Chapter 11: 11. Further Indications of Impending Japanese Action Tokyo: “Utterly Impossible for Japan to Accept” U.S. Terms

Page One of The New York Times reported on December 5 that Tokyo “was struck as by a bombshell . . . with the revelation of the substance of the Japanese-American negotiations.” Japan’s government-controlled news agency, Domei, had announced, “It is utterly impossible for Japan to accept the stipulations of the American document” presented to the two Japanese ambassadors on November 26 by Secretary of State Hull. Domei was owned by the Japanese government and “carefully controlled by the Japanese Government.” Any Domei report was “simply what the Japanese Government wanted to have passed on to the public.”^[1] The terms of the U.S. document were not reported. However, according to the story, “a lively debate” had taken place the day before at a session of the entire Japanese Privy Council. Furthermore, Domei asserted, the document

cannot serve as a basis of Japanese-American negotiations henceforth. Hull’s statement means that the United States is still scheming to impose on Japan the provisions of old and obsolete principles, which are incompatible with the actual Far Eastern conditions, even of bygone days.^[2]

Japanese Expeditionary Force in the Southwest Pacific

The Dutch and British, with possessions in the southwest Pacific, were concerned that huge concentrations of Japanese forces were assembling and apparently preparing to move in their direction. The commander-in-chief of all Dutch naval forces, stationed in London since the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, “had received information that the Japanese were concentrating an expeditionary force in the Pelew [Palau] Islands” in the Carolines, only about 600 miles northwest of Dutch New Guinea.^[3] The Dutch in London conferred with Anthony Eden, secretary of state for foreign affairs. They were seeking some type of “a joint declaration of a defense zone by the United States or Great Britain” to assist their defense against the Japanese.^[4] Eden cabled Lord Halifax, the British ambassador in Washington, setting forth “the British view that the time has now come for immediate cooperation with the Dutch East Indies by mutual understanding. . . .This of course relates to the matter of defense against Japan.”^[5] Halifax asked to see Secretary of State Hull and he called at Hull’s apartment on the morning of December 5, to discuss Eden’s cable.

Tokyo Replies to FDR Concerning Japanese Troops in Indochina

On December 5 the two Japanese ambassadors called at the State Department to present formally the Japanese government’s answer to FDR’s question “with regard to the reported movements of Japanese troops in French Indo-china.” The two men handed Hull the Japanese government’s reply. It was short. The ambassadors waited while the secretary read.

“Chinese troops have recently shown frequent signs of movements along the northern frontier of French Indo-china bordering on China.” Hence, “Japanese troops . . . have been reinforced to a certain extent in the northern part of French Indo-china,” for the principal purpose of “taking precautionary measures.” As a result, some Japanese troop movements have been carried out in southern Indochina and apparently “an exaggerated report has been made of these movements.” However, the Japanese government said, “no measure has been taken on the part of the Japanese Government that may transgress the stipulations of the Protocol of Joint Defense between Japan and France.”^[6]

When Hull had finished reading, he asked the ambassadors “whether the Japanese considered that the Chinese were liable to attack them in Indochina.” He said the Chinese contended they were “massing troops in Yunnan [a province of China on the northern border of Indochina] . . . in answer to Japan’s massing troops in Indochina.” Ambassador Nomura said that

as the Chinese were eager to defend the Burma Road . . . the possibility of a Chinese attack in Indochina as a means of preventing Japan’s attacking the Burma Road from Indochina could not be excluded.

Hull responded that he had “never heard before that Japan’s troop movements into northern Indochina were for the purpose of defense against Chinese attack.” This “was the first time that he knew that Japan was on the defensive in Indochina.” Hull sounded sarcastic.

The ambassadors said the Japanese were “alarmed over increasing naval and military preparations of the ABCD powers in the southwest Pacific area.” They said that “an airplane of one of those countries had recently flown over Formosa,” then Japanese territory.

Nevertheless, Kurusu said, the Japanese government was “very anxious to reach an agreement with this [U.S.] Government,” and it felt we should be “willing to agree to discontinue aid to China as soon as conversations between China and Japan were initiated.” Hull countered by bringing up the aid Japan was giving Hitler. Kurusu asked “in what way was Japan aiding Hitler.” Hull replied, “by keeping large forces of this country and other countries immobilized in the Pacific area.”^[7] At this point the Japanese ambassador said under his breath, “[T]his isn’t getting us anywhere.” Nevertheless, the conversation continued. The secretary and the two ambassadors recapitulated their respective positions more or less as they had done many times before—with respect to U.S. aid to China, the presence of Japanese troops in Indochina, Japan’s desire for oil, and the attitude of the United States toward supplying that oil.

Hull criticized Japan’s “bellicose” slogans and the “malignant campaign conducted [in Japan] through the officially controlled and inspired press which created an atmosphere not conducive to peace.” Kurusu pointed out that “on the American side we were not free from injurious newspaper propaganda.” One press report had cast “aspersions on” him personally, saying he had been sent here “to check on” Nomura. Hull “replied that he had heard only good reports in regard to Mr. Kurusu and the Ambassador.”

