It was another sign of the value Joe Grew placed on his wife’s presence. In early May 1941, Alice had been taken by one of the Embassy cars to the Imperial Place to visit with the fifty-seven-year-old Dowager Empress, the mother of the Emperor. Alice had arranged the meeting on her own initiative—a reflection of the self-confidence that had evolved from the many years traveling the world with her husband.
The ostensible purpose of the visit was to congratulate the Dowager Empress on the engagement of her son, Hirohito’s younger brother, and the engagement of her granddaughter. The two middle-aged women—contemporaries from different cultures—talked for thirty minutes on matters far and wide, including the jazz records that Alice had been sending to the fiancée of Hirohito’s brother as well as Alice’s interest in the deaf-and-dumb school. “Alice was amazed,” Grew later said, “that the Empress knew so much about her, and being somewhat embarrassed by her thanks, she told several amusing anecdotes and had the Empress laughing heartily.” As she prepared to leave, the Dowager Empress gave Alice orchids from the palace garden (the first time the Dowager Empress had given flowers to an ambassador’s wife) and held Alice’s hand for a long time in an obvious display of affection. In hearing about the visit, Grew could not help but reflect on the State Department’s earlier advisory that American women and children leave Japan. “I am profoundly thankful,” he recorded in his diary, “that our Government has never taken the step of insisting on the evacuation of the Embassy ladies, for it would be losing an important asset if Alice had to leave.”
Half a globe away, Franklin D. Roosevelt was not in the same lighthearted mood as Alice during her visit with the Dowager Empress. On the sunny morning of Sunday, May 4, the President had been driven from Charlottesville, Virginia (where he had enjoyed some time off at the home of one of his aides) to Staunton, a rural Virginia community in the Shenandoah Valley between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains. The purpose of the visit was to dedicate the small white brick home where Woodrow Wilson was born as a national shrine. With the Secretary of State and other dignitaries seated to his right, Roosevelt, standing up and leaning on the black wooden rostrum, spoke to the several hundred people in attendance about the importance of democracy. “It is the kind of faith,” he intoned, with his voice rising, “for which we have fought before—and for the existence of which we are ever ready to fight again.”
The President did not feel the same vigor conveyed by his remarks. He was overcome by fatigue, and the correspondents who traveled with him could tell. “FDR looked as bad as a man can look and still be about,” said the Time magazine reporter. The President had planned to attend a luncheon picnic in Staunton and a tea event at Newmarket, but those events were scratched from his schedule. To expedite the return to Washington, Roosevelt was placed on a train, with Steve Early, Roosevelt’s press secretary, explaining the change in transportation mode as a way to avoid the heavy vehicular traffic on Virginia’s roads.
When he reached the White House, Roosevelt discussed his symptoms with Ross McIntire. The President’s personal physician immediately ordered blood tests, and the results no doubt disturbed him. The report showed that the President had only 4.5 grams per deciliter of hemoglobin, the iron-rich protein that gives blood its red color. A normal range for a man of Roosevelt’s age would have been between 14 and 17 grams (and Roosevelt’s last reading in March 1940 showed 13.5 grams per deciliter). In effect, the reading meant that the President had lost about two thirds of his blood supply in about fourteen months. It could have been—but was not—a simple case of bleeding from hemorrhoids, and even today, there is no clear explanation for the cause of Roosevelt’s dramatic loss of blood. But subsequent blood tests—which showed a marked improvement in the hemoglobin count per deciliter—suggest that the President was given at least nine blood transfusions in the two months after his return from Staunton.
None of these details was disclosed to the public. The White House press office said only that the President was not feeling well and therefore had to postpone a speech planned for May 14. The Cabinet was not given much more information. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes reported that McIntire had told him that the President was suffering from “an intestinal disturbance which is not particularly important.…” Regardless of the diagnosis, the President remained confined to his bed for most of the next few weeks and refused most visitors other than McIntire, his assistant Missy LeHand, and the ever-present Harry Hopkins.
Roosevelt was apparently not anxious to leave his bedroom even after he started feeling better. Robert Sherwood, the lean playwright who doubled as one of Roosevelt’s speechwriters, remembered an encounter with Missy LeHand after a meeting with the President in his bedroom. Sherwood commented that Roosevelt appeared fine and never once coughed or sneezed. When Sherwood asked what the problem was, LeHand replied with a smile, “What he’s suffering from most is a case of sheer exasperation.”
There were consequences to Roosevelt’s indulgence. He did not have any occasion during those first weeks in May 1941 to meet with Nomura. Nor could he engage in any long exchanges with Hull about the progress, such as it was, concerning the Secretary of State’s dealings with the Japanese ambassador.
