740.00119 PW/5–1245
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Strategic Services (Donovan) to the Secretary of State
The following information, transmitted by the OSS representative in Bern, originates with a German source, an authority on the Far East who is considered anti-Nazi but pro-Japanese:
The source, on 11 May, talked with Shunichi Kase, the Japanese Minister to Switzerland. He reports that Kase expressed a wish to help arrange for a cessation of hostilities between the Japanese and the Allies. Kase reportedly considers direct talks with the Americans and the British preferable to negotiations through the USSR, because the latter eventuality would increase Soviet prestige so much that the whole Far East would become Communist.
Kase allegedly believes that one of the few provisions the Japanese would insist upon would be the retention of the Emperor as the only safeguard against Japan’s conversion to Communism. Kase feels that Under Secretary of State Grew, whom he considers the best US authority on Japan, shares this opinion.