The Actual Road to PEarl Harbor

THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR by GEORGE MORGENSTERN During the war our habit was to treat Pearl Harbor day as, in F.D.R.'s words, "a day of infamy." This newspaper throughout the war protested against any such observance. The appellation was almost Oriental in its masochism—unworthy of us, a travesty of truth. It gave a totally wrong impression of a peaceloving, unoffensive, noninterfering America suddenly set upon by a bully with whom we had no quarrel. No historian will ever accept the interpretation. —Editorial in the Washington (D.C.) Post, December 7, 1951 Japan was meant by the American President to attack the United States. ... It is very questionable whether the word treachery is a legitimate one to use in these circumstances. —CAPTAIN RUSSELL GRENFELL, Main Fleet to Singapore, 1952 It is for peace that I have labored; and it is for peace that I shall labor all the days of my life.

—FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, August 1, 1944 George Morgenstern was born in Chicago on May 26, 1906. He received his Ph.B. degree at the University of Chicago, graduating as president of the undergraduate society of Phi Beta Kappa. He studied history under, among others, Ferdinand Schevill, James Westfall Thompson, William T. Hutchinson, Jose* Vasconcelos, and Carl Dorn. He has been a newspaper writer for twenty-four years and, since 1941, has been a member of the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, specializing in comment on foreign affairs and international relations. During the second World War Mr. Morgenstern served as a captain in the Marine Corps. He was attached to Headquarters as officer in charge of the news section of the Division of Public Information, supervising the work of combat correspondents. He is now a lieutenant-colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. His Pearl Harbor: The Story oi the Secret War, published in 1947 by DevinAdair, was the first extended revisionist study of the roots of American participation in the second World War.

Though bitterly smeared by the "blackout boys/' Mr. Morgenstem's book was, perhaps, the most brilliant and impressive monograph on diplomatic history ever turned out by a nonprofessional student of the subject. Charles Austin Beard stated that it would remain "a permanent contribution to the quest for an understanding of the tragedy of Pearl Harbor." Charles Callan Tansill declared that it "discloses with great ability the lessons of secret diplomacy and national betrayal." Admiral H. E. Yarnell, former commander in chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet and former commandant of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, frankly asserted that "Mr. Morgenstern is to be congratulated on marshalling the available facts of this tragedy in such a manner as to make it clear to every reader where the responsibility lies." The Admiral held that Morgenstern's conclusions are "supported by the evidence." George A. Lundberg maintained that "this is undoubtedly the most important book that has come thus far [1947] out of World War II. In fact, it deserves a place with Machiavelli's The Prince as a concrete case study of the principles developed in that classic."

I. ROOSEVELT ADOPTS THE STIMSON POLICY TOWARD JAPAN In a statement read to his cabinet late in 1931, after Japan had moved its military forces into Manchuria, President Hoover enunciated a policy explicitly rejecting a program of collective sanctions put forward by his Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson. Said Mr. Hoover: Neither our obligations to China, nor our own interest, nor our dignity require us to go to war over these questions. These acts do not imperil the freedom of the American people, the economic or moral future of our people. I do not propose ever to sacrifice American life for anything short of this. . . . We will not go along on war or any of the sanctions, either economic or military, for those are the roads to war.1 Before Mr. Hoover yielded office in March, 1933, Secretary Stimson twice met with President-elect Roosevelt.2 Sumner Welles, Under Secretary of State for the first ten years of the Roosevelt administration, asserts that Roosevelt and Stimson saw "eye to eye."3 Seven years later, when the time had become opportune, Stimson was brought into the Roosevelt cabinet as Secretary of War.

With the renewal of Japanese military action in China in 1937, according to Welles, "the President grew increasingly restive/' He had the Navy place large-scale maps of the Pacific in his office. "He had come to a conclusion about something that could perhaps be done. . . . This was no less than to impose upon Japan a trade embargo to be enforced by units of the American and British Navies stationed at strategic points in the Pacific."4 In fact, this was the Stimson program, which, as Assistant Secretary of State 310 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE Raymond Moley had foreseen, "endorsed a policy that invited a major war in the Far East. . . ."5 Roosevelt was dissuaded then. He tried another gambit. He proposed, in an address on October 5, 1937, dedicating the Outer Drive bridge in Chicago, that aggressor nations be subjected to "quarantine."6 This was his first public attempt to discard the doctrine of neutrality for the United States in favor of a policy in concert with what later were to be known as "peaceloving nations"

—among them, as history relates, Soviet Russia. With what Welles called "the stubbornness that was so characteristic of him,"7 Roosevelt cherished his plan of blockading Japan for three more years. Admiral J. O. Richardson, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, learned from Secretary of the Navy Knox in Washington on October 10, 1940, that "the President was considering shutting off all trade between Japan and America and establishing a patrol of light ships in two lines, one from Hawaii west to the Philippines, and the other from Samoa to the Dutch East Indies."8 Amazed at the proposal, Richardson inquired whether a declaration of war was contemplated. The Secretary was "displeased" at the reception accorded the President's plan by the fleet commander.9 Nor was Roosevelt more successful with the "quarantine" proposal. He could not carry the people with him. It proved "wholly impossible for him for a period of exactly four years to carry out the program that he himself believed to be vitally important to our security," Welles stated. "Isolationists" would have none of it.

