793.94/2967a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Forbes)
247. For your information. At press conference on November 27, correspondents brought to attention of the Secretary press despatches to the effect that General Honjo’s army had moved southward from Mukden and was encamped 35 miles north of Chinchow and that Japanese bombing planes were operating in that area. The Secretary said:
I will simply say I am at a loss to understand that, in view of very definite assurances that have been given to me on that subject. We have no confirmation of them and I am speaking therefore solely from the press despatches but not for quotation but for attribution. On the twenty-third of November, I asked our ambassador in Tokyo to tell Baron Shidehara, the Foreign Minister of Japan, that I had seen with great apprehension press reports giving the impression that the Army Commanders of Japan were planning military expeditions against the forces of China in the neighborhood of Chinchow and that I sincerely trusted that there was no basis for that report. The following day, November 24, I was assured by Baron Shidehara, the Foreign Minister of Japan, through Ambassador Forbes that he and the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff were all of them agreed that there should be no hostile operations toward Chinchow and that [Page 54] military orders to that effect had been issued. In view of that it is difficult for me to understand the press report about the advance of General Honjo’s Army.”
This is all that was said by the Secretary on that subject.
Repeat to Nanking and Paris.