710.11/2525a Supplemental: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
248. Reference Department’s 247, July 7, 3 p.m. On July 7 the President supplemented the statement described in the telegram under reference. According to a despatch in the Washington Post under date July 7 “Today Stephen T. Early, Presidential Secretary, told reporters the President wished to emphasize ‘the difference between Monroe Doctrines under the name only and the true Monroe Doctrine as we know it and have it.’ ‘There hasn’t been any sign or evidence of a real or true Monroe Doctrine in other hemispheres than our own yet,’ Early said.”
At the press conference on July 8, a correspondent remarked that press despatches describe the Chinese Government as stunned by Mr. Early’s statement of July 6 in regard to the proposal for settlement by Asiatics of the disposition of European colonies in Asia and that this statement has been interpreted as a suggestion that the Chinese, Japanese and other Far Eastern peoples dispose of the Netherlands Indies, and asked whether the Secretary could clarify the statement in any way. The Secretary replied that according to his understanding the general statement made and given to the press at Hyde Park was not intended to define policy, either new policy or modification of existing policy. The Secretary expressed the thought that the [Page 395] statement which he had put out as a public statement (on July 5) and which was an agreed upon official utterance, does contain a statement of policy as we undertake to practice it.
Sent to Tokyo via Shanghai. Repeated to Chungking and Peiping.