711.94/1338: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 8—11:35 a.m.]
584. At press conference this morning, Suma, new Foreign Office spokesman, is reported by the press to have asserted to foreign correspondents that “Japan will not be able to remain indifferent” if the Vinson proposal for a greatly enlarged American Navy,9 is approved by the Congress. Although declining to elaborate on this statement, he explained that inasmuch as the measure has not yet passed “the stage of a proposal it does not yet constitute a stumbling block to the improvement of amicable relations between the two countries.”
Answering a question at the same conference regarding the reported predictions of Senator Pittman that the Congress would pass an embargo on exports to Japan unless American-Japanese relations improved before the expiration of the Treaty of Commerce, Suma stated that the matter is not new as the Senator has been talking of such [Page 596] an embargo for a long time, and referred in that connection to a warning attributed to Senator Vandenberg, who, he said, represented not only the Republican Party but also the sentiment of important business leaders, that it would constitute a provocation to Japan. Suma went on to say that the attitude in Japan now is to maintain as amicable relations as possible with the United States but stated that if the embargo talk evolves into a law there is fear of its impairing relations between the two countries, as he believed that an embargo would be interpreted by Japan as provocation on the part of our Government. He then repeated the familiar thesis that issues between Japan and third powers are due to the abnormalities and large scale hostilities in China and that “the establishment of the new central government in China would do much to clarify the situation in East Asia.”
Suma informs the correspondents that no arrangement had been made either for a second talk between the Foreign Minister and myself,10 or for a resumption of Anglo-Japanese negotiations regarding the Tientsin issue.