Hirota Koki - Cable #176

In this intercepted cable - dated January 17, 1938 - Hirota Koki, then Japan's foreign minister, advised the Japanese embassy in Washington of a report that atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers against Chinese citizens had occurred in the city of Nanking.  The cable states, in part:

(Not) less than three hundred thousand Chinese slaughtered.

Scholars believe that Koki was forwarding information obtained from a Manchester Guardian reporter named Harold Timperley.

Credits

Image of translated, intercepted cable #176, online courtesy U.S. National Archives.