Office of the Historian

893.61331/242a: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)

Washington, November 20, 1940—5 p.m.

488. Your 1143, November 13, 10 a.m., Peiping’s 454, November 15, 3 p.m., 450, November 14, 3 p.m., and Tsingtao’s 142, November 13, noon,37 Universal Leaf Tobacco Company. The President of the Universal Leaf Tobacco Company of China called at the Department on November 18 and reported that after exhaustive bargaining Japanese officials had informed his company that it would be permitted to buy only one million pounds of tobacco in the Hwang Chi-pu District and that after re-drying his company would only be permitted to sell [Page 551] the tobacco thus bought to the Japanese-sponsored North China Tobacco Company at a price fixed by Japanese authorities.

The Department desires that, as suggested in your telegram under reference, you bring this flagrant case of interference with American business to Mr. Matsuoka’s attention, in such manner as you may deem appropriate, as one of the many contributing factors to the exacerbation of Japanese-American relations and ask that action be taken to remove such interference.38

Sent to Tokyo via Peiping. Repeated to Chungking, Tientsin and Tsingtao.

Welles
  1. Telegram No. 142 not printed.↩
  2. In telegram No. 1212, November 27, noon, the Ambassador in Japan informed the Department that an oral statement in the sense of the Department’s telegram had been left at the Japanese Foreign Office on November 27 (893.61331/244).↩