A historical reevaluation of America's role in the Kuril Islands dispute.

As recently as December 1995, Japanese Minister of State Masaki Nakayama announced that, from a legal standpoint, Russia and Japan are still in a state of war."(1) A formal peace treaty ending World War II has continued to elude Moscow and Tokyo, even though both sides have expressed confidence that a treaty terminating Russo-Japanese hostilities will be signed before the turn of the century. One of the primary factors impeding progress on the peace talks has been the territorial dispute over which islands actually constitute the Kuril Island chain.

As background to the Kuril Islands dispute, this article will first examine the early history of the Kurils, when Japan initially gained legal possession over them, and then the World War II negotiations. These negotiations led to the Soviet annexation of the entire Kuril Island chain as well as the Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island, formerly considered an indivisible part of the island of Hokkaido. The article will then consider the Soviet-American exchanges between Stalin and Truman over the exact wording of the United States' General Order No. 1. Finally, it will discuss the pitfalls - such as the so-called "Dulles Threat Incident" - surrounding the Kuril negotiations between Moscow and Tokyo during the 1950s, negotiations that have yet to be completed.

Based on declassified U.S. government documents from the W. Averell Harriman collection at the Library of Congress and the John Foster Dulles collection at Princeton University, this article will conclude that the United States never condoned the permanent cession of all of the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union. Rather, Washington's policy from the Yalta Conference onward merely agreed that Moscow could negotiate directly with Tokyo to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution. In an attempt to assist Japan in these negotiations, John Foster Dulles even suggested in 1956 that Japan link America's planned return of Okinawa to the Soviet return of the disputed Kuril Islands. According to the American viewpoint, in the absence of a Russo-Japanese peace treaty, the four disputed islands in the Kurils occupied by Russia remain Japanese territory.

The Kuril Islands Conflict: An Introduction

According to most scholarly accounts, the Kuril chain consists of thirty-six islands stretching from the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula to the northeastern edge of Hokkaido Island? The two most southern of these - Kunashiri and Etorofu (or in Russian: Kunashir and Iturup) - were traditionally thought by the Japanese to be part of Hokkaido Island. Geographically, the Kuril Island chain is a natural gateway for greater Russian trade and communications with Japan. Strategically, control of these islands effectively cuts off the Sea of Okhotsk from outsiders. For these reasons, both tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union coveted complete sovereignty over this island chain.

Since the eighteenth century, both Japan and Russia have laid claim to the Kuril Islands. Through a series of nineteenth-century Russo-Japanese treaties, the Kurils fell under the ownership of Japan: in the Treaty of Shimoda (1855) and the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1875), Japan handed over her interests in Sakhalin Island to Russia in return for total control of the Kuril Islands. These treaties effectively settled the dispute for the next thirty years. Following the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, the 5 September 1905 Portsmouth Peace Treaty helped set the stage for the future Soviet-Japanese territorial conflict following World War II, since Japan not only retained the Kurils, but also regained sovereignty over the southern half of Sakhalin. This established a new balance of power in northeast Asia, which remained in Japan's favor until World War II.

With the opening of Soviet-American negotiations for Soviet entry into the Pacific War, the centuries-old dispute over the Kuril Islands reemerged. This time, however, the United States became a key player in determining the status of the islands. Through a lengthy series of negotiations and agreements - including the Cairo Declaration, the Teheran Conference, and the Yalta Agreement - the Soviet Union wove a diplomatic web which allowed the Russians to occupy the islands.

The October 1943 Cairo Conference, which the USSR did not attend, first raised the question of postwar territorial acquisitions. On 27 November 1943, the Allies issued the following declaration: "The three great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that ... Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed."(3) It has been argued that at the Teheran Conference, President Franklin Roosevelt was persuaded that the Kuril chain had been awarded to Japan in 1905, following the Russo-Japanese War, and that therefore he was receptive to Stalin's claim that to fortify the USSR's national defense, both the Kurils and southern Sakhalin should become part of the Soviet Union.(4)

Upon returning to Washington, Roosevelt informed the Pacific War Council of Stalin's desires. Prior to the Yalta Conference, special committees within the State Department prepared detailed memoranda concerning both the Kurils and Sakhalin. Professor George H. Blakeslee of Clark University made three recommendations on the Kurils: "(1) the southern Kuriles should be retained by Japan subject to the principles of disarmament to be applied to the entire Japanese Empire; (2) the northern and central Kuriles should be placed under the projected international organization which should designate the Soviet Union as administering authority; and (3) in any case, the retention by Japan of fishing rights in the waters of the northern group should be given consideration."(5)

This memorandum was not included in the Yalta Briefing Book, however, and Roosevelt reportedly went to Yalta with his prior misconception unchanged.(6) On 11 February 1945, at the second day of meetings, Roosevelt held a closed session with Stalin and quickly concluded the fate of the Kurils. The resulting agreement, signed by Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, appeared to support the USSR's claim to the entire island chain. It stated that "the Soviet Union shall enter into the war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that ... the Kurile islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union."(7)

Although historians have asserted that Roosevelt did not know which islands the term "Kuril" included, it is perhaps more significant that the Yalta agreement did not specify that "all" of the Kuril Islands would go to the USSR. This important point was left vague, perhaps because Roosevelt intended that the USSR negotiate a new Kuril treaty with Japan to decide this very issue. In the absence of such a Soviet-Japanese agreement, however, Washington insisted that these disputed islands remained Japanese.

