856D.24/46
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, Dr. van Kleffens, called to see me today. After the customary courtesies, Dr. van Kleffens [Page 249] said that he wished me to know that he had the most thoroughly satisfactory impression of the situation in the Netherlands East Indies so far as morale was concerned, and to a very considerable extent so far as defense measures were concerned. He said that the Netherlands Navy had more than sufficient arms and munitions for all of its requirements and that more than sufficient munitions existed for the heavy and coast artillery required for the defense of the islands. He said, furthermore, that all of the munitions stores were kept underground and in the judgment of the most competent authorities were, consequently, safe from damage by aerial attack. He stated that the morale of the people was admirable, the discipline of the fighting forces excellent, and that there was a unanimous determination to resist Japanese or any other foreign aggression.
He said that they greatly appreciated the aviation materiel which had been sent to them by this Government but that what they also urgently needed was a large number of long range bombers. He said that of course many of the planes received from the United States had already had a good deal of service patrolling and in certain cases replacements were urgently needed. He referred to the conversations which he had had with General Brooke-Popham19 in Manila and said that as a result of that conference, and as a result of the subsequent conference held in Singapore, he felt that a very satisfactory general basis for cooperation between the United States and Great Britain and the Netherlands had been worked out, although he felt strongly that additional detailed implementation was eminently desirable. He inquired at this point whether the United States intended to send an additional number of long range bombers to the Philippines.
I replied that the immediate objectives of this Government had been to render Hawaii completely impregnable and to concentrate on the sending to that point of all of the defense material which was considered necessary.
I said that I was glad to say that that had now been done and that the general staffs of both the Army and the Navy of the United States believed that Hawaii today could not possibly be attacked successfully by any enemy force. I said to the Minister that this had been the immediate and most urgent objective and that while I could not answer his question categorically, it was my understanding that the aviation strength in the Philippines was to be increased and to be effectively built up as soon as the more urgent requirements of this Government had been attended to.
[Page 250]The Minister said he had asked this question because, as a result of the conversations recently held, in the event that the Philippines were attacked and the United States took part in the war against Japan, the Netherlands East Indies would send three squadrons of long range bombers to assist in the defense of the Philippines, and that if this were done, they would, of course, be very short of long range bombers themselves.
The Minister then said that what the Netherlands Government in the East Indies urgently and immediately needed was small arms and ammunition for small arms, together with antiaircraft artillery and additional aviation as he had already indicated. The Minister said that he had already talked with Mr. Hopkins20 but that he wished to leave with me a memorandum identical with that which he had already given to Mr. Hopkins. He urgently asked that I personally do what I could to expedite a favorable decision by the appropriate authorities here of these requests of the Netherlands East Indies Government.
I replied that I would be very glad to do so and that I was in a position to tell him confidentially that from what General Marshall21 had stated to me, it would probably be possible for this Government to make available to the Netherlands East Indies Government some time in July an additional limited number of medium range bombers of the most modern type which it was believed here would be of very valuable service to the Netherlands East Indies in the defense of the islands.
I told the Minister that I would be glad to take up this memorandum personally with General Marshall, although I was confident that Mr. Hopkins’ staff was already attending to the matter in the fullest detail.
I then asked the Minister what impressions he had with regard to the negotiations that had been carried on with the Japanese.
The Minister answered that Mr. Yoshizawa,22 the head of the delegation was a hard-boiled man, but that he, the Minister, had been equally hard-boiled. He said that in his first conversation with Mr. Yoshizawa he had immediately stated that the Netherlands East Indies authorities would not permit the members of the so-called commercial delegation to undertake objectionable activities while they were receiving the hospitality of the Government. He said that many of the members of the delegation were known to be in reality military and naval officials and that they had frequently been found in defense sites from which the public was excluded. He said that Mr. Yoshizawa had retorted that he would like to have a list of such instances. [Page 251] Dr. van Kleffens said that he had replied that there was no reason for them to give any such specific instances since they were already fully known to Mr. Yoshizawa himself.
Dr. van Kleffens said that his belief was that the whole attitude of the Japanese throughout the negotiations had been primarily one of bluff. He said that Yoshizawa himself was not a bad man, but was in the position where he had to carry out the orders sent to him. (I got here the strong impression that the Dutch authorities are fully familiar with the instructions sent to Yoshizawa by his Government and the replies which he made thereto.) He said that it now seemed to him as if the Japanese were going to use the refusal of the Dutch to agree to sales of rubber as a pretext for declaring that the negotiations had broken down and for undertaking threatening activities. He said the facts were that the Japanese today were getting from Indochina and Thailand greater quantities of rubber than the amount of their normal consumption over the past five years and that there was not the slightest justification for any insistence on the part of the Japanese for getting rubber from the Netherlands East Indies in as much as it was obvious that such additional supplies of rubber would be utilized solely for transshipment to Germany.
In response to a specific question, the Minister said that he did not believe the Japanese would attack in the south at the present time. His views coincided completely with our own, namely, that such attack would not be undertaken until and unless the British had been completely wiped out of the Mediterranean region and the Red Sea was closed to their fleet. This he felt was inevitable and he believed that this moment would probably occur in July.
The Minister spoke at some length about the speech he was to make in Chicago this coming Friday. I told him I felt that his presence in this country, and his clear and unemotional exposition of the facts relating to his own country and to the situation in the Pacific would be very helpful from the standpoint of public opinion here.
He said he was hoping that he could go to London next week and that he trusted he would return to this country later on. He said once more that he believed it of the utmost importance that the United States Government without further delay reach an agreement with the British Government as to the bases of a future peace settlement. He said he felt that the United States would be the determining factor if a just and reasonable and lasting peace were to be devised. He expressed great dissatisfaction with the attitude of the British Government, particularly of the men close to Mr. Churchill, in that regard.