Hull’s meetings with Nomura had taken a new turn by then. On April 9, one of Frank Walker’s deputies in the Post Office left a detailed settlement proposal with the Secretary of State that had been largely drafted by Father Drought and Iwakuro Hideo, one of the so-called John Doe Associates. It was labeled as a proposal presented “through the medium of private American and Japanese individuals.” Although it was favorable to Japan’s interests, the mere notion of discussing settlement with the United States might have been enough to trigger a heated reaction from extremist elements in Japan. Even before Hull received the proposal, the Postmaster General had advised the Secretary of State that Prime Minister Konoye Fumimaro and other Japanese leaders were “endangering their lives” by pursuing settlement negotiations with the United States and that both Iwakuro and Wikawa Tadao, another of the John Doe Associates, “expect assassination” for their participation in the process.
The proposal was replete with general expressions of intent on behalf of both Japan and the United States. It stated that the Tripartite Pact was designed only to prevent an extension of the European War and would not trigger any obligation on Japan’s part except when one of the parties to the pact was “aggressively attacked” by another nation; that the United States’ policy toward the European war would be dictated “exclusively” by considerations of “its own national welfare and security;” that the President of the United States would request Chiang Kai-shek to discuss settlement of the China Incident with Japan (and, if Chiang Kai-shek refused, the United States would discontinue aid to his government); that there would be a formal recognition of Manchukuo, the puppet state Japan had created in Manchuria; that Japan and the United States would agree to “a resumption of normal trade relations” as provided in the commercial treaty that the United States had terminated in January 1940; and that the parties’ agreement would be finalized by Roosevelt and Konoye at a conference in Honolulu.
There were many meetings and memos in the State Department discussing the April 9 proposal. As a general proposition, Hull later commented, “our disappointment was keen.” He and his staff regarded the document as “much less accommodating than we had been led to believe it would be, and most of its provisions were all that the ardent Japanese imperialists could want.”
Stanley Hornbeck had a different perspective. Whatever the particulars of the document received on April 9, he did not think the United States should pursue an agreement with Japan. As the Political Relations Adviser later recounted in his unpublished autobiography, “The views, the reasoning and the purposes of Washington and of Tokyo differed so completely that there was no possibility of there being achieved a ‘meeting of the minds.’ ” Even if an agreement could somehow be reached, Hornbeck was sure it would compromise American interests. “From the beginning,” he explained in that autobiography, “I had been and was skeptical of the idea that a new agreement could be achieved, and I contended that the prevailing situation was such that, if achieved, the existence of a new agreement would in no way serve the interest and purposes of the United States but would, on the contrary, serve only the purposes of the Japanese, to which purposes the United States was opposed.”
Given that perspective, Hornbeck wrote a memorandum for Hull’s perusal—before the April 9 draft was received—saying that the State Department would be engulfed by “a super-colossal political bombshell” if it issued a public announcement that it had agreed to enter negotiations with Japan. The memorandum concluded with an aspiration. “I hope and trust,” said Hornbeck, that “the highest officials of this Government” will decide not “to enter upon a negotiation with Japan.…”
Those sentiments were echoed in telegrams Hornbeck sent to Grew. On April 5, the Political Relations Adviser told the American ambassador that the John Doe Associates “were endeavoring to draw this Government into an undercover negotiation” and that the State Department was “endeavoring to keep matters in suspense and to avoid the making of a commitment by this Government either affirmative or negative.” In another telegram on April 10, Hornbeck said that the John Doe Associates were “pressing hard for a very comprehensive commitment by this Government” that would have substantial “potentialities for abuse.…”
Hornbeck’s perspective did not account for the directive that the President had given his Secretary of State in February: to undertake negotiations with Japan and to keep them active for as long as possible to allow the United States and its allies to bolster their defense capabilities. There was no mystery about Roosevelt’s underlying concern. In a meeting with Secretary of War Henry Stimson toward the end of April, Roosevelt lamented the scarcity of available resources to manage conflicts in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, telling Stimson that “he did not have butter enough to spread over the bread he was supposed to cover.” So Hull could not accept Hornbeck’s advice to shun the negotiations. At the same time, Hull decided that he needed the Political Relations Adviser at his side throughout the eight-month process that ensued.
The two men agreed that Hornbeck would not attend any meetings with the Japanese representatives but would remain “in the background and off-stage” and participate as an “observer, analyst, and counselor.” The role certainly suited the Secretary of State. As he later explained in his Memoirs, the State Department was able to keep abreast of the various proposals and explanations emanating from the Japanese representatives in large part because of Hornbeck’s “precise draftsmanship and analysis of documents.…”
For his part, Grew was not asked whether he shared Hornbeck’s skepticism (although the Political Relations Adviser did tell the Ambassador that the Embassy “could be especially helpful” by being “alert in watching and reporting upon developments in Japanese internal politics.…”). Grew did try to secure an appointment with Konoye in the beginning of April to discuss Nomura’s mission in the United States. The idea had been suggested to Grew by a contact from a Japanese periodical who thought Konoye might agree to the appointment. The Prime Minister did not normally meet with ambassadors, but, reasoned the contact, he might do so now because of Matsuoka’s absence from Tokyo (on his trip to Berlin, Rome, and Moscow). The idea of bypassing the Foreign Minister appealed to Grew, but Konoye, no doubt aware of Matsuoka’s sensitivities, declined the request.
