711.94/24066/11
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
Mr. Wakasugi, the Minister-Counselor of the Japanese Embassy, called to see me this afternoon at his request.
After the usual preliminaries Mr. Wakasugi told me that he had spent exactly two weeks in Japan when he was summoned home last month. He said that he wished to be completely frank in giving me an account of his impressions during the time he was in his own country and he told me in detail of the persons he had seen and the situation as he found it.
The Minister said that as soon as he arrived he was summoned immediately by Prince Takamatsu, the brother of the Emperor and who is now the closest adviser of the Emperor. Immediately thereafter he was summoned to interviews with two others in the Imperial family and he mentioned specifically Prince Higashi Kuni. He was then summoned to the Prime Minister with whom he had several conferences and then to Marquis Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and likewise one of the closest advisers of the Imperial family. He said that he also, of course, had several conferences with the Foreign Minister and with high ranking officers of the Army and of the Navy.
The Minister said that on the part of all of the personages mentioned above he had found the unanimous desire for the maintenance of peace between Japan and the United States and the earnest and sincere hope that the present conversations between the two Governments might reach a satisfactory result. He said, however, that there existed, particularly among the younger elements in the Army and to a lesser degree in the Navy and in other spheres of activity in Japan, a small but very powerful group that had placed its fortunes on the side of the Axis powers and was determined to move heaven and earth to prevent the reaching of any understanding between Japan and the United States and to bring Japan squarely into full activity on the side of Germany. He said quite frankly that German representatives and German agents in Japan were exceedingly powerful and most effective in their propaganda and were undoubtedly increasing their activities because of developments in Europe. He said that while the present Japanese Government had the bulk of public opinion behind it and was backed in its present policies by the controlling elements in the Japanese Army and in the Japanese Navy, it could not indefinitely continue the conversations with the United States. It would have to show some results. He said he need not remind me of the physical danger to which the members of [Page 681] the Japanese Government were exposed in view of the kind of incident which had unfortunately taken place in Japan so frequently in the past and particularly in recent years. He said that if the present Japanese Government fell as a result of a coup d’état, because of assassination or because it could see no hope of reaching any satisfactory adjustment with the United States, there was no telling what the result might [be]. He said that in all probability it would be replaced by a cabinet composed of military representatives responsive solely to German pressure and that in such event any hope of adjusting relations between Japan and the United States must vanish at least for the time being. He said that he wished to express very sincerely the situation as he saw it and to emphasize the fact that while a Japanese did not speak lightly of the Imperial family, the references he had made to me at the outset of our conversation should make it clear that the Imperial family, as well as the present Cabinet, was earnestly desirous of maintaining peace with the United States and of adjusting rapidly the problems which had arisen between Japan and this country.
He said that as I knew Prince Konoye had suggested a meeting between himself and the President. He said that notwithstanding every effort on the part of the Japanese Government to expedite the reaching of a friendly understanding and notwithstanding the fact that the Japanese Government had believed when it came into power in July that the fundamental principles necessary for an understanding had been found, an interminable time had elapsed without the reaching of any agreement and that it seemed impossible for the Japanese Government to find out what in reality were the desires of the United States and what in reality was the agreement which the United States desired to achieve. He said that acting under personal instructions from the Prime Minister, but nevertheless at this stage acting unofficially and without requesting any commitment from me, he would greatly appreciate it if I could tell him what the reasons for the delay might be or what the points of clarification were which this Government still desired to obtain from his Government.
I said to the Minister that it seemed to me impossible to believe that the Japanese Government did not in fact have a very clear and specific understanding of the position of this Government. I said that the views of this Government had been fully set forth not only in the innumerable conversations which the Secretary of State had had with the Japanese Ambassador, but more specifically in the presentation of our views in the documents given to the Japanese Ambassador on June 21. I said that after that date this Government had believed that very satisfactory progress was being made [Page 682] and that the two Governments were finding common bases for understanding when, through the statement given this Government on September 6, it appeared to our regret that the Japanese Government seemed to restrict, to limit and to modify very materially the broad principles upon which we had thought a basis for an understanding had already been reached. Subsequent to September 6, I said, it was my understanding that the Secretary of State had had several clarifying conversations with the Japanese Ambassador and that the views of this Government with regard thereto had again been very clearly set forth in an oral statement given the Japanese Ambassador on October 2.
