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

711.04/254010/35

Memorandum by Bishop James E. Walsh, Superior General of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America⁴⁰

1. Story.

The October 2nd reply from Washington⁴¹ shook the confidence of the entire Japanese Government.

With some difficulty the protagonists of peace in the Japanese Government (Prince Konoye, General Muto and their associates) had held Cabinet, Army, Navy and all the other elements in line, or at least in quiescence, pending the conclusion of the negotiations. All through these negotiations many have naturally been restive, anxious and suspicious, afraid the Government was being duped and deceived, fearful that it would end up with nothing to show for its efforts but time and strategic opportunity lost—and this was particularly true of the younger and more pushing elements in the Army. The Nazi agents did much to encourage this point of view and the Nazified officials in the Army and Foreign Office contributed their share also. However, the older heads and actual leaders of the Army continued to repose confidence in the peace party under the leadership of Prince Konoye, while reminding him that this confidence was growing thin and must soon evaporate completely unless some substantial results were speedily forthcoming.

The Japanese army is very much imbued with the theory that it is directly responsible to the Emperor and the country for the national defense and any other necessary military implementation of vital national policy, and for this reason its leaders exert great influence on the government when measures are mooted or adopted which seem in their view to render the discharge of this responsibility difficult or impossible.

One reason why the army has remained docile in the present instance is because the nature of the proposed agreement is such as to render their task, not difficult, but easy. They have not feared the success of the plan, but its failure. They have not looked upon it as a check to their aggression (of which they have presumably had enough), but they have feared the danger of deception which would result in bequeathing to them a difficult military job to be performed at a disadvantage.

Many, both in the civil government and the army, now think that the deception goes back to the beginning, that is to say, that the American Government wanted only to draw them out in order to gain time, and to get a statement of their policy in order to condemn it.

All without exception were mystified and chagrined when the October 2nd reply harked back to a discussion of general principles. The Japanese officials believed that they had already agreed on the general principles applicable to the situation. Subsequently they were told that they must in addition define specific details. With reluctance, at the risk of compromising the whole negotiations, and not without grave danger to their own lives, they forwarded their September 22nd statement⁴² which embodied all the precision on details that they dared entrust to the cables. Washington’s response to this was a return to principles. They liked the courteous and kindly tone of the Washington message (October 2nd) and they understood its thesis about the desire to agree on principles that would not be weakened by exceptions, but they found this chill comfort. The practical effect of the message was enormously discouraging. It put them back at the starting point, facing them with the prospect of reopening the entire discussion ab initio. At such a late day this looked like an indication that Washington was merely fencing and had no intention of concluding any agreement at all. After the receipt of this message it was very difficult to make any one in the Japanese Government believe in the sincerity of the American Government, although I was later advised that the leaders of the Cabinet would continue to repose confidence in the sincerity of the President and Mr. Hull, in spite of all appearances, as long as the door was not actually closed to the possibility of reaching an agreement.

At this juncture I took the liberty, at the suggestion of Prince Konoye’s advisers and with the approval of our own Embassy, to ask that my observations on this critical situation be forwarded to Washington.⁴³ It was universally felt that unless some substantial sign of serious intention on the part of the American Government should promptly materialize, the existing Japanese Government would not be able to hold the position any longer.

The next day I was asked by Prince Konoye’s advisers if I would go to Washington and explain the present situation of the Japanese Government together with their desires and hopes and fears in regard to the proposed agreement. This I was at first reluctant to do. After some urging I finally consulted the Embassy, where the proposal met with the immediate approval of Mr. Grew and Mr. Dooman. That same evening (October 14th) I visited Prince Konoye at his residence and received from him a personal viva voce message to be conveyed to President Roosevelt. The next morning I left Tokyo for Washington.

Two days later the Japanese Cabinet was changed. This surprised nobody in Japan. I have since been advised that this shift of personnel does not appreciably alter the attitude of the Japanese Government towards the negotiations. I believe this view is the correct one. After the Cabinet change, I received the following telegram from Mr. Paul Ikawa,⁴⁴ a close personal friend of Prince Konoye who has been employed by him as a confidential agent throughout these negotiations: “Bon voyage with flowers (code word meaning with the concurrence of General Muto) no substantial change urgently require speedy response to avoid worst.” I take this to mean that the new Cabinet is maintaining the same essential position in regard to the negotiations and is deferring any other incompatible plans it may have in the hope of yet obtaining an agreement that will establish peace.

