894.24/1825
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Acheson)
Mr. Hall called at my request. I referred to the fact that from time to time Mr. Hall had made inquiries regarding the policy of this Government toward the shipment of petroleum products from the United States to Japan and that, as he knew, the Netherlands Government had made similar inquiries. I said that yesterday Baron van Boetzelaer called again to ask for clarification on this point and that I wished to inform Mr. Hall of what I had said. I then repeated to Mr. Hall the statement which I had made to Baron van Boetzelaer, having previously refreshed my memory from the written memorandum. The statement was as follows:
[Here follows substance of statement given in memorandum by Mr. Alger Hiss, supra.]
I then referred to the suggestion which he had made that the Government of India was willing to restrict its exports of cotton to Japan and I believed to Japanese occupied China in any month to the amount which had been exported to those destinations from the United States in the preceding month. I informed him that at the present time no cotton was moving from this country to Japan and relatively small amounts to Japanese-occupied China, and that we would procure for him as promptly as possible after the end of each month a statement from the Collectors of Customs of the amounts exported.
[Page 888]I then referred to his letter58 in which he had suggested that the British authorities were prepared to stop the exports of iron ore from British Malaya if exports of iron ore from the Philippines were discontinued. I stated that we were trying to get from the Philippines a statement of the amounts of iron ore, if any, which was already under license and the amount of the unexhausted quota. Such figures as we had led us to believe that the quota was very nearly exhausted. If this were so, it would not be our intention to enlarge the quota. If there were no outstanding licenses, the policy would be to have the whole matter referred to Washington for review, with a view toward discontinuing exports. If there were any substantial number of licenses outstanding, that situation would require further study. I told him that I would discuss this matter further with him very shortly, as soon as we had received the essential information from the Philippines.