793.94 Shanghai Round Table/37
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
In a telegram to the Italian Ambassador from Signor Grandi, Signer Grandi thanked us for our message giving our exchange of views on the situation with regard to the Sino-Japanese conference, but thought that it might be well in some respects to have a preliminary conference for settling the agenda. He noted that the Japanese had suggested that the conference take up the question of Shanghai, and he rather suggested that there might be difficulty about trying to thrust in the question of Manchuria, although he saw equal difficulties about keeping Manchuria out. In the latter case he foresaw it would be played up by the Japanese politically. I replied to the Ambassador that I did not know what question they referred to in regard to Shanghai; that so far as I knew there were no international questions pending in regard to Shanghai, now that the Japanese troops had been withdrawn; that we had had no trouble in Shanghai until the Japanese troops came. I told him that I would not say that I would not consider any Shanghai question, simply that I did not know of the existence of any.