Joe and Alice were avid readers, and in the spring of 1941, one book that captured their attention was the newly-published diary of William E. Dodd, the former University of Chicago history professor. Dodd had served as the American ambassador to Germany between 1933 and 1937, and his experiences would be recounted decades later in Erik Larson’s bestselling book, In the Garden of Beasts. Dodd had died in 1940 at the age of seventy, but his diary was published the following year. The Grews were no doubt interested in comparing their tribulations in Japan with Dodd’s time in Germany as Adolf Hitler consolidated power.
Grew did credit Dodd with “vision” because, despite Hitler’s claims to the contrary, the one-time history professor saw that the Führer “aims at war” and that he was banking on the “pacifist” perspective of the English and French. But Grew’s overall appraisal of Dodd’s service was decidedly negative. Dodd “was obviously a bad misfit in the job,” Grew confided to his diary. In part, that conclusion derived from Dodd’s disdain for what he saw as a “clique” in the diplomatic service, “many of whom are Harvard graduates” and “connected to rich families.” They were not “well informed,” said Dodd, and they used the diplomatic service for “personal gratification” (all of which prompted Grew, “Mr. John Harvard,” to write in his diary, “Dear me”). Dodd also denigrated the value of diplomatic functions, saying in his diary after one dinner that it “would have been far better to have dined at home and read a good book” (which prompted Grew to comment that Dodd’s inability to obtain useful information from such functions “sizes up the author as well as any other”). But Grew’s most pointed criticism concerned Dodd’s failure to be more direct in his dealings with the German government. Despite his “bitter hatred of Nazis,” Grew observed, Dodd refrained from “hard-hitting tactics, which is the only language the Germans understand.…”
While the Grews were assessing the shortcomings of the former American ambassador to Germany, Japan’s Foreign Minister was expressing to the Prime Minister his “displeasure and animosity” toward Japan’s ambassador to the United States. From the beginning of his assignment, Nomura believed that he could modify or even ignore instructions he received from Matsuoka. When the Foreign Minister told his ambassador on May 12 to hand Hull a statement that said that any agreement with Japan would depend on the United States avoiding involvement in the European war and revising its relationship with China, Nomura bluntly responded that he had no intention of giving the provocative message to the Secretary of State. That did not sit well with the Foreign Minister. Matsuoka became equally enraged when he learned that Nomura had reportedly told Hull during one of their conversations in May that Matsuoka was the only cabinet member who opposed an adjustment in Japanese-American relations (which, according to Konoye’s Memoirs, was true). And when Nomura explained in the beginning of June that he had received a counterproposal from the United States (the revised draft of May 31) and would forward it to the Foreign Minister after he had worked out revisions with the State Department, Matsuoka immediately fired back a telegram full of indignation. “[A]n important matter of this sort should be dispatched without delay,” he said. The Japanese government could not formulate “policy toward the United States,” the Foreign Minister snapped, if such information were withheld.
Nomura was infuriated by Matsuoka’s comments. At one point, the retired admiral drafted a telegram to the Foreign Minister that explained his perspective as ambassador. He chided the Foreign Minister for using language in his instructions that “one would dare not use in talking even to a common soldier.” But Nomura especially resented the insinuation that the Japanese ambassador was not doing his job. “I obey your instructions to the end,” said the draft telegram, “but in carrying them out I am only using my discretion as to the order in which they should be put.” He recalled the beginnings of their friendship of thirty years, saying, “This is absolutely not that heroic Matsuoka. In view of the circumstances which led me to come out of my retirement, the real Matsuoka should put more trust in me.”
Nomura discussed the telegram with Iwakuro Hideo, who was now a military attaché in the embassy. Iwakuro apparently believed that the telegram would do more harm than good. So it was never sent. But Nomura’s decision not to send the telegram had no bearing on his conduct in the continuing conversations with Cordell Hull and his staff.
Over the course of the first few weeks in June, Nomura and his colleagues met with Hull and his staff numerous times to review possible changes to the May 31 redraft. As before, most of the meetings were in Hull’s apartment (and on at least two occasions, Hull remained bed-ridden for the entire conversation, which sometimes lasted as much as two hours).
