CHAPTER XVIII

Remaining Preparation on Territorial Problems

W

ITH ITS FINAL series of recommendations concerning the Far East approved on November 17, 1944, the Post-War Programs Committee concluded its work on territorial problems. The term "territorial problems" throughout the preparation was interpreted to mean all the postwar political, economic, social, boundary, and security problems of individual countries so far as these problems might have concern for the United States. Beginning with the surrender of Italy in September 1943 and, to a rapidly increasing degree, from the summer of 1944 on, such problems in Europe were becoming matters for day-by-day decision and action. They thus came more and more within the usual operating responsibilities of the appropriate geographic offices and divisions of the Department.

In the spring and summer of 1944, the Post-War Programs Committee had approved a comprehensive series of recommendations on both transitional and long-range United States policy toward Germany, its satellites, and the Allied countries under its occupation. By the end of 1944, as will be recalled, the enemy had been expelled in whole or in part from most of these occupied states, and three of the four satellites were out of the war. The withdrawal of the fourth, Hungary, was a matter of weeks only, and the complete liberation of the occupied countries from enemy control was obviously imminent. The Post-War Programs Committee's recommendations on United States policy toward these states for the period immediately following their surrender or liberation were no longer recommendations for future action. They had become policy recommendations to be reviewed and adjusted in the light of existing circumstances for immediate implementation.

New as well as anticipated problems now came to the fore. Whether or not a particular problem had been the subject of preparatory work, the action taken represented current views and decisions by the operating offices and divisions. Those making these decisions had the benefit of the guidance available in the recommendations from

the preparation wherever applicable, but such applicability was determined by the forces and factors that had emerged or were emerging in the wake of the war in the areas directly affected. The only constant, continuing factor was the effort made throughout the preparation and the succeeding current operations to assure to the utmost degree possible the integrity of the national interests of the United States.

Within the Department, as already noted, the Staff and Coordination Committees now replaced, in the territorial as in other fields, the Post-War Programs Committee. The interdivisional country and area committees were retained, however, without basic reorganization and with only normal and occasional alteration in structure thereafter as the regular assignment of an officer was changed or as committees were modified by amalgamation, expansion of a field, completion of work, or rise of some new need. By the winter of 1944-45, these committees had become the organs through which, at a working level, policy recommendations for current and emerging decisions were developed for the consideration and review of the operational offices and at higher policy levels.

For administrative reasons, the geographic sections of the Division of Territorial Studies were not merged with these offices until March 1, 1945. Primary responsibility for the direction and utilization of their work during the interim period, however, rested in the operational offices. The officers of these sections, when their transfer to these offices had been completed, largely continued their participation on the interdivisional committees. The continuity of these committees was thus left substantially intact when the preparatory work and staff moved into operations.

The interdepartmental committees that were functioning before December 20, 1944, were also retained in the reorganization, including the major new committee of this character, the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC), which had begun to function just prior to the reorganization. The earlier interdepartmental Working Security Committee, however, was now absorbed into an ad hoc SWNCC Committee on the Control of Germany, which in February 1945 became the State-War-Navy Coordinating Subcommittee for Europe, still under State Department chairmanship.

In the case of the principal enemy states, the action stage had not yet been reached, but the remaining preparation did not so much involve the formulation of basic policy recommendations as the elaboration and practical application of high policy decisions concerning Germany and of already agreed policy recommendations concerning Japan. The beginning of the transition from preparation to such decisions came first on the question of the treatment of Germany

a transition that was more prolonged and complex than in the case of policy toward Japan. It was marked by the President's decision late in August 19441 to establish an informal "Cabinet Committee on Germany" for the purpose of reaching an agreed policy on this question interdepartmentally and at the highest policy level. It was also marked, the following month, by certain broad and far-reaching decisions regarding Germany arrived at by the President and Prime Minister Churchill at the second Quebec Conference.

2

The "Cabinet Committee" was composed of the Secretaries of State, War, and the Treasury. The Committee met only a few times—on one occasion with the President-over a brief period before and im mediately after the Quebec Conference. In this period, however, there were also individual discussions among the high officials concerned and a number of meetings of their associates. At these meetings, the State Department was represented by ranking officers from the Office of European Affairs and its Division of Central European Affairs. A draft interim directive to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force "regarding the military government of Germany in the period immediately following the cessation of organized resistance" was drawn up by representatives of the State, War, and Treasury Departments on September 22, 1944. This document reflected not only the recommendations of the earlier extraordinary preparation but also the discussions in the "Cabinet Committee" and the decisions reached at the Quebec Conference. These discussions and decisions had likewise to be taken into account in the continuing work on a more definitive document by the Department's Interdivisional Committee on Germany, the interdepartmental Working Security Committee and its successor SWNCC subcommittee and the United States Delegation to the European Advisory Commission in London. Following the Three Power conference at Yalta, the President, in a memorandum to Secretary Stettinius on February 28, 1945, directed the Secretary of State to assume responsibility "for seeing that the conclusions, exclusive of course of military matters, reached at the Crimea Conference, be carried forward." The President asked the Secretary to confer with other Government officials on matters in their respective fields, and "to report to me direct on the progress you are making in carrying the Crimea decisions into effect in conjunction with our Allies."

