894.00/058: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 13—10:25 a.m.]
834. In the absence of the British Ambassador54 but at his direction the Counselor of the British Embassy today let me read a long five-page telegram from the British Ambassador in Washington55 reporting in detail his conversation with the Secretary on September 656 in the presence of Sir A. Agnew.57
Although several points in my 827, September 12, 9 p.m., and immediately ensuing telegrams are in close accord with Lord Lothian’s remarks, I wish to make perfectly clear the fact that no point in my own analysis was discussed with my British colleague, who has been absent from Tokyo for some time, and that the apparently close coincidence of some of my own expressed views with some of the views expressed by Lord Lothian is purely fortuitous. This seems to be a case of noteworthy timing and of two independent observers separately reaching very much the same general conclusions, but I wish to say with the utmost emphasis, if such a statement is not wholly superfluous, that my own conclusions were reached uninfluenced by any considerations whatsoever other than what I conceive to be the best interests of the United States.