A principal focus remained the Tripartite Pact. The State Department representatives wanted Japan to accept the American claim that all actions which the United States had taken or would take with respect to the European war were for self-defense and thus outside the scope of that pact. At a meeting on June 17, Far Eastern Division Chief Max Hamilton told Iwakuro and Wikawa Tadao that matters would move along more quickly if, as Hull had suggested, Japan would take “some unilateral act to indicate that it appreciates and understands the attitude of the United States toward the European war and realizes that that attitude is based on self-defense.” Neither Hamilton nor Hull specified what “unilateral act” would satisfy the United Sates on that point.
There was also a concern in the State Department about Japan’s proposal to delete the May 31 draft’s reference to “the principle of non-discrimination in international relations” in “the Pacific area.” The Japanese wanted to confine the language to Japan’s “peaceful” activity in “the Southwestern Pacific.” That limitation was unacceptable to Hull and his staff. Hull and his staff also remained uncomfortable with Japan’s proposal to station troops in North China after settlement of the China Incident, but no progress had been made on that issue. In response to questions from the American representatives, Iwakuro said Japan could not give a time limit on how long the troops would remain there. He said only that “the troops would be withdrawn as soon as the cause for keeping them there should cease to exist.” There was no discussion of—and therefore no agreement on—the Manchuria issue either because the American proposal of May 31 had repeated that the issue would be subject to “amicable negotiation” at a later point.
The meetings did little more than to highlight the absence of any agreement on these and other critical points. That was neither surprising nor unwelcome to Stanley Hornbeck. In a memorandum to Hull on June 10, the Political Relations Adviser expressed his long-held view that any agreement would be “something which neither the Japanese nation nor the people of the United States want and which, if consummated, will be distasteful to both.” At the same time, Hornbeck—apparently educated about Roosevelt’s interest in prolonged discussions—now saw value in continuing to talk with the Japanese about an agreement that should never come to fruition. “As I have said to you repeatedly,” the memorandum continued, “I feel that certain useful purposes may be served by the carrying on and continuance of the conversations. But I would view with unqualified misgiving the eventuation of an agreement.…” Hornbeck added that it was his duty, “in fairness to the Secretary of State,” to tell him that, to best of his knowledge, “every officer of the Department who has been associated with or who has close knowledge of the progress of the conversations shares in the misgivings to which I have been and am giving expression.…”
Hull certainly understood the underpinnings of his adviser’s comments—especially because he was not pleased with the changes proposed by the Japanese representatives. In meetings with Nomura, the Secretary of State provided comments in person and in documents that expressed concern that the changes proposed by the Japanese representatives “carried the proposal away from the fundamental points” that the United States deemed essential “in establishing and preserving peaceful conditions in the Pacific area.” But neither Hull nor his staff expressed any inclination to terminate the meetings or to expedite a determination whether an agreement was possible. Quite the contrary. Hull and his staff repeatedly explained to Nomura and his colleagues that reaching “a satisfactory understanding” would not be difficult if Japan would only “adopt courses which are in conformity with principles” espoused by the United States. Nowhere, however, did Hull or his staff provide any meaningful specificity with respect to the “courses” they desired.
The lack of specificity coincided with the American strategy to keep the balls in the air. At times, the strategy was even at odds with efforts to clarify the differences between the two countries. That resistance to clarification was evident at the meeting in Hull’s apartment on Sunday morning, June 15 (when Hull was confined to bed). Nomura said that he “would like to come to an understanding with the Secretary as to what were the points in the Japanese proposal on which” there was agreement and “what were the points on which” the two sides “differed.” Nomura said he needed that information to inform his government on the status of the conversations.
It was not an unreasonable request for a situation where two adversaries were interested in narrowing their differences. But that was not this situation. And so Hull brushed the request aside, saying that “such a procedure might give rise to misunderstanding on the part of the Japanese Government” and that Nomura should make a report to his government “on his own judgment as to the situation.”
Despite that response, Hull and his staff decided there would be value in handing Nomura a further revised draft proposal. Hull handed the new draft, along with some explanatory documents, to Nomura at a meeting in Hull’s apartment on June 21. There were a variety of changes, but the new draft was little different from the May 31 draft on key points. There was no explicit request for Japan’s renunciation of the Tripartite Pact—only a reaffirmation of the earlier statement that all actions by the United States with respect to the European war had been and would be based “solely and exclusively” on self-defense. The proposal again stated that the United States would suggest that Chiang Kai-shek discuss settlement with Japan, but without any penalty to the Chinese if Chiang Kai-shek should decline. There was no provision concerning the stationing of troops in North China after settlement with China to defend against communist attacks—only a statement that the issue was “subject to further discussion.” The draft again stated that all economic activity in the entire Pacific area would be subject to “the principle of non-discrimination.” And the future of Manchuria was again left to “[a]micable negotiation.”
