Office of the Historian

711.94/1327: Telegram

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

Tokyo, October 30, 1939—7 p.m.
[Received October 30—9:37 a.m.]

561. Our 560, October 28, 7 p.m.4

1. Discussion in articles in the vernacular press in regard to the holding of conversations between the Foreign Minister and myself continues. It is taken for granted that the conversations have already [Page 592] been arranged and that there is nothing to do but to set the date. Kato, the new Ambassador at Large to China, is reported to have been ordered, while en route to his post, to return to aid in the preparations now said to be taking place.

[Here follows report of Japanese press views.]

4. At today’s press conference the Foreign Office spokesman5 denied that Japan had any intention at the present time of initiating discussions with Great Britain or the United States and described articles to that effect in the vernacular press as “pure imagination”. While the Foreign Minister may see Mr. Grew this week, the meeting will not be for the purpose of formal negotiations, the spokesman said. He added that forecasts in the Japanese press that the opening of the Yangtze and Pearl rivers would be offered to the United States by the Japanese Government as a quid pro quo for a new commercial treaty were absurd. The spokesman said that the press had ignored completely the most important factor in the clarification of the present situation, the establishment of a new central government in China at an early date. The Foreign Office informed us, in reply to a request for elucidation of Suma’s statement summarized above, that the holding of an ad hoc conference or series of conversations for the settlement of outstanding American-Japanese issues is not contemplated; that it had to be assumed that such questions would be discussed at some future time; and that when they were discussed they would be taken up in normal way through the usual diplomatic channels.

Copies by airmail to Shanghai, Peiping. Shanghai requested to repeat to Chungking by naval radio.

Grew
  1. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 30.↩
  2. Yakichiro Suma, former Counselor of the Japanese Embassy in the United States.↩