It is known that the new Cabinet was formed by Count Arima and Marquis Kido, like many of its predecessors. These two men are supposed to be the two most powerful figures in Japan, barring nobody, and they have been the sponsors of the peace overtures from the beginning. The retention of General Suzuki as head of the Planning Board in the new Cabinet is also significant, as he has been Prince Konoye’s most trusted adviser and general right hand man throughout all the peace negotiations. General Tojo, the new Prime Minister, has long borne the reputation of being a conservative, with little if any tinge of the firebrand.

If I were asked to interpret the meaning of the Cabinet change, I would surmise that it means a shift in attitude rather than a change in policy. It is a signal that some definite move is imminent, but that its direction will depend on the circumstances that the immediate future will reveal. It seems to say: We still want peace, but if we are to have it, it must come without further delay. We cannot wait any longer. Therefore we are putting our house in order to move in the other direction, if necessary. Much as we want peace, we must have a prompt and definite decision. Please speak, and speak quickly.

2. Message.

On the evening of October 14th, Prince Konoye invited me to the Prime Minister’s residence in Tokyo and gave me the following verbal message for President Roosevelt.

1. From the beginning of these negotiations I and my Government have had nothing but a sincere and wholehearted desire to conclude an agreement that would result in the peace of the Pacific and we have worked very hard to bring this about.

2. I regret very much the delays and misunderstandings, some of them due, I believe, to the maneuvers of Third Powers, that have operated to retard the negotiations and render difficult the attainment of their important aim.

3. I still entertain hope of a successful issue, and I will continue to work for the attainment of the object sought, namely, an agreement that will establish friendly relations between our two countries, restrict the scope of the war, pacify and stabilize the Pacific region, and contribute to world peace. And now that the terms have been discussed as completely as is practicable under present conditions, it is my confident belief that a meeting between the heads of the respective governments would readily bring about a completely satisfactory understanding that would insure the great objectives we mutually seek.

I do not quote the Prince verbatim, as I did not take down his exact words at the time they were uttered. I fixed them in my memory, however, and jotted them down almost immediately after the interview. I am satisfied that I have reproduced here the exact sense of his message and even to a large extent, his very words.

3. Attitude.

Apart from relaying the message of Prince Konoye, my only commission was to explain the present attitude of the Japanese Government towards the negotiations. I have tried to throw some light on it in these and the pages that follow. However, I can sum it up here for all practical purposes in very short compass. It is that the Japanese Government will not take the responsibility for rupturing the negotiations by sending an ultimatum, but that they believe they have discussed terms to the extent and for the time reasonably possible, that they think they have agreed on the essentials that amply justify a meeting, that they are hurt at the distrust implied in declining a meeting, that they still ardently desire a meeting, and that they can wait no longer for a meeting, but failing its prompt materialization will conclude that they have been hoodwinked, and will proceed almost immediately with the military and naval plans that constitute their only alternative to a meeting.

The nature of these alternative plans I do not know. Nothing was communicated to me in that connection. I think I cannot complete a description of the present attitude of the Japanese Government, however, without reporting that its representatives plainly expect that these plans would lead Japan into a war, eventual or immediate, with the United States.

Does this mean that if a meeting is not promptly arranged, on the basis of the terms already agreed upon and without further specification as to detail, the Japanese Government will abandon the negotiations at once and proceed with other plans?

Substantially that is what I was given to understand, but with one important reservation. The reservation is that the Japanese Government will be glad to consider once more—and once more only—any set of terms or conditions the American Government may declare essential prerequisites to an agreement and/or a meeting, provided they are specific, complete, final, and prompt.

4. Summary.

I report therefore three things: (1) That the October 2nd message reduced the Japanese Government to desperation, (2) the plea for a belief in the sincerity of the Japanese Government contained in the message of Prince Konoye, and (3) the fact that the Japanese Government can negotiate no longer, but must now have either a decision as to an agreement and/or a meeting, or at least a set of concrete and final terms on which it can itself exercise a decision.

If this is thought to be an insubstantial piece of information to bring across the Pacific Ocean, I can only say that I thought the same myself, and that I would not have troubled to bring it except for the urging of Prince Konoye and his associates coupled with the approval of the American Embassy.

