811.31/49
The Under Secretary of State (Phillips) to the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hornbeck)
Doctor Hornbeck: I brought Admiral Reeves’ statement52 to the attention of the President this morning and expressed regret that the announcement had come on the very day of the denunciation of the Treaty by Japan.53 The President also expressed his regret that there had been any publicity whatsoever; he said, however, that the maneuvers in the Pacific must take place; he thought it might be a good plan to let Mr. Grew know that the maneuvers were purely of a defensive character; that last year they were in the neighborhood of Hawaii and its tributary islands, this year they would be merely extended [Page 344] north, but not to a point west of the Aleutian Islands. I told the President that I had come to him with the suggestion that the maneuvers be moved to the other side of the Canal or confined closer to our coast and that I thought this would be a fine gesture to make. It was evident, however, that the President had given his approval to the maneuvers as proposed and there was nothing further to be done about it.
- Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, commander in chief of the United States Fleet, announced on December 29 at San Pedro, Calif., that the North Pacific Ocean would be a theater of naval maneuvers from May 3 to June 10, 1935.↩
- See note from the Japanese Ambassador, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 274.↩