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

711.94/2319: Telegram

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

Tokyo, September 29, 1941—noon.
[Received 2:25 p.m.]

1529. For the Secretary and Under Secretary only. 1. A review of our exchange of confidential telegrams since last spring pertaining to the preliminary conversations in Washington and Tokyo reveals the steadily increasing and latterly intensified efforts of Japanese Government to bring about without further delay the proposed meeting between the representative heads of the two Governments. Although my role in connection with these conversations is chiefly that of a transmitting agent, it is naturally my wish to help in any constructive way, first in endeavoring to convey to the President and yourself an accurate appraisal of conditions and factors in Japan which bear directly or indirectly on the subject under reference, and second toward bringing the Japanese Government to the adoption of such policies and measures as the American Government considers essential for a mutual agreement or understanding between the two countries.

For an extensive period, ever since the fall of the Yonai Cabinet,⁷⁵ American diplomacy in Japan was through force of circumstances temporarily in eclipse. With the advent of the Konoye–Toyoda regime, however, American diplomacy has been given a new and very active lease of life, and it is my earnest hope that this propitious period will not be allowed to pass without our laying down a new foundation of sufficient stability to justify a reasonable degree of confidence that whatever structure we may gradually but progressively erect upon it can and will endure.

2. In the past I have pointed out that the pendulum in Japan has always swung between extremist and moderate policies; that under the circumstances then existing no Japanese leader or group of leaders could reverse the expansionist program and hope to survive; that only insuperable obstacles would prevent the Japanese from digging in permanently in China and from pushing the southward advance. I have pointed out that the risks of not taking positive measures to maintain the future security of the United States were likely to be much greater than the risks of taking positive measures; that Japan has been deterred from taking greater liberties with American interests only out of respect for our potential power, and that only a show of force and a demonstration of our willingness to use that force if necessary would call a halt to Japan’s program of forcible expansion. I have stated that, if by such action we could bring about the eventual discrediting of Japan’s leadership, a regeneration of thought might ultimately take shape in this country, permitting the resumption of formal relations with us and leading to a readjustment of the whole Pacific problem.

3. I respectfully submit that this is precisely the policy which has most wisely been followed in the United States and that this policy, in connection with other world developments, has conduced to the discrediting of Japan’s leadership, notably that of Mr. Matsuoka. Among those world developments was first of all the positive reaction of the United States to Japan’s conclusion of the Tripartite Alliance and its recognition of the Wang Ching Wei regime, followed by the German attack on Russia which upset the basis on which Japan had joined the Axis for the purpose of affording security against Russia and so avoiding the danger of being caught between Russia and the United States. Japan is now trying to get out of an extremely dangerous position caused by miscalculation. I have pointed out to the Department that the impact of events abroad inevitably brings about changes in Japan’s foreign policies and that the trend of events might in due course bring the liberal elements to the top. That time has come. If a program of world reconstruction along the lines of the Roosevelt-Churchill declaration can be followed, there is a good chance under these new conditions that Japan will fall into line. The policy followed by the United States of many years of forbearance and patient argumentation and efforts at persuasion in conjunction with our manifest determination to take positive measures as called for, added to the impact upon Japan of world developments, has rendered the political soil in Japan hospitable to the sowing of new seeds which, if carefully planted and nourished, may lead to that anticipated regeneration of thought in this country and to a complete readjustment of Japan’s relations with the United States.

4. The thought has been advanced from certain quarters, and is no doubt prominently in the mind of the American Government, that an agreement between the United States and Japan at this juncture would serve merely to afford Japan a breathing spell in which, having succeeded with the help of the United States in untangling herself from the China conflict, she would recoup and strengthen her forces for a resumption of her program of expansion by force at the next favorable moment. No one can with certainty gainsay that thought. It is also held by this school of thought that by a progressive intensification of economic measures against Japan on the part of the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands, Japan would be forced by the deterioration of her domestic economy and by the threat of economic, financial and social collapse to relinquish her expansionist program. If the foregoing thesis is accepted as reasonably sound, we have been confronted with the dilemma of choosing between two methods of approach to reach our objective, on the one hand the method of progressive economic strangulation and on the other hand the method not of so-called appeasement but of constructive conciliation, with the inception of the preliminary conversations in Washington and the acceptance in principle by the President of the proposed meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, and it would appear that the American Government had definitely chosen the latter procedure. Indeed we have never departed from our willingness, as expressed in our note of December 30, 1938,⁷⁶ to negotiate with Japan on any issues, even although Japan had already then embarked on a program of expansion by force. The wisdom of our choice from the point of view of farseeing statesmanship would appear to be beyond cavil. If the conciliatory and constructive method of approach should fail either now or later, the other method of applying progressive economic sanctions would always be available. Whatever trend our relations with Japan may now take, whether for better or for worse, it appears obvious that the United States will have to remain in a state of preparedness for a long time to come. Meanwhile we may take whatever degree of encouragement that may be justified in the thought that the eventual victory of Great Britain in the World War would automatically solve many problems.

5. Admitting that risks must inevitably be involved in whatever course we pursue in dealing with Japan, it is my carefully studied belief that an agreement along the lines of the preliminary conversations, if brought to a head by the proposed meeting between the representative heads of the two Governments, would hold out substantial hope at the very least of preventing the situation in the Far East from going from bad to worse if not of ensuring definitely constructive results. On former occasions I have expressed the opinion that the principal point at issue in American-Japanese relations is not whether we must call a halt to the Japanese program of expansion but when. The question arises whether we are not now presented with the opportunity to halt that program without war or the immediate risk of war, and whether, if the present opportunity fails us, we shall not be confronted with the greatly increased risk of war. I firmly believe that the answers to those questions are in the affirmative.

