can sentiment and understanding of the real situation in the Far East overnight. There are many more vital problems and issues of importance from the viewpoint of the Japanese people that could not be understood or more probably the American people refuse to understand, which we feel after all have been the greatest underlying cause that tends to pull Japan and America apart. It was only in a short space of time of half an hour or so these things were discussed with Hr. Humphrey by myself. I was very happy to have heard even to this extent from Mr. Humphrey at this time, in which you might take equal interest as reference. Very sincerely yours, HOKICHI INOUYE cc Mr. C. Hairai, Mitsubishi Oil Co., Tokyo Manager of Development Dept., Tokyo, Manager of Fuel Dept., Tokyo; Mr. S. Masuda, New York Branch; Mr. I. Kuribayashi, Seattle Branch; Mr. K. Tsukada, Los Angeles Rept. EXHIBIT No. 466 [Signed copy of letter dated January 25, 1940, from K. Funada, chairman of the board, Mitsubishi Trading Co., Tokyo, and William F. Humphrey, president, Tidewater Associated Oil Co.] MITSUBISHI SHOJI KAISHA, LTD. (Mitsubishi Trading Company, Ltd.) HEAD OFFICE: MARU-NO-UCHI TOKYO, January 25, 1940. Mr. WILLIAM F. HUMPHREY, President Associated Div., Tidewater Associated Oil Co., 79 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, California, U. S. A. MY DEAR MR. HUMPHREY: At the outset, aside from anything else, I must express to you my heartfelt thanks for the sincere efforts you have been making of late months for a betterment of political relationships between your country and mine. Indeed, it gives me a feeling of security to know that in these critical hours when the American-Japanese relationships have become rather complex, over in America, one gentleman influential in both political and business circles is doing everything possible on our account by allotting some of his valuable time and energies in an effort to combat the passage of any political measures that might be fatal to our petroleum business. Taking this opportunity, I, also, desire to express the gratitude of the Mitsubishi as well as my own for the unfailing cooperation and support your organization has given us all through these years ever since we have formed business relations. Particularly, the year before last you did the kindness to have your Mr. Graves and others visit with us, the result of which has been very beneficial to us, I am sure, not only from a business standpoint, but also from an educational point of view. At the same time I sincerely thank you, I fervently hope that the Associated will continue to be our true friends in years to come, and above all, wish that you will honor us with a visit to the Orient in the not distant future. Presumptuous as it may seem, I must ask you to do me another favor. As you probably have been informed, we are sending, at this time, our Mr. Mitani to your shores on a special petroleum mission, the purposes of which, to be frank, are to have him study and acquire a broader prospective on the international petroleum situation, so that we may be fully prepared at all times to be assured of petroleum supplies in this country. He is sailing January 26 on board the Kamakura Maru and is expected to reach San Francisco on February 9th. I hope you will give him all the assistance you possible can while he is in America. Thanking you again for your previous courtesies, and hoping that you will continue to cooperate with us in the future. With kindest regards to Mr. Graves and other executives of the Associated. I remain, Sincerely yours, K. FUNADA Chairman of the Board. Copy to: Mr. Morita, General Affairs Div., General Dep't., San Francisco, New York. EXHIBIT No. 467 [Copy of a letter dated October 14, 1940, from Lloyd F. Bayer, Vice President, Tidewater Associated Oil Co. to Mr. Kato, Mitsubishi Oil Co., Tokyo.] MITSUBISHI OIL COMPANY, LTD., TIDE WATER ASSOCIATED OIL COMPANY, Tokyo, Japan. Attention: Mr. Kato. ASSOCIATED DIVISION, San Francisco, California, October 14, 1940. GENTLEMEN: Please refer to your copy of my letter to the New York office of Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha, Ltd., dated October 7, which concerned Reference Fuel C-12 and F-3 which you requested us to purchase under your order No. 4359 in cable of September 17, 1940. You will note that applications for license permits to export these materials were prepared and forwarded to our New York office for filing with the State Department of the United States. In preparing these applications we were familiar with the fact that Reference Fuels C-12 and F-3 not only fall under the category of materials requiring. export permits covered by the President's Proclamation of July 23, 1940, but also would normally be prohibited for export. However, as only small quantities of these materials were being requested and as they were to be used as Reference Fuels it was assumed Export Licenses might be granted. Since writing the above-mentioned letter of October 7, we are in receipt of advice from our attorney in Washington to the effect that the filing of these applications is undesirable at this time because the nature of the materials