Even as he handed the documents to Nomura on June 21, the Secretary of State expressed skepticism that the submission would be productive. The documents included an Oral Statement which acknowledged that “many Japanese leaders” might favor an adjustment in relations with the United States. Unfortunately, the statement added, other “Japanese leaders in influential official positions are definitely committed to a course which calls for support of Nazi Germany and its policies of conquest.…” The statement did not explicitly identify Matsuoka by name, but there was no doubt that the Foreign Minister was the object of that comment. In light of that unnamed leader’s commitment to Germany, the statement rhetorically asked whether it was “illusory” to expect the parties to reach an agreement.
The Oral Statement did reference Japan’s proposal to retain troops in North China to defend against communist attacks after a settlement between Japan and China. In accordance with Hull’s strategy (and the language in the revised draft), it explained that the United States “does not desire to enter into the merits of such a proposal.” At the same time, the statement questioned whether the proposal was in accord with the “liberal policies” that the United States wanted to incorporate in any agreement.
This observation, as well as others in the June 21 documents, made clear that little progress had been made. And if there was any doubt in Nomura’s mind on that point, it was certainly removed by the last comment in the Oral Statement. “The Secretary of State has therefore reluctantly come to the conclusion,” it said, “that this Government must await some clearer indication than has yet been given that the Japanese Government as a whole desires to pursue courses of peace.…” It was not clear what “indication” would satisfy the United States. In his diary, Nomura said only that Hull “wanted the Japanese Government to show more sincerity one way or the other.”
Throughout these several weeks in June, no communication was sent to or requested from the American ambassador in Tokyo with respect to the conversations that Hull and his staff were having with Japanese representatives. Grew himself commented in one telegram to Hull that he was “in the dark as to the progress and present status of the American-Japanese conversations in Washington.” Grew’s lament was warranted. He was not given any memoranda of the conversations. Nor was he given copies of any the proposals submitted by the United States or Japan. And nowhere did Hull or his staff request his views on any of the issues addressed in those proposals—although they remained mindful of Grew’s earlier assessment. In analyzing the Japanese proposals for Hull just prior to the submission of the revised draft of June 21, Max Hamilton referenced the reports from Grew “that most of the Japanese Cabinet do not favor going to war with the United States in the event that the United States becomes involved in the European war” and that “Matsuoka’s attitude and policy are not supported by the most influential members of the Cabinet.”
Ironically, as Hull was condemning Matsuoka’s utterances on behalf of the Tripartite Pact and Germany during those June meetings, Grew was telling the Secretary of State that Matsuoka was becoming more and more isolated from the Japanese leadership. In a telegram to Hull on June 6, the American ambassador told Hull that he had received information from a reliable informant who told him that Prime Minister Konoye had told editorial writers for Japanese periodicals that “he was seriously disturbed by the efforts of Germany to persuade Japan to follow a course calculated to lead to war with the United States.” In that same telegram, Grew also reported that a well-informed Japanese official had told him that “serious differences of opinion have developed between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister and that these differences will be publicly disclosed in the near future.”
Other developments could have confirmed Matsuoka’s diminishing stature to Hull. In May, the Japan Times and Advertiser—regarded by many as an organ of the Foreign Ministry—published an article that explained that people with “dangerous contagious thoughts” would be taken to prison and then to preventive detention facilities, where they would be kept “until there is unmistakable evidence that they have reformed and are no longer carriers of the infectious germs of subversive thoughts.”
Government officials were not immune from that policy. On June 17, the Japanese press announced that the government had established within the Cabinet a new Bureau for Thought Control and that one of its primary objectives would be “the suppression of dangerous thoughts held by government officials.…” Although the governmental apparatus was new, there was nothing novel about the effort to cleanse the governmental system of people with unacceptable opinions. As the creation of the new bureau was being announced, Grew learned that the government had already arrested 440 government officials in the past few months because their expression of “totalitarian views had rendered them amenable to the provisions of the Thought Control Law, which specifies penalties for persons who advocate the overthrow of the capitalist system.”
