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3/14/54: Reel 4, .rack 2, age 1 MR. ACHESON: But it seemed to us that this didn't diminish the necessity for a treaty; it rather increased it because we were putting more pressure upon a weakening consent to occupation and therefore there had to be a clearer end to the occupation than there was before. I think in the course of-- sometime in 1950, when I don't recall--We had discussions about the general method; how did you go about this? Mr. Byrnes had had a proposal about the treaty; we had the Far Eastern Commission. We thought at one time we'd negotiate through the Far Eastern Commission. But the more we thought of our experience with Germany the more it was clear that all conference methods, whether you TRUMAN CLAIM NY . -NATIONAL ARCHIVES & RECORDS ADMIN- LIST had a CFM arrangement such as the Russians were trying to propose in the spring of '49, or the Far Eastern Commission, whatever negotiating t's COUTINATED techniques you got into, broadening out from a small group into a larger group, would end in utter frustration. And therefore what we had to do, since we were the major parties and interests here, was to work out what we thought we wanted and then by negotiation to get it pretty well accepted and then find a way of formalizing the whole thing in a cere monial performance which would put it through. When we got on to thinking about the forms--the content of the treaty-I think it seemed to us that this was go ing to be pretty rough, because we were likely to find ourselves pretty much in a minority among acx our Allies as to the kind of a treaty, and the only kind of a treaty which we thought with would be successful/ix Japan. It had to be what is known as a 'generous treaty; that is, it couldn't impose a thousand and one restrictions on trade, on this, that and the other thing, reparations which never would be carried out and which would put a burden on us to do the one thing which would destroy the only chance of doing what we were trying to accomplish which was to keep Japan in a happy and harmonious relation with the West. Therefore, it seemed more and more that if we got into