Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, The Far East, Volume IV

711.94/22445/11: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, August 19, 1941—3 p.m.
[Received August 19—11:40 a.m.]

1271. For the Secretary and Under Secretary only. My 1268, August 18, 10 p.m.²⁴

1. In weighing Prince Konoye’s proposal to meet the President in Honolulu it is important to appraise as well as we can the full significance of the gesture. First of all, it shows a remarkable degree of courage because, if the proposal should become prematurely known, or, if taking place, the meeting should fail to achieve its purpose, it would in all probability lead to further attempted assassinations. Secondly, it reveals a supreme effort on the part of the Government to maintain peace with the United States in the full knowledge that the proposed meeting with the President would be utterly futile unless the Japanese Government were prepared to make concessions of a far-reaching character. Thirdly, it indicates a determination on the part of the Government to surmount extremist dictation.

2. It may also be true that the Government has been driven to this unprecedented step in the knowledge that Japan is nearing the end of her tether economically and that the nation could not survive a war with the United States. On the other hand, even if Japan were approaching economic disaster of the first magnitude, there can be no doubt whatever that the Government would reluctantly but resolutely face such disaster rather than cede in the face of progressive pressure exerted by any other nation.

3. The proposal of a Japanese Prime Minister to proceed to foreign soil to negotiate with a foreign chief of state (while such a step, if undertaken, will be regarded by many elements in Japan as humiliating and if unsuccessful would in all probability mean the downfall of the Government) should, in my opinion, be regarded less as the despairing play of a last card than as an act of the highest statesmanship. If viewed in that light it deserves to be met with magnanimity, and the Prime Minister deserves whatever support we can properly accord him in his courageous determination to override the extremists and to sacrifice if necessary not only his political life and that of the Government, but his own life as well.

4. In considering what Japan might be willing to offer to meet the position of the United States there is little doubt but that the Prime Minister in the first instance would appeal for American cooperation in bringing the China affair to a close and would probably be prepared to give far-reaching undertakings in that connection, involving also the eventual withdrawal of Japanese forces from Indochina. A certain remark made to me by the Foreign Minister as reported in my 1267, August 18, 9 p.m. leads me to believe that the Japanese Government would expect that one of the primary conditions to be laid down by the American Government for an adjustment of American-Japanese relations would be Japan’s withdrawal in fact, if not also in name, from the Axis.

5. The time element is important because the rapid acceleration given by recent American economic measures to the deterioration of Japan’s economic life will tend progressively to weaken rather than to strengthen the moderate elements in the country and the hand of the present Cabinet and to reinforce the extremists.

6. The most important aspect of the proposed meeting is that even although the results ensuing therefrom might be not wholly favorable and at best, gradual in materializing, it offers a definite opportunity to prevent the situation in the Far East from getting rapidly worse and for at least arresting the present increasing momentum toward a head-on clash between Japan and the United States. This desideratum alone would seem to justify acceptance of the Japanese proposal in some form or other. It is not in my sphere to evaluate the domestic political reaction to such a meeting, but it would seem to me to carry momentous possibilities in the particular field of international relations.

7. Finally, we must accept almost as a mathematical certainty the thought that if this outstanding and probably final gesture on the part of the Japanese Government should fail, either by rejection of this proposal in any form or by the meeting, if held, proving abortive, the alternative would be an eventual reconstruction or replacement of the present Cabinet with a view to placing the future destiny of the nation in the hands of the army and navy for an all-out do-or-die effort to extend Japan’s hegemony over all of “Greater East Asia” entailing the inevitability of war with the United States.

Grew

24. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 565.