[Secret]
From: Tokyo
To: Washington
November 22, 1941
Purple CA (Urgent)
#812
To
both you Ambassadors.
It
is awfully hard for us to consider changing the date we set in my #736 [a]. You
should know this, however, I know you are working hard. Stick to our fixed
policy and do your very best. Spare no efforts and try to bring about the
solution we desire. There are reasons beyond your ability to guess why we
wanted to settle Japanese-American relations by the 25th, but if within the
next three or four days you can finish your conversations with the Americans;
if the signing can be completed by the 29th, (let me write it out for
you-twenty ninth); if the pertinent notes can be exchanged; if we can get an
understanding with Great Britain and the Netherlands; and in short if
everything can be finished, we have decided to wait until that date. This time
we mean it, that the deadline absolutely cannot be changed. After that things
are automatically going to happen. Please take this into your careful
consideration and work harder than you ever have before. This, for the present,
is for the information of you two Ambassadors alone.
Army 25138 Trans. 11/22/41 (S)
[a] See S.I.S. #24373. Tokyo wires Washington that because of the various circumstances it is absolutely necessary that arrangements for the signing of the agreement be completed by the 26th of this month.
(EXHIBITS OF JOINT COMMITTEE , EXHIBIT NO. 1 INTERCEPTED DIPLOMATIC MESSAGES SENT BY THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT BETWEEN JULY l AND DECEMBER 8, 1941)