Additional Notes

1. Sincerity.

The Japanese were not unaware that their failure to be specific in certain details would leave them open to a charge of insincerity. But they were faced with what amounts to a physical impossibility in communicating further details and for these reasons: (1) domestic pressure and the excitations caused by premature airing of the negotiations, and (2) international leakage. Whatever our Embassy may think about the inviolability of its own code, the Japanese are entirely convinced that every message going out from any source, either by radio or cable, is immediately seized, decoded and thoroughly understood by the agents of all the other Powers that are in any way interested. This is the reason they feel that they can not themselves transmit a message through their own Foreign Office, or entrust a message to our Embassy for transmission, unless they are prepared to have it known by the agents of every other interested Government in the world.

An assassin’s bullet missed Prince Konoye by eighteen inches during the first week of October. The pressure on these men and the general difficulty of their position are important factors in accounting for their hesitation in discussing certain specific details.

With the exception of the obstruction caused by Mr. Matsuoka, the hesitations and mistakes of the Foreign Office are not indications of insincerity, but illustrations of the ingrained bureaucracy that characterizes all the departments of the Japanese Government without exception. One of the mysteries of Japan is the amazing independence of its separate departments, coupled with the equally amazing solidarity of them all in carrying out any well-established national policy. I think the true explanation is not insincerity but human nature. Each department is jealous of its own prerogatives, wants to do everything its own way, wants to have all the credit for anything that is done. Thus until a policy has become nationally established, the departments very largely go their own gait after the manner of departments everywhere.

The Japanese Cabinet admits that the move to Indo China was under pressure from the Army. The Army leaders feared that they were being let down in the negotiations and might be handed an up hill job after the negotiations had failed. They watched a lot of counter moves, thought they ought to make one themselves. Meanwhile, however, the Japanese Government has sent some picked army men to Indo China with instructions to put the brake on any extreme measures, and chief among the men with this mission is Colonel Iwakuro, who took part in the negotiations in Washington this summer and is still an ardent supporter of the peace plan. In addition, the Japanese Government insists that it has not violated a single item of the agreement reached with the French Government and, in fact, that it has not yet carried out many of the measures to which it is entitled under that agreement. In this connection a member of the Cabinet states that General [Admiral] Decoux has given false and exaggerated reports to certain American Consuls in Indo China with the obvious intent of instigating a war between America and Japan in the hope that such an eventuality might result in the return of the territory to France.

2. Ability.

Japan is not a country of homogeneous political ideas. It is a politically young country, combining elements that lean toward the most advanced ideas on the one hand and to the most retroactive on the other, and including every shade of political theory between the two. There are solid elements strongly imbued with democratic and liberal ideals, and there are other elements, less entrenched, less numerous, but pushing and aggressive, who are deeply tinged with the most radical nationalism and totalitarianism. The Japanese are not like our people in subscribing only to a few tried and traditional political theories between which they oscillate slightly from time to time, but their minds are still open to all varieties of political thought, not excepting the wildest or most radical extreme, if it promises to benefit their country. They have no political philosophy. In this situation the actual policies of the Japanese Government are largely dictated by outside events which put one group or another in power for the moment according to the turn of the wheel. The present moment is the great chance for the liberals (Prince Konoye, the Peace Party, etc.). The German attack on Russia shook them all very seriously, radicals included. The radicals now hesitate and would welcome a safe way out of the Matsuoka situation, if it could be found. All realize that they must be in one camp or the other. The desire to get over into the democratic camp would be general if it could be thought possible without the loss of any essential national interest. However, if the Government fails to bring about this change and do it quickly, all together will abandon the attempt and yield themselves to the stream. If the liberal party that is pursuing peace, and is still held together by the most tenuous thread, should fail, it is certain that the Government will be given over to radical extremists of the worst type, and that all the national energy will then be harnessed for a wild and immediate plunge in the other direction.

Prince Konoye could not even have started the peace conversations without the approval of all the other strong elements in Japan, and this is the best indication that the Government that made peace would have their concurrence in case of success.

Prince Konoye was not a strong man in a weak position. He was a somewhat weak man in a very strong position. His character is mild and gentle and he lacks the aggressiveness to push people and things in any drastic degree. But after the Emperor he possesses the confidence of all elements in Japan, more than any other man. This is partly due to his position as leader of the Fujiwara family (royal blood), partly to his known disinterestedness and integrity, and partly to his success in coordinating and reconciling the forces of the nation.

The personal interest of the Emperor and his actual participation in detailed discussions regarding these peace negotiations are phenomena that have not occurred in the history of any similar negotiations during his life time.

3. Steps.

The ability of any Japanese Government to carry out the terms of an agreement after it is made is such a basic question that it may be helpful to envisage the actual steps by which it would be done.