"That kind of thinking," Welles confesses, "still prevailed in the Congress and throughout the country up to and including the final days before Pearl Harbor."10 The people did not want their elected servants to thrust war upon them. Roosevelt was thus compelled to trim his sails to the prevailing wind. The party platform he accepted in 1940 pledged that war would be shunned "except in case of attack." In his celebrated speech at Boston on October 30, 1940, the third-term candidate promised American parents "again and again and again" that "your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."11 His speech writer, Robert E. Sherwood, later confessed that, although the THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 319 pledge was deceitful, "I ... urged him to go the limit on this, feeling as I did that the risk of future embarrassment was negligible as compared with the risk of losing the election."12 Although by this time Mr. Roosevelt's primary concern may have been Hitler's Germany, Japanese statesmen were not unmindful that their country always occupied a share of his attention. Years before they had endeavored to convince the government of the United States that Japanese action in China was not entirely divorced from American interest, for "we, or our near posterity, will have to decide between Sino-Russian Communism, or the AngloSaxon capitalism. If China should fall under the rule of Communism, and if Japan keeps up her present policy, . . . the chance is she will be forced to play the role of ... the advance posts of the AngloSaxon capitalism/'13 When the Stimson doctrine of nonrecognition drove Japan out of the League of Nations on January 7, 19 32, Japan made the first of three overtures for a meeting to be arranged "at some point between the continental United States and Japan, such as Honolulu, between some prominent American statesman and a prominent Japanese" for the purpose of reaching an agreement on the basis for an understanding.14 The proposal came to nothing.

In the spring of 1939 Washington rejected a second and similar overture which, if given consideration, might have produced a profoundly different course in world history. The details were not revealed until a year after Japan's surrender to the United States. On May 18, 1939, Ambassador Joseph C. Grew, in Tokyo, reported to Washington a proposal made to him in behalf of the Prime Minister, Baron Hiranuma, by Hachiro Arita, Japanese Foreign Minister.15 This expression referred to gathering war clouds in Europe and looked with dread upon the possibility that civilization would be destroyed. It was the duty of the United States and Japan, as the principal Powers outside the scope of the European conflict, Hiranuma suggested, to "prevent the occurrence of such catastrophe." By this joint endeavor, said the Prime Minister, there would arise "the possibility of much closer cooperation between Japan and America as well as the foundation of a deeper mutual understanding between the two nations."

320 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE The Prime Minister had one delicately phrased suggestion: ". . . it is the ardent wish of Japan that nations should have their own proper places in the world and thus the true world peace might be established and maintained." To Herbert Feis, at that time State Department adviser on international economic affairs, this was an invitation to appeasement which could have meant "a payment by Britain and France to Germany and Japan."16 Treating as irrelevant the subsequent payments by Roosevelt to Russia at the expense of China, Japan, Poland, etc., Mr. Feis infers that any such proposal was immoral. This, of course, was long precedent to the United States and United Nations disposition of 1951 to obtain a peace in Korea by rewarding Chinese Communist aggression. The proposal of Baron Hiranuma was made at a time when Germany was pressing Japan to extend the Anti-Comintern Pact into a military alliance. By the testimony of Toshikazu Kase, the expert on American affairs in the Japanese Foreign Office, the Hiranuma cabinet devoted more than seventy sessions to this question.17 As late as April 19, a month before Hiranuma's proposal, Grew was assured that there would be no alliance.18 On May 22, four days after Arita communicated Hiranuma's message, Germany, impatient of the long delay, signed a military alliance with Italy which excluded Japan.

Before Grew's departure on leave for the United States that night, with the Embassy in the hands of Counselor Eugene Dooman, the ambassador expanded upon his discussion with Arita. He said that he had been assured that the new agreement under discussion with Germany and Italy would not contain military or political commitments binding upon Japan, "except such as may apply directly to combating Communistic activities." "Japan," he continued, "desires to avoid European entanglements. Nevertheless, Japan regards the Soviet Government and the Comintern as identical, and if Soviet Russia should become involved in a European war Japan herself might find it impossible to avoid involvement."19 On May 23 Dooman reported that he had dined privately with the Prime Minister. Baron Hiranuma said that Japanese public opinion "would not permit of the settlement of the conflict in THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 321 China being made a condition precedent to the American-Japanese move that he had in mind/' but he proposed that he would sound out Germany and Italy for the purpose of a conference "to save the world from chaos" if Roosevelt was prepared at the same time to sound out Great Britain and France.20 In referring Dooman's detailed report of the conversation to Roosevelt, Secretary of State Hull termed it "amazing" and described it as "in effect, a private demarche of the Prime Minister to us."21 Although in a previous dispatch Dooman had conveyed the substance of the proposal, his extended report added other information. Japan sought "a gesture of welcome" from the United States. Japan could not ignore the fact that Russia straddled Europe and Asia, and, whether Japan liked it or not, Japanese policies and actions "form a bridge by which events in the Far East and in Europe act on each other." As Dooman had been informed in other quarters, Japan feared involvement with the United States, "not directly across the Pacific but by way of Europe."22 Hull kept the Japanese waiting almost three months for an answer, and by the time the Secretary's note of rejection was transmitted, Hiranuma did not need the reply to know the American attitude. On July 26, 1939, the United States gave notice of its intention, effective six months from date, to abrogate the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan.

