894.20/114
Report by the Special Assistant of the Embassy in France (Dawson)76
Towards the end of the afternoon on Friday February 3rd, I received a visit from a French diplomat who is one of my oldest and most intimate friends in France and whose friendly conversations with me have supplied me with a considerable amount of the background for the Reports I have been drafting since my connection with the Embassy began. My experience with him is that he is not only thoroughly well informed but ponderate in his judgments and he has invariably been sincere in his dealings with me.
He opened the conversation by asking me immediately if I knew of any developments in relations between Japan and the United States.
I replied that I had heard of nothing new but that our relations were very pleasant at this juncture, as far as I was aware.
My interlocutor then asked me whether I had heard any reason given for the policy pursued by Japan at the League of Nations.
I replied that I had not.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he told me that he had made up his mind to inform me concerning a grave situation which he knew to be true, although he was unable to give me the source and could not add any details to the statement he was about to make.
He went on to say that Japan had deliberately planned her policy before the League of Nations with a view to forcing a situation which would allow her to come out with a categorical declaration of policy.
For some time past, she has, according to my informant, been preparing for war. Her aim is not, however, the ostensible one of China, nor is it yet the question of Manchukwo, which she considers as having been settled once and for all.
What Japan intends to compass in the immediate future is to get possession of the entire chain of islands scattered along the Asiatic coast, so as to make her complete mistress of the Asiatic continent.
The Philippines were mentioned by my informant as being included in this plan and signifying that Japan’s present preparations for war were aimed directly at the United States.
Both the personal position and connections of my informant, and his choice of language as well as the reticences with which he surrounded his statements, couched in carefully chosen words which, as he had explained to me in advance, could not be expanded, left no [Page 156] doubt in my mind as to the fact that the information given to me was known at the French Foreign Office and might indeed possibly have emanated from there.
It is, however, obvious that the Foreign Office would know nothing about the matter officially if approached on the subject.
I have been careful to give the time and period of the day when this conversation occurred because it was prior to public announcements of developments in Geneva leading to Japan’s open declaration of a warlike policy. It was also unfortunately too late for me to connect in any way with Friday’s pouch to the Department, since the pouch was being closed in Paris at the very hour when the conversation occurred in Versailles. Still more unfortunately, there is now no pouch until Thursday February 9th so that the information will have been held up practically a week in Paris.
It remains possible, however, that the present despatch may reach Washington before the information concerning the Philippines and the United States is received from another source.
Forty-eight hours after the conversation upon which I have just reported, I received a visit from Commander Vincent-Bréchignac, Curator of the Paris Musée de la Marine, and compiler of the French statistical annual on navy questions which corresponds to the famous British annual, Jayne’s Fighting Ships. His connections for keeping his annual up to date bring to him information which has sometimes proved valuable to me.
I profited by the opportunity to sound him discreetly as to the plans of Japan, which on that day had not yet been proclaimed as far as the war policy was concerned.
He had evidently not heard of any direct threat against the Philippines, but he told me that he believed Japan to be considering the necessity of a war basis, his assumption being the wish to strengthen her position particularly in Manchukwo but also on the Asiatic continent. He considered that Soviet Russia was her great adversary, but he added significantly that he had been much gratified to note that the United States had maintained its full naval program. He added that he considered this to be an absolute necessity in view of the present situation in the Far East.
It may furthermore be of interest to note that he directed my attention to the “World Peace” activities of the Carnegie Foundation in Paris and the character of their pacifist literature, saying that in his opinion the policy which this institution was pursuing might lead to embarrassing consequences for the United States as well as for other countries.
[Page 157]When he said this, I thought that he was referring to a piece of news which several French papers had published concerning a question raised in Congress over the activities of both the Carnegie and the Rockefeller peace foundations. When I asked him, however, if his remarks were based on this news report, he expressed surprise at its appearance, saying he had read nothing on the subject which he had not even discussed with anyone, but that his impression was based directly on his own examination of several tracts and books which he had had the curiosity to look at in the library organized by the Carnegie Foundation.
Very respectfully yours,
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in France in his despatch of February 7; received February 16.↩