861.24/515½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Soviet Ambassador called to see me at my request this evening.
I asked the Ambassador whether, in view of the extreme and excited publicity that had existed in Japan with regard to the Soviet ships [Page 825] and the American tankers chartered by the Soviet Government carrying supplies from the United States to Vladivostok,75 his Government had given any thought to the possibility of having the ships directed to proceed to Nikolaevsk instead of Vladivostok. The Ambassador said that so far as he knew, his Government had not thought of this since whether these ships went to one port or to the other, they would still have to pass through Japanese territorial waters. He said it was true that Vladivostok was nearer the Japanese mainland but that the principle involved was exactly the same. If the Japanese Government desired to run the risk of a rupture with the Soviet on this issue, in his judgment they would seize the opportunity either way. He said, however, that he would communicate with his Government in order to ascertain whether they had any reason to apprehend difficulty with regard to these ships.
- Regarding the Japanese position of objection to the nearby passage of American oil-laden tankers on the way to Vladivostok for the Soviet Union, see telegram No. 1584, August 27, from the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, p. 645; also vol. iv, pp. 397–407, passim. ↩