711.94/2539
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The British Ambassador called at his request and I soon discovered that he had no special business except to check on the aftermath of the conversations between the President and myself and the Japanese with special reference to the question of the proposed modus vivendi. This caused me to remark in a preliminary way that the mechanics for the carrying on of diplomatic relations between the governments resisting aggressor nations are so complicated that it is nearly impossible to carry on such relations in a manner at all systematic and safe and sound. I referred to the fact that Chiang Kai-shek, for example, has sent numerous hysterical cable messages to different Cabinet officers [Page 686] and high officials in the Government other than the State Department, and sometimes even ignoring the President, intruding into a delicate and serious situation with no real idea of what the facts are. I added that Chiang Kai-shek has his brother-in-law,27 located here in Washington, disseminate damaging reports at times to the press and others, apparently with no particular purpose in mind; that we have correspondents from London who interview different officials here, which is entirely their privilege to do, except that at times we all move too fast without fully understanding each other’s views, et cetera, et cetera. I stated that this was well illustrated in the case of the recent outburst by Chiang Kai-shek. In referring to this I remarked that it would have been better if, when Churchill received Chiang Kai-shek’s loud protest about our negotiations here with Japan, instead of passing the protest on to us without objection on his part, thereby qualifying and virtually killing what we knew were the individual views of the British Government toward these negotiations, he had sent a strong cable back to Chiang Kai-shek telling him to brace up and fight with the same zeal as the Japanese and the Germans are displaying instead of weakening and telling the Chinese people that all of the friendly countries were now striving primarily to protect themselves and to force an agreement between China and Japan, every Chinese should understand from such a procedure that the best possible course was being pursued and that this calls for resolute fighting until the undertaking is consummated by peace negotiations which Japan in due course would be obliged to enter into with China.
I expressed the view that the diplomatic part of our relations with Japan was virtually over and that the matter will now go to the officials of the Army and the Navy with whom I have talked and to whom I have given my views for whatever they are worth. Speaking in great confidence, I said that it would be a serious mistake for our country and other countries interested in the Pacific situation to make plans of resistance without including the possibility that Japan may move suddenly and with every possible element of surprise and spread out over considerable areas and capture certain positions and posts before the peaceful countries interested in the Pacific would have time to confer and formulate plans to meet these new conditions; that this would be on the theory that the Japanese recognize that their course of unlimited conquest now renewed all along the line probably is a desperate gamble and requires the utmost boldness and risk.
I also said to the Ambassador that a calm deliberate Japanese Government would more than ever desire to wait another thirty days to see whether the German Army is driven out of Russia by winter. I added that the extremist fire-eating elements in Japan, who have preached a general forward movement supported by the Army and [Page 687] Navy have influenced a vast portion of the Japanese public to clamor for such a movement, would probably take no serious notice of the Russian-German situation, but would go forward in this desperate undertaking which they have advocated for some time; that at least it would be a mistake not to consider this possibility as entirely real, rather than to assume that they would virtually halt and engage in some movements into Thailand and into the Burma Road while waiting the results on the Russian front. The Ambassador, I think, had his reservations on this latter point. He did not disagree with what I said about the badly confused mechanics for the conduct of diplomatic relations between several of our countries in these critical times.
- T. V. Soong.↩