ftA. To clear up this before I go any further: almost since the beginning of United States-Japanese talks I had received absolutely no information concerning their progress from the Japanese Government, nor had I received any information about relations with the Soviet Union. The main reason for this, I believe, was that formerly we had used couriers to carry information of this sort, but due to the difficulties because of the German-Soviet war this became impossible, and for security reasons no communications of this sort were sent. Around the 29th or 30th of November 1941, I received word from Japan to the effect that Secretary of State Hull's reply of November 26, to Japanese proposals was extremely severe in tone. Not knowing much about what the negotiations had covered, I was not able to make an analysis of the situation, this being the first communication regarding United States-Japanese negotiations that I had received. Following this, I believe it was around the end of November or the very beginning of December, I received another communication to the effect that the Japanese Government had issued an order to its Consulates in the United States to burn all but a very small portion of their codes. "Q. Did these communications all come from the Foreign Office? "A. Yes. Now, these were the two communications that I had received before the orders from the Government regarding the no-separate peace pact, of which I