14TH November, 1956
TOKYO
3 79. Japan ‘Times’ this morning includes the following:
‘The Ministries concerned in coordinating the purchase programme of the United States surplus agricultural products and the Japan- Australia trade Tuesday agreed at their meeting on the necessity of the imports of 400,000 tons of Australian wheat, despite the fact that importation from Australia might affect the surplus wheat import from the United States. They decided to report it to Agriculture-Forestry Minister, Kono.’ No other similar report in other English or Japanese papers but probably correct. However, representatives [1] only lower level decision at this stage.
Correction my 378. Garnett [2] already in Japan and had first meeting with Kono yesterday.
Japanese trade circles advise that the next few days will be critical for us. Therefore repeat suggestion for intensified wheat pressure. [3]
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1 Presumably this word should read ‘represents’.
2 Gwynn Garnett, Administrator, US Foreign Agricultural Service.
Stuart had advised that Garnett would accompany US Under Secretary of Agriculture True D. Morse on a brief visit to Tokyo, during which more detailed negotiations concerning the acceptance of a new US surplus program were expected.
3 Westerman asked that Stuart be advised that ‘our whole approach in the delegation is not that the present days are “critical for us”-they are critical for Japan. Unless she can find a way out of her domestic and international problems and accord us what we can reasonably regard as M.F.N. conditions, she loses the first opportunity that she has had of getting access to our markets on M.F.N. conditions.’
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[AA : A1838/283, 759/1/7, iv]