to be exported may result in questions being asked and possibly interfere with other applications we have on file with the State Department covering the exportation of substantial quantities of petroleum products to Japan. As we naturally wish to avoid any action which might interfere with or delay the granting of permits on the latter applications, our attorney has been instructed to withhold filing of the Reference Fuel applications until such time when circumstances might warrant a reversal in our attorney's recommendation on this matter. We also wish to reiterate that even if conditions at a later date should warrant the filing of these applications, it is questionable whether export permits would be granted thereon. The above information is being forwarded so you will have a complete background of factors governing our action on this matter. Until such time in the indefinite future as Reference Fuels could be exported, we suggest you prepare such fuels from materials available in Japan. As you know, this could be done by standardizing suitable gasoline fractions or hydrocarbon mixtures against your remaining stocks of C-12 and F-3 Reference Fuels. For your information C-12 and F-3 fuels are the same as C-11 and F-2 fuels requested in your cable. The letter refers to fuel quality and the number to the batch from which shipment would be made if export licenses were granted. Yours very truly, EXHIBIT No. 468 L. F. BAYER. [Signed copy of letter dated May 14, 1941, from manager, San Francisco branch, Mitsubishi Trading Co., to manager of overseas division, fuel department, Tokyo] The MANAGER OF OVERSEAS DIV., MITSUBISHI SHOJI KAISHA, LTD., ASSOCIATED'S ALKYLATION PLANT AT AVON You may be interested to know that some of the 100-octane aviation gasoline produced from the alkylation plant at Avon, built mainly to meet Mitsubishi requirements, will supply the naval air station at Tongue Point, near Astoria, Oregon. Associated was successful in securing the bid award for 100-octane aviation gasoline for delivery as needed until June 30, 1941. At the present time, Associated is also supplying 100-octane gasoline to United States Army airfields in the Pacific Northwest at McChord Field near Tacoma, Washington, and at Pearson Field, Vancouver, Washington. May the above prove of interest to you. MITSUBISHI SHOJI KAISHA, LTD., Manager, San Francisco Branch. TI: MK cc New York Branch, Mitsubishi Oil Co. (Planning Div.), Tokyo. EXHIBIT No. 469 [Signed copy of letter dated June 7, 1941, from manager, San Francisco branch, Mitsubishi Trading Co. to manager of overseas division, fuel department, Tokyo] MITSUBISHI SHOJI KAISHA, LTD., San Francisco, June 7, 1941. The MANAGER OF OVERSEAS Div., COMPETITIVE BULK OIL SHIPMENTS FROM LOS ANGELES HARBOR The Associated Export Department people recently made an investigation and prepared for their reference a list entitled "Competitive Bulk Oil Shipments from Los Angeles Harbor" as per attached copy. As the title indicates the purpose of this investigation, the list prepared does not include shipments made by the Associated for our account. From our own experience, we believe that they prepared this list from the Marine Exchange report of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and it is quite an authentic one. One striking thing noticed in the list aside from purely our business standpoint is the fact that a large amount of fuel and diesel fuel oils and gasoline in a minor degree are being shipped from California Coast to Pearl Harbor, T. H. In a short space of less than a month from April 28th to May 23rd, 771,504 bbls. fuel oil, 132,299 bbls. diesel fuel oil, and 22,682 bbls. gasoline have been shipped from Los Angeles Harbor to Pearl Harbor. There must have been shipments of similar materials going out of San Francisco Bay and possibly from Estero Bay to Pearl Harbor during the same period. SY: MK MITSUBISHI SHOJI KAISHA, LTD., Manager, San Francisco Branch. cc New York Branch, Development Dept., Tokyo. Competitive bulk oil shipments from Los Angeles Harbor Competitive bulk oil shipments from Los Angeles Harbor-Continued 5,858 96, 880 Fuel. Gasoline. Tokuyama. Balboa. Gasoline. [Translation of cable dated May 15, 1941, from Mitsubishi Trading Co. New York branch, to fuel department, Tokyo] [Translation of cable] From: Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha, Ltd., New York. To: LC Suzuki Iwasakipet, MSK-Tokio (Fuel Department). Referring to our telegram of 7th inst. MAY 15, 1941. The evening before last, as Tidewater asked us to meet them, I sent Mr. Senner to the office and let him sound out their opinion, which was concluded as follows: 1. In spite of the strong governmental policy and national tendency, the President of Tidewater is sincerely doing his best to convey his friendship policy to Japan to the high officials in Washington through his petroleum business, and notwithstanding the cooperation shown by Tidewater in the past, it is very disagreeable to them that Mitsubishi handles petroleum products supplied by their competitors. 