁴ Statement by Colonel Stanton Babcock, ibid.

⁶⁵ Morrison-Dulles meeting, 8 June 1951, FJ1022/547 (FO371/92556). Morrison won a rider that the U.S. would ‘make a statement about Japan's military development’.

⁶⁶ Johnston, C. H., 15 June 1951Google Scholar, FJ1022/556 (FO371/92556).

⁶⁷ Morrison thought that neither Chinese government ought to be able to sign a treaty with Japan, unless it had the backing of two-thirds of the signatories of the original peace settlement. Morrison-Dulles, meeting, 8 June 1951Google Scholar (see n. 65).

⁶⁸ Ibid.

⁶⁹ Dulles-Attlee, meeting, 8 June 1951Google Scholar, FRUS 1951, vol. vi, pt i, pp. 1109–10.Google Scholar Clues elsewhere suggest that Attice and Dulles hardly got along. See Attlee's characteristically bland account of his interview with Dulles, 8 June 1951, FJ1022/572A (FO371/92557). The prime minister had objected earlier to American schemes to control Okinawa but permit Japan to retain residual sovereignty. He thought that ‘the U.S. were using a curious experiment to avoid [the] charge of ‘imperialism’, but in a way which might well risk U.N. disapproval and that [the] U.S. should face up to becoming a colonial power.’ Morrison minute, 31 May 1951, FJ1022/536A (FO371/92555).

⁷⁰ Morrison-Dulles, meeting, 8 June 1951 (see n. 65).Google Scholar

⁷¹ Dening stressed that the British government's ‘main consideration … was that there should be no change in the position of the Peking or the Formosa Government on account of the Treaty or of subsequent action by Japan’.

⁷² F.O. brief for Morrison, , 7 June 1951Google Scholar, FJ1022/536 (FO371/92555).

⁷³ Dulles-Wilson, (President of the Board of Trade) meeting, 8 June 1951Google Scholar, F1022/516 (FO371/92554). Japan's ‘extremely low labour standards’ were cited by Wilson as responsible for ‘considerable anxiety about Japanese competition in Africa.’ British commercial and financial interests, such as the Textile Fibre Advisory Committee and the China Association, were to gain a lengthy protocol to the final treaty to guard against possible Japanese malpractices. Attempts to remove Japan from the Bank for International Settlements reflected a similar British unease at Japanese prowess.

⁷⁴ CM(5i), 42 mtg., 11 June 1951. The sum involved was small and the claims large. Japan also recognized its liability in principle for reparation payments and reaffirmed its intention to honour its prewar debts.

⁷⁵ CP(51) 158, 9 June 1951, memorandum by Morrison.

⁷⁶ The cabinet had wanted a clause incorporated into the treaty which would preclude Japan from later signing ‘a more favourable Treaty with any other Power unless she also extended the special advantages thereby obtained to the signatories of the original treaty’. CP(51) 155, 7 June 1951.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ CP(51) 158, 9 June 1951.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Ibid. Morrison's later anger over Dulles' behaviour stemmed from a certainty that he had been double crossed.

⁷⁹ The United States would argue in 1952 that Japan's freedom to behave as it wished in international relations was not dependent on allied ratification but had existed from the date of the signing of the peace treaty.

⁸⁰ Shared optimism over India's probable attendance at San Francisco went badly awry. Elsewhere in Asia the principal obstacle to signing the treaty concerned the extent of the Japanese obligation to pay reparations.

⁸¹ Dulles Statement, 14 June 1951, FJ1022/563 (FO371/92557).

⁸² Ibid. In reply to a question from Morrison, Dulles said that Communism ‘could easily take root in Japan’, since ‘it suited the Japanese taste for conformity’. He admitted its drawback was the ‘Russian label’.

⁸³ For British reservations see Buckley, , ‘Defeat, Occupation and Reconciliation: Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1945–52’, in Chihiro, Hosoya (ed.), Japan and Postwar Diplomacy in the Asian-Pacific Region (IUJ, Occasional Papers No. 1, 1984Google Scholar, and ‘Competitor and Ally: British Perceptions of Occupied Japan’ in Burkman, Thomas W. (ed.), The Occupation of Japan: The International Context (MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk, Va, 1984).Google Scholar

⁸⁴ For the text see Dower, John, Empire and Aftermath (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), pp. 407–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁵ Rival interpretations can be found in Guhin, Michael A., John Foster Dulles (New York, 1972)Google Scholar, and Wheeler-Bennett, and Nicholls, , The Semblance of Peace, appendix B, pp. 614–20.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ But see also Chihiro, Hosoya, ‘Japan, China, the United States and the United Kingdom, 1951–52: The Case of the “Yoshida Letter”’, International Affairs (Spring 1984).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ The suggestion that Japan was merely rejoining the club it had known in earlier days may be open to question. Differences between the international situation of the 1920s and the Cold War years make the comparison less than apparent. See Iriye, Akira, Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1981).Google Scholar