In the meantime, the tension was apparently having an impact on Grew’s health. “Alice has no longer a monopoly on heart attacks,” he mentioned in his diary entry for April 2, 1941. “[L]ast night for three or four hours,” Joe confessed, “I learned something about that subject by firsthand information.” He tried to discount the incident, later telling his daughter Lilla that “it was really nothing, just a temporary racing for a few hours.…” At the time, he said that “it was not an agreeable experience while it lasts.” But he apparently did not seek emergency medical care and said that he “felt all right the next day except for lassitude.” All of which suggests that it may have been an incident of atrial fibrillation.
Grew did not report any of his health issues to Hull, and they were not on the Secretary of State’s mind when he met with Nomura on the evening of April 14 at his new home in apartment 400G in the Wardman Park Hotel, a large red brick structure off Connecticut Avenue in Washington’s Northwest quadrant. The Japanese ambassador said that he was familiar with the April 9 proposal and that “he had collaborated more or less” in its preparation. Like Hornbeck, Hull could not have entertained much hope that the April 9 draft would form the basis of an agreement between Japan and the United States. But the President’s directive for time continued to loom large. And so Hull told Nomura that he was prepared to engage in “preliminary discussions” to ascertain whether the April 9 draft provided “a basis for negotiations” and that he would soon advise Nomura of the time and place for their next meeting. Nomura was agreeable but “emphasized the urgency of the situation.” “[E]vents were moving rapidly,” said the Japanese ambassador, and the prospect of “clashes” would increase “from week to week.”
The two men met again at Hull’s apartment on the evening of April 16. Hull explained that the April 9 draft “contained numerous proposals” with which the United States could agree but that “there were others that would require modification, expansion or entire elimination.…” But another matter had to be addressed, said Hull, before they could discuss the specifics of the April 9 draft. The United States needed to know, the Secretary of State explained, that Japan was prepared “to abandon its present doctrine of military conquest by force” and, more specifically, that Japan was prepared to honor “the principles” which had formed the basis for the United States’ “relations between nations.” Hull then gave Nomura a document which set forth those principles:
Respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of each and all nations.
Support of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
Support of the principle of equality, including equality of commercial opportunity.
Non-disturbance of the status quo in the Pacific, except as the status quo may be altered by peaceful means.
As Embassy officer John Emmerson later observed, “The word China did not appear in the principles, but China was the understood beneficiary of each of those four goals.” Recognizing the principal beneficiary of the four principles may have been easy. But the principles provided no detail as to how they would be applied in specific situations—or, more importantly for Japan, precisely what the United States expected of Japan through its endorsement of the principles.
Nomura studied the document for a few minutes. The Japanese ambassador remarked that the preservation of the status quo—the fourth principle—“would interfere with the Manchurian situation.” Hull brushed that comment aside, saying that “the status quo point would not affect” Manchukuo, which would be addressed at a later stage of the discussions. Nomura then inquired about the prohibition of Japanese immigration to the United States. Hull responded, as he had before, that the immigration question was a matter of domestic policy, that one of Hull’s ambitions since coming to the State Department had been to change that policy, and that “Japan would have to accept our good faith in this respect.…”
Hull “was not sure” whether Nomura “fully understood each statement” the Secretary of State made with respect to the four principles, but he assumed that the Japanese ambassador did understand the more critical point Hull made when he handed the document to Nomura. The United States could not respond to a proposal that had been conveyed by unofficial agents of Japan. Hull needed a presentation from the Japanese government’s chosen representative. Hull therefore suggested that Nomura give the April 9 draft to his government. “[I]f the Japanese Government should approve this document,” said Hull, and if Nomura were instructed to formally present the draft to him, “it would afford a basis for the institution of negotiations” (although the Secretary later made it clear that they had “not reached the stage of negotiations”). Hull added that if Japan “is in real earnest about changing its course,” he “could see no good reason why ways could not be found to reach a fairly mutually satisfactory settlement of all of the essential questions and problems presented.” Shortly after that remark was made, Nomura left the apartment with the document containing the four principles and with Hull’s promise to meet again if his government instructed the ambassador to proceed.
On April 24, Hull sent a telegram to Grew that summarized his discussions with Nomura on April 14 and 16, saying that he had told the Japanese ambassador that the Secretary of State would “consider any program which the Japanese Government might offer and which would be in harmony with the principles which I outlined to him.…” Hull added, however, that he and his staff “were skeptical whether the Japanese Government would at this time be willing or be able to go forward with a program of the nature described.” The Secretary of State did not request Grew’s views or assistance in assessing Japan’s interest in pursuing a settlement agreement.
