But Not in Shame

Prologue
 
“WITH DANGEROUS AND DRAMATIC SUDDENNESS”
 
On December 6, 1941, official Washington circles were waiting for the Tokyo reply to Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s strong note of November 26. It could mean continued uneasy peace—or sudden war between Japan and the United States.
 
Tension was highest at the Japanese Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue where the following three-part message had just been received from Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo:
 
1. THE GOVERNMENT HAS DELIBERATED DEEPLY ON THE AMERICAN PROPOSAL OF THE 26TH OF NOVEMBER AND AS A RESULT WE HAVE DRAWN UP A MEMORANDUM FOR THE UNITED STATES CONTAINED IN MY SEPARATE MESSAGE NO. 902B.
 
2. THIS SEPARATE MESSAGE IS A VERY LONG ONE. I WILL SEND IT IN FOURTEEN PARTS AND I IMAGINE YOU WILL RECEIVE IT TOMORROW. HOWEVER, I AM NOT SURE. THE SITUATION IS EXTREMELY DELICATE, AND WHEN YOU RECEIVE IT I WANT YOU TO PLEASE KEEP IT SECRET FOR THE TIME BEING.
 
3. CONCERNING THE TIME OF PRESENTING THIS MEMORANDUM TO THE UNITED STATES, I WILL WIRE YOU IN A SEPARATE MESSAGE. HOWEVER, I WANT YOU IN THE MEANTIME TO PUT IT IN NICELY DRAFTED FORM AND MAKE EVERY PREPARATION TO PRESENT IT TO THE AMERICANS JUST AS SOON AS YOU RECEIVE INSTRUCTIONS.
 
The steps leading to this fateful day began in the late summer of 1940. Germany had overrun Belgium, Holland and France with ridiculous ease and apparently would soon conquer England. On the other side of the world, Japan was bogged down in her seemingly endless undeclared war on China. Only two great powers in the world were at peace, America and Russia.
 
The U.S. was widely split. The interventionists, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, were convinced their country’s future and ultimate safety depended on helping the democracies crush the aggressor nations. Supporting them were the “Bundles for Britain” group and national minorities whose European relatives had suffered at the hands of Hitler and Mussolini.
 
Their more numerous anti-war opponents included strange bedfellows: the “America Firsters” of Charles Lindbergh, Senator Borah and the German-American Bund; the “American Peace Mobilization” of the American Communist and Labor Parties; and the traditionally isolationist Midwest which, though sympathetic to Great Britain and China, wanted no part of a shooting war.
 
When Roosevelt, on September 3, traded fifty old destroyers to the beleaguered British for bases, the more rabid isolationists claimed this was merely a stratagem to lead America into war through the back door. The situation worsened on September 27, when Japan formally joined the Axis. A Tripartite Pact was signed, recognizing “the leadership of Japan in the establishment of a New Order in Greater East Asia,” and Hitler and Mussolini’s “New Order in Europe.” Each promised to help if one of the others was “attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict.”
 
The pact, by its veiled threat of a two-ocean war, was designed to keep the U.S. neutral. It had the opposite effect. Many Americans hovering indecisively between isolationism and intervention were now forced to agree with Roosevelt that these newly united aggressors were a direct menace to the United States. By March 10, 1941, Roosevelt had gained enough new supporters to pass the Lend-Lease Act. America was at last committed to giving unlimited aid, “short of war,” to the enemies of the Axis. She was to be the Arsenal of Democracy.
 
Little more than three months later, on June 22, Hitler shook the world, including his Axis partners, by suddenly invading Russia. This move wrecked the already greatly weakened isolationist movement in the U.S. Instantly the American Peace Mobilization, basically sympathetic to Russia, died, its followers becoming more interventionist than Roosevelt overnight.
 
The attack also caused a great commotion among Japan’s ruling circles. One group favored an immediate attack on Siberia, but the Army disagreed. Although most of its key moves in the preceding five years had been dominated by fear of the growing strength of Communism, General Hideki Tojo, war minister in the Konoye Cabinet, felt this was a dangerous adventure. He pressed for a drive toward Southeast Asia—the fabulous storehouse of tin, rubber and oil.
 
While Hitler was amazing the world with his early victories in Russia, Japan suddenly seized Indo-China on July 25, in a bloodless coup. Now there was only one great power at peace—America. And on July 26, she took a bold step up to the very brink of war when Roosevelt, against the advice of the Navy’s planning chief who feared it might lead to early hostilities, froze all Japanese assets in the United States. It was an economic blitzkrieg. At one stroke, the bulk of the flow of oil, the lifeblood of battle, was shut off from Japan.
 
The reaction there was bitter. Japan was a dynamic country of 74,000,000 people crammed into islands whose total area was less than the size of California. Just as every dynamic country before her she felt she must either expand or deteriorate into a poverty-stricken second-class power. Why, argued her leaders, was America being so self-righteous about the China Incident when the Western world, including herself, had been setting the example of plunder in the Orient for a century?
 