If a meeting should be brought about everybody in Japan will at once understand that the Prime Minister could only take part in it under the sanction of the Emperor, as indeed would be publicly announced. Once that is known, all the recalcitrant parties are put at an extreme disadvantage. When the Emperor gives an Imperial Rescript sanctioning any move or policy, it involves two things in the minds of all Japanese: (1) the knowledge that the Emperor would not do it at all unless his action had first secured the adherence of all the strong elements in the country, and (2) the actual sanction itself is taken to be the final seal that makes it the irrevocable policy of the nation.⁴⁵ Any dissenters who revolt against such a fait accompli know that they have these two strikes on them in advance; (1) that they are officially and ipso facto traitors, and (2) that they will find all the strong elements of the Government and the country lined up solidly against them. In this situation rash acts on the part of a few firebrands, assassinations and so forth are possible, but no concerted rebellion on the part of recalcitrant elements, in the army or anywhere else, would be at all likely to succeed.

The same is a fortiori true of the implementation of any agreement that would result from the meeting. It would be given to the people sanctioned by the Imperial Rescript of the Emperor, and as such it would be established and intrenched as the sacrosanct national policy before any counter action was possible.

4. Future.

Friendship is the key to everything in the Orient. It makes everything possible and without it nothing is possible. It is doubtful if the legalistic and logical approach could ever result in a good agreement with an oriental nation, and it is highly probable that such an agreement, even if made, would not be carried out. Oriental minds, Japanese and Chinese alike, want to feel that they possess friendship, that they are understood, that they are in some definite camp, that they have some standby upon which they can rely in working out their national life. While they instinctively need this bulwark of friendship, they also instinctively respond to it, and once it is established they can be got to do almost anything within reason through its persuasive magic. They can be got to do nothing by logic or legalism, for they understand neither. If America should shake hands with Japan, it would have established the relationship that would enable it, with a little insistence now and then but easily and without any great pressure, to suggest and instill and effectuate a policy of justice, fair dealing, and friendly cooperation that would establish and perpetuate the peaceful development of the Pacific region while safeguarding the rights of all.⁴⁶

There would seem to be every hope that this action at the present time would establish a definite trend in the crystallizing Far East, and that the democratic and liberal ideas thus set in motion would, gradually indeed but never the less readily and naturally, become the settled direction and fixed policy of the entire region.

It is my own belief that the cooperation of the Chinese with the Japanese would follow almost automatically. It is perhaps worth while to recall that the Chinese were well on the way to actual collaboration with Japan when the Manchurian Incident rudely arrested the movement and turned the Chinese radically in the other direction.⁴⁷ Another thing to be remembered is the well-known Chinese trait of pitting one power against another and always managing to hide behind somebody else. The Chinese are the most practically minded people on earth, and when they find that they can no longer divide and rule, they promptly set about the task of working out some form of satisfactory collaboration.

Seven months before he died Pope Pius XI discussed with me the situation in the Orient. At that time (May 1937 [1938]) the China conflict was less than a year old.⁴⁸ He expressed the conviction that the Chinese and Japanese races complemented each other in their natural characteristics, that they had need of each other, that their geographic proximity rendered it absolutely necessary for them to live on friendly terms with each other, and that one of the greatest tasks awaiting statesmanship in the entire world was the reconciliation of these two nations on a basis of amicable cooperation.

Another basic factor in the whole problem is the internal reform of Japan itself that would be brought closer by establishing that nation in a policy of democracy, liberalism, and human rights. For good or ill, the aggressive energy of that pushing race will make trouble or effect good in the entire Pacific region according as it is directed in the right or the wrong channels.

We think it is always better to convert than to crush.

5. Terms.

When I left Japan it was the feeling of Prince Konoye and his associates that the actual terms of the agreement were not the crux of the matter, but that the real question now at issue was rather the willingness of the American Government to make any sort of an agreement with Japan at all. The Japanese seemed to believe that all the essential terms to an agreement had been satisfactorily dealt with by them, with the possible exception of one or two small details that seemed to them not sufficiently important to prejudice the entire agreement. However, because there may still be some lack of clarification in regard to the terms and because the officials of the Japanese Government discussed their attitude toward them many times with me, I shall here cite a few points in regard to them that may prove helpful.

(1) All the officials of the Japanese Government regret the September 4th confusion (except possibly the Foreign Office, one of whose men caused it). The September 4th document⁴⁹ is now null and void and is to be considered as having no practical effect whatever.

