711.94115 Exchange/298b: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland (Harrison)
1073. Reference Department’s 1072. Please request Swiss Government to ask Gorgé in a secret code to report date of delivery of proposal and Japanese Government’s reaction thereto. Should the Japanese authorities decline to give favorable consideration to this proposal or again raise the questions set forth in the Swiss Foreign Office Aide-Mémoire of February 25 (Legation’s 1218, February 2966), he should point out to the Japanese Foreign Office that the Spanish Embassy in charge of Japanese interests in the United States and the Swedish Legation in charge of Japanese interests in Hawaii have had full opportunity to inspect all camps in which Japanese nationals are interned and to report on the conditions therein; that replies have been made to all Japanese protests which have been received by the United States Government concerning alleged attacks on Japanese hospital ships; and that, since the United States Government has done everything possible to overcome the concern expressed by the Japanese Government as the reason for its postponement of consideration [Page 1088] of further exchanges and shipment of relief supplies, it is hoped that the Japanese Government will now give its immediate attention to the reciprocal proposal concerning the exchange of nationals and the shipment of relief supplies and also to the question of the onward shipment of relief supplies now warehoused at Vladivostok. Gorgé might well in this connection reiterate the suggestion he has already so fittingly made that the Japanese Government’s fulfillment of the humanitarian obligations it has undertaken would best serve to counteract the criticism which it contends has been unjustly directed against it.67