740.0011 P. W./315: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
436. Your 1101, July 27, 3 p.m.,68 and 1103, July 27, 7 p.m. Let me first of all thank you for the steps you took upon your own initiative which are fully approved by the President and by the Department. I regard your action as of the greatest value and assistance at this time.
In a conversation which I had with the Japanese Ambassador yesterday evening69 I informed him that the normal procedure regarding clearance facilities would be adopted by United States authorities for Japanese vessels desiring to clear from our ports.
I informed him that I was exceedingly surprised to learn from a report I had just received from you that as late as July 27 the Minister for Foreign Affairs had not yet learned of the exceedingly [Page 352] important proposal made to the Japanese Government through the Ambassador on July 24. The Ambassador replied that he had on the evening of July 24 sent a brief summary of the President’s proposal to his Foreign Office, that he had then gone to New York and had from New York sent on the evening of July 27 a full and detailed report of the President’s proposal to his Government.
Whatever the reasons may have been for the procedure adopted by the Japanese Ambassador and by the Japanese Foreign Office officials, it is unquestionable that a delay of three days took place.
The President asked me to express to you his opinion (at this stage merely for your background information) that inasmuch as time is of the essence, should the Japanese Government accept the proposal made and should they already have landed naval and military forces in Indochina, the essential thing in that event, until these forces could be totally withdrawn, would be to make sure that they did not “dig in”.
- Not printed, but see memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan, July 27, 1941, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 534.↩
- See memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State, July 28, 1941, ibid., p. 537.↩