761.9315 Manchuria/198

Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Welles) of a Conversation With the Japanese Ambassador (Horinouchi)

The Japanese Ambassador called to see me in order to present his new Counselor, Mr. Morishima.

In the course of a somewhat desultory conversation the Ambassador asked me if this Government had taken any cognizance of the remarks with regard to the United States contained in the recent speech of the Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr. Molotov.95 I replied that this Government had paid no attention to them, and reminded the Ambassador of the President’s remark that he did not believe bad manners should engender bad manners. The Ambassador said that he had been delighted with this statement of the President, which he thought placed matters in their right and true light.

I then took occasion to say to the Ambassador that I had seen with interest in the press that the new Soviet Ambassador to Japan, Mr. Smetanin, was undertaking conversations very vigorously with the Japanese Government, and I inquired whether the Ambassador knew if those conversations covered a wider range than the demarcation of the Mongolian frontier. The Ambassador said that he was not specifically informed, but that he thought he would have been if anything of importance had been advanced by the Soviet Ambassador. He said that he personally believed that it was entirely outside the realm of possibility for any real understanding to be reached between Japan and the Soviet both by reason of the nature of Soviet policy and by reason of the kind of regime which exists in Russia. He said that he saw no present solution of the controversy involving the oil concessions in Sakhalin or of the fisheries dispute, and far less possibility of any understanding with regard to general far eastern policy.

At the conclusion of our brief conversation, the Ambassador said that he was anxious to have a long conversation with me and inquired whether I would receive him for that purpose next week. I replied that of course I would be happy to see the Ambassador at any time, and he said that he would call my office to arrange for an appointment on Monday.96

S[umner] W[elles]
  1. Speech of October 31; see telegram No. 847, November 1, 10 p.m., from the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, Foreign Relations, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 786.
  2. See memorandum by the Under Secretary of State, November 24, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 36.