The Yalta Agreement and General Order No. 1

Historians have criticized Roosevelt for ceding all the Kuril Islands to Stalin at Yalta. In reality, only in August 1945 did Stalin push Truman into adding the word "all" before "Kurils" in revised editions of General Order No. 1. Stalin's determination to make this change and his apparent satisfaction once Truman agreed to go along, suggest that this was a new concession that want far beyond Yalta. In fact, according to the State Department's interpretation, Roosevelt's signature at Yalta did not cede any territory to the USSR, but merely granted American acceptance of Stalin's wish to negotiate directly with Japan for the transfer of the Kuril Islands. Although this distinction may appear slight, by extension Washington believed that until the transfer of the Kuril Islands was made official by a Soviet-Japanese peace treaty, all such disputed territory remained Japanese property.

Even though the Yalta agreement did not specify which islands were included in the Kuril chain, almost without exception Roosevelt has been blamed for granting Stalin all of the Kurils. Most recently, in 1998, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa commented that "it is surprising how easily Roosevelt agreed to Stalin's demands." In 1995, Joachim Glaubitz concluded: "Carelessness is too lenient a word to describe Roosevelt's unquestioning acceptance of the Soviet claims ... to the four islands at the south end of the archipelago ." In 1992, Gilbert Rozman attributed Roosevelt's mistakes to his "bad health," and so in "a hurry to conclude the negotiations" he "swallowed Stalin's demand for territory belonging to Japan." Earlier, John Stephan described Roosevelt's action as "a grievous error for which Japan paid clearly," and suggested that it could be due to the president's "simple ignorance and indifference." Meanwhile, David Rees concluded that granting the Kurils to the USSR "may well have been the most significant clause of the Agreement Regarding Japan," because it "partly legitimized the complete Soviet occupation of the archipelago."(8)

The State Department's interpretation of the Yalta agreement undermines these criticisms, however, because while the United States agreed that the USSR and Japan could discuss the transfer of the Kurils, Washington denied that it had the authority to authorize such a transfer. This interpretation first became apparent after 15 August 1945, when Truman issued General Order No. 1 detailing the surrender of the Japanese Armed Forces. In this order, Truman did not specify to whom Japanese troops on the Kuril Islands would surrender, but mentioned only Manchuria, Korea, and Sakhalin: "The Senior Japanese Commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces within Manchuria, Korea north of 38 degrees north latitude and Karafuto [Sakhalin] shall surrender to the Commander in Chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East."(9)

The next day, Stalin sent Truman an urgent message reminding him that according to Yalta "all the Kuril Islands" must be included in the region of surrender to Soviet troops. But, Stalin also made a new demand that was never decided at Yalta: "To include in the region of surrender of the Japanese armed forces to Soviet troops the northern part of the island of Hokkaido ... on the line leading from the city of Kushiro on the eastern coast of the island to the city Rumoe on the western coast of the island, including the named cities into the northern half of the island." Although Stalin called this demand "modest," he warned that "Russian public opinion would be seriously offended if the Russian troops would not have an occupation region in some part of the Japanese proper territory."(10)

Truman refused to consider Stalin's new demand that the Red Army should occupy northern Hokkaido. In an attempt to console Stalin, however, Truman did agree to allow a revised General Order No. 1 to state that Soviet troops could occupy the Kuril Islands: "The Senior Japanese commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces within Manchuria, Korea north of 38 degrees north latitude, Karafuto [Sakhalin] and the Kurile Islands shall surrender to the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East."(11)

But this revised General Order No. 1, issued on 19 August, still did not satisfy Stalin. On 22 August, Stalin informed Truman that: "I and my colleagues did not expect...you [to] refuse to satisfy the request of the Soviet Union for the inclusion of the Northern part of the Island Hokkaido." In a final attempt to placate Stalin, therefore, Truman agreed to revise General Order No. 1 for the third time. In its final form, this order read: "The senior Japanese commanders and all ground, sea, air, and auxiliary forces within Manchuria, Korea north of 38 degrees north latitude, Karafuto, and all of the Kurile Islands shall surrender to the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East."(12)

Truman undoubtedly hoped that by adding the word "all," he could dissuade Stalin from insisting on occupying northern Hokkaido.(13) But his one-word revision was destined to have enormous consequences, since based on the final wording of General Order No. 1, Stalin now claimed that the two southernmost islands in the Kuril Island chain - Kunashiri and Etorofu - had also been ceded to Russia, even though the Yalta agreement did not actually specify that these islands were part of the Kurils. Soviet troops occupied Etorofu on 29 August 1945 and Kunashiri on 1 September 1945.