In the light of the fixed refusal of Washington authorities to accept the fact that, in a world where no one was pure, Japan was not unique in its impurity, subsequent diplomatic history is redundant if not wholly unreal. The keynote of subsequent American negotiations with Japan—-"looking," in Roosevelt's later pained statement, "toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific"23—was adequately struck by Hull in a memorandum of June 28, 1940: I said that this country has been progressively bringing economic pressure to bear on Japan since last summer, now a year, and I enumerated the different steps and methods, which are familiar to all, and added that our fleet is now somewhere in the Pacific near Hawaii. I said that we have and are doing everything short of a serious risk of actual mili322 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE tary hostilities to keep the Japanese situation stabilized, and that this course during the past year is the best evidence of our intentions and activities in the future.24 This campaign of economic pressure had begun with the suspension of the 1911 trade treaty, effective January 26, 1940. Ambassador Grew had remarked, "I have pointed out that once started on a policy of sanctions we must see them through and that such a policy may conceivably lead to eventual war/'25 In order to see them through, Roosevelt brought into his cabinet (June 20, 1940) as Secretary of War the inventor of the policy of sanctions—the Republican, Mr. Stimson, who had convinced him of the efficacy of that policy back in January, 1933. At the same time Roosevelt also snared Colonel Frank Knox, Republican VicePresidential candidate in 1936, and made him Secretary of the Navy, thus furthering the illusion of "bipartisan" unity.

With the advent of Mr. Stimson in the cabinet, the program of sanctions proceeded apace. On July 2, 1940, Roosevelt signed the Export Control Act, authorizing the President to license or prohibit the export of essential defense materials. He acted at once under these powers. The recent fall of France and of Holland had emboldened the Japanese to seek concessions in Indochina and economic guarantees from Indonesia. These appear to have sufficed in the minds of American authorities to provide justification for a tougher course. On July 31, exports of aviation motor fuels and lubricants and No. 1 heavy melting iron and steel scrap were restricted. This process was speeded by the dispatch, September 12, of what Ambassador Grew called his "green light" telegram—"perhaps the most significant message sent to Washington in all the eight years of my mission to Japan."26 He had felt, on July 2, when Japan was addressing various demands to Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, that "they must be met—or else."27 On August 1 Foreign Minister Matsuoka announced a "Greater East Asia" foreign policy with Japan leading the way to a "common prosperity." At the end of that month the French ambassador in Tokyo signed an agreement granting Japan military concessions in Indochina.

THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 323 Accordingly, Grew, who since the autumn of 1939 had sought to persuade the American government "to divert this indicated course of events"28 and had been encouraged by Hull late the following May to talk reform and cooperation to the Japanese, now hardened his mind. Referring to the evident risks of a doctrine of sanctions, especially applying to oil, Grew, after many circumlocutions, nevertheless advised Washington to go about putting Japan through the economic wringer. The sequel was that, on September 26, an embargo, effective October 16, was imposed by President Roosevelt on all exports of scrap iron and steel to destinations other than Britain and the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Scrap had been moving across the Pacific in prodigious quantities and Japan, terming the embargo "an unfriendly act/'29 warned that further trade restrictions would make relations "unpredictable"30—a familiar diplomatic term expressing likelihood of war. Certainly the embargo had an immediate result, for on the following day Japan, overcoming the scruples of many months, signed up as partner with Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact.31 According to Kase, Prince Konoye, the Japanese premier, hoped to use this alliance as a means of improving Japan's diplomatic position vis-a-vis Britain and the United States. Nothing was further removed from Konoye's mind, Kase says, than to engage in war with them. Konoye's notion was that the United States, especially if Russia could be brought into the alliance, would be restrained from intervening in the European war and the China embroilment might be brought to a "peaceful settlement." "He wanted," says Kase, "to keep both the United States and Japan out of the European arena and, if possible, to exercise a joint mediation between Germany and Great Britain."32 But such subtleties of purpose were lost upon Washington. The program of sanctions was entered upon in the belief that there was no purpose of trifling with a transgressor: "Les Chretiens ont dwit et les pai'ens ont toit" sufficed.

