Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
well-founded, at least insofar as Churchill's strategic thought was concerned. The Prime Minister was evidently as unwilling to invite an active American role in the liberation of Southeast Asia as the U.S. was to undertake same; as early as February, 1944, Churchill wrote that:
- "A decision to act as a subsidiary force under the Americans in the Pacific raises difficult political questions about the future of our Malayan possessions. If the Japanese should withdraw from them or make peace as the result of the main American thrust, the United States Government would after the victory feel greatly strengthened in its view that all possessions in the East Indian Archipelago should be placed under some international body upon which the United States would exercise a decisive concern."7
The future of Commonwealth territories in Southeast Asia stimulated intense British interest in American intentions for French colonies there. In November and December of 1944, the British expressed to the Uhited States, both in London and in Washington, their concern "that the United States apparently has not yet determined upon its policy toward Indochina."8 The head of the Far Eastern Department in the British Foreign Office told the U.S. Ambassador that:
- "It would be difficult to deny French participation in the liberation of Indochina in light of the increasing strength of the French Government in world affairs, and that, unless a policy to be followed toward Indochina is mutually agreed between our two governments, circumstances may arise at any moment which will place our two governments in a very awkward situation."9
President Roosevelt, however, refused to define his position further, notifying Secretary of State Stettinius on January 1, 1945:
- "I still do not want to get mixed up in any Indo-China decision. It is a matter for postwar.—...I do not want to get mixed up in any military effort toward the liberation of Indo-China from the Japanese.—You can tell Halifax that I made this very clear to Mr. Churchill. From both the military and civil point of view, action at this time is premature."10
However, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff were concurrently planning the removal of American armed forces from Southeast Asia. In response to approaches from French and Dutch officials requesting aid in expelling Japan from their former colonial territories, the U.S. informed them that:
- "All our available forces were committed to fighting the Japanese elsewhere in the Pacific, and Indochina and the East Indies were therefore not included within the sphere of interest of the American Chiefs of Staff."11
When the Combined Chiefs of Staff met at Malta at the end of January, 1945,
