893.01 Manchuria/537a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
169. The American press carries reports from Tokyo stating that the Secretary in his speech of October 1, at Philadelphia, criticized Japan’s recognition of “Manchoukuo”, that “the speech was shortly before publication of the Lytton Report and soon after Admiral Pratt announced that the United States Fleet would remain in Pacific [Page 294] waters”; “that speech was expected by the Government to ‘encourage anti-Japanese sentiment among smaller nations, bringing about an impossible situation at Geneva,’ a Japanese War Office statement said;” and that “the belief is widespread among Americans here that Washington has at times reiterated its position to the point where Japanese believe Washington to be following a policy of deliberate irritation.”
The Department relies on you discreetly and on appropriate occasion to caution American residents in Japan against placing undue reliance on such reports and comments. The Secretary’s Philadelphia speech as you know was on the subject of the President’s “Foreign Policy and the Commercial Welfare of the United States.” The speech involved 15 typewritten pages of which 2 pages were devoted to comment on the conduct of our relations with the countries of the Orient. Only one page related to the Manchuria situation and the statements contained on that page constitute merely a summary of the policy followed by this Government. There was no mention of Japan’s recognition of “Manchoukuo.”
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