Spurred by extremists on both sides, relations between the two countries were quickly approaching a dangerous point. The Japanese military leaders felt the negotiations for agreement being discussed in Washington by Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura and Secretary of State Hull had less than an even chance of success. They insisted that a definite date of war with America be set. Japan’s oil reserves were shrinking dangerously.
 
To solve this problem, an Imperial Conference was called in Tokyo on September 6. At the beginning of the session, Admiral Osami Nagano, chief of the Naval General Staff, solemnly said, “Japan is facing shortages in every field, especially in materials. In a word, Japan is becoming emaciated, while her opponent is growing stronger.”
 
Baron Yoshimichi Hara, president of the Privy Council and a leader of Japanese conservative thought, worriedly asked the High Command to clarify the apparent subordination of diplomacy to preparations for war.
 
Suddenly Emperor Hirohito, who had been sitting in traditional silence, spoke. He regretted the Army and Navy hadn’t made their attitude fully clear. As the others listened in shocked silence he read an ode written by his grandfather, the Emperor Meiji:
 
When all the earth’s oceans are one,
Why do the waves seethe and the winds rage?
 
“I have always read and appreciated this poem, and kept in my heart the Emperor Meiji’s spirit of peace. It has been my wish to perpetuate this spirit.”
 
There was a long silence. Nagano rose. “I feel trepidation at the Emperor’s censure of the High Command. I assure Your Majesty that the High Command places major importance upon diplomatic negotiations and will appeal to arms only at the last moment.”
 
Then an Outline of National Policy was placed before the Conference: Japan should continue to exhaust diplomatic measures to attain her demands; but if these negotiations dragged on inconclusively, war should be declared on the U.S. and Britain. In other words, hope for peace but prepare for war before the end of 1941. The fuse was lit. Only a diplomatic miracle could snuff it out.
 
The talks in Washington between Nomura and Hull continued inconclusively for another month. Hull kept insisting that Japan break with the Axis and withdraw troops from China. In desperation the moderates in Japan suggested a compromise—withdrawal of troops over a period of years. The militarists were adamant. Their spokesman, General Tojo, said, “We can accept no compromise on principle. After all the sacrifices we have made in China the Army won’t agree to any withdrawals. Army morale would not survive it.”
 
Premier Hidemaro Konoye, a harried man, could no longer control the situation. On October 12, he called his key ministers to an emergency meeting at his home in Tekigaiso. “What hopes do you have of bringing war with the United States and Britain to a close once you begin it?” he asked General Tojo. America, he pointed out, was obviously superior in resources.
 
“There was no certainty of victory in the war with Russia in 1904,” replied Tojo, a dynamic and dedicated samurai warrior. “The Premier of Japan should have enough courage to jump off the veranda of the Kiyomizu Temple!” Since this Kyoto temple stood at the edge of a cliff, he meant Prince Konoye should have the courage to take a chance.
 
In four days the ineffectual Konoye resigned. And on October 18 a man of decision was made the new prime minister—Hideki Tojo. The spirit of nationalism never blazed higher. The people of Japan began to believe it was their duty to build a new world based on moral principles. The damage done by Western concepts of individualism and materialism must be undone. It was, they were told over and over again, Japan’s destiny to return Asia to the Asians.
 
Two weeks later Joseph Grew, U.S. ambassador to Japan, warned Hull of the explosive atmosphere. Because of their emotional character, he wrote, the Japanese might chance an “all-out, do-or-die attempt, actually risking national hara-kiri….While national sanity dictates against such action, Japanese sanity cannot be measured by American standards of logic….Action by Japan which might render unavoidable an armed conflict with the United States may come with dangerous and dramatic suddenness.”
 
On November 26, little more than three weeks after getting this letter, Hull handed a note to Admiral Nomura and Saburo Kurusu, a diplomat recently sent to help the ambassador in the delicate negotiations. It was an answer to a note from Tokyo offering to remove troops from Indo-China if the U.S. would unfreeze Japanese assets and hand over a required quantity of oil.
 
Although Hull offered economic concessions that might well have eventually given Japan everything she needed for national prosperity, he insisted categorically that all troops be withdrawn from China as well as Indo-China.
 
After reading Hull’s note, the two Japanese were dismayed. “When we report your answer to our government,” said Kurusu, “it will be likely to throw up its hands.” After a futile argument with the American, Kurusu said dejectedly, “Your response to our proposal can be interpreted as tantamount to meaning the end. Aren’t you interested in a modus vivendi, a truce?”
 
“We have explored that,” said Hull.
 
“Is it because other powers would not agree?” asked Kurusu. It was common knowledge in diplomatic circles that China and Great Britain were strongly advising America to take an uncompromising stand with Japan.
 
“I’ve done my best in the way of exploration,” said Hull.
 
The interview was over. The two Japanese returned to their embassy. Nomura knew Tokyo would regard the note as an ultimatum, even though it was by no means that. It would mean the failure of his mission to America.