On October 8, 1940, Roosevelt, at a White House conference, informed Admiral Richardson, commander in chief of the United States fleet and of the Pacific Fleet, that, "if the Japanese attack 324 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE Thailand, or the Kra Peninsula, or the Dutch East Indies, we would not enter the war; that even if they attacked the Philippines he doubted whether we would enter the war, but that they could not always avoid making mistakes, and that as the war continued and the area oi operations expanded, sooner or later they would make a mistake and we would enter the war."33 So, waiting in the Pacific, as in the Atlantic, for someone to "make a mistake/' Mr. Roosevelt, now elected for a third term on the pledge that "your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars," continued during 1941 to tighten the economic vise, a little at a time, the while his assistance to China constantly expanded.

As early as January 27, 1941, Grew suggested the nature of the coming "mistake," reporting that he had learned from the Peruvian ambassador that Japan meditated an attack upon Pearl Harbor.34 Two days later, in preparation for the eventualities arising from such a "mistake," military staff conversations with the British opened secretly in Washington.35 Mr. Roosevelt had been in touch with Winston Churchill when the war in Europe was barely a week old,36 and this partnership had flourished as Churchill rose to the post of Prime Minister and as the President's sympathy for England became more outspoken. American-British staff talks had been instituted as early as the summer of 1940.37 What Sherwood calls a "common law marriage"38 was developing. The implication is that the union was real and binding, however much public acknowledgement or official ratification might be lacking. Congress was not consulted, and had the nature of the liaison been known, "demands for the impeachment of Roosevelt would have been a great deal louder."39 What Sherwood terms "the real American-British staff talks"40 began in Washington on January 29, 1941, and lasted until March 27. These produced "a plan, known as ABC-i, which suggested the grand strategy for the war,"41 calling for a principal concentration of American force against Germany while a containing war of attrition was being waged against Japan. As later explained by Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, chief of Navy war plans, it was the intention, if the United States became engaged in war with Japan without the involvement of Germany, that the Roosevelt governTHE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 325 ment "would, if possible, initiate efforts to bring Germany into the war against us in order that we would be able to give strong support to the United Kingdom in Europe."42 "The staff conference assumes," its report said, "that when the United States becomes involved in war with Germany, it will at the same time engage in war with Italy. In these circumstances, the possibility of a state of war arising between Japan and an association of the United States, the British Commonwealth, and its allies, the Netherlands East Indies, must be taken into account."43 The important word was "when." There was no "if."

The Washington staff talks were followed by a similar conference at Singapore, April 21-27, to draft an American-British-Dutch war plan for the Pacific in conformity with the master plan drafted in Washington.44 The report of this conference, known as ADB, accepted the Washington decision that the Pacific was to be considered a secondary front. It held that the Philippines were of "subsidiary interest" to maintaining the security of Singapore and of sea communications. Only a token defense of Luzon was to be made by American naval surface and air units, after which they would head southward to pass under British command. These staff agreements have been a continuing source of embarrassment to defenders of Roosevelt's course. Sherwood makes the usual formal disclaimer that there was any intent in the Washington talks to violate the Constitution. He denies that undercover commitments were implied. His rationalization is that secrecy had to be preserved because of the uproar that would have followed if Congress and the press had brought the facts before a nation still fondly believing that the peace would be kept by its leadership.45 The members of the British delegation to the Washington conferences wore civilian clothes and disguised themselves as "technical advisers to the British Purchasing Commission"46—another illustration, no doubt, of what former Assistant Secretary of State A. A. Berle calls the Rooseveltian idea that "diplomacy is a people's prerogative."47 The Washington staff report nowhere specified that notice be given Congress that any such conversations had occurred, or that ratification be sought of the Senate of any terms reached. The 326 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE Singapore report worked both ways from the middle, first denying that any political commitment was implied, then specifying that the agreed arrangements were to implement the war plan previously adopted in Washington, which provided for no congressional approval.

General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, approved, in secret, ABC-i, which called for no congressional indorsement.48 Inasmuch as ADB was drafted to implement ABC-i, its approval, as a subsidiary instrument, was comprehended in the Marshall-Stark confirmation. According to Stark, the President approved these plans, "except officially."49 As soon as the staff agreements were drafted, the Army and Navy drew up a series of supplementary war plans of their own based on these reports, envisioning concerted military action with the British and the Dutch. There was no separate over-all plan for the simple defense of American possessions against Japan.50 Herbert Feis is constrained to admit: 'To all effects and purposes, the President permitted it to be understood that he approved (the Washington staff report); and he allowed American military plans and arrangements to be guided, if not governed, by the plan."

