What do declassified State Department memos from 1946 reveal about the U.S. offer to buy Greenland?
Executive summary
Declassified 1946 State Department memos show that senior U.S. officials seriously explored an outright purchase of Greenland—offering roughly $100 million in gold—and that the proposal was driven by immediate postwar strategic and military concerns rather than commercial desire [1] [2]. The diplomatic overture, reportedly delivered by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes to Danish Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen on December 14, 1946, surprised the Danes, was kept secret for decades, and ultimately failed; Washington nonetheless secured long‑term U.S. basing rights instead [2] [1] [3].
1. The offer on the table: $100 million in gold and a formal Byrnes memorandum
State Department records and contemporaneous cables indicate that the United States put a concrete price on Greenland—about $100 million, to be paid in gold—and that Secretary Byrnes framed an outright purchase as “the most clean‑cut and satisfactory” solution during an exploratory conversation with Rasmussen on December 14, 1946 [2] [4]. Earlier memos from April and May of 1946 show U.S. planning bodies, including representatives who attended Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings, arguing that acquisition by purchase was the preferred objective, with long‑term base rights an alternative [1] [4].
2. Why Washington pushed the idea: Cold War geometry and mineral interest
The memos make clear the motive was strategic: Greenland sat astride polar routes between North America and the Soviet Union and was seen as essential to early warning and air defense planning, a judgment repeatedly noted by the Joint Chiefs and State Department planners in 1946 [1] [4]. Contemporary reporting and later analysis also highlight secondary economic considerations—cryolite and other resources valuable to aluminum production and postwar industrial needs—which appear alongside security arguments in later retellings, though the memos emphasize defense priorities [5] [6].
3. How Denmark reacted and why the plan stalled
Documentation shows the Danish government was taken aback rather than receptive: Byrnes’ overture “seemed to come as a shock” to Rasmussen, who did not immediately accept the idea and said he would study the memorandum; Denmark ultimately rejected the sale, in part out of national pride and sovereignty concerns, and the overture remained secret until it surfaced in public reporting decades later [2] [7] [8]. The U.S. acceptance that a sale was unlikely is recorded in internal State Department memos that acknowledged the political sensitivity of asking an ally to cede territory [1].
4. Secrecy, declassification and the public record
Those memos were declassified starting in the early 1970s, but the episode did not enter broad public awareness until a Copenhagen newspaper reported on the National Archives documents in 1991; subsequent histories and news accounts have relied on the same declassified FRUS documents and AP reporting to reconstruct the episode [8] [1] [6]. Scholarly work notes that while the formal monetary offer and Byrnes’ memorandum are present in the record, many details—such as internal Danish deliberations and any consultation with Greenlandic residents—are absent or thin in the U.S. documents [4] [7].
5. The outcome: bases, not a sale, and lingering U.S. interest
Although the purchase failed, the United States secured the military objectives it sought through agreements: existing wartime arrangements persisted and were formalized later in the Cold War era, including U.S. operations at Thule and other bases and a 1951 defense framework between Denmark and the United States under NATO auspices [3] [9] [4]. U.S. interest in Greenland did not evaporate after 1946—memorialized in later Pentagon assessments and occasional follow‑ups—but no subsequent official purchase offer changed sovereign control [9].
6. What the memos do not tell — and why it matters
The declassified memos reveal strategic intent, concrete proposals, and U.S. sensitivity about Denmark’s reaction, but they do not record Greenlandic voices, detailed Danish cabinet deliberations in full, or every internal Pentagon study that followed; historians warn against drawing broader conclusions about local consent or economic motives beyond what the U.S. diplomatic record contains [7] [6]. The diplomatic files thus illuminate Washington’s aims and methods in 1946 while also exposing limits in the archival record that counsel caution in interpreting the episode as anything more than a strategic bid that was rebuffed and converted into cooperative basing arrangements [1] [3].