711.94/9–3041
Memorandum by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeek)86
Reference Tokyo’s telegram number 1542 of September 3087 and previous telegrams regarding recent Japanese demands, under threat of force, for air bases and military barracks in southern Indochina, which demands the French have complied with under threat of force.
Coming at precisely this moment this incident is of special significance. The most noticeable recent increase in tension in Japanese-American relations arose directly from Japan’s move last July under threat of force into southern Indochina. An emphasized point in the American position in the conversations which have ensued subsequent to that occupation has been our suggestion that, as one of the first steps which Japan should take in order to better her relations with the United States, her forces in Indochina should be withdrawn.
While Japanese “moderates”, official and unofficial, are still carrying on conversations with the United States envisaging the possibility of some significant settlement between Japan and the United States, while these representatives declare that the Japanese Government is in accord with the principles to which the United States is committed, and after repeated specific assurances have been voiced that this time the Japanese Government speaks with the full concurrence of the leaders of the Japanese Army, a new Japanese move of aggression is now ordered by the Japanese Government and is now taking place in the very area where, as the Japanese well know, recent actions by Japan have been a particular cause of concern to the United States and a specific topic in the conversations. Our Tokyo Embassy reports that the French Counselor of the Embassy at Tokyo states that the Japanese Foreign Office has affirmed to that official that the Japanese Government does not approve of the attitude of the Japanese military authorities in Indochina but is not in a position to intervene. But, we have indisputable evidence that the Japanese Government has ordered and is directing, in major outline, the move which the Japanese military authorities are now in process of making.
This incident affords new indicative evidence that (1) the “moderate” element in the Japanese Government is not in a position (has not the effective authority) reliably to guarantee that Japan’s military forces will desist from their program of conquest and (2) while that element professes that all elements in the Japanese Government are [Page 494] prepared to make a commitment to refrain from further actions of aggression, the Japanese Government as a whole is both sanctioning and ordering a new step in the national program of conquest.
- Copy unsigned, undated, but sent by Dr. Hornbeck to Messrs. Hamilton and Ballantine on October 2.↩
- Vol. v, p. 299.↩