Skip to main content

Historical documents

187 Eggleston to Evatt

Cablegram 699 WASHINGTON, 13 August 1945, 8.03 p.m.

MOST IMMEDIATE TOP SECRET

Your 1140 the immediately succeeding telegram referred to was,
when it arrived, undecypherable. [1] Under the circumstances I
obtained an inter-view with Mr. Byrnes at 3 o'clock this
afternoon. At this interview I presented him with a memorandum
which contained the substance of your views. [2] I explained to
him that we had intended that these views should have been
presented to him before the sending of the answer to Japan but
that they had not come through in time, but that we thought that
it was desirable to let him know the Australian Government's views
as they would, I thought, be useful in the interpretation of the
execution of whatever arrangements were made with Japan. I
emphasised the following points-
That Australia had a very great interest in the Pacific settlement
as Australia and New Zealand were the only two western Countries
whose destinies would be [3] of any Asiatic power that it would
take a long time [before] there was an equilibrium. This led Mr.

Byrnes into talking about hard and soft peace. He said he did not
know how to define either and he was obviously very greatly
influenced by what he saw in Germany and he was not willing to
have in the case of Japan the same task of reconstruction that
they had in Germany.

I then drew attention to the economic section of your views and I
pointed out that we believed that the Japanese economic system was
such that Japan had to seek for foreign markets and become an
economic aggressor because of the low standard of living of the
bulk of her population. His reply was that he did not know how one
country could influence the standard of living of another country
and I suggested that it could encourage movements of internal
readjustment so as to bring this about and that our government was
strong in the view that such a readjustment would have immense
benefit to national and international stability. He said he agreed
in the main with this. I said that our Government wished the same
encouragement to be given to the democratic movements in Japan, to
which he also agreed. In drawing attention to these matters I
referred to the particular clauses in the memorandum which I
presented to him.

I said there was another matter which seemed to me to require more
attention than had been given and that is that the Japanese
Government must take the responsibility of getting their troops
from the occupied territories and the outlying islands. He
appeared to think this was taken care of but I expressed my doubts
on this.

I pointed to the clause in the memorandum about the Emperor in
which it said that the Emperor should be used to implement the
surrender but that his powers and prerogatives should lapse
indefinitely and that no exceptions should be permitted to the
general rule that every person to whom war crimes can justly be
imputed is liable to punishment. I said in conclusion that
Australia desired to be associated in the surrender arrangements
and he said that he quite understood our position, that he had a
long experience of politics and he said that he hinted that before
the final terms of settlement we would be satisfied as to the
position given to us.

1 Cablegram 1140 was dispatched 12 August, (on file AA :A3300,
45/290). It instructed the Legation in Washington to convey the
Australian Govt's views, as contained in Documents 171, 176 and
178, to the Secretary of State. It was in fact the preceding
cablegram (Document 178, repeated to Washington as cablegram no.

1139) which arrived in Washington in an indecypherable state.

2 The text of the memorandum (undated) is attached to Eggleston's
dispatch 4/45, dated 17 August, in AA : A4231/2, Washington 1943,
1-19. It is also published in Department of State, Foreign
Relations of the United States, 1945, vol. VI, pp. 650-4.

3 A sign here indicates 'portion omitted repetition being
obtained'. No correcting cablegram has been found.


[AA : A1838/2, 277/2, i]
Last Updated: 11 September 2013
Back to top