Although Truman's change makes it appear that he ceded all of the Kuril Islands to Stalin, it is important to emphasize that General Order No. 1 merely discussed the occupation of Japanese territory, not its permanent cession. What Truman actually did, therefore, was to grant Stalin's 16 August request to allow Soviet forces to occupy "Japanese proper territory." Truman drew the line between Hokkaido and the islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu, however, and he refused to allow Soviet troops to occupy territory on the main Japanese islands. On 27 August, Truman made it absolutely clear to Stalin that Soviet troops occupied the Kurils temporarily and that they were not yet Soviet property. Truman concisely summarized the State Department's interpretation of the Yalta agreement when he informed Stalin, "You evidently misunderstood my message [about the Kuril Islands]. . . . I was not speaking about any territory of the Soviet Republic. I was speaking of the Kurile Islands, Japanese territory, disposition of which must be made at a peace settlement. I was advised that my predecessor agreed to support in the peace settlement the Soviet acquisition of those islands."(14)

Whereas all previous Soviet-American correspondence had been vague as to the actual status of the Kuril Islands, Truman's 27 August letter reconfirms that General Order No. 1 did not hand over all the Kuril Islands to the USSR, but merely granted Soviet forces the right to occupy Kunashiri and Etorofu temporarily. Truman's statement also disproves Soviet claims that they already held full sovereignty over the Kurils. Only an official agreement between the USSR and Japan could transfer this sovereignty. Prior to the completion of a Soviet-Japanese peace treaty transferring the Kurils to the USSR, therefore, Washington concluded that the islands remained Japanese territory.

The Kurils in Postwar Asia

Soviet troops did not stop at Kunashiri and Etorofu, but during 14 September 1945 occupied the Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island. Although there was no historical precedent, Moscow insisted that both the Habomais and Shikotan were part of the Kuril Islands. On 20 September, Moscow unilaterally declared that all the Kurils, including the Habomais and Shikotan, were now Soviet territory. The final step in this process was the inclusion on 25 February 1947 of the Kurils in the Soviet Constitution as an "integral component of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic."(15)

Instead of resolving the Kuril Islands controversy, these Soviet actions perpetuated it, making this dispute an important source of friction at the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference and the Soviet-Japanese Peace negotiations that followed. Prior to the conference, the United States decided to place Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands under a "trusteeship with the United States as administering authority."(16) Washington undoubtedly hoped that the USSR would do the same with the Kurils, but Moscow instead continued to claim full sovereignty not only over the Kurils, but also over the Habomais and Shikotan.

During March 1951, immediately prior to the San Francisco Conference, John Foster Dulles outlined the tentative terms of the peace treaty and suggested that recognition of the Soviet claim over the Kurils would be contingent upon full Soviet participation at the conference. Meanwhile, Japan pressed the United States to help obtain the return of the southern Kurils. Washington acknowledged neither Soviet nor Japanese claims to the Kurils, but stated that its official position concerning the Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island was that they were not part of the Kuril chain.

On 7 September 1951, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida delivered an address to the conference marking the beginning of Japan's legal and diplomatic attempts to regain control of the disputed islands.(17) Yoshida condemned the Soviet position: "With respect to the Kurils . . . the Soviet delegate spoke the other day as though Japan had grabbed them by aggression. To state the truth, Japan's ownership of the South Kurils was never disputed by the Tsarist Government . . . the North and South Kurils were placed under Soviet occupation as of September 20, 1945, shortly after Japan's surrender. Even the islands of Habomai and Shikotan, constituting part of Hokkaido, one of Japan's four main islands, are still being occupied by Soviet forces who landed there without authorization."(18)

The final Japanese peace treaty was signed by forty-nine countries, including Japan. The USSR, however, withdrew from the conference after failing to block the proceedings. Nevertheless, Article II(c) of the treaty appeared to conform to the Yalta agreement by stating that "Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 Sept. 1905."(19) But, the State Department later clarified that "the Habomai Islands and Shikotan . . . are properly a part of Hokkaido and that Japan is entitled to sovereignty over them."(20) An agreement between the United States and Great Britain specified that territorial rights would not be granted to nations that did not sign the San Francisco peace treaty. Therefore, the Kurils were not formally recognized as Soviet territory. Until the USSR and Japan resolved the Kuril dispute, "these territories [would] remain in a state of international limbo."(21)

On 12 September 1954, Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov called for normalization of relations with Japan. According to the 12 September 1954 edition of Pravda, Moscow's only precondition was an expression of willingness from the Japanese. In December 1954, Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama responded by announcing that a central goal of his administration would be normalization of ties with the USSR. During June 1955, Soviet-Japanese talks opened in London. Tokyo notified its negotiators that the minimum territorial requirement for a settlement was the unconditional return of the Habomais and Shikotan as integral parts of Japanese territory. Although the negotiators were also to ask for the southern Kurils for "historic reasons," their return was not essential to the settlement.

