Office of the Historian

793.94/1872: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Nanking (Peck)

Washington, September 25, 1931—7 p.m.

79. Your 68, September 25, 10 a.m. What the Secretary said, on the afternoon of September 22, to the Japanese Ambassador70 in this connection was:

“It would seem that the responsibility for determining the course of events with regard to the liquidating of this situation rests largely upon Japan, for the simple reason that Japanese armed forces have seized and are exercising de facto control in South Manchuria.”

You may discreetly inform the inquirer by oral paraphrase.

Stimson
  1. For memorandum of conversation in full, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, pp. 5–8.↩