793.94/8912a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
122. 1. The Japanese Ambassador called this morning at my request.60 I told the Ambassador that we continued to be greatly interested in and seriously concerned over the situation in the Far East and that we wanted constantly to have the latest and best information [Page 237] that the Ambassador possessed. The Ambassador replied that yesterday there had occurred a clash near the Marco Polo Bridge in which the Japanese used artillery only; that the Japanese purpose was to localize the controversy and avoid general hostilities; that he still had hopes that this result might be accomplished.
I then very seriously informed the Ambassador that of course he must be fully aware that when two nations comprising 500 million people are engaged in a controversy in which danger of general hostilities appears imminent, this country cannot but be greatly interested and concerned; that it is in the light of this situation and of the intense desire of this country for peace everywhere that I have been undertaking to confer from time to time with the Ambassadors from both Japan and China with regard to developments, present and prospective; that I have approached each government, in a spirit of genuine friendliness and impartiality, in an earnest effort to contribute something to the cause of peace and to the avoidance of hostilities in the Far East. I reemphasized points which I had referred to in previous conversations with the Ambassador, including an earnest appeal to each government, from every possible standpoint, for peace, and an earnest expression of the opinion that a war would result in irreparable harm to all governments involved and would prove disastrous, in the present unsettled state of world affairs, to all phases of human welfare and human progress. I mentioned again the great objective and beneficent purposes of the program adopted at Buenos Aires, including the eight-point pillars of peace proposal in my address there,61 and I emphasized the view that general hostilities now would jeopardize the whole program of improving world relationships and bringing about stabilization. I said that I had been seeking to emphasize to all governments and all nations alike the basic points of the broad Buenos Aires program and that to that end I gave out a statement on last Friday62 based on the eight-point pillars of peace statement; that I was bringing this statement to the attention of foreign governments, a few each day, and hoping for favorable expressions of their views in accordance with and in support of the principles stated therein. I said that I was glad to hand the Ambassador for his Government a copy of the statement of last Friday, and I added that it would be most pleasing to us if the Government of Japan joined in carrying forward this great program.
I then said that I would like to repeat what I had already said at the beginning—that this Government is ready and would be glad at any time to say or do anything, short of mediation which of course [Page 238] would require the agreement of both parties in advance, which might in any way whatever contribute toward composing the present matters of controversy between Japan and China. I made it clear that I was inviting voluntary suggestions on the part of the Japanese or the Chinese Governments and that I was not making any offer or suggestion of any method to be followed. The Ambassador said that he understood.
I told the Ambassador that I was anxious that my point of view be completely understood and that I would like to inform the American Ambassadors in Japan and in China of the conversations held here and would like to have our Ambassadors report what I said, just as the Ambassadors of those countries to whom I spoke here would report to the Japanese and to the Chinese Governments.
2. The Chinese Ambassador also called this morning at my request and I made to him statements along substantially the same line as the statements made to the Japanese Ambassador, indicating our great solicitude for peace.
3. Please arrange to call at an early moment upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs and inform him that I wished him to have through our diplomatic representative there information in regard to what I had said to his country’s Ambassador here. Please then read to the Foreign Minister the statements contained in numbered part 1 of this telegram. You may add that I had a conversation along the same general lines with the Chinese Ambassador here.
- See memorandum by the Secretary of State, July 21, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 330.↩
- See Department of State Conference Series No. 33, Report of the Delegation of the United States of America to the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, Buenos Aires, Argentina, December 1–23, 1936 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1937), pp. 11, 82.↩
- July 16; for text of statement see vol. i, p. 699.↩