Office of the Historian

711.94/2134: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, June 3, 1941—2 p.m.
[Received June 3—6:16 a.m.]

760. For the Secretary and the Under Secretary. Embassy’s 757, June 2, 7 p.m. Indicative of the extent to which reports are current here that conversations between the United States and Japan are taking place in Washington is the following information given to me today by an American correspondent:

1.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, when asked by Japanese press men to comment on the President’s speech of May 27,18a replied that he did not wish to comment for the reason (which he emphasized was not to be indicated) that conversations are now under way in Washington.
2.
The foreign editor of the newspaper Asahi told my American informant that a plan of settlement had been proposed by Japan, that the United States had put forward a counter plan, but that progress had been blocked by the refusal of Japan to withdraw from China.

Grew
  1. Department of State Bulletin, May 31, 1941, p. 647.↩