711.94/1626
Memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
When I called on the Foreign Minister at 11 o’clock this morning at the private house of a common friend, we discussed in strictest confidence the suggestion proposed in the Department’s telegram No. 215, June 22, noon, with reference to an exchange of notes regarding upholding the status quo with regard to the Pacific territories and possessions of belligerent European countries.
The Minister gave his close attention to the diverse points in my oral argument and all the questions he put to me were covered in the Department’s instructions. When asked whether the Pacific mandated islands were included in our proposal, I answered that if he desired I would submit the point to my Government, but he did not pursue the subject.
The Minister said finally that the suggestion would be given his close study and that he would reply soon. He stated further that, unless a number of the many outstanding differences between the United States and Japan were first solved, he, offhand and in his own opinion, thought that the suggestion might be difficult to accept. When asked to which difficulties he referred in particular, the Minister replied that the absence of a commercial treaty was the outstanding difficulty.
In view of some of his comments I made clear at the conclusion of our talk that our present proposal must not be misunderstood to imply any retreat from positions previously held regarding any particular problems between Japan and the United States, but I added that I found it significant in my own opinion that our exploration today was regarded by my Government as the continuance of the conversations of June 10 and 19, which were entered into with the express intent of discovering means to ameliorate American-Japanese relations.
Mr. Arita said that the Japanese press must have called my attention to the trend of public opinion in Japan, which was strongly for [Page 89] closer relations with Germany and Italy and was continually growing in strength. He claimed that he was personally, as I well knew, in favor of a rapprochement with the United States, but that the situation today opened him to severe criticism, and that the problem was extremely difficult.