Feis says that "had the American government refused to play its part" in the execution of the plans drafted at the staff conferences, "the British and Dutch would have felt themselves wronged. . . . If once a nation (or individual) enters deeply, as adviser or sharer, into the troubles or dangers of others, it must accept the duty of partner or name of shirker." He indicates his belief that Sherwood took the way of political convenience in saying that the plans "bound nobody."51 The reports of the staff conferences plainly showed a preoccupation with Germany. A long series of steps, all looking toward the creation of an "incident" in the Atlantic, marked the succeeding months of 1941. Hitler failed to rise to the bait. He imposed restrictions on his navy. The reports of conferences he held with his admirals reflect his determination to avoid drawing the United States into the conflict.52 One of these notations observes, "It is unmistakable that the United States government is disappointed THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 327 with this curious attitude on the part of Germany, since one of the most important factors in preparing the American people for war is thus eliminated."53 Although Mr. Roosevelt, in September, 1941, promoted the occasion to issue a "shoot on sight" order to the American navy in the Atlantic, that was as far as he progressed. The President's accounts of German "attacks" on American naval vessels were challenged, and prospects for all-out war in the Atlantic were "beclouded by crimination and recrimination/'54 Attention shifted back to the Pacific and to Japan. As the Japanese ambassador, Admiral Nomura, remarked, "I understand that the British believe that if they could only have a Japanese-American war started at the back door, there would be a good prospect of getting the United States to participate in the European war."55 Nomura and Hull had been negotiating since February, but it was obvious that tension between the United States and Japan was constantly mounting. It rose another notch when the Japanese moved into Indochina.

Although, on April 9, Greenland, a possession of German-occupied Denmark, was put under American military protection, and, on July 7, United States Marines were sent to Iceland, also a possession of German-occupied Denmark, further Japanese steps in Indochina, a possession of German-occupied France, did not seem in Mr. Roosevelt's mind to bear any correspondence to his own dispositions. When, on July 21, Vichy France accepted Japan's demand for military control of French Indochina, Acting Secretary of State Welles lost little time in informing Nomura that the United States considered Japan "was taking the last step before proceeding upon a policy of totalitarian expansion in the South Seas and of conquest in the South Seas through the seizure of additional territories in that region." Welles then expressed the view of Secretary Hull that "the latter could not see that there was any basis now offered"

for further pursuing conversations looking toward a peaceful settlement between the two countries.56 Having thus slammed the door, the Roosevelt government slammed it twice more in succession. On July 25 it froze Japanese 328 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE assets in the United States, thus bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end.57 One week later Roosevelt embargoed the export of such grades of oil as still were in commercial flow to Japan.58 The order did not put it that bluntly, but that was the effect. The effect of economic sanctions was well understood by all responsible American officials. Grew, in the autumn of 1939, had warned Roosevelt "that if we cut off Japanese supplies of oil and that if Japan then finds that she cannot obtain sufficient oil from other commercial sources to ensure her national security, she will in all probability send her fleet down to take the Dutch East Indies." To this Roosevelt replied, "Then we could easily intercept her fleet."59 Grew was under no illusions after the imposition of the embargo concerning what the effect would be: "The obvious conclusion is eventual war."60 Roosevelt had further advice on this subject from the Navy, which would bear the initial brunt of any Japanese retaliation. On July 20 the President received a study signed the previous day by Admiral Turner which prophesied: "It is generally believed that shutting off the American supply of petroleum will lead promptly to the invasion of the Netherland East Indies. While probable, this is not necessarily a sure immediate result . . . Japan has oil stocks for about eighteen months' war operation."61 Turner stated that an "embargo on exports will have an immediate severe psychological reaction in Japan against the United States. It is almost certain to intensify the determination of those now in power to continue their present course. Furthermore, it seems certain that, if Japan should then take military measures against the British and Dutch, she would also include military action against the Philippines, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war."62 For these and other reasons, Turner's recommendation read: "That trade with Japan not be embargoed at this time." In forwarding this memorandum to the executive branch, Admiral Stark jotted the notation, "I concur in general."63 The idea that sanctions meant war seems to have been grasped, not reluctantly, by Mr. Roosevelt. He described himself as THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 329 "pleased" with the Turner memorandum.04 Three days after perusing it, and a week before the final embargo on oil to Japan, he warned Ambassador Nomura that if Japan "attempted to seize the oil supplies by force in the Netherlands East Indies, the Dutch would, without the shadow of a doubt, resist; the British would immediately come to their assistance, and war would result between Japan, the British, and the Dutch, and in view oi our own policy of assisting Great Britain, an exceedingly serious situation would immediately result/'65 Thus, having determined on a measure which his advisers assured him would force Japan to take military countermeasures, Roosevelt warned the Japanese that if they acted against countries which he accepted as unacknowledged allies, they must reckon with the United States. However veiled in the language of diplomacy, this was a threat of war.