By August 1955, Soviet Ambassador Jacob Malik offered to return the Habomais and Shikotan, if Japan would agree to keep the islands demilitarized and closed to foreign ships. The initial American response to the Soviet-Japanese negotiations was cautious opposition. As early as 7 April 1955, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles observed at a meeting of the National Security Council that full support for the Japanese position could potentially undermine America's rights on Okinawa. In May 1955, Dulles also suggested publicly that Japan's detente with the Communist nations was becoming an obstacle to Japanese aid legislation under consideration in the U.S. Congress.(22)

As Japan was considering Ambassador Malik's proposal, the United States government raised a number of objections. Specifically, on 20 September 1955, a memorandum from Secretary of State Dulles ordered Ambassador Allison in Tokyo to advise the Japanese government of the following views:(23)

a) we hope Japan will do nothing implying recognition of Soviet sovereignty over the Kuriles and South Sakhalin, disposition of which should be left for future international decision;

b) the Soviet proposal restricting entry to the Japan Sea violates international law and would nullify naval aspects of the U.S.-Japanese Security Treaty; and

c) the Soviet proposal for demilitarization of the Habomais and Shikotan appears to be an unjust derogation of Japanese sovereignty over the islands.

In response to this American memorandum, Japan countered Ambassador Malik's proposal with a strong reassertion of its claim to the Habomais and Shikotan, as well over the other occupied southern Kuril Islands, and added a request for future negotiations on the status of southern Sakhalin. Malik refused and the Soviet-Japanese talks recessed.

The approaching new year found talks at a standstill. Moscow vetoed Japan's admission to the United Nations in December 1955, offering its approval only after the conclusion of a Soviet-Japanese peace treaty.(24) When it appeared that Japanese public opinion might force Tokyo to make concessions, Dulles sent Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu a message on 23 December 1955, urging him to adopt "a firm negotiating position" and stating that "Japan will come out well in negotiations with the Soviets if it persists steadfastly in seeking to achieve a fair and reasonable agreement."(25) Early in 1956, a new possibility arose in the Soviet-Japanese talks. This involved concluding an intermediate Soviet-Japanese agreement, while agreeing to postpone resolution of territorial issues to a later date. This so-called "Adenauer formula" had been applied successfully in the normalization of Soviet-West German relations. However, Hatoyama's government was committed to rejecting any treaty that did not address the territorial issue.

Reevaluating the 1956 "Dulles Threat Incident"

During early spring 1956, Moscow announced plans to enforce fishing restrictions in the Bering Sea and northern Pacific starting on 15 May 1956. When Japan attempted to negotiate a separate agreement on fishing rights, the Soviet Union refused, linking this firmly to the issue of diplomatic relations. This forced Japan to reopen talks under less than favorable conditions. A fishery pact soon followed and further territorial negotiations resumed. By July 1956 Japan's new plenipotentiary, Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, had abandoned Japan's claims on Sakhalin and even suggested during a visit to Moscow that he would accept a peace treaty following the return of only two of the disputed islands, the Habomais and Shikotan. Tokyo, however, rejected this notion, prompting the American government to involve itself in what appeared to be an increasingly difficult impasse in the negotiations.

In August 1956, in the midst of Soviet-Japanese negotiations in London, Secretary of State Dulles informed Foreign Minister Shigemitsu that if Japan gave up its claim to the southern Kuril islands, then the United States might feel obliged to retain Okinawa in perpetuity. News of this exchange soon fed rumors in both Moscow and Tokyo that Dulles was attempting to derail the Soviet-Japanese talks. Soviet commentators condemned Dulles's interference, noting that he had "made it plain that the USA did not want Japan to settle the territorial question with the Soviet Union."(26) From Moscow's point of view, the incident was proof that American policy sought "to maintain the foreign policy isolation of Japan and, to the strongest possible degree, its ties to the United States."(27)

As recently as 1996, a leading scholar at Russia's Institute of the Far East, A. P. Markov, wrote that "in a meeting with Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, the head of the Japanese delegation at the negotiations in London, U.S. Secretary of State J. F. Dulles demanded that [Shigemitsu] reject a settlement of the territorial problem with the USSR. He declared that the USA could refuse to return the Ryukyu Islands, which were under American occupation, if Tokyo signed a peace treaty with the USSR." Markov continues, "The position of the American administration prompted the Japanese delegation at the negotiations in London (and later at the negotiations in Moscow for the signing of the 1956 Declaration) to return to its earlier demand - transfer of all four of the Southern Kuril Islands to Japan."(28)

Although the State Department documents which detail Dulles's actual intentions were published in 1991 in the collection entitled Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957: Japan, they have had little impact on this conviction among Russian scholars. The historian B. N. Slavinskiy includes consideration of these documents in his 1996 study, yet he also concludes that in August 1956 "Dulles then announced directly to Shigemitsu, that if Japan officially recognized the Soviet right to the Southern Kurils in a peace treaty, the USA would annex Okinawa."(29)

Russian scholarship has not been alone in its verdict on Dulles's intent. The 1973 study by Savigtri Vishwanathan not only concurs that Dulles threatened the Japanese, but also suggests that in so doing, the secretary of state "strengthened the position of those who opposed coming to terms with the Russians, lest a detente with the USSR impair Japanese-American relations."(30) One noteworthy exception to this trend appears in Donald C. Hellmann's 1969 study, which asserts on the basis of interviews with Japanese politicians that "Dulles' [sic] gesture was ostensibly designed to strengthen Japan's position" in the difficult negotiations with Moscow. However, he continues, "since Tokyo was still in the process of formulating its position, it became merely another unsettling element in already confused circumstances."(31)

