811.20 Defense (Requisitions)/12: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
179. Your 405, June 4, 1 p.m. [noon]92 Recently the representatives of several foreign governments, including the Counselor of the [Page 574] Japanese Embassy, have made informal inquiries at the Department in regard to certain aspects of the defense program of the Government of the United States involving measures being undertaken or under consideration which look to the necessary conservation of natural, industrial, and other resources which are vital in the interests of the national defense.
The Government and people of the United States have been in the forefront of the peoples and governments of the world in striving for the cause of naval and other disarmament, the relinquishment of force as an instrument of national policy, and the general governance of relations among nations by orderly and peaceful processes. This Government has been in the forefront of the governments of the world in negotiating and implementing international agreements for disarmament. That a number of the great nations of the world are now unhappily engaged in extensive hostilities whose magnitude affects, directly or indirectly, practically all the peoples of the world, constitutes a catastrophe of the kind which the Government of the United States has constantly sought to avert. That it is now necessary for this Government to undertake and to accomplish rearmament is not due to any action of the Government or people of the United States, to any desire to move against any country in the world, to any ambition to add to the territories of the United States or to any denunciation by the Government of the United States of any disarmament agreement. It is the actions, the desires, the ambitions of various other nations which have caused the people and the Government of the United States to embark upon the present program of armament for self-defense.
As part of that program there has been placed in one of the emergency defense bills now before the Congress a provision authorizing the President to curtail or prohibit, in the interest of national defense, exports of “military equipment or munitions, or component parts thereof, or machinery, tools, or material necessary for the manufacture or servicing thereof.” This bill has passed the House and is expected to pass the Senate in a few days. It is designed to insure an adequate supply in this country of certain machinery and equipment which is absolutely indispensable to the realization of our expanded national defense program.
Pending the enactment of this law, the Navy Department is requisitioning certain tools and supplies ordered by foreign purchasers which that Department considers essential to our defense needs and which were about to leave the country. Outgoing shipments in United States ports are being examined with a view to determining whether or not they contain tools and materials of this character. The officers charged with these duties are making every effort to limit to the absolute [Page 575] minimum interference with normal trade between the United States and all foreign countries. It may be emphasized that these requisitions are being effected only in connection with certain types of tools and materials indispensable to our rearmament program, and that they are not directed against any particular country or countries.
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