The Foreign Minister was not beyond the reach of this new focus on government officials. Matsuoka had given a fiery speech on May 20 to a meeting of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in which he had “ruthlessly” criticized the Japanese bureaucracy and “vigorously defended the totalitarian system of the Nazis.…” Never one to be shy about promoting himself, the Foreign Minister had arranged for the production of 200,000 pamphlets with the text of his own speech. He no doubt hoped that distribution of the speech would enhance his popularity with the Japanese public. But the government had a different view. On June 19, Grew recorded in his diary that the Home Ministry had prohibited distribution of the pamphlets.
Whatever disappointment the Foreign Minister may have felt from the government’s action was soon eclipsed by another incident: Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22. Grew had long expected the attack. His diary entry of April 25, 1941—written only days after Matsuoka’s triumphant return from Moscow with the Neutrality Pact—recorded the Ambassador’s view that such an attack was “almost inevitable.” When he heard news of the invasion, Grew reiterated that view, saying that he “had long expected it” but “was surprised at the suddenness, believing that it would break somewhat later.” Whatever the timing, it was, from Grew’s perspective, a welcome development. “I think,” he confided to his diary, “the German-Soviet war is the best thing that could have happened. Dog eat dog.”
Like the American ambassador, Matsuoka should not have been surprised by the German attack on the Soviet Union. In his conversations with Ribbentrop the previous March, the German Foreign Minister had intimated that tensions were rising between Germany and the Soviet Union and that “a war might break out at any time.…” In mid-April, the Japanese ambassador in Berlin had advised Konoye that Germany was on the verge of war with the Soviet Union, that the Soviet Union was unlikely to prevail, and that American and British aid to the Soviet Union “will have hardly any effect on the outcome.…” Beyond all that, during the spring there were reports of Russian troops being moved to the Soviet Union’s western border and movement of German troops to the east. The likely explanation for those movements was an expected clash between the two armies. And in June, the Japanese ambassador in Berlin dispatched other telegrams warning of an imminent attack by Germany against the Soviet Union.
Despite all these intimations, it appears that Matsuoka and other Japanese leaders discounted the prospect of an imminent German attack on the Soviet Union. They certainly had no formal notice from Germany about the attack. As New York Times correspondent Otto Tolischus observed on June 22, “[I]t was obvious that the Japanese were as much surprised by the timing of the event as the rest of the world.” (Japan would later return the favor: Germany would not learn of the attack on Pearl Harbor until after it had commenced.)
In discussing the invasion with reporters, Matsuoka tried to appear calm. “Something must be wrong with the brains of those who are surprised,” he told one Japanese periodical. In truth, the Foreign Minister was almost apoplectic at the turn of events. He was the one who had been hailed as a hero for securing the Neutrality Pact with the Soviet Union. It was a fitting complement to the Tripartite Pact, which Matsuoka had also advocated (in part because Germany had already signed its own non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1939). The two agreements, at least on paper, safeguarded Japan from the prospect of war with its traditional adversary in Asia and with the dominant force in Europe. Japan would not have to worry about a direct attack from the Soviet Union. Nor would Japan have to worry about supporting Germany in any armed conflict it might have with the Soviet Union.
All those careful calculations evaporated with news of the invasion. Something needed to be done. But Matsuoka knew he had no power to act unilaterally. He could have contacted the Prime Minister to discuss alternatives, but that was not Matsuoka’s style. He needed the sanction of a higher authority. And so, at 4 p.m. on that cloudy Sunday, he telephoned Marquis Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and asked for an appointment with the Emperor. The meeting was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. that same day.
Kido was well aware of the differences of opinion between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. Apparently expecting that Matsuoka would urge some action supportive of Germany, the Lord Keeper wanted to spare the Emperor from having to consider a policy that might not be supported by the Cabinet and, more importantly, one that might be inimical to Japan’s interest. Kido suggested that Hirohito listen to the Foreign Minister and then ask if he had consulted the Prime Minister about any proposed action.
As Kido expected, Matsuoka was full of excitement when he saw Hirohito. There was, he told the Emperor, no time for delay. Japan’s Neutrality Pact with the Soviet Union could not stand in the way of the appropriate policy. Japan, he said, “must cooperate with Germany and attack Russia.”
