Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1940, General, Volume I

762.9411/106: Telegram

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

Tokyo, October 9, 1940—8 p.m.
[Received October 9—1:30 p.m.]

963. The following is paraphrase of a telegram sent yesterday to his Government by my British colleague:

“This morning at the beginning of my interview and prior to my making the communication regarding the Burma Road, the Foreign Minister stated that with a view to discussing the matter of the tri-power pact he had had in mind requesting me to call, but that after further reflection he had refrained from doing so because he had reached the conclusion that he could not really add anything to what was contained in the text as published and in the radio speech which he had made. After this preamble, Mr. Matsuoka proceeded to a lengthy discussion of the pact. The following points emerged therefrom:

1. What he asserted to be the progressively unfriendly position of the United States, necessitating Japan’s taking measures of defense, was the principal reason that Japan had entered the pact.

2. His aim, aside from this, is to lend his aid, at first, in preventing the spread, and secondarily in bringing to a conclusion the conflicts which are unhappily in progress both in Europe and in China. To see in the action of Japan any aggressive purpose is entirely mistaken.

3. In Japan, to be sure, there are persons in favor of a policy of greater aggression but the Prime Minister and Mr. Matsuoka whatever the cost would resist them and he repeatedly stated that he was determined, should an endeavor be made to compel him to go along with such a policy, to resign and again leave public life.

4. The Minister rejected indignantly my jocular remark to him that Japan is no longer free to decide in favor of peace or war, and asserted that the decision remained completely in Japan’s hands as to whether or not, within the purview of the third article of the pact, an attack had taken place, that the most definite promises had been given by the German Government that it was its desire neither to incite the United States nor to antagonize it, and that not only the pact but also the negotiations prior thereto had made it more than clear that Japan would not embark upon war if for example the United States should take action, because of Axis provocation.

In this connection, he stated that in any case only if a great power should attack one of the three countries which had signed the pact would article 3 come into operation. On this point however I was unable to induce him to be more specific.

During a good deal of the conversation the Minister made a somewhat halfhearted endeavor—by way of reply to my statement that the policy of Japan should not be contaminated because of its intimate association with a country which practiced enslavement and dictatorship more than any other—to justify the actions of Germany in the period before the war commenced. The Minister criticised the policy of Great Britain on the ground that it was too rigid in its espousal of the continuance of the status quo. I indicated that the belittling of the status quo by him and his associates in the Axis was in essence an assertion of their claim to deprive others of their possessions, properties and rights under the cloak of lofty phrases such as leadership and new order, and that it was my belief that peace would result only when the countries which had put such implicit trust in the force of arms found out that in the use of that force they could and would be surpassed. He added the customary nonsense regarding the needs of nations that are vigorous and young but agreed that Great Britain is making a splendid showing against the German attack.

In tone our conversation was more or less friendly. Matsuoka informed me that since he was now relieved of pressure from other directions, he had promised the American Ambassador that he would give his attention to a study of the claims of the United States in China, and to their settlement, and he gave me the promise that he would act similarly with respect to our own claims. I received absolutely no indication that any definite decision has been taken regarding war, but my impression is that the Minister will press forward now with the policy of expansion to the south, to the extent that he feels confident of getting away with it.”⁸¹

The statement made by the Foreign Minister in paragraph numbered 4 above confirms the understanding expressed in numbered paragraph 5 of our telegram 954, October 7, 10 p.m.

Grew

81. In telegram No. 1123, November 11, 9 a.m. (740.0011 European War-1939/6588), Ambassador Grew reported another conversation in which the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs told the British Ambassador, inter alia, that his impelling motive in concluding the Axis pact had been his conviction that United States entry into the European war would inevitably involve other states, Japan included. He also expressed his fervent desire to avoid war with either Great Britain or the United States, and said that nothing would provoke Japan’s entry into war except American entry into the European war or some serious action such as the moving of a powerful American naval squadron to Singapore.