Although he was undoubtedly pleased to receive the report from Hull about the conversations with Nomura, Grew continued to feel that the State Department was leaving the Embassy in the dark on many matters. Embassy naval attaché Henri Smith-Hutton remembered Grew’s “continuing complaint” at staff meetings about the lack of guidance from the State Department. Grew himself had told Hornbeck in a February 1941 telegram that at times he “felt just a little out on a limb here.”
Grew’s concern reached a new crescendo at the end of April when Sir Robert Craigie advised him that Lord Halifax, the British ambassador in Washington, had provided information to Hull on April 22 about a possible Japanese attack in “the South Seas” area, which included Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. As John Emmerson later recounted, Grew was “humiliated” when his British colleague told him about the conversation (as well as a related conversation that Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles had had with British and Dutch representatives on the same subject). As America’s ambassador to Japan, Grew believed that the State Department should have sent to him the same information that the British government had sent to its ambassador in Japan.
Grew sent a telegram to let Hull and Welles know that he had received the information from Craigie but said nothing of his humiliation. That lament was reserved for his diary. It was insulting, said Grew, “to receive such information from a foreign colleague concerning the intimate affairs of my own Government.… The situation has irritated me for many years and there are officers in the Department who know it but, who while perhaps sympathizing, are evidently powerless to alter it.”
Grew encountered a similar affront a few weeks later. Craigie again sent the American ambassador summaries of Lord Halifax’s conversations with Hull and Welles with respect to the discussions the Secretary of State was having with Nomura (in which Hull said he was not taking the process “too seriously”). Grew forwarded the Craigie transmission to Hornbeck and dryly commented that the “difference in the methods of conveying this important information followed by the [State] Department and by the British is noteworthy.”
Grew’s irritation with the State Department did not affect his willingness to provide Hull and Welles with information that might be useful. On May 2, the American ambassador reported to Hull that Matsuoka was “in an intoxicated condition on the evening of his return from Moscow” on April 22 and that he had created a further strain with Prime Minister Konoye by agreeing to provisions in the Neutrality Pact with the Soviet Union that had not been authorized by the Cabinet.
The schism between Konoye and Matsuoka was more dramatic than Grew reported to the Secretary of State. The Prime Minister had traveled to the airport to greet Matsuoka on his return and, more importantly, to tell him about the settlement proposal that Nomura had forwarded to Tokyo after his visit with Hull on April 16. The Prime Minister, knowing Matsuoka to be “an extraordinarily sensitive man,” thought the best approach would be to explain the proposal when the two of them were alone in the car ride from the airport.
Konoye changed his plans when he saw the Foreign Minister after he disembarked from the plane. Matsuoka was not only feeling full of himself but also intent upon going to the Imperial Palace to make a report of his trip to Hirohito. Konoye asked Ohashi Chuichi, the Vice Foreign Minister, to travel with Matsuoka in the car ride back from the airport and explain the settlement proposal to him. In making that request, Konoye expected that Ohashi would tell the Foreign Minister what Konoye had assumed—that the proposal was one crafted by the United States. That mistaken impression was generated by the ambiguous telegram from Nomura. In forwarding the proposal to Tokyo on April 17, Nomura told Konoye that Hull had said “it would be all right to proceed with negotiations on the basis of” the proposal. Nomura had compounded the error by failing to forward the four principles that Hull had identified as the cornerstone of any agreement between the two countries (and he would not disclose those principles to Matsuoka until May 8, when he reported on further conversations with Hull).
The car ride from the airport was not a pleasant one for Matsuoka. He had discussed a possible settlement with the American ambassador to the Soviet Union while he was in Moscow, and he had assumed that the John Doe proposal was a product of that conversation. He bristled when the Vice Minister described what he thought was an American proposal. Although it had been largely drafted by unofficial agents of Japan and incorporated terms favorable to Japan’s interest, it was not the agreement Matsuoka had discussed with the American ambassador. Nor did it reflect Matsuoka’s views on how to resolve the China Incident or prevent the United States from entering the European war. And so the Foreign Minister declared that the proposal was “70% ill-will and 30% good-will.” He said he would need two weeks to study it.
Matsuoka’s negative reaction to the proposal exacerbated the “ill-feeling” among Army and Navy leaders, who were anxious to reach an accommodation with the United States. They resented the Foreign Minister’s recalcitrant response. But Konoye, being familiar with Matsuoka’s “complex nature,” suggested that they give the Foreign Minister some time to reflect on the proposal. In due course, the Cabinet and the military acceded to Matsuoka’s demand that “the whole affair be entrusted to his own diplomatic ability” and that the discussions with the United States be “left entirely to his discretion” without interference from Konoye, the Cabinet, or the military.
