793.94/9957
Memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
[Tokyo,] August 13, 1937.
- 1.
- The Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs asked me to meet him at the Tokyo Club late this evening and gave me the text of the statement the sense of which Mr. Hidaka had been instructed to communicate today to the five ambassadors in Nanking in reply to their communication of August 11. In case any error should have occurred in communicating this message, the Vice Minister expressed the hope that I would cable the precise text to Washington. The text follows at the end of this memorandum.28
- 2.
- The Vice Minister said that the situation in Shanghai is dangerous because Chinese troops have been sniping at the Japanese landing forces who have naturally returned the fire. The Japanese, he said, earnestly wish to avoid hostilities. He expressed the hope that the Ambassadors in Nanking would arrange through their consular representatives in Shanghai for the Chinese troops to withdraw “to an arranged point” whereupon the Japanese forces would likewise withdraw to their original position. I asked the Vice Minister if this was a request for mediation. He replied “Yes, local mediation”.
- 3.
- I took the opportunity of this unsolicited interview to say to the Vice Minister that I desired to support earnestly and to urge the importance of the representations made by the five ambassadors [Page 345] in Nanking to the Japanese Embassy to the effect that the Japanese would not use Shanghai as a base for hostilities and that they would not land further forces. The Vice Minister made no further comment except to thank me for having consistently had in mind the avoidance of undesirable publicity in the various steps which I have taken here.
- 4.
- The Vice Minister told me that he was communicating also to the other concerned ambassadors the instructions sent to Mr. Hidaka.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
J[oseph] C. G[rew]
- For text as delivered at Nanking, see supra.↩