Senator FERGUSON. Did you help him to prepare the message to Congress? Mr. WELLES. He asked me to undertake to help him take care of that message; yes. Senator FERGUSON. Did you help him prepare that message. Mr. WELLES. I helped to prepare the original draft; yes. Senator FERGUSON. That was delivered on Monday morning, was it? Mr. WELLES. I would have to have my memory refreshed on that. Senator FERGUSON. That was the 8th? The VICE CHAIRMAN. Monday noon. Mr. WELLES. Monday noon. [1375] Senator FERGUSON. Do you know when Congress recessed the time before; that is, before the 8th? Do you know whether they recessed on the 4th? I think my able colleague, the Senator from Illinois, moved that it recess until Monday morning, or until Monday noon. Did you know that it had recessed? Mr. WELLES. On what day? Mr. WELLES. I undoubtedly knew at the time. I cannot at the moment say just when I knew it, or more about it, other than the fact that I did know it at the time. Senator FERGUSON. Had you worked on the message that is now in your file, that has been offered in evidence, but never delivered to Congress? Would you show it to him, Mr. Counsel? Mr. WELLES. I do not know exactly what message you have in mind, Senator. Mr. GESELL. That is exhibit 19, Senator. [1376] Senator FERGUSON. Exhibit 19. Will you just review exhibit 19 and see whether you had any part in it? Mr. WELLES. I had no part in the drafting of that message whatever. Senator FERGUSON. Do you know whether or not, or did you know, that the President had in mind the delivery of a message such as we have here now in evidence? Mr. WELLES. The draft which is dated November 29, 1941, is that the one you have in mind? Senator FERGUSON. Or any message prior to the 7th, to the day of the attack, on the Japanese far eastern question. Mr. WELLES. I have no knowledge whatever of the preparation of this draft which you have just asked me to refer to. Senator FERGUSON. Were you consulted on any draft prior to Pearl Harbor in relation to our far eastern question? Mr. WELLES. I do not remember that I was consulted with regard to any other draft. Senator FERGUSON. Were you consulted with relation to the draft of the message to Congress on August 21, 1941, known as the Atlantic Charter message? Mr. WELLES. I had no part in the preparation of that draft, as I recall it. I remember that the President told me that he intended to deliver such a message to the Congress at the first opportunity, but I had nothing whatever to do text. Senator FERGUSON. Was the Atlantic Charter in writing and signed by the President and by Mr. Churchill, as indicated in the message? [1377] with the preparation of the Mr. WELLES. The Atlantic Charter, Senator, was a joint communiqué issued by the heads of two governments. As is very often the case, it was not a signed agreement, simply an agreement on a public release by the chiefs of the two governments in order to indicate what their respective policies were and what the objectives were which they sought for a better and more decent world at the end of the war. Senator FERGUSON. It was what you would call, then, in the nature of a press or public release? Mr. WELLES. I should say it was, technically, if you will permit the use of the word "technical," it was technically a joint communiqué, which is a joint release to the public opinion of the world. Senator FERGUSON. And that may account for the fact that in the document now published in the address to Congress it indicates that it was signed by the authors of the communiqué? Mr. WELLES. They both agreed upon it. I remember, just before Mr. Churchill left, since he left before the President did, a final text was gone over, one or two slight changes were made, and it was then sent by the President to be retyped in order that it could be transmitted by radio to Washington. Senator FERGUSON. And was so transmitted, in your opinion? Senator FERGUSON. No press release or communiqué was given in relation to the parallel action that we have discussed earlier? Mr. WELLES. No press communiqué was given in regard to that, because, in my judgment, the President's feeling must have been that it was impossible to conceive of any successful negotiation with the Japanese if it was publicly stated that we were delivering a warning to the Japanese. [1379] Senator FERGUSON. Did you discuss that with the President. Mr. WELLES. I do not remember discussing that phase of it. Senator FERGUSON. As to why no release would be given? Senator FERGUSON. That is all. Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Chairman, just in connection with the Senator's insertion in the record of one paragraph of the New York Times on the speech of Mr. Churchill, the first sentence that the Senator had read was, "It is certain that this has got to stop." I think, in order to show what was being referred to in the previous paragraph, certainly it ought to be incorporated, because Mr. Churchill talked about the menace to the Philippine Islands under the protection of the United States. Senator FERGUSON. I will be glad to have that paragraph in the record. The CHAIRMAN. Why not let the whole speech go in? (An excerpt from the New York Times, August 25, 1941, containing the text of Prime Minister Churchill's address, follows :) [1380] TEXT OF PRIME MINISTER CUURCHILL'S ADDRESS ON MEETING WITH [The New York Times, August 25, 1941] (Following is the text of Prime Minister Winston Churchill's address yesterday as recorded by the New York Times:) I thought you would like me to tell you something about the voyage which I made across the ocean to meet our great friend, the President of the United States. Exactly where we met is a secret, but I don't think I shall be indiscreet if I go so far as to say that it was somewhere in the Atlantic. In a spacious. land-locked bay which reminded me of the west coast of Scotland, powerful American warships; protected