It was not an approach conducive to success. Hull did not conceal from Nomura his contempt for the Foreign Minister’s leadership. It was “not comprehensible,” he told the Japanese ambassador, that Matsuoka could represent Japan in settlement discussions when he was issuing “threatening expressions” against the United States and “sending enthusiastic congratulations to Hitler upon the brutal military attack on the poor little country of Greece and its defenseless people.…”
The Foreign Minister did not make it any easier for Nomura. He demanded that the Japanese ambassador ask Hull about a non-aggression pact, which the Secretary of State quickly brushed aside when Nomura floated the idea in a meeting on May 7. Matsuoka also asked Nomura to present Hull with an “Oral Statement” (awkward terminology for a document which was nothing more than an explanatory exposition). The statement supported Germany and Italy’s demand for Britain’s “capitulation” and repeated Japan’s intention to avoid any action “that might in the least degree adversely affect the position of Germany and Italy.” Nomura was not comfortable in presenting the statement, but he did not have to worry. Hull already knew about Matsuoka’s instruction because the United States was routinely intercepting Japanese diplomatic messages, which the Americans had dubbed as “MAGIC.” Hull understood Nomura’s discomfort and suggested that he not bother to submit the statement.
It was not until May 12 that Nomura was able to give Hull Japan’s response to the April 9 draft (a delay occasioned by Matsuoka’s desire to receive a reply from the German Foreign Ministry before submitting the response). “Very few rays of hope shone from the document,” Hull recounted in his Memoirs. As far as he was concerned, the revised draft “offered little basis for an agreement unless we were prepared to sacrifice some of our most basic principles, which we were not.”
For some reason, Hull and his staff were concerned about the rewording of some provisions in the new draft that appeared to reflect little or no difference from the earlier draft. The May 12 draft, like the April 9 draft, stated that the United States would discontinue assistance to Chiang Kai-Shek if he rejected an American suggestion to negotiate a settlement with Japan. The May 12 draft also stated that the United States would not be involved in any “aggressive measure as to assist any one nation against another.” That language implied that the United States would have to suspend its aid to Great Britain but was not much different than the April 9 draft’s statement that the United States would not be involved in any “aggressive alliance aimed to assist any one nation against another.”
Another innocuous change was the deletion of the proposal for Konoye and Roosevelt to meet in Honolulu. Japan’s May 12 draft said that, at least initially, an exchange of letters by the two governments would suffice. The change concerning economic activity in the Southwestern Pacific was more troubling. The April 9 draft stated that Japanese activities in that area would be conducted by peaceful means “without resorting to arms.” The May 12 draft deleted the language “without resorting to arms,” thus implying that Japan might use military means to expand its holdings in Indochina and other Southeast Asian countries.
Perhaps the most significant change to the April 9 draft concerned the Tripartite Pact. That document stated that Japan would have no obligation under that pact to participate in any hostilities against another nation unless that other nation “aggressively attacked” one of the parties to the pact. That language appeared to narrow the circumstances under which Japan might be drawn into armed conflict with the United States. The May 12 draft removed that explicit limitation and said only that Japan’s obligation for military assistance under the pact “will be applied in accordance with the stipulation of Article III” of the agreement. The change implied that Japan might be obliged to join Germany and Italy in war against the United States even if the United States did not attack either Germany or Italy. The new language could mean, as Matusoka explained to Grew at one point, that Japan would assist Germany in a war against the United States if the Nazis torpedoed American convoys shipping materials to Great Britain.
Hornbeck forwarded the new proposal to Grew along with summaries of Nomura’s discussion with Hull on May 12 as well as on earlier dates. The Political Relations Adviser told Grew that, like the Secretary of State, he thought the new proposal “appears to offer a much less promising basis of an agreement or understanding than the earlier draft proposal.” Hornbeck did not ask Grew for any comments or assistance in moving forward with the process.
The absence of any invitation from Hornbeck did not foreclose Grew’s willingness to continue to provide helpful information. Quite the contrary. Throughout the spring of 1941, Grew sent a multitude of telegrams to Hull reporting on developments and dynamics that provided a window into the thinking of Japan’s leaders. And while he often recounted the growing scarcity of meaningful contacts in a country that was becoming more repressive by the month, Grew still had access to many useful sources. The American ambassador’s access to those sources was an open secret in Tokyo. At one point in the spring of 1941, Grew’s diary referenced a confidential conversation he had had with an official of the Imperial Household who was “a little tight.” The official told him that, in a lecture to the Imperial Household staff, a member of the secret police “said that the American Ambassador in Tokyo knows what is going on behind the scenes in Japanese politics even before the military or even the secret police know.”
Grew relied on that inside information in his telegrams to Hull. A principal focus was the implementation of the Tripartite Pact. On the very day Nomura presented the May 12 proposal to the Secretary of State, Grew sent a telegram to Hull that discounted the likelihood that the Tripartite Pact would be used to involve Japan in a war with the United States—even if American ships were torpedoed by the Nazis. “Based on a careful estimate of official and public opinion in Japan,” the telegram said, “it is my belief that predominant influences, including the Emperor, the Prime Minister, Baron Hiranuma, the majority of the Cabinet members and also the Japanese Navy, would be reluctant to incur war with the United States and would make every effort to find an interpretation of Article III which would release Japan from the mutual assistance obligation, provided that this could be done without sacrificing honor and without losing face vis-à-vis the United States.”
