811.20 (D) Regulations/5462
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Alger Hiss, Assistant to the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck)57
After Mr. Acheson had discussed with the Secretary the substance of his memorandum of September 22 entitled “Trade with Japan” and after having worked out with Messrs. Hornbeck and Hamilton the nature of information which it would seem wisest to impart to the British and Netherlands Governments, Mr. Acheson asked Baron van Boetzelaer to call (the Minister being out of town).
Mr. Acheson had previously written out the phraseology which he intended to follow in talking to Baron van Boetzelaer and he stuck closely to this phraseology in making the following remarks: In view of Baron van Boetzelaer’s repeated requests for a statement of the policy of the American Government regarding the shipment of petroleum products from the United States to Japan, Mr. Acheson said that he was now in a position to say that no shipments of such products had gone to Japan since the date of the freezing order, and that although three export licenses for comparatively small amounts of petroleum products had been granted sometime ago the Japanese had [Page 887] refused to turn in as payment hidden currency in their control in this country and all other forms of completing the transaction have been found unsatisfactory by the United States. It is the intention of the United States to continue to take this same attitude. In other words, through the medium of our freezing control, exports of petroleum to Japan have ceased and the Netherlands authorities may expect that through the maintenance of the same control the same result will continue. Should anything occur which might warrant a reconsideration of the situation we would of course discuss the matter with the Netherlands authorities before taking any action.
Mr. Acheson then said that Secretary Hull had particularly stressed his desire that the information which had just been given to Baron van Boetzelaer be disseminated among as few officials of the Netherlands Government as possible and had also stressed the importance that there be no publication in any way of anything ascribing any particular policy to the Government of the United States.
- Initialed by the Assistant Secretary of State (Acheson).↩