740.0011 P. W./421
Memorandum by Mr. Cecil W. Gray, Assistant to the Secretary of State
Excerpts From Secretary Hull’s Remarks in Telephone Conversation With Acting Secretary Welles on July 25, 1941
We have had conversations for several months with the Ambassador and his associates covering this matter completely and we couldn’t have offered more assurance to Japan for her entire satisfaction from every standpoint than we did in those discussions. I told him (the Ambassador) repeatedly that if this matter progressed I expected to get a similar agreement with the British, the Dutch, et cetera. We have followed that up as the Indochina phase developed. You will remember we first considered sending a cable of inquiry to Japan about the Indochina matter. Then we sent Hamilton to see the Ambassador [Page 342] when I didn’t see him here to go over the whole situation. Then we sent Hamilton again to see his two associates for the purpose of keeping alive the whole situation that we had under discussion. Then finally, before they got to a face-saving stage, after it was apparent that they were preparing the Indochina move, this was followed up by a final step of summing up for the record the pros and cons and making a final appeal to the Japs before it was too late. That is the record we made. I think it ought all to be kept in mind. It is a fact that, in justice to the Administration, the Government and the State Department, as the Chinese-Japanese difficulties developed, we not only expressed opposition and condemnation at appropriate times, but we gradually took steps of retaliation. I need not mention all the steps. When the question of oil became most seriously considered for the first time, there was not a long period between that point and the point when Japan and the Netherlands proceeded with their trade negotiations, which involved oil and raised the whole oil question. Now, in those circumstances, not with the idea of appeasing Japan ourselves, but merely to deal practically with an international situation that had become acute, so far as oil was concerned, in connection with those negotiations, and which was clearly to remain acute until those negotiations were concluded, we rested our position before those negotiations had ended. The Japanese Government through its Ambassador came to us with a proposal for a peaceful settlement covering the entire Pacific area, including the question of oil and everything else, and I have had, as you know, seventeen conferences with him. There is a strong so-called peace group in Japan back of him (the Ambassador). Naturally, it would have been utterly impractical for us to have followed a purely appeasement policy when every consideration would prevent us from putting on embargoes and penalties and retaliation during these negotiations. My judgment is that the State Department and the Government should not say too much on this Japanese question. The first thing we know we will run into a storm. It is so delicate and there are so many angles to it. I am sure Japan is going on unless something happens to stop her. This is a world movement. The Japanese are seeking to dominate militarily practically one-half the world and apply the barbarous methods that they are applying to China and that Hitler is applying in Europe, and if they have their way, they will carry out what they are saying of their right to be supreme in that half of the world, by which they mean military supremacy with methods of arbitrary, selfish domination and the Hitler method of piracy and naval control of the seas and commerce. At any rate, I just want you to keep that in mind.