In conveying that opinion, Grew was mindful that the Foreign Minister “is very much in the pocket of the Axis and amenable to pressure from Germany.” He did not keep those thoughts to himself. In a telegram sent shortly after Nomura submitted the May 12 proposal, Grew advised Hull that he had no doubt that “the Axis Ambassadors have been stiffening the back of Mr. Matsuoka.…” Still, Grew did not place any credence in Matsuoka’s threats to use the Tripartite Pact as a vehicle to wage war against the United States. “I am certain,” he told Hull on May 19, “that Mr. Matsuoka is well aware” that the Tripartite Pact “was a complete failure if not a disaster.” Matsuoka had claimed—and had convinced Hirohito—that Japan’s execution of the agreement in September 1940 would discourage the United States from continuing its support for Britain or from entering the European conflict. That claim was no longer tenable. The United States had not abandoned Great Britain or given any indication of revising its policies to account for the Tripartite Pact. As a result, said Grew, the Foreign Minister could not “placate” the United States now in Nomura’s discussions with Hull without seeming to admit that the Tripartite Pact had failed to achieve its purpose.
That conclusion was reinforced by other intelligence Grew had received and passed on to Hull. A “trustworthy Japanese contact,” Grew told the Secretary of State in the middle of May, had been asked by Marquis Kido Koichi, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and the Emperor’s principal adviser, to tell Grew that he should not be “unduly concerned over the statements and attitude of the Foreign Minister” because “there are persons in the Government who are exercising care to prevent the taking by Japan of hasty action.” That same informant also told Grew that he had been asked by the Navy Minister to remind the American ambassador that “implementing any obligation which Japan might have under her alliance with Germany could not be taken by the Minister for Foreign Affairs alone.”
Hull never gave any hint in his subsequent discussions with Nomura that Grew’s cables had any impact on his views. Nor did Hull rush to give Nomura a complete response to the draft submitted by the Japanese ambassador on May 12. Instead, Hull gave Nomura some limited changes on May 16. They restricted Japan’s obligations under the Tripartite Pact to situations where a party had been “aggressively attacked” by another nation, proposed a withdrawal of troops from China “in accordance with a schedule to be agreed upon,” stated that any economic activity by Japan in Indochina would “be carried on by peaceful means,” and affirmed that the future of Manchuria would “be dealt with by friendly negotiations.”
Whatever the reason for limiting the changes, Hull was beginning to think that there might be some hope of extracting something useful from his discussions with Nomura. He would host meetings in his office on Tuesday mornings with Stimson and Navy Secretary Frank Knox to discuss policy matters affecting the Atlantic and Pacific fronts. In their meeting on Tuesday, May 13 (with Navy chief Harold Stark and Army chief George Marshall attending), Hull told the others that he “still thinks he has some chance”—which Stimson remembers Hull describing as one in ten—“to win something out of the negotiations with the Japs.”
Hull’s Political Relations Adviser clung to his contrary view. As discussions with Nomura proceeded from April into May, Hornbeck remained confident that any agreement with Japan would be a waste of time at best and counterproductive at worst.
The Political Relations Adviser was not one to keep his opinions to himself. He was a tireless writer when it came to matters involving Japan and China. (At an earlier point, Hull complained to another foreign service officer who had served in China that Hornbeck “just fusses at me all the time.”) “Is there more reason for us to trust the militant militaristic element that is in control in Japan today (and which has been in control since 1931),” Hornbeck rhetorically asked in a memorandum on May 15, “than to trust the militant militaristic element that is in control of Germany today (and has been in control since 1933)?” The obvious answer left no room for doubt as to the appropriate course. “If we choose to conclude a treaty with Japan,” he added, “that is one thing. But if we think that by the concluding of a treaty and by placing reliance upon pledges given by Japan in such treaty we shall have safeguarded our positions in the Pacific,” he added, “…that will be quite another thing.” Hornbeck preached the same sermon in another memorandum about a week later. “Japan has, in force today, with the United States,” he said, “various treaties to whose provisions Japan pays no attention whatsoever. What reason have we to expect—and have we any reason to assume—that Japan will pay more or better attention to the provisions of a new treaty with us, if concluded now?”
In an apparent effort to assess Hornbeck’s pessimism, Hull decided to reach out to his ambassador in Tokyo. On the evening of Saturday, May 24, Hull sent a telegram to Grew and Gene Dooman asking their “judgment” on the likelihood that the Japanese government “could carry out commitments… in good faith” with respect to a new agreement.
Hull’s telegram was received in Tokyo at 4:45 p.m. on Sunday, May 25. Grew was excited to receive the inquiry. Nothing was more important to him than promoting peace with Japan. “Grew was,” said Dooman, “passionately committed to the avoidance of war.” And, given his continuing complaint about being ignored by the State Department, it was both refreshing and rewarding to finally receive the Secretary of State’s request for his opinion on the ultimate question confronting Hull and his staff.