(2) Regarding the four specific points that were still under discussion at the last exchange of memoranda (territorial integrity of China, evacuation of China, freedom of trade, Article 3 of the Axis Treaty, if my memory serves me correctly), the Japanese Government now hopes that its formulae on these four points are satisfactory, and in any case it believes that it has already specified its attitude with all the precision possible by cable, and it would like to leave further precision for the actual meeting.

(3) The Japanese represent that they make no claim to any portion of Chinese territory, and that they stand prepared to guarantee freedom of trade in the southwest Pacific, in the whole Pacific region, or in any particular area of it that may be defined.

(4) The Prime Minister of Japan is prepared on the occasion of a meeting to anticipate all the various hypothetical cases that might possibly arise in the field of international relations, and he will state exactly what Japan will do in any and all of these possible cases, and he will give specific agreements to that effect which will provide for any and every contingency, and all of them will league Japan on the side of America in any conflict with any Axis power, provided only that America maintains at least a legal fiction of non-aggression. (This problem of stating explicitly the attitude of Japan in case Germany does this, Italy does that, or Russia does the other, is a matter that illustrates very well the difficulty of transmitting all pertinent details by cable.)

(5) Regarding North China, the formula preferred by the Japanese is “Cooperation against subversive elements until peace and order have been restored, this eventuality to be adjudicated and determined by China and Japan in conjunction”.

Also the Japanese understand that the stationing of troops or police forces during this temporary period should be brought about by a mutual agreement between China and Japan.

Since territorial encroachment is entirely ruled out by the agreement itself, the Japanese do not see why they cannot be trusted to the extent of this temporary measure which is dictated by a very practical necessity.

The Japanese now have upwards of 200,000 civilians in that area engaged in trade, and in addition they project some economic development for the region. Unless all these civilians are to be taken out bag and baggage and the economic development completely abandoned, it would seem necessary (at least to me, and I believe to anybody who ever lived in China) to envisage or create some agency charged with peace preservation in the region until order has been established.

Understanding that this item was holding up the negotiations, I tried very hard to get the Japanese to agree unofficially to something short of actual occupation by their troops for an indefinite period. I proposed a time limit, but they demurred. I proposed a Chinese corps directed by Japanese officers, but they again demurred. I proposed the creation of an international police force, but I was informed that they had already anticipated this suggestion and ruled it out as impractical. However, I wish to remark in this connection that I believe their minds are not completely and irrevocably closed on this point. I believe their unwillingness to place a time limit on the occupation of the North China area, or to accept a suggestion that would replace the Army by some other body, is dictated not by insincerity or a determination to remain and encroach, but rather by a desire to save the face of the Army. Because I think this is the real reason back of their reluctance, I also think it might be possible to insist on one or the other of the first two suggestions, namely, a time limit or a Japanese directed Chinese corps, when it comes to a final test. In short, I believe they would not abandon an otherwise advantageous and greatly desired agreement solely for this reason. They would certainly be very much embarrassed by such an insistence, but I think they would find a way out of it and would manage to reconcile their Army people, if they were pushed to it.

If this is true, it would mean that the evacuation question does not now involve the giving up of any under cover policy of territorial encroachment in North China or any other similar objective. Not that I fail to realize that such a policy would be nothing new. But I conceive that all their policies are now in flux, this long cherished one among them.

I hope my suggestion will not prove misleading. And because it might do so, I will record the indications, slight and inconclusive in themselves, on which it is based. These indications are chiefly two, namely: (1) The fact that my Japanese consultants spontaneously came back to the question so often, lingered over it so long, played around with it in so many ways, seemed so reluctant to dismiss it and (2) the fact that once, when I had pressed them very hard on the reasonableness and feasibility of a time limit, the most trustworthy of the lot finally confessed to me that the one insuperable obstacle to any such formula was the need to save the Army’s face.

I doubt if they would agree to any formula of this sort prior to a meeting, because they would feel they could not afford to have it known ante factum by the Army, which catches and decodes every dispatch that goes out, including those of our own Embassy. I think they would agree to such a formula at a meeting, if pressed to it, because it could then be presented to the Army as a fait accompli.

My own guess at a formula that would meet with their reluctant acceptance and would at the same time work in practice if adopted, would be a time limit on the Army occupation (say six months or a year) followed by a Japanese officered Chinese corps for an indefinite period.⁵⁰

This whole suggestion, however, represents nothing but my personal opinion founded on the slight grounds here described.

