893.24/811: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 28—2:15 a.m.]
366. Department’s 126, undated [July 24, 7 p.m.]. Message suggested in Department’s 124, July 20, 4 p.m. was communicated to Generalissimo during a conversation on the evening of July 27. Generalissimo listened closely and at the end asked whether it was true that aviation gasoline and scrap iron had been placed on list of articles which might not be shipped from the United States without license.2 When I confirmed this, he asked me to express to you the appreciation of the Chinese people of this step which he characterized as a helpful step of the kind mentioned in the message above referred to.
I found Generalissimo much interested in possibility of German success against Great Britain and in the situation in the Balkans. He stated that in his opinion Germany was strategically wrong in making an attack on Great Britain.
- See President Roosevelt’s proclamation of July 26, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 216.↩