VEIL LIFTED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21901, 20 December 1945, Page 7

VEIL LIFTED

ATLANTIC CHARTER

AMERICA’S ROLE

SEIZURE OF AZORES

OFFICIAL’S DISCLOSURES (11 a.m.) WASHINGTON, Dec. 19.

The veil of secrecy surrounding tne Atlantic Charter negotiations at sea between President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill was lifted for members or the Pearl Harbour investigating committee when secret memoranda from Mr. Sumner Welles, former Undcr-Secretary of State, in August, 1941, were inserted in the record of the inquiry. These papers disclosed, first, the war was then going so badly that the British were reconciled to war with Spain and the loss of Gibraltar, and that President Roosevelt tentatively agreed that the United States should seize the Azores as part of a point plan to maintain the southern Atlantic convoy route to England: secondly, Mr. Churchill objected to the United States proposal to promise all peoples free and equal access to the markets and raw materials of the world which were needed for their prosperity; thirdly. President Roosevelt agreed at one time to a parallel warning to Japan. (Mr. Welles, testifying earlier, revealed that the proposed parallel warning to Japan never came off).

Mr. Welles’ memoranda pointed out that the United States came into the Azores picture because a British invasion of the Canary Islands would have left them unable to support their pledge to Portugal to defend the Azores. Mr. Churchill proposed Ihat he notify the Portuguese of it. and suggested that it should ask the United States for assistance. The memoranda added that in addition to the United States undertaking to send an occupation force to the Azores, it was agreed that the Brazilian Government should be asked to send at least a token force to participate in the expedition.