told the Japanese Ambassador to the United States

Washington DC, February 15, 1941

When Nomura, the new Japanese ambassador, had his first meeting with the president on February 14, the president and Cardell Hull (then US secretary of state, Ed.) taught him that there was great uneasiness in America about Japanese aggression in the Far East, and that it did not take much for this to turn into anger.

Kartel told me, “We are taking every opportunity to provide the Japanese ambassador with information that would alert his government to the American position.”

February 16
I spoke with Wendell Willkie (Roosevelt's Republican opponent in the 1940 US presidential election). Ed.), who was very much in favor of helping Britain. According to him, America would be in immediate danger if Great Britain lost the war, and America should be happy to do all it could in Great Britain's fight.

Lend-Lease Act (allowed US to provide military equipment, Ed.)

Wilkie hates the President, but he wants the President to have the power to make the Loan and Lease Act possible. He is deaf to other arguments, whether they come from Democrats or Republicans.