Hull’s telegram indicated that additional materials were being forwarded to the Embassy for use in preparing its response. Pending receipt of those materials, Grew sent a telegram to Hull on Monday, May 26, to provide a “survey of the situation” in Japan that would serve as background. “In a country so politically backward as Japan,” said Grew, “there is no set of principles which runs homogenously throughout the fabric of the nation, while medieval ideas which disappeared in the Occident centuries ago vie with political concepts—from Fascism to advance Liberalism—now current in the West.” The absence of any attachment to principles, said the Ambassador, meant that Japan’s foreign policies were “essentially susceptible to world developments and events.” He could not make a definitive report on whether the extremists or the moderates carried more influence in shaping Japan’s foreign policy at that juncture, but he thought the trend favored the moderates. In either case, said Grew, the situation was ripe for change because “under present conditions Japan is highly malleable.”
The other materials referenced in Hull’s telegram were received before Grew’s survey was dispatched to Hull, and he gave them close consideration. He believed his next telegram would be “the most important telegram sent during [his] service in Japan.” Grew began drafting it on the morning of Tuesday, May 27, “after a night of most careful and prayerful thought.” He discussed it with Dooman, who “concurred completely” in the text. He then “mulled it over” during the course of the morning and finally sent it off, but “changed hardly a word from the first draft, which was dashed off on this little Corona as if the words had been planted in my mind overnight.” The fact that the telegram was sent out on May 27—one of Grew’s “lucky days” –gave him hope that the effort might bear fruit.
“There can be no doubt,” the telegram said, that Japan “would carry out the provisions of the settlement in good faith to the best of its ability” if, as Grew assumed, the settlement was approved by the Emperor, the Cabinet, and probably the Privy Council as well. He recognized that there might be some elements in the Army and Navy who would oppose any settlement, but that concern was offset by a recognition that the government would not enter into any settlement “without the approval of the War and Navy Ministers, who in turn would not accord their approval without the support of the higher councils of the armed forces.” On that score, said Grew, he had “good reason to believe that both the War and Navy Ministers in general terms favor a settlement along the general lines under discussion.” Grew added that “the Japanese public would welcome such a settlement with a profound sense of relief.”
Grew recognized that there was always a chance that Japan would not honor the commitments in a new agreement. But there was a saving grace. If Japan reneged on its new obligations, the United States would “be released” from any commitments it had under the agreement. “It therefore appears,” the telegram observed, “that the United States has very much to gain from such a settlement and that, even if satisfactory implementation on the part of Japan should fail, which we doubt, no serious loss to American interests would necessarily be incurred.” In view of all that, Grew proposed that the United States “proceed with the negotiations.… The alternative,” he added, “might well be progressive deterioration of American-Japanese relations leading eventually to war.”
Grew’s telegram may have given Hull some hope that the United States could eventually extract some benefit from the discussions. But the telegram did not inspire the Secretary of State to expedite the process. On Saturday, May 31, the State Department delivered a draft proposal to the Japanese embassy. As had been the case with other documents submitted by the Department, this one was labeled “Unofficial, Exploratory, and Without Commitment.” Hull later told Nomura and his associates that the President needed an agreement with “clear-cut and unequivocal terms.…” That may have been so, but the May 31 redraft did not reflect an interest in achieving that goal. In accordance with the policy that Hull and his advisors had devised at the outset, the document did not provide an unambiguous recitation of American positions. It was instead little more than a regurgitation of the April 9 proposal, which was filled with vague pronouncements.
That point was exemplified by the Tripartite Pact. It remained a source of concern to Hull and his staff. Nomura knew this, and, as reflected in his conversations with Matsuoka before accepting the ambassadorial post, he also knew that it would be difficult to forge a new agreement with the United States as long as the pact remained in effect. But Nomura also knew that there was virtually no likelihood of Japan renouncing the agreement. It was a matter of honor. That perspective was evident in a conversation Nomura had with a friend from his Washington days, Navy Captain Ellis Zacharias. The new Japanese ambassador met with Zacharias in San Francisco in January 1941 as Nomura was preparing to travel to Washington to assume his new post. Nomura told his friend that the pact was signed amidst “a sharp division of opinion” and that Japan’s leaders now realize it was “a mistake.” But “nothing can be done toward cancelling it,” said Nomura. “It must die a natural death.”
Zacharias recounted the conversation in a letter to Harold Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington. The Navy chief no doubt shared it with Hull, who was told by Nomura in one of their early conversations that, as Grew had also told the Secretary of State, “the Japanese Government would make its own independent judgment” whether the pact required Japan’s military assistance in any particular situation. Still, in later testimony before the congressional committee investigating the Pearl Harbor attack, the Secretary of State criticized the Japanese because they “had been consistently unwilling in the conversations to pledge their Government to renounce Japan’s commitments in the alliance” and because “they wouldn’t talk about getting out of this pact.” (The irony was not lost on Japan: while he was promoting the sanctity of treaties, Hull was also hopeful that Japan would renounce the one it had with Germany and Italy.)
