793.94/2225
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle)
The Japanese Ambassador and Madame Debuchi lunched with us today, the first time, he said, that they had been anywhere since the trouble began. After luncheon the Ambassador talked with me at some length about the situation and I took the opportunity to make very clear to him that we felt rather keenly about the announcement made by the Foreign Office spokesman that two notes had been received [Page 220] from this Government which had not been given out for fear of inflaming public opinion. I told him that this country had taken throughout a neutral attitude in the whole affair and that we felt it exceedingly unfortunate that public opinion in Japan should be stirred up against this country.
The Ambassador told me that he had had word that all bombing planes had been withdrawn from Manchuria and that he had every assurance that there would be no further unfortunate expeditions like the bombing of Chinchow. I further took occasion to point out to the Ambassador that in all we had done our purpose had been to prevent a state of war in the Far East. I said to him that it was clear that this Government, like every other government, had a perfect right to work to the limit to prevent war in any part of the world. In this case it happened to be Manchuria, but that our attitude would be just the same had it been on some other part of the globe. He said that there was a certain feeling in Japan that the reason for our endeavors was that the trouble had arisen in Manchuria. I told him that I was conscious of this feeling, which was based on nothing whatever. I told him that the impression that we wanted the Japanese out of Manchuria altogether was entirely false; that we had not considered a final settlement, which we felt must be reached by the Chinese and Japanese themselves, but that in the reaching of such a settlement we certainly should not attempt to bring out or even to suggest the complete withdrawal from Manchuria on the part of Japan, since it was clear that Japanese troops were there under treaty stipulation. The Ambassador said that he would make this clear to Baron Shidehara.