Office of the Historian

893.61331/241: Telegram

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

Tokyo, December 17, 1940—6 p.m.
[Received December 18—9:35 p.m.]

1326. Department’s 540, December 12, 10 p.m., the Universal Leaf Tobacco Company. In an interview with the Foreign Minister today I strongly pressed this case both in emphatic oral representation and in a signed note of seven pages which referred to the representations already made on November 27 and November 30 without apparent effect and again requested under instructions that the Japanese Government take immediate action to remove the interference under complaint.52 The Minister pencilled the word “urgent” in Japanese on my note and said that he would pursue the matter.

Sent to the Department via Peiping. Peiping please repeat to Chungking, Shanghai, Tientsin, Tsingtao.

Grew
  1. For the Japanese Foreign Minister’s reference to the tobacco company case, see his oral statement of December 17, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, pp. 895, 896.↩