That the Japanese also fully grasped the meaning of these moves and accepted the fact that Roosevelt was forcing them into a situation which, according to his own terms, would bring the United States down upon Japan, is attested by a dispatch of July 31 by Foreign Minister Toyoda to Ambassador Nomura: "Commercial and economic relations between Japan and third countries, led by England and the United States, are gradually becoming so horribly strained that we cannot endure it much longer. Consequently, our Empire, to save its very life, must take measures to secure the raw materials of the South Seas."66 Mr. Roosevelt and his associates, through the fortunate circumstance that Intelligence had cracked the Japanese diplomatic code, were privileged to read this message. [The transcripts of these decoded messages were known as "Magic."] The Roosevelt circle was unmoved by Toyoda's further observation: "I know that the Germans are somewhat dissatisfied over our negotiations with the United States, but we wished at any cost to prevent the United States from getting into the war, and we wished to settle the Chinese incident."67 330 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE II. WASHINGTON PERSISTENTLY REJECTS THE JAPANESE OVERTURES FOR PEACE The Japanese persevered in the hope of a diplomatic solution, trusting that where the efforts of intermediaries were unproductive a direct meeting of the responsible leaders of the two nations might still succeed. On August 8, 1941, Nomura, acting on instructions from Konoye, suggested to Hull that Roosevelt and Konoye confer.68 Konoye's announced purpose was that "we sincerely desire maintaining peace in the Pacific," and he thought the proposed meeting might produce "a way out of the present situation/'69 In a series of telegrams to Washington, Grew mustered strong arguments for favorable consideration. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Admiral Toyoda, informed him that although Konoye was "fully aware of the objections in certain parts of this country," his overture to the President was "the expression of his strongest desire to save the civilization of the world from ruin as well as to maintain peace in the Pacific. . . ." Toyoda expressed conviction that it would "be possible to reach a just and equitable agreement/'70 Grew supported the argument, "with all of the force at his command," that this proposal "not be turned aside without very prayerful consideration." He said that it offered the chance of "avoiding the obviously growing possibility of an utterly futile war between Japan and the United States." It was, he said, "unprecedented in Japanese history" and demonstrated that "Japanese intransigeance is not crystallized completely."71 Again, on September 27, Foreign Minister Toyoda appealed to Grew, warning that "without Prince Konoye and the present cabinet under him, an opportunity for Japanese-American rapprochement is likely to be lost for some time to come."72 Grew echoed this opinion in a message to Washington, praying that "so proTHE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 331 pitious a period be not permitted to slip by" and arguing that the "time has arrived" when "liberal elements in Japan might come to the top." Grew warned that continued foot dragging in Washington would force the conclusion in Japan "that the outlook for an agreement is hopeless and that the United States Government is only playing for time." He said the result would be that the Konoye cabinet would be discredited and that a revulsion of antiAmerican feeling "probably will lead to unbridled acts/' making it "difficult to avoid war."73 Mr. Grew's forebodings were an accurate appraisal of events to come.

Ambassador Nomura first tendered the Konoye proposal to Hull on August 8, when Roosevelt was five days on his way to another and more congenial conference—that in the Atlantic, with Prime Minister Churchill of Britain. Obviously, he was not averse to meeting other heads of states who intrigued his fancy, and he was, so he indicated not too long afterward, not inhospitable to such meetings even when they concerned heads of state who, in his view, had no great qualities to commend them. In this connection he informed Ambassador Carl ton J. H. Hayes that "he would be willing to meet and talk with General Franco in the Canary Islands or elsewhere outside of Spain ... if a real crisis threatened. . . . He was, he said, a strong believer in the advantages to be derived from personal contacts between chiefs of state." Hayes thought it quite obvious that the President "would go to unusual lengths to forestall Spain's cooperation with the Axis."74 Indeed, by later example at Tehran, Yalta, Casablanca, and Quebec, Mr. Roosevelt showed himself to be a strong believer in the advantages to be gained by personal contacts between chiefs of state, although it was not entirely apparent from these excursions that the advantages redounded to the United States.

If a meeting with Franco were deemed to justify going to unusual lengths to forestall cooperation with the Axis, there was something to be said for a conference with the Japanese premier, for he represented an Axis partner which, through a reasonable reading between the lines, was seeking encouragement to withdraw from its Axis commitments. Ambassador Grew, in his telegram of September 29, vouched for the fact that "the Japanese 332 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE government, though refusing consistently to give an undertaking that it will overtly renounce its alliance membership, actually has shown a readiness to reduce Japan's alliance adherence to a dead letter. . . ,"75 The same intention was vouchsafed by numerous other officials on both the American and Japanese sides. Despite such significant earnests of intention, the meeting never came off. Konoye resigned, Tojo acceded, and less than two months later the United States and Japan were at war. Roosevelt and Hull avoided the meeting by a haggling insistence on "agreement in principle"76 in advance of arty conference, which, in effect, meant that they expected Konoye to make a public confession of error and repentance for Japan's whole diplomatic course. In view of the touchy national sensibilities of Japan, any such self-abasement was out of the question.

An intervening event which exercised a fateful influence on the course of American-Japanese relations was the Argentia meeting which brought Roosevelt and Churchill together early in August. The evidence is that Churchill sought, primarily, two commitments from Roosevelt. The first, initiated through the Atlantic Charter, the inspiration and first draft of which were Churchill's, was intended—as it did—to announce that the nonbelligerent United States was already in league with belligerent England to the end of accomplishing "the final destruction of Nazi tyranny."77 The whole tenor of this declaration, speaking of a coming condition of "victors and vanquished," of future dispositions of territory, economic privileges, the disarmament of aggressors, and a new world organization ("a wider and permanent system of general security"), implied that the United States was committed to take a hand in the war; otherwise, such statements of hope and intention were entirely devoid of meaning. "The fact alone of the United States, still technically neutral, joining with a belligerent Power in making such a declaration was astonishing," Churchill later observed. Roosevelt's subscription to the intended destruction of Germany "amounted to a challenge which in normal times would have implied warlike action."78 The Prime Minister then pressed for his second objective—a blunt warning to Japan that further encroachments in the southTHE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 333 western Pacific would compel the United States to resort to countermeasures, "even though these might lead to war between the United States and Japan/'79 Mr. Roosevelt acquiesced. It was the understanding of Mr. Churchill and himself that this declaration might deter Japan for thirty days.80 (A pair of journalists who were in Roosevelt's favor later represented his intention to be that of "babying" Japan along for ninety days.)81 Britain and the Netherlands were to make parallel declarations, but evidence is lacking that they fulfilled this commitment according to the prescription outlined by the British for Roosevelt.

