What archival documents exist about Secretary of State James Byrnes’ December 1946 conversations with Denmark over Greenland?

1. The U.S. official paper trail: memoranda, telegrams and FRUS entries

The clearest U.S. holdings are the memorandum of conversation of the December 14, 1946 meeting (prepared in the State Department and reported in National Archives holdings), a top‑secret telegram from Secretary Byrnes to the Embassy in Copenhagen (telegram no. 924, cited in U.S. record groups), and related State Department files summarized in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) collection ^{[1] [2] [3]}. FRUS’s published editorial note reproduces the gist of Byrnes’ approach — offering purchase or long‑term base rights as options and describing a memorandum Byrnes handed Rasmussen — and points researchers to the underlying NARA record groups ^[3].

2. The Danish archival counterpart: Rasmussen’s account and ministerial minutes

Danish archives preserve contemporaneous minutes in which Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen reported the conversation to his government and military chiefs; those minutes are catalogued in the Danish Foreign Ministry files (UM 8.U 66–67) and reproduced in scholarship on postwar Greenland policy ^[2]. Scholars who have examined the Danish files point out that Rasmussen’s retelling — including his shock at Byrnes’ bluntness — offers the principal Danish documentary witness to the exchange ^{[2] [1]}.

3. What journalists and historians unearthed and when they did it

The exchange entered public discourse decades later after the National Archives materials were highlighted by The Associated Press in the early 1990s and again reported by outlets such as NPR and AP summaries in subsequent years; those reports cite the Byrnes telegram and the memorandum of conversation discovered in NARA files and stress that the Archives file contained no immediate Danish written reply to the Byrnes memo ^{[4] [5] [1]}. Contemporary journalists also spotlighted references to a $100 million in‑gold figure and an Alaskan‑oil swap mentioned in the U.S. files as the proposed purchase terms, though those precise terms appear in press accounts summarizing archival documents rather than as a single, neatly packaged treaty text in the files ^{[5] [6]}.

4. What the documents actually show — and what they do not

Taken together, the U.S. memorandum and telegram show Byrnes raised three options — defense/long‑term base rights, a U.S.–Danish defense treaty, or outright purchase — and that he handed Rasmussen a memorandum outlining the proposal; the FRUS entry and the NARA citations make this explicit ^{[3] [2]}. The Danish minutes corroborate Rasmussen’s surprise and his promise to “study” the memorandum, but the public NARA files do not appear to contain a formal Danish written acceptance or rejection of a sale, leaving a documentary gap on Copenhagen’s immediate written response ^{[2] [5]}. Secondary claims about $100 million in gold and Alaska oil rights derive from materials in the Archives and contemporary press syntheses of those files but require consulting the original NARA folders (RG 84 postfiles; RG 59 memoranda) for precise wording and provenance ^{[2] [1]}.

5. Competing narratives, agendas and research next steps

Different retellings reflect agendas: U.S. military planners’ emphasis on strategic control (Joint Chiefs recommendations are cited in FRUS), Danish sensitivity over sovereignty (seen in Rasmussen’s minutes), and later political uses of the story (e.g., as historical precedent during 2019–2020 debates) — each source brings an implicit perspective that shapes what was recorded and released ^{[3] [2] [4]}. For definitive archival work, researchers should consult the cited NARA record groups (RG 59, RG 84) and the Danish Foreign Ministry files (UM 8.U 66–67) referenced in scholarship and FRUS; the public press summaries point to these folders but do not replace inspection of the originals for exact wording, redactions and context ^{[2] [3] [4]}.