741.94/487: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 13—3:13 p.m.]
761. For the President, the Secretary and Under Secretary. My 754, April 12, 5 p.m. and 757, April 12, 8 p.m. The meeting between Matsuoka and Cripps took place last night at the theater as arranged without attracting any attention. In the course of their conversation, Matsuoka assured Cripps that Japan had no hostile intentions against Britain or British possessions in the Far East. He expressed the hope that the war would not spread and talked in a generally conciliatory vein. Cripps handed him a copy of Churchill’s message which Matsuoka surreptitiously slipped into his pocket without looking at it, obviously in order that it should not be noticed that he had received a document.
As we were walking back to our seats, I asked Matsuoka whether he had reached an understanding with Molotov to which he replied [Page 941] that he anticipated signing “a limited” agreement in the nature of a “pact of neutrality” before his departure. (See my 1638, November 28, 7 p.m.49)
Repeated to Tokyo.
- Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. i , in section entitled “Relations of Japan With the Axis Powers and With the Soviet Union.”↩