Office of the Historian

893.811/1029a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)

Washington, November 9, 1938—5 p.m.

386. At the press conference today the Secretary was asked to comment on press reports from London indicating that parallel diplomatic protests would be made by Great Britain, France and the United States against Japan’s closing the Yangtze River to neutral shipping.63 The Secretary replied that he did not care to comment in the absence [Page 200] of fuller information. The Secretary was then asked whether the question of Japan’s closing of the Yangtze River was not fully covered in our note of October 6.64 The Secretary replied that he thought it was understood, in fact known, that we have been giving attention to those developments from time to time as need therefor arose. When asked whether we had been in communication recently with Great Britain and France, on the subject of Japan, the Secretary replied that we had not been on anything in particular.

Hull
  1. Representations were made by Ambassador Grew on November 7 both orally and in writing. See Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, Vol. i, pp. 792, 794.↩
  2. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, Vol. i, p. 785.↩