by strong flotillas and far-ranging aircraft, awaited our arrival and, as it were, stretched out a hand to help us in. Our party arrived in the newest, or almost the newest British battleship, the Prince of Wales, with a modest escort of British and Canadian destroyers. And there for 3 days I spent my time in company, and I think I may say in comradeship, with Mr. Roosevelt, while all the time the chiefs of the staff and naval and military commanders, both of the British Empire and of the United States, sat together in continual council. President Roosevelt is the thrice-chosen head of the most powerful state and community in the world. I am the servant of King and Parliament, at present charged with the principal direction of our affairs in these fateful times. And it is my [1381] duty also to make sure, as I have made sure, that anything I say or do in the exercise of my office is approved and sustained by the whole British Commonwealth of Nations. Therefore this meeting was bound to be important because of the enormous forces, at present only a partially mobilized, but steadily mobilizing, which are at the disposal of these two major groupings of the human family, the British Empire and the United States, who, fortunately for the progress of mankind, happened to speak the same language and very largely think the same thoughts, or anyhow think a lot of the same thoughts. MEETING WAS SYMBOLIC The meeting was, therefore, symbolic. That is its prime importance. It symbolizes in a form and manner which every one can understand in every land and in every clime, the deep underlying unities which stir and, at decisive moments, rule the English-speaking peoples throughout the world. Would it be presumptuous for me to say that it symbolizes something even more majestic, namely, the marshaling of the good forces of the world against the evil forces which are now so formidable and triumphant and which have cast their cruel spell over the whole of Europe and a large part of Asia. This was a meeting which marks forever in the pages of history the taking up by the English-speaking nations, amid all this peril, tumult and confusion, of the guidance of the [1382] fortunes of the broad toiling masses in all the continents, and our loyal effort, without any clog of selfish interest to lead them forward out of the miseries into which they have been plunged, back to the broad high road of freedom and justice. This is the highest honor and the most glorious opportunity which could ever have come to any branch of the human race. When one beholds. how many currents of extraordinary and terrible events have flowed together to make this harmony, even the most skeptical person must have the feeling that we all have the chance to play our part and do our duty in some great design, the end of which no mortal can foresee. Awful and horrible things I have seen in these days. BARBARISM PLUS SCIENCE The whole of Europe has been wrecked and trampled down by the mechanical weapons and barbaric fury of the Nazis. The most deadly instruments of war science have joined to the extreme refinements of treachery and the most brutal exhibitions of ruthlessness and thus have formed a combine of aggression, the like of which has never been known, before which the rights, the traditions, the characteristics and the structure of many ancient, honored states and peoples have been laid prostrate and are now ground down under the heel and terror of a monster. The Austrians, the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Greeks, the Croats and the [1383] Serbs, above all the great French nation, have been stunned and pinioned. Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, have bought a shameful respite by becoming the jackals of the tiger. But their situation is very little different and will presently be indistinguishable from that of his victims. Sweden, Spain, and Turkey stand appalled, wondering which will be struck down next. Here then is the vast pit into which all the most famous States and races of Europe have been flung and from which, unaided, they can never climb. But all this did not satiate Adolph Hitler. He made a treaty of nonaggression with Soviet Russia, just as he made one with Turkey, in order to keep them quiet until he was ready to attack them. And then, 9 weeks ago today, without a vestige of provocation, he hurled millions of soldiers with all their apparatus upon the neighbor he had called his friend, with the avowed object of destroying Russia and tearing her in pieces. This frightful business is now unfolding day by day before our eyes. Here is a devil who, in a mere spasm of his pride and lust for domination, can condemn two or three millions, perhaps it may be many more, of human beings to speedy and violent death. Let Russia be blotted out. Let Russia be destroyed. Order the armies to advance. Such were his decrees. Accordingly, from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, six or seven millions of soldiers are locked in mortal struggle. [1384] RUSSIA NOT SO EASY Ah, but this time it was not so easy. This time it was not all one way. The Russian armies and all the peoples of the Russian Republic have rallied to the defense of their hearths and homes. For the first time Nazi blood has flowed in a fearful flood. Certainly a million and a half, perhaps two millions of Nazi cannon-fodder, have bit the dust of the endless plains of Russia. The tremendous battle rages along nearly 2,000 miles of front. The Russians fight with magnificent devotion. Not only that, our generals who have visited the Russian front line report with admiration the efficiency of their military organization and the excellence of their equipment. The aggressor is surprised, startled, staggered. For the first time in his experience mass murder has become unprofitable. He retaliates by the most frightful cruelties. As his armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated. Scores of thousands, literally scores of thousands of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German police troops upon the Russian patriots who defend their native soil. Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale or approaching such a scale. And, this is but the beginning. Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks. We are in the presence of a crime without a name. But Europe is not the only continent to be tormented and [1385] devastated by aggression. For five long years the Japanese military factions, seeking to emulate the style of Hitler and Mussolini, taking all their posturing as if it were a new European revelation, have been invading and harrying the 500,000,000 inhabitants of China. Japanese armies have been wandering about the vast land in futile excursions, carrying with them carnage, ruin and corruption, and calling it "the Chinese incident." Now, they stretch a grasping hand into the southern seas of China. They snatch Indochina from the wretched Vichy French. The menace by their movements Siam, menace Singapore, the British link with Australasia, and menace the Philippine Islands under the protection of the United States. JAPAN MUST BE HALTED It is certain that this has got to stop. Every effort will be made to secure a peaceful settlement. The United States are laboring with infinite patience to arrive at a fair and amicable settlement which will give Japan the utmost reassurance for her legitimate interests. We earnestly hope these negotiations will succeed. But this I must say: That if these hopes should fail we shall, of course, range ourselves unhesitatingly at the side of the United States. And thus we come back to the quiet bay, somewhere in the Atlantic, where misty sunshine plays on great ships which carry the White Ensign or the Stars and Stripes. We had the idea when we met there, the President and I, [1386] that without attempting to draw final and formal peace aims, or war aims, it was necessary to give all peoples, and especially the oppressed and conquered peoples, a simple, rough-and-ready wartime statement of the goal toward which the British Commonwealth and the United States mean to make their way and thus make a way for others to march with them on a road which will certainly be painful and may be long. There are, however, two distinct and marked differences in this joint declaration from the attitude adopted by the Allies during the latter part of the last war and no one should overlook them. The United States and Great Britain do not now assume that there will never be any more war again. On the contrary, we intend to take ample precaution to prevent its renewal in any period we can foresee by effectively disarming the guilty nations while remaining suitably protected ourselves. The second difference is this: That instead of trying to ruin German trade by all kinds of additional trade barriers and hindrances, as was the mood of 1917, we have definitely adopted the view that it is not in the interests of the world and of our two countries that any large nation should be unprosperous or shut out from the means of making a decent living for itself and its people by its industry and enterprise. FAR-REACHING CHANGES These are far-reaching changes of principle upon which all tries should ponder. [1387] coun Above all, it was necessary to give hope and the assurance of final victory to those many scores of millions of men and women who are battling for life and freedom or who are already bent down under the Nazi yoke. Hitler and his conferates have for some time past been adjuring and beseeching the populations whom they have wronged and injured to bow to their fate, and to resign themselves to their servitude and, for the sake of some mitigation and indulgences, to collaborate-that is the word-in what is called the new order in Europe. What is this new order which they seek to fasten first upon Europe and, if possible for their ambitions are boundless-upon all the continents of the globe? It is the rule of the Herrenvolk--the master race-who are to put an end to democracy, to parliaments, to the fundamental freedoms and decencies of ordinary men and women, to the historic rights of nations, and give them in exchange the iron rule of Prussia, the universal goose step and the strict efficient discipline, enforced upon the working classes by the political police, with the German concentration camps and firing parties, now so busy in a dozen lands, always handy in the background There is the new order. Napoleon in his glory and genius spread his empire far and wide. There was a time when only the snows of Russia and the white cliffs of Dover with their guardian fleets stood between [1388] him and dominion of the world. Napoleon's armies had a theme. They carried with them the surges of the French Revolution-"Liberty, equality, and fraternity." That was the cry. There was a sweeping away of outworn, medieval systems and aristocratic privilege. There was the land for the people-a new code of law. Nevertheless, Napoleon's empire vanished like a dream. But Hitler-Hitler has no theme-naught but mania, appetite, and exploitation. He has, however, weapons and machinery for grinding down and for holding down conquered countries which are the product-the sadly perverted product-of modern science. HOPE FOR THE CONQUERED The ordeals, therefore, of the conquered peoples will be hard. We must give them hope. We must give them the conviction that their sufferings and their resistances will not be in vain. The tunnel may be dark and long, but at the end there is light. That is the symbolism and that is the message of the Atlantic meeting. Do not despair, brave Norwegians, your land shall be cleansed, not only from the invader but from the filthy quislings who are his tools. Be strong in your souls, Czechs, your independence shall be restored. |