Cablegram 129 WASHINGTON, 19 June 1940, 7.39 p.m.
SECRET
You will no doubt have heard from London of report dated 19th June from the British Ambassador at Tokyo regarding statement of Japanese Director of Military Intelligence to the British Military Attache to the effect that unless British cease assistance to Chinese Government, Japanese forces will seize Indo-China, Netherlands East Indies and Hong Kong. [1] Statement [ended] [2] with inference that Japanese fighting forces were the real Government and not Foreign Office.
State Department has had cable from American Ambassador at Tokyo [3] saying he had just seen Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs [4] regarding above and that he advised military statement was not to be taken seriously, but that Japanese Foreign Office were considering question of military supplies reaching Chinese forces from south and would shortly make representations, but on different lines. [5]
CASEY
_
1 See Document 408.
2 This word has been inserted from the Washington file copy on AA:
A3300, 13.
3 Joseph C. Grew.
4 Hachiro Arita.
5 This cablegram was repeated as no. 40 to S. M. Bruce, High Commissioner in London.
_
[FA: A3195, 1.4474]