711.94/21625/14
The Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: In regard to the John Doe matter:
In a memorandum a copy of which was given to you by the Navy Department, Lieutenant Commander Lewis L. Strauss, U. S. N. R., reporting to the Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence under date May 22, 1941, stated that in a conversation with him Mr. Wikawa had “indicated that the individual who had been responsible for the whole idea was a Missionary, Reverend Father James Drought, of the Mary-knoll Fathers …”37
As I envisaged this matter, Father Drought has taken upon himself and is playing the role of a promoter and salesman. My conjecture is that he first “sold” the idea of a negotiation and if possible an agreement to certain Japanese and that he has been since and is doing his utmost to “sell” the idea to you (and through you to the President): Drought is the pushing and the pulling agent in the matter. He has enlisted as his aides the Postmaster General and the three Japanese with whom you have been and are conversing about this matter. As a go-between, he has brought those gentlemen and you (with your aides) into what amounts—no matter how it may otherwise be technically described—to a negotiation.
The proposed agreement is in my opinion something which neither the Japanese nation nor the people of the United States want and which, if consummated, will be distasteful to both. On that point I may or may not be mistaken. I am convinced, however, that the immediate effects of the conclusion of such an agreement, if it takes place in the near future, will be bad as regards China and as regards Great Britain. I am also convinced that the ultimate effects will be bad as regards the United States and as regards various of the fundamental objectives of this country’s foreign policy.
As I have said to you repeatedly, I feel that certain useful purposes may be served by the carrying on and continuance of the conversations. But I would view with unqualified misgiving the eventuation of an agreement such as is under discussion.
I feel it my duty in fairness to you and to others here who are intimately concerned with the matter to let you know that to the best of my knowledge every officer of the Department who has been associated with or who has close knowledge of the progress of the conversations shares in the misgivings to which I have been and am giving expression [Page 264] (although the breadth and depth of these misgivings varies among the various individuals who entertain them).
Yours respectfully and sincerely,
- Omission indicated in the original.↩