Sunday, 22 August

The Soviet Union has recalled their Ambassador to America, Litvinov, back to Moscow and appointed the Charge d’Affaires Gromyko to take over his place. Although Admiral Standley said the Soviet Union needed Litvinov and Maisky back in Moscow to study post-war and American-British issues. I suspect the Soviet Union did it in order to show its dissatisfaction with Britain and the United States.

Minister Song went to Canada to take part in the Roosevelt-Churchill meeting.  Probably, as Ambassador Kerr said, this meeting focussed on the war issue in the Far East. From the American standpoint, German power was very strong before, the   European situation was very tense which made the United States temporarily put the Far East aside for a while, it was understandable to concentrate on resisting Germany. But now Germany has weakened and Japan is increasingly strong, but the United States still reserves its power to fight with Japan. And the Soviet Union was still “friendly” towards Japan. Then in the future, the American army will waste their strength on Germany, yet after the war, America will have to cope with Japan on its own. The Soviet Union will stand apart and do nothing. What will the United States do then? Therefore America’s demand that we should cooperate and fight Japan is not unreasonable. Britain has kept in-between and is in difficulty. Mr. Churchill has a hard time coping with this dilemma.