US Adml describes American Japanese situation as 'tense'. President Roosevelt's new protest note. Admiral William Leahy, United States, Chief of Naval Operations, said after a conference with President Roosevelt in Washington, that the situation was now 'too tense' for the Naval Department to make public his information from the Far East. New tension has followed the sending by the President of another protest note to Japan, believed to deal with the machine-gunning of the US gunboat Panay by Japanese soldiers in military launches after the Panay have been bombed. 18 December 1937