711.94/1663
Memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
The new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Matsuoka, today received the diplomatic chiefs of mission individually in the usual purely formal reception. Instead of the customary five minutes he detained me in conversation for the better part of half an hour.
The Minister said at the outset that he had not yet had sufficient opportunity to formulate policy but he wished to say that when the press asked him what his policy was going to be as compared with the Hirota policy and the Arita policy and that of other ministers, he replied that they need look for no so-called Matsuoka policy but only for the policy of Japan.
The Minister then asked me to convey to Secretary Hull, for whom he expresses the greatest respect and admiration, the assurance that he has always attached the greatest importance to Japanese-American [Page 105] relations. The Minister said that he had always been a very frank talker and that in our contacts he might frequently say things which could be regarded as undiplomatic but he believed that much was to be gained by frank and direct speaking. He thereupon referred to an article which he had written some time ago stating that if the United States and Japan ever have to fight each other they should know precisely the causes and reasons for which they were fighting and that war should not develop, as in so many other cases in history, through misunderstanding. I said for my part that I also had no use for old school diplomacy, that I also believed in straight-forward talk, and I believed that the Minister and I would both profit by basing our relations on such an understanding. I thought that we might rule out the word “war”.
The Minister then said that history is based largely on the operation of blind forces which in a rapidly moving world cannot always be controlled. I admitted that blind forces have played their part in history but I added that one of the primary duties of diplomacy and statesmanship is to direct those forces into healthy channels and that I hope before long to explore with him the present state of American-Japanese relations in the confident belief that he and I approaching the subject in the right spirit would accomplish a great deal in giving helpful directive to the blind forces which he had in mind.
I then asked the Minister if he would care to read the informal record of my last talk with his predecessor, Mr. Arita, in which I had presented various points of view of the American Government, and I hoped that this record might afford a useful basis for our next conversation. The Minister said that he would be very glad to read the record which he accepted and put in his pocket.