JOHN EDGAR HOOVER
DIRECTOR

                  Federal Bureau of Investigation
                United States Department of Justice
                        Washington, D. C.

                         December 9, 1941

                                                  PERSONAL AND
                                                  CONFIDENTIAL

Honorable Adolf A. Berle, Jr.
Assistant Secretary of State
Department of State
Washington, D. C.


Dear Mr. Berle:

          According to information received by this Bureau from
an outside highly confidential and reliable source, Hidenari
Terasaki, Secretary of the Japanese Embassy, while contacting 
his wife on December 7, 1941, stated he was "one hundred per cent
disgusted and terribly disappointed" over the situation.  He
further asserted that "they" knew nothing about it, whereupon
his wife commented she did not understand how "they could do
it to you three men",  meaning Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura,
Special Envoy Saburo Kurusu and her husband.

          Terasaki subsequently advised his wife that he had 
sent a telegram to Tokyo stating how well they were being 
treated by the people here.  Mrs. Terasaki agreed with her 
husband that the United States was "wonderful about things 
considering what had been done."  She told him to try to make 
sure that "it was done likewise in Tokyo."

          During subsequent conversations had by Mrs. Terasaki
with various friends, she mentioned that the Japanese attack 
was "like a bolt out of the blue."  She also mentioned that her 
husband had on December 7, 1941, "gone into the woods and prayed 
for peace."  She also remarked that her husband had told her all 
along that President Roosevelt was for peace all the time.

          It is believed that the above information may be of 
interest to you.

                                 Sincerely yours,
                          Hand-signed: J. Edgar Hoover

BY SPECIAL
MESSENGER