Hirohito was, according to Konoye, “astonished” by Matsuoka’s proposal. As Kido had suggested, the Emperor asked the Foreign Minister whether he had consulted with the Prime Minister. Matsuoka had not reached out to Konoye, and he now understood what he should have known from the beginning. Hirohito would not sanction any policy except through the recommendation of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. Matsuoka left the Imperial Palace with the knowledge that he had no choice but to contact Konoye.
The Foreign Minister had to know the implications of what lay ahead. The Prime Minister and the military had a different perspective than the Foreign Minister. They had no interest in undertaking the cost and risk of war with the Soviet Union unless it was necessary to protect Japan or unless German success on the Soviet Union’s western front provided a propitious opportunity for Japan to initiate an attack on the Soviet Union’s eastern front. But they did have an interest in relieving themselves of the tension and conflict created by the Foreign Minister.
The German invasion of Russia was the very incident they needed to orchestrate Matsuoka’s removal from the Cabinet. His advocacy had placed Japan in the precarious position of being allies with two countries at war with each other. It was an untenable posture and, under the Japanese political system, someone would have to pay for the miscalculation. “Matsuoka will almost surely have to go,” Grew confided to his diary at the end of the month.
No immediate decision was made on the Foreign Minister’s status—although his stature and public standing were clearly diminished by the German invasion of Russia. The more pressing problem for the Japanese Government was to craft a response to the German initiative. In doing that, the Japanese government did not want to grapple with open discussion among the people. “The police issued a special warning against groundless rumors,” Tolischus recorded on June 25, “and threatened severe punishment to all, including ‘big men in all walks of life, who, because of their special knowledge, are believed to be the source of the rumors.’ ”
That warning may have applied to Matsuoka, but it did not preclude remarks from the Prime Minister. He gave an interview to the foreign press on Sunday, June 29, to emphasize that “Japan is very anxious to maintain friendly relations with the United States” and that he saw “no reason why our two countries cannot remain friendly.” Speaking in English and appearing “unhurried and very courteous,” Konoye added that the “chief purpose” of the Tripartite Pact was “defensive in nature” and should not pose an obstacle to maintaining those friendly relations with the United States.
Konoye’s comments were derided as meaningless by Joe Ballantine, who told Hull that the Prime Minister’s remarks about a “friendly” relationship with the United States were no “different from those which have been repeatedly announced by spokesmen of the Japanese Government for the last several years.” Ballantine did not share his skepticism with Grew, who was in a position to provide a countervailing view. “Only a few days ago,” he recorded in diary on July 2, “Prince Konoye asked a close Japanese friend of mine whether I fully realized his strong desire for friendship with the United States.” That information was buttressed by a report from another “reliable contact” who told Grew that Konoye had spoken to him “very confidently of the prospect of adjusting relations between our two countries.”
In the meantime, Konoye as well as other members of the Cabinet and representatives of the Army and Navy met almost continuously in Liaison Conferences to review the country’s options. Support for Germany was in short supply. The German ambassador had been, according to Grew, “seeing Matsuoka or other high Japanese officials constantly.” But Grew knew the meetings would not overcome the bitterness many Japanese already felt or were beginning to feel toward the Germans. The Reichstag representatives had been persistently pushing Matsuoka and other Japanese officials to pursue aggressive military action against the United States. At one point in the middle of June, the American ambassador sent a telegram to Hull that conveyed information from a member of the Diet who had sent a written message because he was afraid to be seen going to the American embassy. According to the informant, the Germans had urged the Foreign Minister to initiate an attack in the South Seas because “the United States is in no condition to engage in hostilities in both the Atlantic and Pacific.…”
Many in the Japanese government recognized the German pressures for what they were—an incitement to action more likely to serve the Führer’s interest than Japan’s. “Today,” Tolischus reported in the New York Times, “Japan knows that she is not a partner but merely an object in Hitler’s policies. And she also knows, as one Japanese newspaper has said, that Hitler throws off treaties like worn-out sandals, and all those who sought to profit by cooperating with Hitler paid a terrific price for it.” Grew explained the prevailing attitude toward the Germans more succinctly in his diary. “[M]any high Japanese,” said the Ambassador, “are fed up with them.”
