793.94/9311
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hornbeck)
The British Ambassador called on me this morning at about 11 o’clock.
The Ambassador asked whether we had had any report from our Ambassador at Nanking of a discussion between the British and the American Ambassadors of the possibility of a settlement by negotiation between the Chinese and the Japanese Governments with a “guarantee by the British and the American Governments.” I said that I had no knowledge of our having received any such report. The Ambassador then took from his pocket and handed to me a paper which obviously was the text of a telegram which he had just received from London. The telegram quoted a telegram from London to Nanking in which London instructed its Ambassador that under no circumstances could there be considered the possibility of a “guarantee by the British Government.” I said that the instruction seemed to me obviously logical. The Ambassador inquired again whether we had had anything from our Ambassador on the subject. I said [Page 301] that I was sure that we had not. I then telephoned to Mr. Myers21 and asked whether he had seen any telegram reporting on discussion by our Ambassador and the British Ambassador at Nanking of ways and means by which the Chinese-Japanese controversy might be brought to an end. Mr. Myers replied in the negative. I asked him to check through the telegrams and he later reported that we had nothing under that description.
The British Ambassador thanked me and then said that his Government naturally was interested in the question of what the American Government was going to do about the Neutrality Act.21a I said that I had no information on that subject. I inquired whether he had noted in the paper this morning what Senator Pittman22 had said, and the Ambassador replied that he had noted that. I said that, giving only my strictly personal opinion, I was sure that this Government was not going precipitately into a decision on that subject. The Ambassador said that that was his impression.
With exchange of courtesies, the conversation there ended.