Office of the Historian

393.115/1010: Telegram

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

Washington, October 17, 1940—7 p.m.

407. Your 982, October 13, noon. The Department concurs in the view expressed in the third sentence of the third substantive paragraph of your telegram under reference that we should wait a little longer to judge whether the reports you mention and the recent reduction in the number of bombing incidents represent any bona fide change in [Page 904] Japanese policy toward American interests in China. In view, however, of the continuing endangering and damaging of American property, official and private, at Kunming and Chungking (Kunming’s October 13, 7 p.m. forwarded by Hong Kong’s 387, October 14, 6 p.m. and Chungking’s 520, October 17, 9 a.m.42), the Department suggests that you hold in abeyance the contemplated further conversation with the Foreign Minister, as described in the last substantive paragraph of your telegram.

Sent to Tokyo via Shanghai. Repeated to Chungking and Peiping.

Hull
  1. Telegram No. 520 not printed.↩