Subsequent scholarly accounts offer little to suggest that the Japanese interpreted the American position as one of support rather than heavy-handed interest. "As we now know," Joachim Glaubitz wrote in 1995, "the USA also opposed a compromise [with Moscow]. In August 1956 Foreign Minister [sic] John Foster Dulles warned Shigemitsu against relinquishing the other two islands, with the comment that this action could give the USA grounds for retaining Okinawa - an incident dubbed 'Dulles threat' in Japanese diplomatic history."(32)

In fact, recently declassified documents from both the U.S. Department of State and the John Foster Dulles papers now confirm that Dulles never sought to threaten Japan in August 1956. Rather it was his intention "to help the Japanese by giving them an argument which they could use with the USSR" at a particularly difficult impasse in the negotiations.(33) Washington, it seems, had reconsidered its earlier opposition to a Soviet-Japanese rapprochement by the spring of 1956, and now fully supported the objectives of the Hatoyama government to negotiate a peace treaty with the USSR.

Meanwhile, Japanese negotiators had begun to meet on a regular basis with American representatives to apprise Washington of developments and to request advice when needed. During one such meeting between the deputy secretary of the Japanese cabinet and Ambassador Allison, Allison reported to Dulles that Shigemitsu appeared to be wavering in his negotiations with Moscow and had even suggested to the Japanese cabinet that Japan "yield to Soviet demands." Allison further reported that the Japanese cabinet was firmly opposed to Shigemitsu's proposals "to yield not only on the Southern Kuriles but also on the limitation of passage of the Japan Sea Straits." Due to concern that "Moscow had affected his [Shigemitsu's] mind," the Japanese "Cabinet has decided to send Shigemitsu to London where he can see the Secretary [Dulles]."(34)

It was during this August meeting in London that the now famous misunderstanding occurred. On 19 August 1956, Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu met Secretary of State Dulles at the residence of American Ambassador Aldrich in London. In the course of the meeting, Shigemitsu inquired whether the latest Soviet offer to return the Habomai and Shikotan islands, while keeping the other two disputed islands, would be a contravention of Article 26 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. This was a legitimate concern, since the treaty read in part: "Should Japan make a peace settlement or war claims settlement with any State granting that State greater advantages than those provided by the present Treaty, those same advantages shall be extended to the parties of the present Treaty."(35)

Dulles responded that Article 26, "should be of value to Japan in its negotiations with the Soviet Union." He suggested that "the Japanese might tell the Soviets that if they were forced to give up the Kuriles they would have to give up the Ryukyus as well." It was, then, in the spirit of strengthening the Japanese negotiating position, that Dulles proposed, "Japan might tell the Soviet Union of the tough line the United States was taking - that if the Soviet Union were to take all the Kuriles, the United States might remain forever in Okinawa, and no Japanese Government could survive." The status of the Kurils and Okinawa should be the same, he continued, "i.e. foreign occupation with residual Japanese sovereignty." Meanwhile, Dulles also assured Shigemitsu, "the Soviet contention that their claim on the Kuriles is based on wartime agreements with the US and UK is untrue, since such agreements merely embodied recommendations for a peace treaty."(36)

Once news of Dulles's comments became known, they were widely misconstrued as an American effort to torpedo an agreement between Tokyo and Moscow. Soviet commentators bitterly asserted that Dulles was seeking to ensure the collapse of negotiations by forcing Japan to remain intransigent on the territorial issue. Similar objections followed from the Japanese press.(37)

Understandably, in the weeks that followed, U.S. officials worried that Dulles's attempt to support the Japanese had created unintended confusion and resentment within the Japanese government itself. In early September, Washington secretly sent Tokyo a draft statement explaining that "the Yalta Agreement and the San Francisco Peace Treaty did not determine sovereignty over territories renounced by Japan . . . and that this is not a matter to be resolved by agreement between Japan and any single Allied Power."(38) The Japanese disagreed, contending that the time limit mentioned in Article 26 meant that they could now "conclude any agreement they wish [with the USSR] without being obligated to give similar or equal privileges to the signers of the San Francisco Treaty."(39)

With this misunderstanding threatening to upset U.S.-Japanese relations, the assistant secretary of state of Far Eastern Affairs recommended that the U.S. back away from its position on Article 26. In his opinion, "The decision whether to execute a treaty on Soviet territorial terms if none better seem obtainable is a grave one which should truly be made by Japan, and while it may be preferable from the standpoint of United States interests that it be made in the negative, that is only true if we are not charged with having forced the issue."(40) Dulles agreed, and resolved to settle the issue with the Japanese government.

