701.9411/1225a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Japan (Dooman)
295. Your 491, September 26, noon, paragraph 2. The Department has noted a number of press despatches that the Japanese Government contemplates replacing Horinouchi as Ambassador here.
[Page 584]The Department does not know whether these reports have any relationship to various indications which it has noted that some powerful elements in Japan still regard the problem of improving Japanese-American relations as one to be dealt with primarily by vigorous advocacy of Japan’s cause through recourse to propaganda methods directly among the American people rather than by action on the part of Japanese agencies toward implementation of the repeated assurances which the Japanese Government has given that American rights and interests in China will be respected.
The Department is of the opinion that in the long run the cause of good relations between any foreign country and the United States would not be best served by the sending by that country to the United States of an Ambassador charged with and selected with a view to his qualifications for special activity, propagandist in nature, out of keeping with diplomatic character.