Cablegram 1093 WASHINGTON, 6 December 1941, 3 a.m.
SECRET [BRONX] [1]
British Ambassador [2] saw the Secretary of State [3] this evening who regarded the Japanese reply regarding the Japanese reinforcement of Indo-China (text of which published this evening) as unsatisfactory. The Secretary of State said that he asked the Japanese representatives if it was really intended that the United States should believe in the defensive character of all the Japanese movements, and a good deal more in the same critical sense. The conversation had produced no result and Hull said that the Japanese had not moved an inch.
The British Ambassador pressed the Secretary of State on the dangers of delay in respect of the President’s [4] communication to the Japanese Emperor and of the assurance to Thailand. The Secretary of State said that he thought that the President would decide tomorrow to send the communication to the Emperor and promised to do his best to ‘get it stiff’. The Secretary of State was non-committal about the assurance to Thailand. [5]
CASEY
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1 Inserted from the Washington copy on file AA:A3300, 100.
2 Lord Halifax.
3 Cordell Hull.
4 Franklin D. Roosevelt.
5 Casey had cabled on 5 December (cablegram 1090 on the file cited in note 1) that Roosevelt, while agreeing that the U.K. and U.S.
Govts should assure Thailand of their support in the event of a Japanese attack, wished to delay the matter while he considered the question of a message to the Japanese Emperor.
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[AA:A981, JAPAN 185B, iii]