6. It is held in certain quarters that under existing circumstances it is altogether improbable that Japan would deliberately take action in response to any action which the United States is likely to take in the Pacific, which action, if taken by Japan, would mean war between that country and the United States. I cannot agree that war might not supervene as a result of actions, whether deliberate or irrational, by elements in either country which might so inflame public opinion in the other country as to render war unavoidable. Let us not forget either the Maine⁷⁷ or the Panay.⁷⁸

7. In this entire problem it is essential to understand Japanese psychology which is fundamentally different from the psychology of any Western nation. We cannot measure Japanese reactions to any given set of circumstances and predict Japanese actions by any Western measuring rod. For a country so lately emerged from feudalism, this fact is hardly surprising. It is in endeavoring accurately to interpret that psychology that I conceive my principal duty to lie, and I have aimed to do so in many reports sent to the Department during the past several months and years. With this thought constantly in mind, I venture respectfully to advance the following considerations even at the risk of repetition.

8. If we expect and wait for the Japanese Government to agree in the preliminary conversations to clear-cut commitments of a nature satisfactory to our Government in point both of principle and of concrete detail, the conversations will almost certainly drag on indefinitely and unproductively to a point where the Cabinet and those supporting elements who desire rapprochement to the United States will reach the conclusion that the American Government is merely playing for time and that the outlook for an agreement is hopeless. In such a contingency, having in mind Japan’s abnormal sensitiveness and the abnormal effects of loss of face, the reaction here might and probably would be serious, resulting in the discrediting of the Konoye Government and a revulsion of feeling against the United States which might and probably would lead to unbridled acts, the eventual cost of which would not be reckoned, of a nature likely to enflame the American people and through measures of reprisal and counter-reprisal lead to a situation where war would be difficult to avoid. The downfall of the Cabinet and its replacement by a military dictatorship with neither the temperament nor the disposition to avoid a head-on collision with the United States would be the logical outcome. It is open to question whether such a situation would not prove to be even more serious than that which would be created if the proposed meeting between the representative heads of the two Governments were to take place as planned and should fail to produce a wholly satisfactory agreement. In other words it is open to question whether a lack of complete success in negotiations undertaken in good faith would not prove to be less serious than would be the case if there were demonstrated unwillingness by the United States to enter upon such negotiations at all.

9. It has been repeatedly emphasized to me, and I believe that we must accept these declarations at their face value, that the Japanese Government cannot give us in advance of the proposed meeting and formal negotiations definitions of future commitments and assurances more specific than those already given. One reason for this position, as I have been told in the strictest confidence, is that Mr. Matsuoka, after his retirement from the Foreign Office, gave the German Ambassador in fullest detail an account of the Washington conversations up to the moment of his retirement. Many of Mr. Matsuoka’s supporters are still in the Foreign Office, and the fear has been expressed that these individuals would not scruple to disclose to the extremists as well as to the Germans any information which would render the position of the present Cabinet untenable. While the Japanese Government has provisionally accepted certain basic principles, the formulae and definitions of future Japanese policy and objectives hitherto advanced in the preliminary conversations and the statements supplementing those definitions are open to the widest interpretation and are so abstract or equivocal as to create confusion rather than to clarify the commitments which the Government is prepared to undertake. At the same time we are told that the Prime Minister is in a position to offer the President in direct negotiations assurances of a far-reaching character which would not fail to be satisfactory to us. Whether or not that is so, I have no way of knowing. I would point out however that with regard to the specific case of Japan’s relations with the Axis the Japanese Government, while consistently refusing to give an undertaking overtly to renounce membership in the alliance, has in actual fact shown itself ready to reduce to a dead letter Japan’s adherence to the alliance by indicating readiness to enter into formal negotiations with the United States. It is therefore not unlikely that the Prime Minister might be in a position to give directly to the President an engagement more explicit and satisfactory than already vouchsafed during the preliminary conversations.

10. In consideration of the foregoing observations, which I have every reason to believe sound, I feel that we shall fail to reach our objectives if we insist and continue to insist in the preliminary conversations on the furnishing by Japan of the sort of specific, clear-cut commitments which we would expect to see embodied in any formal and final treaty or convention. Unless we are prepared to place a reasonable degree of confidence in the professed good faith and sincerity of intention of Prince Konoye and his supporters to mould the future policy of Japan on the basic principles which they are prepared to accept and to adopt measures gradually but loyally implementing those principles, it being understood that we shall implement our own commitments pari passu with the steps taken by Japan, I do not believe that we can succeed in creating a new orientation in Japan which would lead to a general improvement in our relations and the hope of avoiding ultimate war in the Pacific. The only way of wholly discrediting the Japanese army and military machine is by wholesale military defeat of which there is at present no prospect. The alternative, and I believe the only wise alternative, is to endeavor to bring about a regeneration of thought and outlook in Japan, along the lines of our present efforts through constructive conciliation. Is it not the better part of wisdom and of statesmanship to bring these efforts to a head before they lose the force of their initial impetus and find themselves unable to overcome the opposition which we believe will inevitably and steadily mount in Japan.

11. The foregoing discussion is submitted in all deference to the far broader field of view of the President and yourself and in full awareness that my approach to this problem is restricted to the viewpoint of the Embassy in Tokyo.

Grew

75. July 10, 1940.
76. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 820.
77. For correspondence regarding sinking of the U. S. S. Maine in Havana harbor February 16, 1898, see Foreign Relations, 1898, pp. 1024 ff.
78. For correspondence regarding sinking of the U. S. S. Panay above Nanking by Japanese air attack December 12, 1937, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, pp. 517 ff., and Foreign Relations, 1937, vol. iv, pp. 485 ff.