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

740.0011 European War 1939/13231: Telegram

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

Tokyo, July 17, 1941—11 a.m.
[Received 11:50 a.m.]

1015. (The following telegram was drafted and about to be despatched shortly before announcement of the resignation of the Konoye Cabinet. I trust that this analysis may still prove helpful as a gauge by which to measure future developments, subject to the influence of new personalities in the Government and such new trends of policy, whether moderate or extremist, as may now be adopted.)

In my long experience in Japan there has never before been a time when greater difficulty has been encountered in discharging my duty of keeping the Department informed of developments in this country and of presenting seasoned views and estimates of Japanese policy. Due to lack of contacts with well-informed Japanese who are now threatened with severe penalties for disclosure of information, and due also to widely conflicting rumors, judgments cannot now be formed with that assurance with which I have presented estimates in the past, an assurance which in the main has been warranted by subsequent events. The following comment being speculative is somewhat discursive but it is partly based on observation at close hand of factors to which the Department may not be sensitive. These factors are perhaps at least more reliable indices than the extravagant and heterogeneous rumors which now fill the air. I make no pretensions at being able to predict the future course of events in this area, but for what they may be worth, my best judgment and estimate of the situation, as I see it, are hereunder presented.

1. Evidence of increased mobilization and military activity in Japan, the recent extensive calling of reserves to the colors, the recall of Japanese ships from abroad and other indications of apparent preparation for some impending event are giving rise to the usual circulation of widely diverse rumors in Tokyo and other cities in Japan. The opinions of many of my colleagues which at best can be but pure speculation may be said to fall into three schools of thought as follows:

a. The view that an attack on Vladivostok and the Maritime Province is in preparation;

b. the view that an attack on French Indochina is in preparation;

c. the view that military operations against China are to be intensified in the hope of giving China a knock-out blow in the near future.

2. My feeling is that the last of these possible developments is the most likely explanation of the factual evidence before us, that something is impending. It is the hypothesis supported by the greatest number of facts and requires the explaining away of the minimum of contrary evidence and argument.

3. Before discussing that question, however, it should be pointed out that not only the Japanese themselves but many of my colleagues are in a state of high nervous tension and are apparently cabling home each crop of rumors without subjecting them to close analysis. The report of an impending attack on Indochina mentioned in the Department’s 386, July 11, 11 a.m. closely resembles that brought to me by an American press correspondent. I have traced the latter report directly to the German Military Attaché who is also the source of a rumor that the Japanese will attack Singapore at some date between July 20 and August 10. The date specified by him as the beginning of the Japanese attack on Indochina through the occupation of Saigon was July 13. At the same time I have endeavored to weigh each of the various rumors against known facts and I am of the opinion that the report which I yesterday cabled to the Department of impending Japanese efforts to obtain a privileged position in Indochina should be taken seriously.³⁷ This last report coincides very closely with vague allusions in the Japanese doctored press to the need for destroying Chungking’s communications with its back door or again to the importance of “strengthening defenses against attacks from Singapore”.

4. With regard to point a, paragraph 1 above: I do not doubt that plans for an eventual attack on Vladivostok and the Maritime provinces figure prominently in the Japanese hypothetical program but I believe that we may discard as preposterous the thought that Japan, while still deeply involved in China, would undertake another major war on the Asiatic Continent unless or until the German-Soviet war should bring about military or political collapse, or both, in the Soviet Union. In such a contingency Japanese action would appear to be inevitable and it is, of course, possible that the present military activities are either primarily or secondarily preparatory for such a contingency. It is also possible that troops are being sent from points on the Japan Sea to the Northern Korean ports of Seishin and Rashin, in which case we would not be apt to know of such movements, but reports from consuls and foreign travellers do not indicate that abnormal troop movements are taking place in Korea and Manchuria. Furthermore, no official anti-air raid precautions are being taken in Tokyo at this time which is of significance because air raids on this and other Japanese cities would probably be the first Soviet reply to a Japanese attack on Soviet territory.

5. With regard to points, paragraph 1 above: The opinion is held among some of my colleagues that Japan will seek by agreement certain bases in Indochina and Thailand—following the action of the United States in acquiring rights to station troops in Greenland and Iceland—in order to place herself in a better posture of defense against Germany (in the event of a German victory) as much as against the United States and Great Britain. Whether this is so or not I cannot say, but it is interesting that my colleagues have also sensed the declining confidence to which I have several times alluded of the Japanese in the good faith of Germany. My feeling is that if the present gathering together by Japan of a further large military force is intended primarily for military operations in a grand scale in China, urgent efforts will be made by Japan to secure from the French new bases of operations fairly close to the heart of unoccupied China.

6. Regard to point (c), paragraph 1:1 can see no reason to revise my opinion that China is still Japan’s chief preoccupation. It was Japan’s China policy which brought Japan into her present difficult position, and it is not easy to see how she can extricate herself from that position without liquidation, by victory or by a negotiated peace or possibly defeat, of the China problem. Time, especially since the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, is running short. A victory by Germany might mean, not exposure of Japan to a German threat, the problem of seizing Soviet territories in the Pacific with attendant risks of trouble with the United States. The defeat of Germany, or even the demonstration by Russia of ability to stand firmly against Germany, might well adversely affect German morale and thus start a process of disintegration of German military force. I need not enlarge on the fact that the Japanese without exception dread the prospect of the war in Europe ending with Japan still enmeshed with China. It will be recalled that the Commander in Chief in China recently issued a pronouncement that China was tottering and that “one more push” was all that was needed for her defeat. There is nothing known to us which would successfully controvert the view that, if a large additional force (estimated to be between 1 and 2 million men), is being organized for immediate action and not merely for precautionary reasons, the logical theatre for the employment of this force would be China. A large force would, of course, also be required for any attack against Soviet territory, but the absence of special anti-air precautions and of large troop movements northward would have to be explained away if an immediate attack in that direction were under contemplation.

7. As we observed in our 944, July 8 [6], 9 p.m., the lack of complete unity of opinion among Japan’s leaders, the desire not to increase Japan’s involvements in Europe, and the declining confidence in Germany’s good faith, are, among other factors, operating against the pursuit of a dynamic policy calling for new initiatives which might well greatly increase the risks of Japan’s involvement in the war without, at the same time, materially promoting her efforts to bring the China conflict to an end. It has been made clear to me by Mr. Matsuoka that for better or for worse Japan will cooperate with Germany, at least within the four corners of the Alliance Treaty; and I am prepared to take that statement at its face value; I am further prepared to believe that what are conceived by some to be Japanese common interests with Germany might bring about Japanese action which would extend the war in Europe to the Pacific, but at the same time no evidence has as yet been brought to my knowledge which would support the view that Japan will resort to initiatives risking conflict with the United States unless such initiatives are calculated by the Japanese to be the only available method for bringing the China conflict to an end, or arising out of obligations assumed by Japan in concluding the alliance with Germany.

Grew

37. See telegram No. 1006, July 16, noon, from the Ambassador in Japan, Vol. v, p. 210.