I said therefore that since I was sure Mr. Wakasugi had fully familiarized himself since his return to Washington with all of these conversations and the more recent statements to which I had referred, there was nothing more that I could add which would clarify the issues in any useful manner beyond the clarifications already advanced.
I said that one of the chief difficulties from the standpoint of this Government in appreciating the position of the Japanese Government throughout the course of these conversations had been the fact that while the whole foundation upon which the striving for the reaching of an agreement had been predicated, namely, the maintenance of peace in the Pacific, the Japanese Government, as I had emphasized to Mr. Wakasugi just before he left for Japan, had undertaken military action in Indochina and had undertaken military activities in the north which would seem to belie entirely the main purpose for which the reaching of an agreement was sought. Only recently, I said, I had regretted to receive reports which would seem to indicate that the Japanese Government was contemplating further military activities in Indochina. From this standpoint I said it seemed unfortunately that the overt actions of the Japanese Government did not correspond to the purposes which the Japanese Government assured us they were seeking in their conversations with the United States.
The Minister then said that the Axis agents in Japan had sedulously, and to a certain extent successfully, spread the belief that this Government was deliberately delaying negotiations in order to delay them with no desire on its part to reach an understanding with Japan. I replied that it happened that only this morning I had seen a newspaper article alleging that the Government of Japan was adopting exactly this same policy in order to gain time for its own interests. I said that I could assure the Minister that this Government was sincerely desirous of exploring every possible field in order to reach a satisfactory understanding and that I felt that the two Governments, since they had pursued the conversations this far, must recognize [Page 683] the sincerity of the other party to the conversations in desiring to find a real understanding.
The final and very insistent question of the Minister was whether this Government had any other major demands to make as a part of the present conversations and which had not yet been submitted to the Japanese Government. I said that with regard to this question I could only reiterate what I had said at the outset of our talk, namely, that I believed that the views of this Government had been fully set forth in the documents of June 21 and in the oral statements subsequently transmitted to the Japanese Government and that it was not the policy of the Government of the United States, in an important negotiation of this type, to attempt to deceive or to mislead the other party to the negotiation.
Mr. Wakasugi said that of course he recognized that the action taken by his Government in Indochina seemed at variance with the policies which both Governments desired to pursue. He said, however, that Japanese opinion in governmental circles felt that the action taken in Indochina had been for purposes of defense and was entirely analogous to the action taken by the United States in Iceland. He said that the occupation of Indochina had been undertaken through agreement with a government which was occupied by Germany and that the occupation by the United States of Iceland had likewise been undertaken through an agreement with Denmark, a country also occupied by Germany.
I replied that the Minister was in error. I said that the Government of the United States had had no conversations with the Government of Denmark concerning Iceland, which was a country divorced from Denmark, and that the agreement for occupation of Iceland had been reached through a free agreement on the part of the Government of Iceland and on the part of the Government of the United States. Furthermore, I said, as I had already in an earlier conversation pointed out to Mr. Wakasugi, no one could possibly maintain that the Japanese Government feared any threat of aggression on the part of any other power through Indochina, whereas the Government of the United States, confronting a situation in Europe in which the Government of Germany was steadily and increasingly threatening the vital interests of the United States, was obliged to enter into the agreement which it had reached with the Government of Iceland as a means of self-defense against Germany and as a means of averting the imminent peril to the United States which would result from the occupation by Germany of Iceland or of any other region in the Atlantic which was vitally necessary for the defense of this country.
The Minister then went on to say that he felt that in some of the fundamental principles which this Government thought had been [Page 684] restricted by the Japanese Government in the statement of September 6 there had been unnecessary misunderstanding through the use of unfortunate phraseology. He said that the Japanese Government was entirely willing to commit itself to undertake no aggressive moves either to the south or to the north. He said that although the Japanese Government in its statement of September 6 with regard to a possible move against Russia had used the phrase that it would not undertake aggressive action in the north “save for justifiable reasons”, this latter phrase was entirely unnecessary and could readily be withdrawn. He said it had been intended solely to indicate that if the Stalin government collapsed and some other foreign power undertook to operate in eastern Siberia or if a complete case of anarchy broke out in eastern Siberia as had been the case in 1919 and 1920, the Japanese Government in that event would find it necessary to defend its own interests in the interest of “Manchukuo” against such aggression from that source. He repeated, however, that this phrase could be eliminated and that the Japanese Government was prepared to make a full commitment to undertake no aggressive activities to the north, south or anywhere else in the Pacific region.
