Cablegram 794 CANBERRA, 9 July 1947, 2.55 p.m.
SECRET
Your 873- [1] Japanese Settlement.
If reply has not yet been received from London please make our position known to State Department. You should inform United Kingdom Embassy that this is being done.
2. As British Commonwealth Governments have arranged to meet at Canberra in August to discuss matters connected with the Japanese settlement, including procedure, any requests for expression of their views at this stage would presumably meet with the reply that they wished first to have the benefit of exchange of views at the Canberra conference. [2]
3. You will note the Minister’s statement to-day that the holding of this conference was in accordance with long established practice, by which British Commonwealth countries discussed together, without commitment, matters subsequently to be discussed at international conferences. He added that this procedure was well understood by all nations, and had frequently been followed by other nations, co-operating on a basis of regional or other special interests.
_
1 Dispatched 5 July. It reported that the UK Embassy in Washington was still awaiting instructions concerning the US intention to call a preliminary conference to discuss the Japanese peace settlement.
2 By 8 July the UK Embassy in Washington had not yet received instructions, so Makin and Stirling met Lovett and requested that the question of procedure for a Japanese settlement not be raised until after the August conference in Canberra. Lovett gave the impression that the United States ‘did not contemplate any move in the near future’. Makin’s cablegram reporting the meeting crossed with this one.
_
[AA: A1068, P47/10/61/10, i]