Not surprisingly, most of the participants in the Liaison Conferences at the end of June were more focused on a policy that would serve Japan’s interest rather than Germany’s. The military wanted to proceed with the establishment of a presence in southern Indochina, which was still under the purported rule of the Vichy government. Moving southward, they argued, would give Japan access to needed natural resources, provide a means to restrain American and British aid to Chiang Kai-shek, and, not coincidentally, give Japan a springboard for military advancement to other points in Southeast Asia if, as many junior officers in the Army hoped (despite Konoye’s expressed desire to the contrary), Japan should find itself in armed conflict with the United States.
For his part, Matsuoka acknowledged that he bore some responsibility for Japan’s dilemma. “As a matter of fact,” the Foreign Minister told the other conferees at the first Liaison Conference on Wednesday, June 25, “I concluded a Neutrality Pact because I thought that Germany and Soviet Russia would not go to war. If I had known that they would go to war… I would not have concluded the Neutrality Pact.” But that mistake could not stand in the way of the need to support Germany. “When Germany wipes out the Soviet Union,” he argued, “we can’t simply share in the spoils of victory unless we’ve done something. We must either shed our blood or embark on diplomacy. And it’s better to shed blood.”
A surprising perspective from a Foreign Minister. But it was not enough to carry the day with the Cabinet or even the military. That became clear when they all gathered on July 2 for an Imperial Conference in front of the Emperor in the Meiji Palace on the Imperial compound.
Unlike the more informal Liaison Conferences, Imperial Conferences were a vehicle to have the Emperor sanction policy choices made by the Cabinet and the armed forces. They were not an everyday occurrence. There had only been three Imperial Conferences since the inauguration of the China Incident in 1937. The setting was commensurate with the importance of the event. Tall ceilings punctuated with large glass chandeliers. Purple-colored silk hangings with floral patterns affixed to the walls. Two long rectangular tables—covered in multi-colored silk sheets—only a short distance from each other. There the participants sat, ramrod straight, looking at each other. The Emperor, dressed in his army uniform, sat on a chair in front of a gold screen facing the two rectangular tables.
The conference had been requested by Konoye the day before to bring closure to the discussions the Cabinet members and military representatives had been having in the previous ten days. Their decision now needed the Imperial Seal of approval. The proceedings began at 10 a.m. The Prime Minister rose from his seat, bowed in the direction of the Emperor, and read from a document entitled “Outline of National Policies in View of the Changing Situation.” The document referenced the need to implement the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere policy “no matter what changes may occur in the world situation.” The document said that the government would “continue its efforts to effect a settlement of the China Incident.” That goal, the document added, would “involve steps to advance south.”
To that end, the document said that Japan would execute plans set forth in another policy statement which detailed “various measures relating to French Indochina and Thailand.” In carrying out those measures in the “southern regions,” the document said that Japan “will not be deterred by the possibility of being involved in a war with Great Britain and the United States.”
No reference was made to any attack on Pearl Harbor. Commander Genda Minoru—who had been given responsibility for the air assault—had initiated test flights by torpedo bombers in the southern islands, but Admiral Yamamoto’s plan had not been formally approved by the Navy. His scheme was not even known to the War and Navy Ministers, let alone the civilian members of the Cabinet. (Ironically, Tolischus had told Grew about an indirect interaction with Yamamoto on an earlier train ride from the beach town of Hayama to Tokyo. The New York Times correspondent had asked two members of the Diet, who were also on the train, about a report that the Japanese Navy would intercept any American ships moving across the Pacific toward the Red Sea. The Diet members immediately consulted Yamamoto, who was also traveling on the train. He not only denied the report but also said “that it was Japan’s intention to avoid complications in the Pacific and that his own influence was and would continue to be exerted wholly in that direction.”)
The new policy statement being considered at the Imperial Conference did address the German-Soviet conflict but deferred any response. In deciding how to proceed, the document said that Japan would be guided by the Tripartite Pact but that Japan would “decide independently as to the time and method of resorting to force.” The document promised involvement in that conflict only if the war should develop to Japan’s advantage. It closed with a statement that the government’s immediate attention would turn “to placing the nation on a war footing” and to making sure that “the defense of the homeland will be strengthened.”
The document did not explicitly explain how the move into southern Indochina or Thailand would help resolve the China Incident. Presumably, a military advance into those countries would enable Japan to close the Burma Road, a highway in Burma—then a British colony located southwest of China—that was used to provide supplies to Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime. Whatever the details on that situation, the participants understood that other benefits would ensue as well—the ability to secure more natural resources, the opportunity to secure an advantage in any military campaign in the Southwest Pacific, and, not incidentally, the ability to discourage German intrusions into Southeast Asia if, as some conference participants believed, Germany was on the verge of victory against the Soviet Union and thus in a position to move into Asia.
