811.5294/578: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
28. Department’s No. 25, February 23, 3 p.m. The Japanese Ambassador called at the Department today and stated that he had been instructed to ask what is being done in regard to legislation pending in the Arizona Legislature which would affect Japanese nationals. He was informed that we are doing everything that we appropriately can toward favorably affecting the situation, but that if the fact and the nature of our efforts were to become known the effect would be to defeat the efforts themselves.
Please in your discretion inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs orally and in strict confidence that it is a delicate matter for the Federal Government to intrude into questions of the making by the States of their own laws; that the Federal Government is not indifferent and is doing all that it appropriately and discreetly may; and suggests that, in meeting interrogations in the Diet, it would be inadvisable for Hirota to give any specifications.