Office of the Historian

811.2300/86: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Woods) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, March 22, 1924—2 p.m.
[Received March 23—12:15 p.m.]

54. Department’s 37, March 8, 6 p.m. Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs notified me informally this morning that he had finally succeeded in securing the consent of the Japanese military and naval authorities to allow one American destroyer to proceed to Bettobu and another destroyer to Kashiwabara as desired by our War Department under following conditions:

  • “1. This expedition to be solely for the purpose of taking essential supplies.
  • 2. The destroyers are to stop at Yokohama to take on board one Japanese Army and one Japanese naval officer who are to remain on board during the trip to the Kurile Islands.”

I desire to emphasize the fact that this permission has been secured solely through the personal intervention of the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and that throughout these negotiations the Embassy had had to contend with the vigorous opposition of the Japanese military and naval authorities who had been opposed in principle to the flight and categorically opposed to allowing any foreign warship to enter the ports of the Kurile Islands which they say have always been regarded as closed territory, as set forth in my telegram number 200, December 21, 8 p.m.25 The Japanese War Office had definitely declared to the military attaché at this Embassy that the only flight the War Office would consent to would be a nonstop flight from the Aleutian Islands to Aomori. In view of this attitude of the Army and Navy Departments it was found necessary to appeal to Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs who through his personal influence has been able finally to have the wishes of our War Department carried out.

Woods
  1. Not printed.↩