The participants should have known that the planned move into southern Indochina was a decision fraught with risks. The United States had not been pleased when Japan had moved its military into northern Indochina in September 1940. Japan had ultimately secured an agreement with the Vichy government to effectuate that move, but it had been preceded by combat initiated by Japanese armed forces. That tactic fostered a widely-held belief (at least in the United States) that any new agreement with the Vichy government would be a prelude to Japan’s use of armed force. Beyond that, the Roosevelt administration recognized that a substantial Japanese military presence in the French colony would facilitate Japan’s ability to launch attacks on the Philippines, Singapore, and other points in Southeast Asia. In explaining the United States’ displeasure to the press, Hull had pointed out that the United States advocated “abstinence by all nations from the use of force in the internal affairs of other nations.” Another administration official was more direct. “The danger,” said Federal Security Administrator Paul McNutt, “lies in powerful men-of-war steaming into Manila Harbor, into Guam, and the Hawaiian Islands.…”
The Roosevelt administration did not counter the Japanese move into northern Indochina with armed force, but it did institute an embargo on Japan’s importation of scrap steel and scrap iron. It was not an insignificant action. Japan needed scrap iron and scrap steel to make machinery of all kinds, including military hardware. (In fact, Japan had purchased about 90% of her scrap iron and scrap steel from the United States in 1939.) The reaction by the United States to a move into southern Indochina could be expected to be that much more adverse even it were accomplished through peaceful means. For his part, Hull would undoubtedly view the move into southern Indochina as a rejection of his repeated requests to Nomura for some indication that the Japanese government had abandoned its policies of military conquest.
Nomura, for one, understood the implications—at least if military force were used. Matsuoka sent a cable to the retired admiral on the day the conference ended to inform him of the decision to move into the southern regions. “[I]f you are resolved to use armed force against the Southern Regions at this time,” the Ambassador responded on July 3, “there seems to be no room at all for adjusting Japanese-American relations.”
Although he shared that concern, Hirohito believed he was obligated to sanction a consensus reached by the government and the military. At the same time, he wanted the Imperial Conference participants to consider the risks of the proposed decision to move into southern Indochina. But he would not be the one to raise concerns at the conference. Bearing in mind the guidance which Prince Saionji had given him years earlier, the Emperor believed that his questions should be voiced by Hara Yoshimichi, the seventy-four-year-old President of the Privy Council.
A small man with a thin moustache and horn-rimmed glasses, Hara did not hesitate to confront the Cabinet members and military representatives with Hirohito’s apprehensions at the July 2 conference. His questions were, as Army Chief Sugiyma Hajime later said, “relevant and pointed.” A principal theme of Hara’s questions was the impact on Japan’s relations with the United States. “I want to avoid war with the United States,” he bluntly stated. Given that goal, he asked whether it might not be better to join Germany in an attack on the Soviet Union. “I do not think that the United States would take any action,” he said, “if we were to attack the Soviet Union.” Conversely, he asked whether moving into southern Indochina carried that risk of war with the United States.
The Foreign Minister was quick to respond. “I cannot exclude that possibility,” he said. Unlike Matsuoka, Sugiyama was willing to give Hara the answer he wanted. The Army chief did acknowledge that the “occupation of Indochina will certainly provoke Great Britain and the United States.” But they could not worry about adverse American and British reactions. The movement into southern Indochina was “absolutely necessary” to protect Japan against an uncertain future. That posture seemed especially justified, said Sugiyama, because he did “not believe that the United States will go to war if Japan moves into French Indochina”—assuming, as he did, that the occupation would be accomplished “peacefully.”
It was a perspective born of the Japanese leaders’ view that the United States was in the grip of isolationist sentiment that shunned involvement in foreign conflicts. “I am convinced,” said Tolischus a couple of months earlier, “that Japan’s leaders were being deceived regarding American strength and morale by labor strikes and isolationist and pacifist activity in America, which were being exploited in the Japanese press.” It was a view shared by Grew. In late April, he had cabled Hull and Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles that “the extremists in Japan who favor carrying out the southward advance have been encouraged by reports from the United States in their stubborn belief that we would not go to war with Japan short of a direct attack on the Philippines… [U]nder these circumstances,” Grew suggested, “it might be helpful if either the President or the Secretary should call in Admiral Nomura and should talk to him in a way which would disabuse the extremists of the foregoing beliefs.”
