793.94/5828: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Mellon)
24. Department’s 21, January 24, 5 p.m. and your 18, January 26, 5 p.m.
[Page 142]- 1.
- The Department under date January 28 received an aide-mémoire from the British Embassy elucidating the views of the British Government with regard to the queries raised in the Department’s aide-mémoire of January 24.
- 2.
- The Department today handed to a member of the British Embassy an aide-mémoire under date January 31 expressing appreciation for having been informed, both in Washington and in London, of the British Government’s views on this important matter and stating as follows:
[Here follows quotation of last two paragraphs of the aide-mémoire printed supra.]
In connection with the communication of this aide-mémoire, the statement was made on behalf of the Department that, whatever the merits of the project, the Department still entertaining doubts in regard thereto, it was felt that any effort along the lines thereof which the British Government might wish to make, with or without the cooperation of several of the other powers mentioned, would have a better chance of serving a useful purpose in the absence of American participation than with it, in view of the persistent sensitiveness, real or artificially stimulated, of the Japanese to suggestions from the United States. It was stated that we wish to cooperate wherever it appears to us that a useful purpose will be served by our doing so.