Office of the Historian

711.94/25406/35

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)

[Washington,] November 12, 1941.

The British Ambassador called this morning at his request. The Ambassador read to me a memorandum (the text of which is attached herewith)90 reporting on a recent conversation between the British Ambassador in Tokyo and the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs. I told the Ambassador that, as the Secretary of State had frequently pointed out to the Japanese Government, the British Government would be informed fully of the basis for any projected negotiations between Japan and the United States if the present conversations now in progress gave any definite promise that such negotiations could be undertaken. I communicated to the Ambassador, in that connection, [Page 587] for his information the contents of Ambassador Grew’s telegram to the Department of State, No. 1782, November 10, 8 p.m.91

S[umner] W[elles]
  1. Supra.↩
  2. Not printed, but see memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan, November 10, 1941, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 710.↩