Office of the Historian

894.00/998

Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hamilton)2

[Washington,] January 10, 1941.

I am informed that there is to take place today in Washington a luncheon meeting at which a Mr. M. Kleiman3 and the Japanese Financial Attaché4 in New York City, and another Japanese are to lay before several Americans, including one who is a relative or a close friend of the President,5 a proposal for peace between China and Japan and apparently for bringing about better relations between the United States and Japan. The general idea of Mr. Kleiman and his Japanese associates6 appears to be to endeavor to cause the Americans to take their proposition directly to the President in the hope that the President would instruct the State Department to put the [Page 2] proposal into effect. The proposal envisages the sending by this Government of some sort of an unofficial emissary to Japan.

A little over a month ago Mr. Kleiman called on officers of the Department and also sent the Department a letter and a memorandum7 in exposition of his ideas. We have not felt that it would be appropriate for this Government to act favorably upon Mr. Kleiman’s proposal or that his proposal, if adopted, would be likely to produce constructive results.

M[axwell] M. H[amilton]
  1. Initialed by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck).↩
  2. New York businessman who visited Japan in 1940.↩
  3. Tsutomu Nishiyama.↩
  4. They included Gracie Hall Roosevelt, considering a trip to Japan, accompanied by Robert Barr Deans; J. M. Davies, and Gen. R. C. Marshall (retired).↩
  5. Count Yoriyasu Arima, chairman of the “preparatory commission for establishment of a new structure” (the “Imperial Rule Assistance Association”), was mentioned as sponsor of the proposal.↩
  6. Neither printed.↩