However strong Hull’s views on the Tripartite Pact, the State Department’s revised proposal of May 31 said nothing about Japan’s renunciation of the pact. The proposal merely referenced Japan’s claim that the pact’s purpose was “defensive.” In accordance with that perspective, the revised draft said that the agreement would “not apply” to acts of self-defense and that the United States’ actions with respect to the European conflict had been and would continue to be governed “solely and exclusively by considerations of protection and self-defense.” In short, the State Department’s revised proposal of May 31 contemplated the perpetuation of the Tripartite Pact as long as it did not penalize the United States for taking action that the United States deemed to be defensive in nature.
Another key issue to be addressed was Japan’s proposal to station troops in North China after settlement as a defensive measure against communist attacks—whether from Russia or the Chinese communists. Colonel Iwakuro, who had accompanied Nomura to the meeting at Hull’s apartment on May 20, explained that the stationing of troops in North China “had become a cardinal objective in Japan’s conflict with China and that it would be impossible for the Japanese to abandon it.” Iwakuro did not provide any specifics on the number of troops that would be stationed in North China. He said only that it would be about one tenth to one fifth of the Japanese force currently garrisoned in North China. Nor did Iwakuro or Nomura offer a timetable for the eventual withdrawal of those Japanese troops.
Hull suggested in a meeting with Nomura on May 21 that it might be desirable to effectuate the withdrawal of all Japanese troops in “perhaps twelve months,” with the troops in North China being removed last. Another alternative, said Hull, would be to have a commission of some sort deal with the issue of “maintaining order in these areas.” But Hull was quick to add that “he did not wish to pass upon the merits of these suggestions” but was only “raising them for consideration.” In a conversation on May 30 with Joe Ballantine and Max Hamilton, Iwakuro and Wikawa Tadao suggested that the State Department draft language to address the issue, but the two State Department officials—again reflecting the American reluctance to draft specific proposals—deflected the request, saying that it would be better if each side gave the matter “further consideration.…”
The State Department’s May 31 redraft added nothing to the mix. It said only that the retention of Japanese troops in China was “subject to further discussion.” And on the other related question concerning Manchukuo, the redraft said that the status of the puppet state would be subject to “[a]micable negotiation.…”
Nomura came to Hull’s apartment on the evening of June 2 to say that he and his colleagues were in agreement with the May 31 redraft “with the exception of some of the phraseology.” In other circumstances, an adversary in a contract negotiation might have welcomed that response. That should have been especially true here because Hull had received a telegram from Grew that very afternoon saying “that the potentialities for a successful outcome of the Washington conversations will decrease in direct ratio to the delay incurred in reaching an agreement… .”
Speed may have been important to Japan (and the American ambassador as well), but it was not important to the Secretary of State. He knew, as Grew did not, that Roosevelt wanted to drag the discussions out as long as possible. So Hull was not interested in a quick fix or an early determination whether the Japanese and Americans could reach an agreement. Given the President’s goal, the Secretary of State did not express any satisfaction when Nomura indicated at the June 2 meeting that Japan was prepared to accept the heart of the May 31 redraft. Instead, Hull “very slowly and deliberately” asked Nomura whether Japan “seriously and earnestly desired to enter into a settlement for peace” or whether, in light of Matsuoka’s “loud statements,” Japan was “only seeking a way to get out of China and otherwise to go forward with methods and practices entirely contrary to the principles which would have to underlie a settlement.…”
Hull’s response disregarded all those telegrams that Grew had sent to him in the preceding weeks (and, not surprisingly, apparently neither Hull nor Hornbeck sent Grew the summary of the conversation on June 2). The American ambassador had expressed his view that Japan would honor an agreement with the United States. Grew had also explained that the moderates seemed to have the edge in Japan’s inner circles, that the War and Navy Ministers appeared interested in settlement, that the political situation in Japan was “highly malleable,” that Matsuoka was becoming isolated from other Japanese leaders, and that, in any event, Matsuoka’s belligerent statements should not be taken at face value because he could not initiate war by himself.
Nomura understood all that. In response to Hull’s questions at the June 2 meeting, the Japanese ambassador said that Japan was indeed desirous of a settlement. That answer was not enough for the Secretary of State. Hull moved on to a different subject and inquired about Japan’s interest in leaving “Japanese troops stationed in China indefinitely.…” In keeping with the Department’s planned approach, the Secretary of State did not offer any specific proposal to resolve that issue. He said only that he hoped that Japan was giving consideration to the concerns he had previously expressed.
Nomura may have sensed that Hull was in no rush to bring the matter to a conclusion. But he was too diplomatic to express that thought. He had a mission, and he left Hull’s apartment with hope that he could still work out an agreement.
Time would tell that the hope was illusory.