Office of the Historian

711.942/177: Telegram

The Chargé in Japan (Dooman) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, July 27, 1939—3 p.m.
[Received July 27—6 a.m.]

365. Department’s 219, July 26, 6 p.m.58

1.
I was called to the Foreign Office this morning and was asked by Yoshizawa59 whether I could throw any light on the reasons for the giving of notice by the American Government of termination of the treaty of commerce and navigation. I replied that I had been informed only of the action taken yesterday by the Department and that the text of the note delivered to the Japanese Embassy had been telegraphed to us. I assumed from the fact that the note had been delivered to the Counselor of the Japanese Embassy by Mr. Sayre that the considerations out of which this action arose were primarily those affecting American economic policies. I suggested that these considerations might possibly be: (a) the inadequacy of existing treaty provisions towards safeguarding American commercial interests in Japan under conditions of Japanese trade control; and (b) need for providing domestic textile manufacturers with protection against foreign competition equivalent to the subsidy which might be granted on exports of raw cotton. Yoshizawa then suggested as a possible explanation that our Government anticipating passage of the Vandenberg resolution had taken action at this time in order to [Page 561] indicate that termination of the treaty was moved by considerations other than the delicate one of removing legal objection to the laying down of export embargoes against Japan. I declined to comment.
2.
The Foreign Office will I understand give out to the press this afternoon something by way of comment.60
Dooman
  1. Not printed; it informed the Embassy in Japan of the notice of intention to terminate the treaty of 1911 (711.942/177a). Text of the notice was communicated to the Embassy in a separate telegram.↩
  2. Seijiro Yoshizawa, Director of the American Affairs Bureau, Japanese Foreign Office.↩
  3. See telegram No. 366, July 28, 11 a.m., from the Chargé in Japan, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 189.↩