On 7 September 1956 Dulles invited Japanese Ambassador Tani to his home in Washington. In the course of their discussion, the secretary of state sought to clarify any misunderstandings that had arisen from his August consultation with Shigemitsu. The U.S., he explained, had no intention of creating difficulties for the Japanese. His reference to Article 26, "had been entirely in this spirit, not with any idea of making territorial demands ourselves, but simply to give Japan an argument with the Russians." Ambassador Tani responded graciously, suggesting that the Japanese government had fully understood Dulles at the August consultation. As for the indignant public reaction in Japan, the Japanese ambassador noted that "while there had been some original misunderstanding, the Japanese press had gradually come to understand the Secretary's intent." He also noted that public statements issued by the United States government on the subject of Okinawa were "consistent with the fact that the US is making no territorial demands."(41)

That same day, Washington issued an aide-memoire that effectively restated its official position on the Kuril Islands. It read in part: "It is the considered opinion of the United States that by virtue of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan does not have the right to transfer sovereignty over the territories renounced by it therein. . . . The United States has reached the conclusion after careful examination of the historical facts that the islands of Etorofu and Kunashiri (along with the Habomai Islands and Shikotan which are part of Hokkaido) have always been part of Japan proper and should injustice be acknowledged as under Japanese sovereignty. The United States would regard Soviet agreement to this effect as a positive contribution to the reduction of tension in the Far East."(42)

This was a restatement of the State Department's position on the Kurils in effect since 1945. Once the misunderstanding between Japan and the United States was laid to rest, Tokyo announced its willingness to accept an "Adenauer formula" for an interim agreement with Moscow. Signed in October, the 1956 Joint Declaration terminated the state of war between the two countries and called for continued negotiations toward the conclusion of an official peace treaty, which would define Japanese fishing rights in Soviet waters, repatriate prisoners of war, and exchange most-favored-nation status.

Most importantly, Moscow promised to return the Habomais and Shikotan to Japan when a final peace treaty was signed. The Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration stated: "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan agree to continue, after the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan, negotiations for the conclusion of a Peace Treaty. . .In this connection, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, desiring to meet the wishes of Japan and taking into consideration the interests of the Japanese State, agrees to transfer to Japan the Habomai Islands and the island of Shikoton [sic], the actual transfer of these islands to Japan to take place after the conclusion of a Peace Treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan."(43) In December 1956 the Soviet Union lifted its opposition to Japanese membership in the United Nations.

Unfortunately, Japan's entry into the United Nations was to be the only lasting result of the brief Soviet-Japanese rapprochement. While the 1956 Joint Declaration had made some progress on the difficult territorial issue, the obstacle of cold war suspicion proved insurmountable. By the end of the 1950s, Soviet-Japanese peace talks had lost their momentum. In 1960, Japanese and American representatives met to review the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, undermining Soviet hopes that its diplomatic negotiations with Japan would result in a Japanese move toward neutrality. Although the 1956 Joint Declaration had recognized Japan's right to collective self-defense, renewal of the U.S.-Japan security agreement evoked a bitter Soviet response. When Moscow announced that it considered the 1956 Joint Declaration null and void, Soviet-Japanese relations declined precipitously. Moscow once again moved to fortify the disputed territories, proclaiming that the U.S.-Japanese alliance posed a threat to the Soviet Far East.

In the absence of a formal Soviet-Japanese peace treaty, and with the Soviet renunciation of the 1956 Joint Declaration, the two nations remained legally in a state of war, thus ensuring that the "northern territories" dispute would remain occupied by Soviet troops under the authority of General Order No. 1. Recently, President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Hashimoto agreed to work toward the conclusion of a formal peace treaty by the year 2000. Although Moscow had acknowledged Japanese claims to the Habomais and Shikotan during earlier negotiations, its military forces remained prepared to defend them as sovereign Soviet territory. Continuing disagreement over the status of Etorofu and Kunashiri meant that the Kuril Islands dispute remained deadlocked.

Conclusion

During December 1995, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering announced that the United States government considered the four disputed islands in the southern Kurils to be Japanese territory. Pickering also stated that the U.S. wanted to help bring about the peaceful return of these islands to Japan and he warned American businesses not to invest in the Kuril Islands. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev immediately responded, exclaiming "that the matter was none of Pickering's business." The Russian Foreign Ministry then lodged an official protest with the American Embassy, citing as its reason Pickering's lobbying in the Far East for Russia's immediate transfer of the southern Kuril Islands to Japan.(44)

As this article has attempted to show, Pickering's comments do not in fact deviate from America's longstanding policy. Rather, they confirm that under the American interpretation of the Yalta Agreement, Russia has no legitimate claim to the two southern Kuril Islands, much less to the Habomais and Shikotan. American policy has always been that, in the absence of an official Russo-Japanese peace treaty, the disputed Northern Territories remain Japanese territory. Therefore, not only has it been historically inaccurate to accuse the United States of ceding "all" of the Kurils to the USSR, but it has been equally inaccurate to claim that during the 1950s the United States exploited divisions in the Japanese government to torpedo a possible settlement between Moscow and Tokyo.

