Office of the Historian

793.94/14504: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, December 16, 1938—3 p.m.
[Received December 16—6:53 a.m.]

787. Our 786, December 15, 7 p.m.

1.
The press reports that the Minister for Foreign Affairs is to have a further conversation with Craigie and me on or about Tuesday, December 20.
2.
Does the Department desire, in the likely event of Arita initiating further discussion of the Japanese position, that I say anything more than to repeat the statements which I made to him at our last interview (see our 773, December 8, 7 p.m.65)?
3.
Craigie informs me that he is cabling his Government to ask whether he is to receive further instructions and to say that in the absence of instructions he will state to Arita that the British Government cannot assent to any abridgment of the principle of equality of opportunity or to any unilateral modification of the Nine Power Treaty.
Grew
  1. Not printed, but see memoranda of December 8, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, pp. 813 and 814.↩