I said that this was a very interesting and gratifying statement on his part and that I believed it tended to clarify a question which to us was of the utmost importance. He further went on to say that it was evident that this Government had been disturbed by the phraseology employed with regard to equal treatment and nondiscrimination in commercial relations in the Pacific and that the Japanese statement of September 6 had apparently given the impression that China was omitted from this commitment and that it applied only to the southwestern Pacific region. He said further that on this point the Japanese Government would be entirely willing to undertake to reach an agreement along the broad and general lines which we had in mind.
He then asked, with regard to the obligations of Japan under the Axis pact, whether this Government could not agree to leave the “discretion” of Japan as to the interpretation of its obligations under such pact to the determination of the Japanese Government. He said he realized fully that any new Cabinet that came in might determine Japan’s obligations in a manner different from that in which the present Japanese Cabinet would determine its obligations, but that as a matter of practical fact the present Japanese Cabinet was the only Cabinet which could be set up which would desire to maintain peace with the United States should the United States go to war. I said that on this point I felt that the position of this Government had already been made fully clear by the Secretary of [Page 685] State and that I would have to refer this question to the Secretary of State to determine whether any further clarification was necessary.
The Minister then brought up the question of evacuation of Japanese troops from China. He said that the Japanese Government was willing to evacuate all of its troops from China. (Thinking I had misunderstood him I asked him to repeat this statement which he did, in the same terms, twice.) He said, however, that it was impossible for the Japanese Government after four years of military operations in China to undertake to withdraw its entire troops from China within twenty-four hours. I said that of course nobody expected miracles in this modern age. I said with regard to this question that here again the views of this Government had been made known very clearly to the Japanese Government and that the Secretary of State had frequently referred to our own experience and to our own policies in the Western Hemisphere as an indication of what we believed the policy which would bring about peace and stability in the Pacific region should be. The Minister then asked whether, in the event that the President of the United States agreed to mediate between Japan and China, this Government would insist on passing upon the peace terms proposed by Japan before they were submitted to China. I said that once more in this case our views had been made known very clearly and that I was not in a position to give him any more specific opinion on this point without consulting the Secretary of State. I said that in general, as I had frequently explained, the point of view of this Government was that should this Government undertake the task of mediating, it could not undertake to transmit to the Chinese Government peace terms which in its judgment were inequitable and not conducive to the maintenance of a stable peace in the Pacific region.
The Minister then asked whether, if it were possible to reach a basis for an understanding with regard to all of the other major principles which this Government regarded as fundamental, the two Governments could not go ahead and leave the China question in abeyance. I said it seemed to me that this question was very much like asking whether the play of “Hamlet” could be given on the stage without the character of Hamlet. The Minister laughed loudly and said he fully understood my point.
The Minister said that he would make every effort to expedite a clarification of the point of view of his Government. He said he believed that the underlying principles as set forth by this Government on June 21 could be accepted by the Japanese Government. He said there was nothing he himself desired more earnestly than the reaching of a satisfactory agreement between the two countries. I said that I fully corresponded to his expressed desire [Page 686] in that regard. He said he believed that within twenty-four or forty-eight hours his Government must reach a final decision on the basic questions involved. He emphasized the fact that he was speaking unofficially. Before he left he said that he wished me to know that all of the controlling Generals in the Japanese Army and all of the controlling Admirals in the Japanese Navy were supporting fully the position of the Japanese Government in desiring to conclude a comprehensive and satisfactory agreement with the United States. He said this Government should be in no doubt that if an agreement could be reached before it was too late the control of the Army and of the Navy under present conditions was such as to make it sure that the Government would be able to carry out and implement the terms of such agreement.