711.94/2182: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 18—6:30 p.m.]
1267. For the Secretary and Under Secretary only. The importance of holding in strictest secrecy the proposal of the Foreign Minister conveyed in my immediately following telegram22 cannot be too strongly stressed. The Minister expressed the gravest concern at the possibility of leakage, particularly he said “to the Germans or Italians”. It was made clear that in case the Japanese Government’s proposal should prematurely leak it would almost certainly “be torpedoed” by elements in Japan.
If it should be considered unavoidable that the proposal be confided to the British Ambassador in Washington, I strongly urge that he undertake to repeat it exclusively to London for the most limited circulation and that London be asked not to repeat it as is customary to the British Embassy in Tokyo.
- Telegram No. 1268, August 18, 1941, 10 p.m., Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 565; see also memorandum of August 18, 1941, by the Ambassador in Japan, ibid., p. 560.↩