500.A15A3/1816
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The Japanese Ambassador came in and handed me the attached Memorandum,11 with explanatory statements including naval figures, which I stated I assumed was similar to a communication presented to the British Government on yesterday, in the light of London publications of today. The Ambassador said that he understood the same communication had gone forward to London. In his oral conversation, the Ambassador frankly said that the Government of Japan realized it did not have the authority under the Treaty of 1930 to take up an entirely different category, as in the case of submarines instead of submarine destroyers. Nor does the individual paper handed me by the Ambassador itself in the slightest degree undertake to controvert this position.