893.515/706: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Atherton) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 10—10:40 a.m.]
362. Embassy’s 283, June 25, 2 p.m. Leith-Ross sailed on the Empress of Britain for Canada accompanied by Hall Patch of the Treasury and Rogers, a junior clerk of the Bank of England. Leith-Ross has given out very definitely he must be back in England within 6 months but Hall Patch may remain on more or less indefinitely in the British Legation in Peiping. Leith-Ross has been out of London on leave for some weeks but at the time of sailing this morning he informed press correspondents he was not going to Washington, since, in spite of fact that the British Ambassador in Washington had advised the American Government of this intended mission to China, the American Government had made no reply, nor invited him to stop off at Washington on his way to the East. Leith-Ross is scheduled to sail from Vancouver on August 22nd for Tokyo, where he has stated he will make a short visit. He is expected to reach Shanghai some time about the middle of September. Hall Patch, in informally commenting on London newspaper reports that the mission would discuss various subjects in Tokyo, stated confidentially that Leith-Ross was without instructions as to what he should discuss in Tokyo beyond the hope expressed to him that he would fully reassure the Japanese as to British aims. In reply to a press query Leith-Ross stated he would discuss nothing in Tokyo that could be interpreted as an Anglo-Japanese rapprochement affecting United States interests in the Far East.