At Cairo, Prime Minister Churchill and I spent four days with the
Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek. It was the first time that we had
an opportunity to go over the complex situation in the Far East
with him personally. We were able not only to settle upon definite
military strategy, but also to discuss certain long-range
principles which we believe can assure peace in the Far East for
many generations to come.
Those principles are as simple as they are fundamental. They
involve the restoration of stolen property to its rightful owners,
and the recognition of the rights of millions of people in the Far
East to build up their own forms of self-government without
molestation. Essential to all peace and security in the Pacific and
in the rest of the world is the permanent elimination of the Empire
of Japan as a potential force of aggression. Never again must our
soldiers and sailors and marines--and other soldiers, sailors and
marines--be compelled to fight from island to island as they are
fighting so gallantly and so successfully today.
Increasingly powerful forces are now hammering at the Japanese at
many points over an enormous arc which curves down through the
Pacific from the Aleutians to the Jungles of Burma. Our own Army
and Navy, our Air Forces, the Australians and New Zealanders, the
Dutch, and the British land, air and sea forces are all forming a
band of steel which is slowly but surely closing in on Japan.
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