Upon his return to Washington Mr. Roosevelt summoned Admiral Nomura on August 17 and read him a variant of the agreed declaration, which had been toned down in language but not softened in effect.82 Under Secretary Welles agreed at the Pearl Harbor investigation that the two instruments meant the same thing in diplomatic language.83 Secretary Stimson once expressed himself as believing that Roosevelt's warning to Nomura was virtually an ultimatum to Japan. This threatening greeting met Admiral Nomura when he presented himself to submit Prince Konoye's proposal for a meeting with the President. It brought Konoye's diplomacy to a dead end. Ever since the inauguration of Hull's talks with Nomura in February, the professed American terms for agreement had revolved around three primary demands. They were: 1. That Japan openly forswear its Tripartite Pact pledge to intervene if the United States barged into the European war, but that the United States be privileged to rationalize such action as "selfdefense."

2. That Japan remove troops from China and Indochina and pledge that it would leave Thailand and other "neighboring countries" alone. This meant Russia, the British and Dutch colonial territories, and, of course, the Philippines. 3. That the contemplated Japanese idea of a "new order" or "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" be junked in favor of Hull's fixed notion that free trade was a cure-all for man or beast. The Japanese were disposed to go a very considerable way toward meeting these requirements, but even a conciliatory government 334 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE could not shout its acquiescence in advance from the housetops. To Japan's statement that it could not yield on the right to station troops in Inner Mongolia and North China for resistance against "Communistic activities,"84 Hull said that "although in matters affecting only this country there might be some latitude of decision as to the qualifying of rights, the matter under discussion affects the sovereign rights of a third country, and accordingly it is felt that this Government must be most scrupulous in dealing with such a matter."85 This was, indeed, a sound rule of political morality, and it is entirely regrettable that it was not later applied by the government for which Mr. Hull spoke in decisions affecting the disposition of Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, and even China itself.

Concessions offered by Japan on Hull's other points were considerable and, to a reasonable and conciliatory mind, offered the basis for a settlement infinitely preferable to a terrible universal war. It is clear that if accepted they would have presented a chance to spare the United States enormous sacrifices in a two-front war, and, as is now known, illimitable future difficulties and anxieties. Even if this promise had not been fully realized in the event, still the chances under the proposed terms of agreement could not possibly have been worse than those which materialized in the absence of any attempt whatever at settlement. Such considerations seemingly did not trouble the minds of Mr. Hull or his principal. Long after the end of the war, when a cumulative series of blunders, disasters, and interminable vexations and hazards had been disclosed as the fruits of the policy of these statesmen, Mr. Hull could remark, with immense self-righteousness and satisfaction, that "my policy of being deliberate, while also being on time, resulted in a record that many of the best-informed persons say was without a major blunder."86 Because of disquieting surmises that the United States actually sought no agreement, and because of rapidly shifting developments in the European conflict, contributing to the uncertainty of the Japanese position, four conferences before the Throne were called in the latter half of 1941. Japan's decision was to engage in a THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 335 "southward advance" and to prepare for war with the United States and England if diplomatic negotiations should break down. The conferences grew out of the confusion which resulted from Germany's unannounced attack upon Russia, which, Konoye said, caused "utter consternation" in Japan.87 The decision with reference to Germany and the Axis relationship was that Japan should act independently.88 The program struck off was ambitious but was qualified by the outlook of the Prime Minister, Prince Konoye, that it was "not only necessary to continue the present negotiations with America ... it was also necessary to bring them to a successful conclusion."

Military opinion was cited concerning the "almost insurmountable difficulties" of trying to fight America and the Soviets simultaneously, and it was Konoye's view that it would be wise to abandon, if possible, the move into Indochina.89 The program was based on contingencies; it was an operating plan only to the extent that, if the worst came to the worst, Japan would have a plan of action to satisfy requirements of what was deemed necessary to the nation's preservation. Inasmuch as the government had to prepare for eventualities in the light of what was obviously a deteriorating situation, some preparatory action was indicated. The move in Indochina was representative. If diplomatic relations were to fail and war with Britain and the United States became inevitable, Japan would be installed in a strategic staging point. The second Throne conference, that of September 6, was chiefly to confirm a decision that if by the early part of October agreement had not been reached with the United States on terms of a general settlement, "we will immediately make up our minds to get ready for war against America (and England and Holland)."90 The Emperor, on the preceding day, had handled the Chiefs of the Supreme Command rather roughly, taxing them with the hollowness of their promises four years before on the estimated duration of the China operation. "If the Chinese hinterland was extensive,"