In fact, Stalin obtained control of the four disputed islands by carefully playing his diplomatic hand both at Yalta and in his correspondence with Truman over the wording of General Order No. 1, and then by trying to use Soviet de facto military occupation to obtain de jure international recognition of Soviet sovereignty over all of the Kurils. Russian diplomats are concerned about Pickering's comments precisely because should this diplomatic tangle ever unravel, and Japan regain control over the Northern Territories, then other countries similarly affected by Soviet wartime diplomacy might begin to make their own territorial claims. China, in particular, may one day decide to claim border territories lost to the USSR during the same period, and as a result of similar diplomatic methods.(45)

Texas Christian University, Fort Worth and University of Washington, Seattle, November 1998

1 Sergei Agafanov, "For Moscow and Tokyo, the War Is Not Yet Over," The Current Digest, vol. 49 (December 1995), p. 25.

2 Japan, Foreign Office, Treaties and Conventions between the Empire of Japan and Other Powers together with Universal Conventions, Regulations and Communications since March 1854 (Tokyo: 1884); George Alexander Lensen, Russia's Japan Expedition of 1852-1855 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1955); S. P. Krasheninnikov, The History of Kamtschatka and the Kurilski Islands, with the Countries Adjacent, translated by James Grieve (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962); George Alexander Lensen, The Russian Push Toward Japan: Russo-Japanese Relations, 1697-1875 (New York: Octagon Books, 1971); Rosemary Hayes, The Northern Territorial Issue (Arlington, Virginia: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1972); V. K. Zilanov et el, Russkie Kurily. istoriia i sovremennost (Moskva: 1995).

3 United States, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943, the Conferences of Cairo and Teheran (Washington: 1961), pp. 448-49.

4 Before leaving Washington, Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles incorrectly told Roosevelt that the Kuril Island chain had been awarded to the Japanese in 1905, following the Russo-Japanese War. Hayes, Issue, p. 6; Roosevelt apparently thought that Japan had seized the islands during that war. David Rees, The Soviet Seizure of the Kuriles (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985), pp. 61-62

5 John J. Stephan, The Kuril Islands: Russo-Japanese Frontier in the Pacific (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 154, 240-45.

6 Rees, Soviet Seizure, p. 61; Charles Bohlen, "Witness to History, 1929-1969" (New York: Norton Press, 1973), 195-98.

7 11 February 1945 copy of the Yalta Agreement, W. Averell Harriman collection, Library of Congress.

8 Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Northern Territories Dispute and Russo-Japanese Relations, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 50;Joachim Glaubitz, Between Tokyo and Moscow: The History of an Uneasy Relationship, 1972-1990s (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995), p. 37; Gilbert Rozman, Japan's Response to the Gorbachev Era, 1985-1991: A Rising Superpower Views a Declining One (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 255; Stephan, Kuril Islands, p. 155; Rees, Soviet Seizures, pp. 64-65.

9 15 August 1945 copy of General Order Number 1 (document declassified on 20 August 1986), W. Averell Harriman collection, Library of Congress; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1945, vol. 6, British Commonwealth and the Far East (Washington: 1969), pp. 658-59.

10 19 August 1945 copy of Stalin's 16 August 1945 message to Truman (declassified on 21 August 1986), W. Averell Harriman collection, Library of Congress; FRUS, 1945, vol. 6, pp. 667-68.

11 19 August 1945 copy of Washington's revision to General Order No. 1 (declassified on 21 August 1986), W. Averell Harriman collection, Library of Congress; FRUS does not reprint this document, which makes it difficult to see which concessions Truman made to Stalin, and in what order.

12 23 August 1945 copy of Stalin's 22 August 1945 letter to Truman (declassified on 21 August 1986), W. Averell Harriman collection, Library of Congress; FRUS, 1945, vol. 6, pp. 687-88; undated final version of General Order No. 1, W. Averell Harriman collection, Library of Congress; FRUS does not include this document; italics added by authors for emphasis.

13 Rees, Soviet Seizure, pp. 76-77; Although Rees has a lengthy discussion of America's failed attempt to gain landing rights on the Kurils, and in this section he discusses earlier copies of these Stalin-Truman exchanges, published originally in FRUS, 1945, vol. 6, he does not link Truman's decision to grant Stalin the right to occupy "all" of the Kuril Islands with Truman's simultaneous refusal to allow Soviet troops to occupy Northern Hokkaido. This question is of vital importance, since if Yalta actually granted the USSR all of the Kurils - as Roosevelt's critics have uniformly claimed - then why did Stalin apparently place such importance on Truman's concession to include the word "all" in General Order No. 1? Truman's compromise probably satisfied Stalin because he considered it to be granting the USSR a right it did not have previously. Thereafter, Stalin dropped his claim that Soviet troops should occupy Northern Hokkaido, which provides further evidence that Stalin considered Truman's addition of the word "all" to the Kurils to be granting the USSR occupation rights over Japanese sovereign territory.

14 27 August 1945 letter from Truman to Stalin (declassified on 21 August 1986), W. Averell Harriman collection, Library of Congress; FRUS, 1945, vol 6. The published document is an early draft from 25 August 1945, although the main points appear to be the same; italics are the authors'.

15 Stephan, Kuril Islands, pp. 166-70.

16 23 October 1950 meeting of the "Group on Japanese Peace Treaty Problems,"John Foster Dulles Collection, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University Library.

17 David Rees, "Soviet Border Problems: China and Japan," Conflict Studies: The Institute for the Study of Conflict, no. 139 (October 1982), p. 23.

