894.00/330½
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
I sent for the Japanese Ambassador. When he came I told him that since I had asked him to come I had received a despatch from Ambassador Forbes81 telling me of the resignation of the Japanese Cabinet, and we discussed that for a few minutes. The Ambassador said he had also received a cable but it merely gave the fact of the resignation and no items. He commented on the fact that it was very fortunate that this change had not come before the final passage of the Resolution at Paris yesterday, and that he thought it very likely that Wakatsuki had withheld his resignation until the Resolution had passed. He said he had no doubt that the affairs in Manchuria were the reason for the resignation. He said that Adachi,82 who controlled a good many votes in the Diet of the Minseito Party, had been agitating for a long time for a change in the Cabinet but that the Emperor had a great deal of confidence in Wakatsuki, Shidehara, and Inoue, and Debuchi said he hoped that those men would remain in the Cabinet.
I then told him that it was being asserted against me that I had assured Debuchi that America would not use the boycott, and I asked [Page 678] him whether he had gained any impressions in our talks which would lead him to believe that I had given such assurance. He at once said no. In order to be doubly sure, I pressed him, and he said that on one or two occasions he had gotten the impression without anything being said that I personally did not favor the boycott, but that I never had said anything at all to give any such assurance. He used the word “official” once or twice and I pressed him on that. He said that there had been certainly nothing which he could understand as “official” assurance. Then he told me he had heard that from one of my press conferences at Woodley the newspaper men came away with a feeling I was not in favor of a boycott and he had heard that the same thing was said at Geneva, but he said he had also seen it denied several times that any such assurance had been given. Finally, I had a press clipping of an account of a speech by Henry Cabot Lodge to that effect, and I dictated a letter of inquiry addressed to Debuchi based upon that, asking him whether anything had ever occurred in our interviews to give him the impression that he had received any such assurance from me. As I saw that he would feel hurt if I sent such a letter to him formally and asked for a reply, I said I would just read that to him and ask him whether on the statement as read he could say yes or no. After I read it he said his answer was certainly no, and he took a pencil and wrote, “No. K. D.” on the letter. I gave him a copy of what I had written, and I told him that I felt very badly even to press him like this but that he could realize the matter was serious and that I had been made very angry by the accusations. I told him I had no idea of publishing such a letter but I might go after the man who had made the attack and I wanted to be sure of my ground with him (Debuchi) before I did so. I asked him whether he had ever by any chance said anything that might give anyone else the impression that he thought I had given such assurance, and he said no. But he told me of having a talk with a group of Japanese business men in New York at which time the matter was discussed. I asked him whether he said anything of that sort to Toshi Go, the agent of the South Manchurian Railway Company in New York. He said that Go was a very insignificant person and he hoped I was not paying any attention to what he said.
Debuchi in this entire interview made a very favorable impression upon me for his frankness and honorable attempt to give me fully and frankly the impressions which he had received in our conversations. He evidently had received the impression that I personally did not like to contemplate the use of a boycott, which was the truth, but that I had never said anything that could be taken as an official or even a personal assurance.