Francis Biddle Papers. Box 1 - Folder: Cabinet Meetings, Jan 1944-May 1945. FDR Library.

COPY/a

May 26, 1944

The Secretary of War raised the question of whether it was appropriate for the War Department, at this time, to cancel the Japanese Exclusion Orders and let the Japs go home. War, Interior, and Justice had all agreed that this could be done without danger to defense considerations but doubted the wisdom of doing it at this time before the election.

The Secretary, before, showed me photographs taken from captured Japs, of Japanese beheading American prisoners. If anything like this leaked out, the feeling, of course, would be very intense. At the Cabinet discussions, I suggested that perhaps we could postpone it for sometime, the President adding that we could hasten as much as possible, or piecemeal, relocation although I doubt whether this can be much more quickly handled.

Francis Biddle Papers. Box 1 - Folder: Cabinet Meetings, Jan 1944-May 1945. FDR Library.

November 10, 1944

I advised the President I thought the Supreme Court, in the Japanese test cases, would turn down the Government and that it would be wiser for us to turn the Japs back now as the Army had suggested, it having been held up until after election. Everyone, including the President, agreed to this program.