'Further information on the background of this decision is contained in Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, p. 569.

'A more detailed account of these consultations is contained in Memoirs of Cordell Hull, II, 1604, 1608-09, 1614.

See chapter XX, p. 391 ff.

This order resulted in the establishment of a new interdepartmental committee on March 15, 1945, at a meeting of the Secretaries of State, War, and the Treasury, the Foreign Economic Administrator, and a representative of the Secretary of the Navy. The new committee, known as the Informal Policy Committee on Germany, functioned under the chairmanship of Assistant Secretary of State Clayton. Secretary of War Stimson named Assistant Secretary John J. McCloy to serve as his representative with General Hilldring as alternate. Secretary Morgenthau designated Assistant Secretary Harry D. White, with V. Frank Coe as alternate. The Foreign Economic Administrator, Leo T. Crowley, named H. H. Fowler as his representative, and Under Secretary Ralph A. Bard with Assistant Secretary Artemus L. Gates were subsequently named to represent the Secretary of the Navy. The secretariat of SWNCC served as the secretariat for this committee.*

The next step occurred while the new committee was getting under way. Following a meeting of high officials with the President on March 22, a memorandum was drawn up jointly by representatives of the State, War, and Treasury Departments, in order to reach an agreed view among these three Departments, summarizing "U. S. policy relating to Germany in the initial post-defeat period." This memorandum was approved by President Roosevelt on March 23 and was then introduced into the European Advisory Commission for consideration. It served as the basis for directives later issued by this Government to the Commander in Chief of United States Forces of Occupation in Germany. On April 26, the Acting Secretary, Mr. Grew, transmitted to President Truman for his approval the first definitive directive for the military government of Germany. This directive had been in the process of development for some months, on the basis of the draft interim directive of September 22, 1944, by the Working Security Committee and later by SWNCC. The proposed directive had been placed before the Informal Policy Committee on Germany for revision in the light of the policy summary approved by President Roosevelt on March 23. The resulting directive was approved by President Truman on May 10, 1945, following consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for transmittal to General Dwight D. Eisenhower."

'The Informal Policy Committee on Germany functioned until the end of August 1945, when the remaining matters on its agenda were transferred to SWNCC.

'Ambassador Winant circulated this document to the European Advisory Commission on Apr. 4, 1945, but it was never more than briefly discussed in the Commission.

"For text of directive to General Eisenhower, see Department of State Bulletin, XIII, 596-607.

On the same day the President approved a further directive, for the guidance of Edwin W. Pauley, the United States Representative on the Moscow Reparations Commission established by the Yalta Conference. This directive had been drawn up by the Informal Policy Committee on Germany on the basis of the Yalta decisions concerning German reparations and of the March 23 directive on general United States policy for the treatment of Germany in the initial post-defeat period.

These basic directives represented current policy decisions arrived at interdepartmentally at the highest policy level below the President, rather than policy recommendations for future decision. While the earlier preparation was reflected in these directives in various ways, the decisions at Quebec and Yalta, particularly in the economic field, had profound influence on them. The Department's Staff Committee was kept informed of these developments but itself took no active part in them.

Since the eventual victory over Japan was plainly less imminent in the first half of 1945 than victory in Europe, the transition from preparation to decision on the problem of the treatment of Japan began later than in the case of Germany. It was also confined to a much shorter period-essentially the months of July and August 1945. This was the period when President Truman, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and Prime Minister Churchill, in a proclamation issued from Potsdam on July 26, announced the terms for Japanese surrender and when the President, after the first Japanese offer of surrender on August 10, approved over the following month a series of basic instruments and directives concerning policy toward Japan at the time of surrender and in the initial period thereafter."

The basic instruments and directives on Japan emanated from the State-War-Navy Coordinating Subcommittee for the Far East, which was under the chairmanship of the State Department. This subcommittee had been established in January 1945 by SWNCC first as its ad hoc Committee to Consider Problems Which Arise in Connection with Control of Pacific and Far Eastern Areas, but was shortly renamed. Beginning in February those participating in its meetings included the two senior officers of the Far East section in the Division

'These basic instruments and directives were: the Instrument of Surrender, a proclamation for issuance by the Japanese Emperor, and a directive to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, which were approved by SWNCC and by the President on Aug. 12, 1945; General Order No. 1 concerned with military stipulations and directives approved by the President later that month; and a general directive entitled "United States Initial Post-Surrender Policy for Japan", approved by the President on Sept. 6. For the texts of these documents, see Occupation of Japan: Policy and Progress, Department of State publication 2671, Far Eastern Series 17.