711.94/1585
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The British Ambassador came to see me this morning. The Ambassador said he wanted to speak to me a few minutes entirely informally with regard to the subject which he and the Australian Minister had discussed with the Secretary of State on June 28. I said to the Ambassador that I was familiar in general terms with the conversation.
The Ambassador said he was very much disquieted by the way in which his Government was apparently permitting matters to drift in the Far East since he believed that it was out of the question for Great Britain to oppose in any effective manner Japanese expansion in the Pacific at this time unless and until the Japanese got as far as Singapore. He stated that his basic idea was that the British Government should make every effort to persuade the Japanese and Chinese Governments to agree upon the terms of some reasonable peace not violative of the basic policy for which the United States was standing. He stated that if Great Britain made this effort she must clearly be prepared, as he phrased it, “to throw some material contribution into the pot herself”. He said it was only reasonable to suppose that even a Japanese Government which was sincerely fearful of the spread of Hitlerism to the Far East and which preferred to try to work out some sensible understanding with the United States and with Great Britain would be unable to persuade the Japanese military element to agree to such an arrangement as that which he had in mind unless it could show the Japanese army and the Japanese people that it had not only obtained a reasonable peace with China, [Page 375] but also material concessions and, in particular, concessions which guaranteed to Japan an assured source whence it could obtain the raw materials such as rubber, tin, oil, et cetera, at all times. He stated that Australia was prepared to grant a concession to Japan for the iron deposits in northern Australia which Japan had long wanted and that it was obvious that the Dutch Government was not in a position where it could refuse to make similar arrangements with Japan with regard to the Netherlands East Indies. In addition to that he thought Great Britain must be prepared to acquiesce in the obtaining by Japan of territorial concessions which could be held up to the Japanese army as a quid pro quo for its possible willingness to refrain from seizing the Dutch East Indies or British colonies. If Great Britain did this he believed that it could with better grace ask Chiang Kai-shek to make concessions in a peace with Japan upon those concessions which he had so far been prepared to discuss.
I asked the Ambassador if he would indicate to me exactly what concessions he believed the British Government would be willing to make in such event. The Ambassador said he had not yet had any precise instructions from his Government on this point although he had repeatedly endeavored to try to obtain some precise idea from his Foreign Office. Then, somewhat to my amusement, the Ambassador told me that he believed his Government might be prepared to agree to the seizure by Japan of French Indo-China. He added that he did not imagine that his Government had the slightest intention under present conditions of “fighting to preserve Indo-China for France.”
I told the Ambassador that until he had heard more positively with regard to the point of view of his Government, it would be difficult for me to make any considered reflections on what he had just outlined. I said that I knew that the Secretary of State had spoken with him regarding the conversations which this Government had recently been having with the Japanese Government and that I personally of course would favor any peace between Japan and China at this time which did not impair the integrity or independence of China and which did not grant to Japan any exclusive or monopolistic strangle hold over China; and that so far as concessions of any other character were concerned, that, of course, was not a question in which this Government was directly concerned, provided always that its national security or capacity for self-defense was not prejudiced through the making of such concessions. The Ambassador told me that he would inform me if and when he had any precise instructions from London with regard to these questions.
The Ambassador spoke with great bitterness with regard to France and the present French Government. He said that all of the reports [Page 376] he had were to the effect that the morale of the French navy had completely broken down and that no resistance would be made by any of the French naval officers in turning over the French warships into German hands. He said he had only this morning had word to the effect that the authorities in Dakar were now refusing to give fuel, provisions or water to the British naval vessels in that port. He believed, he said, that there would soon be in France a completely Fascist French government entirely in sympathy with and subservient to the German Government.