793.94/9484: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 18—3 p.m.]
546. Your 347, August 13, 7 p.m.,36 and 353, August 16, midnight, conveyed orally to appropriate officials of the Foreign Office.
Eden37 left London this morning after two nights and a day here spent entirely in conference with available Cabinet Ministers and permanent officials.
I saw Vansittart38 this afternoon and he told me the contents of his Government’s message to you sent last night through Lindsay.39 I asked if there was anything else he wished to convey and he said that he would like to say that the method proposed seemed to offer the only means they could devise; that of course without offering any protection to the 18,000 Japanese in the International Settlement, there would not be the slightest chance that the Japanese would agree to any kind of withdrawal. He referred also to his Government’s hope that if it became absolutely necessary some refuge might be accorded to British nationals in the Philippine Islands, assuming that a situation arose in which no more could be taken care of in Hong Kong and other places available to them.
Vansittart said that the message transmitted to you last night through Lindsay would be given to the press for publication here tomorrow morning.
He concluded by saying that he had just received a telegram from the British Chargé d’Affaires at Tokyo in which he spoke in terms of highest praise for the work being done there by Ambassador Grew.