he said, "the Pacific is boundless."91 At the meeting before the Throne he exacted a pledge from them that they were giving precedence to diplomacy rather than to war. They responded that they 336 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE "advocated a resort to armed force only if there was no other way out."92 One of the requirements of the Japanese program adopted at this time was that the United States and Britain were not to obstruct a settlement of the China Incident.93 Yet two days before the imperial conference the Chinese ambassador, Dr. Hu Shih, informed Secretary Hull that "China did not desire any peace at this time." The ambassador harbored the belief that Japan was showing signs of weakening and might be obliged to abandon aggressive military activities and seek peace. Hull assured him that no American settlement would be considered until the matter had been fully discussed with China, as well as with Britain, Holland, and Australia.9* As an extraordinary sequel to the imperial conference, Konoye arranged a secret meeting with Grew and Counselor Dooman that same evening. He said if he failed to achieve concord with the United States "no succeeding Prime Minister, at least during his own lifetime, could achieve the result desired." He again urged an early meeting with Roosevelt. Time, he said, was of the essence: "resentment is daily mounting in Japan over the economic pressure being exerted by other countries." Given the will, he said, the way could be found.95 The will was not found, and Konoye departed from the government.

On the eve of the third imperial conference, November 5, high Washington officials were apprised through interception of a secret message from Foreign Minister Togo to Ambassador Nomura that diplomatic proposals to the United States forthcoming from the meeting on the morrow would be "indeed, the last." Procrastination was no longer possible, but "we have decided ... to gamble once more on the continuation of the parleys." If a quick accord could not be reached, "the talks will certainly be ruptured. Then, indeed, will relations between our nations be on the brink of chaos. ... In fact, we gambled the fate of our land on the throw of this die." If Japan's yielding were interpreted as a reflection of weakness, the Foreign Minister said, the United States would be disabused: ". . . when it comes to a question of our existence and honor, ... we will defend them without recking the cost."96 THE ACTUAL ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR 337 Further instructions underscored the urgency of the situation.

"Time is becoming exceedingly short and the situation very critical. Absolutely no delays can be permitted. . . . We wish to avoid giving them the impression that there is a time limit or that this proposal is to be taken as an ultimatum."97 And then, on the same day, Nomura was given the "difficult" but "unavoidable" order that "it is absolutely necessary that all arrangements for the signing of this agreement be completed by the 25th of this month."98 By copious evidence in their hands, high American authorities were placed on notice that if a settlement was to be attained averting, or at least delaying, war, the hour of decision was before them. Alternative approaches were given for submission through Nomura. The first, termed "Proposal A," was described as "our revised ultimatum ... to meet, in so far as possible, the wishes of the Americans."99 This was a document for bargaining. Its terms represented the most that Japanese leaders, in an excess of optimism, might have hoped to obtain, and more than they knew they ever would.

Yet, in the light of subsequent American diplomatic passages, notably those of Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam, where negotiation supposedly proceeded among allies and friends, the terms were not unreasonable. They were unreasonable only when brought up against the prevailing rigidity of mind in Washington. Nor, considered in the light of the terms acceptable to the American government in the United Nations proposal of January 13, 1951, for a cease-fire agreement with the Communists in Korea, were these proposals of a character to warrant dismissal out of hand. Yet, as Feis, a spokesman for the contemporary outlook of the administration, subsequently remarked, Proposal A "was, in truth, dead before it was delivered."100 Proposal B, also relayed by Tokyo to Nomura on November 4, was put forward as a substitute plan in the event of rejection of the initial proposal, and was described as "a last effort to prevent something from happening."101 This "something" could hardly be regarded as anything else than an open break and war.

A series of feverish consultations now took place in Washington. At a meeting on November 1, Hull asked the Army and Navy if 338 PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE they "would be prepared to support further warnings by the State Department." He offered the opinion that "there was no use to issue any additional warnings to Japan if we can't back them up."102 The reply of the services, in a memorandum addressed by Marshall and Stark to Roosevelt on November 5, strongly counseled against warlike action against Japan and recommended that "no ultimatum be delivered to Japan." The chiefs said that American naval, air, and submarine strength in the Pacific would be on a better footing by the middle of December, but that Army air forces in the Philippines would not achieve projected strength before February or March, 1942.103 Hull was thus under the restraint of advice from the military leaders that the force to support radical diplomatic action was lacking—which was the information he professed to seek. Had he tailored his policy to the facts presented by staff leaders and played a waiting game, the American cause would certainly not have suffered. For, as soon as the attack came on Pearl Harbor, December 7, Hitler abandoned the pretense that Moscow would fall to his forces and withdrew to winter positions. The Germans had run a bluff to encourage Japanese military action by representing that the Moscow campaign was on the verge of success.