18 Hayes, Issue, p. 15; speech reprinted in Contemporary Japan, vol. 20, nos. 7-9 (July-September 1951), pp. 409-22.

19 United States, Department of State, United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, 1952, III, Part 3 (Washington: 1952), p. 3172.

20 United States, Department of State, Japanese Peace Treaty and Other Treaties Relating to Security in the Pacific (Washington: 1952), p. 9.

21 Rees, "Soviet Border Problems," p. 23.

22 FRUS, 1955-1957: Japan, vol. 23, part 1 (Washington: 1991), p. 43; Andrej Gromyko et al., History of Soviet Foreign Policy, Volume 2:1945-1970 (Moscow: 1973), p. 269.

23 September 1955 Summary of Major Decisions entitled Views on the Japanese Disputed Islands (declassified on 7 May 1997), John Foster Dulles State Department Microfilm, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University Library.

24 Donald C. Hellmann, Japanese Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics: The Peace Agreement with the Soviet Union (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 35.

25 23 December 1955 document entitled Secretary's Message to Shigemitsu (declassified on 14 May 1997), John Foster Dulles State Department Microfilm, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University library.

26 See Iaponiia. Voprosy Istorii (Moscow: 1959), pp. 272-73; also cited in Gromyko et al., p. 272.

27 D. V. Petrov, Iaponiia v mirovoj politike (Japan in world politics) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniia, 1973), p. 217.

28 A. P. Markov, Rossiia-Iaponiia (v poiskakh soglasiia) (Russia-Japan: In search of agreement) (Moscow: Russkiy Mir, 1996), pp. 46-47.

29 B. N. Slavinskiy, Ialtinsaiia konferentsiia i problema "severnykh territoriy" (Yalta Conference and the problem of the "Northern Territories") (Moscow: TOO "Novina," 1996), pp. 182-83.

30 Savigtri Vishwanathan, Normalization of Japanese-Soviet Relations 1945-1970 (Tallahassee: The Diplomatic Press, 1973), pp. 79-80.

31 Hellmann, Japanese Foreign Policy, p. 38; The fact that Hellmann was unable to support his assertion with any official documentation may explain why his interpretation failed to have a significant impact on the subsequent historiography of the "Dulles Threat" issue.32 Glaubitz, Between Tokyo and Moscow, p. 42.

33 11 September 1956 document entitled Japanese Treaty Discussions (declassified on 19 May 1997), John Foster Dulles State Department Microfilm, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University Library.

34 5 August 1956 document entitled Japanese Cabinet Opposes Yielding to Soviet Demands (declassified on 19 May 1997), John Foster Dulles State Department Microfilm, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. Princeton University Library.

35 FRUS, vol. 6, p. 1131.

36 FRUS, 1955-1957, vol. 23, part 1, pp. 202-3; 24 August 1956 document entitled Secretary's Conversation with Shigemitsu (declassified on 19 May 1997), John Foster Dulles State Department Microfilm, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University Library.

37 Hellmann, Japanese Foreign Policy, p. 38. In some ways Dulles's threat to link the fates of the Kurils and Okinawa actually turned the tables on the Soviet Union: during November 1950, the Soviet Ambassador Jacob Malik had warned Dulles in a private conversation that as long as the United States continued to garrison troops on Okinawa, the USSR would not withdraw from the disputed northern islands. November 15, 1950 Personal and Confidential letter from John Foster Dulles to General MacArthur, John Foster Dulles Collection, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University Library.

38 4 September 1956 document entitled US Views on Former Japanese Territories (declassified on 19 May 1997), John Foster Dulles State Department Microfilm, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University Library.

39 11 September 1956 document entitled Japanese Treaty Discussions (declassified on 19 May 1997), John Foster Dulles State Department Microfilm, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University Library.

40 FRUS, 1955-1957, vol. 23, part 1, pp. 216-19.

41 Ibid., pp. 220, 231.

42 Stephan, Kuril Islands, p. 246.

43 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 263 (1957), p. 116; Stephan, Kuril Islands, p. 247.

44 Dmitry Gornostayev, "American Ambassador May Be Recalled," The Current Digest, vol. 49 (December 1995), p. 26.

45 China has long hoped to reclaim territory that the USSR first obtained during diplomatic negotiations with Japan in the 1930s, when Japan's sphere of influence included much of northeast China and bordered on Soviet territory in Siberia and on the Soviet's sphere of influence in Outer Mongolia. Later, Moscow confirmed these territorial gains by means of the Yalta agreement and the 14 August 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty with Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government. For more information on the latter negotiations, see Bruce A. Elleman, Diplomacy and Deception: The Secret History of Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Relations, 1917-1927 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 231-51. Thereafter, through the early 1990s, China supported Japan's claim to the southern Kurils. But, beginning in 1991 China adopted a neutral policy on the Kurils as it sought to open border negotiations with Boris Yeltsin's new Russian government, and so "turned its attention away from the Soviet Union and toward Japan as the Northeast Asian power most likely to challenge Chinese security interests in the twenty-first century." Robert S. Ross, "China and the Stability of East Asia," in Robert S. Ross, ed., East Asia in Transition: Toward a new Regional Order (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), pp. 98-99.