2. The products which cannot be offered by Tidewater Associated should be purchased from other companies through them, and the products which cannot be purchased even through Tidewater, Mitsubishi has to get Tidewater's written agreement on each transaction in case of doing business with their competitors directly. I got the impression that they are taking this matter very seriously, claiming breach of contract, because we made connections with Gulf Oil Corp., one of the best and largest independent oil companies, having incomparable superiority to Tidewater in respect to supplying special products. Not only the above reasons, betraying Mr. Graves expectations that he can control the activities of Mitsubishi's New York petroleum business after his arrival at New York, but he was blamed seriously by Mr. Humphrey from the California side for this matter, so saving his face is one of the important factors and we expect they will not withdraw their protest so easily. Our opinion of the above-mentioned facts is as follows I will try to explain to them repeatedly, and settle their protest regarding our shipment of their competitors' products in the past, in view of the fact that Mr. Graves is still insisting on his opinion condemning our shipments as a violation of agreement, in spite of their confirmation of being unable to supply the competitive products of Gulf, before commencing with the shipment of Gulf products. But on the point of future business, we will insist on our opinion stated in our telegram of 7th inst., and would like to make a new agreement that the special product, which we presume that Tidewater cannot supply, should be able to be purchased by us directly without the agreement of Tidewater. Otherwise if it is provided that any type of approval from Tidewater is necessary we cannot export special products such as M60 in view of the idea that Tidewater and Gulf Oil desire to do business directly. The actual shipments since September last year show that the amount of Tidewater products is less than of other companies and most of them are Gulf Oil products recently shipped. However, to agree with Tidewater's request to get their written agreement on all business will necessitate our making up our minds to abandon this most important business. Tidewater actually acknowledged their definite weakness to supply our requirements in their letter dated March 25th, 1940, and we cannot expect much of future developments from Tidewater but high officials of Gulf Oil Corp. have already declared to us their active policy toward Japan. Taking into consideration the future of the Fuel Department and furthermore the future of the Mitsubishi organization, we cannot accept the terms of the written agreement as mentioned above, but it is necessary to decide our attitude definitely in order to insist on our opinion. However, when I meet with the high officials of Tidewater in a day or so, I will do my best to prevent the situation from getting any worse, but their attitude seems to be so severe that we are afraid the matter will not be settled easily. Before commencing our talk with them, telegraph your frank opinion regarding the above, just for my guidance. MASUDA. EXHIBIT No. 471 [Copy of letter dated January 26, 1940, from William J. Darcy, manager of New York branch, Mitsubishi Trading Co., to manager, lubricating oil division, fuel department, Tokyo] The MANAGER, JANUARY 26, 1940. Lubricating Oil Division, Fuel Department, Tokyo. Neohexane and Alkylate. DEAR SIR: We refer to our letters No. 103 of July 20, 1939, and No. 108 of August 11, 1939, relative to the development of Neohexane by the Phillips Petroleum Company and also to our several recent cables concerning the development of Alkylate, both products being substitutes for Iso Octane in the manufacture of High Octane Gasoline. Our friends, the Cooper Petroleum Company, who have been investigating these matters for us, were recently kind enough to furnish us with certain technical information concerning the two products, and we are enclosing to you herewith copies of that information which we trust you will find of interest and assistance. At the same time we would like to point out that we have not relaxed our efforts to obtain a supply of either of these materials. As a matter of fact, Messrs. Cooper are constantly in touch with Phillips on the matter of Neohexane and Alkylate and with all of the major companies to obtain a supply, among them Texas Company, Gulf, and Socony. Up to the present time we have had no success whatsoever in obtaining a supply of any kind to offer to you but will continue to do our utmost and if the situation changes will immediately cable you accordingly. We have learned through San Francisco branch and the fact has been confirmed to us by Messrs. Cooper, that Mitsui and Company obtained a small supply of Neohexane from Phillips for the Imperial Japanese Navy to be used in experimental work. It is our understanding that there is no further supply available for export during this year and the quantity that Mitsui did obtain was considered negligible; furthermore, that their position in the negotiations was a matter dictated by the Navy and there was no possibility of others having a chance to compete on that particular business. |