The suggestion might have been beneficial to the United States (and Japan) as Konoye’s cabinet and the Japanese military decided on their country’s new policy at the July 2 Imperial Conference, but neither Roosevelt nor Hull had any such conversation with Nomura. And so there was no discussion at that conference about whether the United States might respond with embargoes or other sanctions.
The absence of any such discussion did not trouble Hara. He had the assurance he wanted that there would be no war with the United States. A vote was taken, and the new policy statement was unanimously adopted. The document was signed by Konoye and the military chiefs and then brought to the Privy Seal’s office for the affixation of the Imperial Seal. The decision to establish a military presence in southern Indochina was now the official policy of Japan. About two hours after the conference ended, the Foreign Minister issued a public announcement which stated that “[a] decision regarding the Government’s fundamental policy was reached at the Imperial Conference today” and that “a super emergency period is developing in the Far East which will directly affect Japan.” No mention was made concerning the particulars of the decision.
Hara may have been satisfied with the decision, but Konoye’s concerns endured. The Prime Minister decided to send a letter to Matsuoka on July 4 because, in his view, “the Foreign Minister’s ambiguous attitude could no longer be disregarded.” Among other matters, the letter referenced the Navy’s judgment that simultaneously fighting a war against the Soviet Union and the United States would pose “almost insurmountable difficulties.” In light of that judgment, said Konoye, the “invasion” of southern Indochina “should, if possible, be abandoned” until the Soviet issue was resolved. That suggestion assumed that the move into southern Indochina could spark an armed conflict with the United States. A corollary to that suggestion was Konoye’s admonition to Matsuoka that it was “necessary” to bring Nomura’s discussions with Hull to “a successful conclusion.…”
Konoye’s letter did not surface in public, but word soon slipped out about the move into southern Indochina (which would ultimately be accomplished by another agreement with the Vichy government). British Ambassador Sir Robert Craigie registered a protest with the Foreign Ministry Office on July 5 to say that England would consider it “a serious problem” if there was truth to the report that the Japanese military would soon move into southern Indochina.
Grew sent a telegram to Hull the next day after hearing the news from various sources, including Otto Tolischus. The Imperial Conference, said the telegram, had decided to “sit on the fence” with respect to the German-Soviet conflict but, in the meantime, to acquire military bases in southern Indochina “gradually and step by step in order to avoid an open conflict with the United States.” The Ambassador explained that this move was dictated in part by a desire on the part of Japanese leaders to consolidate Japan’s position in Southeast Asia “before Germany is in a position to interfere with Japanese ambitions.…” Grew also reported that Matsuoka had told Craigie that “the mutual confidence between the allies of the Tripartite Pact remains unimpaired.…” But he added that no credence could be given to that statement. It “is so palpably contrary to the truth,” said Grew, “that we must take the Minister’s statement with reserve.”
In the midst of all these developments through the late spring and early summer of 1941, Grew still found time to write letters to his daughters, each of whom remained with their respective families in a different American legation outside Japan. The dispatch and receipt of such letters could take weeks. And so it was not until the middle of June that the doting father was in a position to write Elsie a long letter to thank her for the good wishes she had sent on May 27, Grew’s sixty-first birthday.
“I don’t know,” said Joe, “whether life actually begins at sixty-one, but one certainly gets a lot more out of it.… Another advantage of sixty-one over twenty-one,” he continued, “is the fact that by that time one has either developed a happy home or ended like the Sergeant whom the Colonel lambasted for getting a divorce after all those years of matrimony.” (According to Grew, the Sergeant told the Colonel, “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not a deserter. I’m a refugee.”) For Grew, the importance of a successful marriage could not be overestimated. “[O]ne finally arrives at that most agreeable situation in life,” he told Elsie, “where complete understanding, contentment and happiness in the home has developed a philosophy where one doesn’t give much of a damn what happens outside the home, relatively speaking of course.”
It was a perspective that would be tested in the months that lay ahead. As Japan and the United States slid closer to war, tensions increased. And Grew would become that much more frustrated as he tried to do something useful.