6. Alternatives.

The Japanese appreciate the natural reason behind the attitude of insisting on knowing with certainty in advance that the meeting will prove a success, but they feel that this normally wise precaution should be waived in view of two unique factors in the present situation, namely: (1) their own physical inability to convey any more precision on specific details by any process short of a meeting, and (2) their feeling that the great amount of blind trust they repose in America by leaving the Axis camp should merit for them a slight return of similar confidence, and that it should take the form of trusting them to be sincere and reasonable in adjusting the few remaining details when the meeting takes place.

Here it may be apropos to recognize the fact that there is little to choose between the failure of a meeting and the failure of the negotiations. One is as bad as the other, for the failure of either will have the same unfortunate effect on international relations. That effect, according to the openly expressed views of all my Japanese informants, would be war.⁵¹

Would war prove the corrective to usher in an era of better days for the people of the Pacific? It is difficult to think so. Present misery and future enmity would be the certain fruits of war with an oriental nation, whereas any good effects that might be envisaged are very problematical. Such a measure could hardly leave a likely soil in which to sow the seeds of amicable relations and peaceful development in the Orient.

Meanwhile China is war weary. Its misery is mounting to the skies. Its dead through war, banditry, destitution and disease, according to an estimate made for me last week by the Bishop of Hong Kong, will be numbered in the tens of millions when it becomes possible to count the toll. Its good people must be ready to welcome an honorable peace that gives them back their country. I do not know if the same holds true of its leaders, but I would distinguish carefully between the sensibilities of the leaders and the real welfare of the people. I would also abstract from the revenge motive completely. It is natural that the leaders of China and their afflicted people should feel deep resentment against the atrocious conduct of the Japanese Army, but resentment is not the right foundation on which to build for the future. It seems best to leave the punishment of these wrongs to God, Who alone knows how to mete it out with medicinal justice. In the meantime it is doubtless the proper business of men to erect on the firmest foundations available the structure of a practical and enduring peace.

There is no real peace anywhere in the Far East today.⁵² There is fear, tension, unrest and insecurity, where there is not actual strife. It would be a glorious thing if peace should come to the nations of the Pacific, with a workable freedom for each and a reasonable security for all, through the instrumentality of America.

J. E. Walsh

Superior of Maryknoll

October 18, 1941.

N. B.

In presuming to file this memorandum for the possible consideration of the authorities of our Government I set out primarily to give an exposition and explanation of the views, attitudes, and statements of these Japanese officials and confidential agents with whom I have recently been in contact.

I spent two months (August 15th to October 13th) in and around Tokyo, meeting these men almost daily and endeavoring to encourage them in their efforts to smooth the path to peace. I obtained a certain grasp of their opinion, and have tried to reflect this in my notes.

However, it was inevitable that I should form some opinions of my own, and I realize that many of them are inextricably woven into this narrative. I trust this will not be regarded as an impertinence. I should particularly regret any observation of mine that might appear to be phrased with a dogmatic ring, and if such be found, I ask that it be attributed to the haste in which I compiled these notes while travelling.

Prince Konoye	the then Prime Minister.
General Muto	Chief Central Bureau Military Affairs.
Paul Ikawa	Cooperative Bank.
Dr. Nobumi Ito	Member recent Cabinet.
Mr. Kinkazu Saionji	Personal Secretary Prince Konoye (Grandson of Prince Saionji, the late Genro).
Mr. Ushiba	Private Secretary Prince Konoye.
Mr. Matsumoto	Head of Domei News Service. (Personal adviser to Prince Konoye).

40. Notation on file copy: “Document left with the Secretary of State by Bishop Walsh on November 15, 1941.”
41. Oral statement, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 656.
42. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 633.
43. See telegram No. 1625, October 14, 10 p.m., from the Ambassador in Japan, p. 508.
44. Tadao Wikawa.
45. Penciled notation by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck): “If a policy sanctioned by the Emperor is ‘irrevocable’, then the alliance with the Axis is irrevocable”
46. Penciled notation opposite this paragraph by Dr. Hornbeck: “Naive.”
47. Penciled notation by Dr. Hornbeck at this point: “He speaks as though the Chinese had started the ‘Manchurian Incident’.”
48. The clash at Marco Polo bridge occurred on July 7, 1937, starting the undeclared war.
49. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 597.
50. Penciled notation by Dr. Hornbeck: “Removal could not possibly be made within a ‘year’.”
51. Penciled notation by Dr. Hornbeck:“What war?”
52. Penciled notation by Dr. Hornbeck: “And for that fact who are responsible?—The Japanese (& the Germans).”