In spite of the formal pleasantry, the Japanese ambassador’s sotte voce remark had been correct—the discussions weren’t getting anywhere. The two ambassadors made “the usual apologies for taking so much of the Secretary’s time” and withdrew.^[8]

FDR and Stimson Denounce for Lack of Patriotism Those Who Leaked U.S. War Plans

The December 4 Chicago Tribune story on “F.D.R.’s War Plan” had aroused the country. At a White House press conference the next day, Roosevelt parried questions of reporters and referred them to Secretary of War Stimson. Almost 200 newspaper correspondents immediately “flocked to his [Stimson’s] press conference.”^[9] After reading a short statement, Stimson asked the reporters,

What would you think of an American general staff which in the present condition of the world did not investigate and study every conceivable type of emergency which may confront this country, and every possible method of meeting that emergency?

He questioned the patriotism of the person or newspaper that would publish confidential studies and make them available to our enemies. The newspaper report was about an unfinished study that had “never constituted an authorized program of the Government.”^[10]

Stimson continued,

While their publication will doubtless be of gratification to our potential enemies and a possible source of impairment and embarrassment to our national defense, the chief evil of their publication is the revelation that there should be among us any group of persons so lacking in appreciation of the danger that confronts the country.

He denounced those who were “so wanting in loyalty and patriotism to their government that they would be willing to take and publish such papers.” Stimson “declined to answer questions or enlarge upon it, but indicated that more would be announced after he had completed the task . . . of finding out how the ‘leak’ occurred.”^[11]

Japan Anticipates a Break with England and the United States

On December 3 the Japanese ambassadors in Washington notified Tokyo by cable (which we decoded and translated on December 5) that the indications were that “some joint military action between Great Britain and the United States, with or without a declaration of war is a definite certainty in the event of an occupation [by Japan] of Thailand.”^[12]

Also on December 5 we read a December 1 message from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in London: “Please discontinue the use of your code machine and dispose of it immediately.” To acknowledge receipt of these instructions, the embassy was to cable Tokyo “in plain language . . . the one word SETUJU.” When the code machine had actually been destroyed the embassy was to wire Tokyo, also in plain language, “HASSO.”^[13] Thus communications in code between the Embassy in London and Tokyo were being shut down.

Some in U.S. intelligence realized that this was what Japan had been preparing for when it set up the “Winds Code.” Radio reception in those days was not reliable. Routine Japanese news and weather broadcasts, into which Japan inserted the special weather words with their secret meanings, could not usually be heard in the countries surrounding the Pacific. But due to freak atmospheric conditions, they “could be heard . . . in the North Atlantic Ocean, the British Isles and Western Europe.” Thus the primary reason for sending the “Winds Execute” must have been to notify the Japanese ambassador in London, after his code machine had been disposed of, that war with England and the United States was coming. “[T]his was the only way that Tokyo could get news to him secretly.”^[14]

That same day we intercepted a December 4 cable from the Japanese ambassador in Berlin to Tokyo. Berlin was asking Tokyo to arrange, “[i]n case of evacuation” from London, for the transfer to Berlin of certain embassy personnel. Why would the Japanese ambassador in Berlin anticipate the evacuation of the Japanese embassy in London, unless he expected Japan and Great Britain soon to be at war with each other?^[15]

Confirmation from Batavia, NEI, of Significance of Japan’s “Winds Code”

The naval attaché in Batavia, Netherlands East Indies, also picked up the Japanese “Winds Code” setup message and notified Washington “deferred priority” on December 4, 6:21 a.m. Greenwich time (December 4, 1:21 a.m. Washington time). The attaché advised the United States that “Japan will notify her consuls of war decision in her foreign broadcasts as weather report at end” (italics added). Then the cable quoted the special weather words, each with its hidden meaning.^[16]

The “Winds Execute” picked up in Cheltenham, Maryland, on December 4 was open to several interpretations. It could have indicated simply that Japanese relations with the nations mentioned would be in danger; that Japanese negotiations would be discontinued; that diplomatic relations would be broken off; or that actual war was imminent. Thus Batavia’s explicit interpretation, that the transmission of a “Winds Execute” would forebode war, lent credence to Safford’s and Kramer’s interpretation that it was actually a portent of war. However, since the cable from Batavia had not been classified URGENT, it was not decrypted immediately, but held for the December 4–5 nightshift of Army’s G-2, Intelligence Division. When we finally read it on the morning of December 5, it was “old hat,” for we had already picked up the “Winds Execute.”

The Navy’s December 5 View of the U.S.-Japanese Situation

When Navy Director of War Plans Turner heard from Admiral Noyes that a “Winds Execute” referring to a break in U.S.-Japanese relations, had been received, he assumed Kimmel in Pearl Harbor had it. At a December 5 meeting, three top Washington Navy officials—Chief of Naval Operations Stark, Assistant Chief Ingersoll, and Turner—concluded that “all necessary orders had been issued to all echelons of command preparatory to war and that nothing further was necessary.”^[17]