The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 (Modern Library War)

by Toland, John

  f Later Konoye repeatedly said, “If only I had ridden that day with Matsuoka!” His secretary, Ushiba, believes pain from piles was probably a contributing factor. If so, it was not the first time this relatively minor ailment changed history. Napoleon suffered intensely from hemorrhoids at Waterloo.

  “Konoye may not have succeeded in placating Matsuoka,” Ushiba commented further, “but his failure to ride with Matsuoka as he had planned may have been a turning point of history. It was really a great pity inasmuch as Konoye had been very keen on personally explaining to Matsuoka, and even restrained other Cabinet ministers from going to meet him. This incident throws much light on Konoye’s character: he lacked persistence; he easily cooled off.”

  g In 1917 the United States consented to Japan’s request that her “special interests” in China be recognized, but terminated the ambiguous agreement after the Armistice.

  h Matsuoka also promised the German ambassador, General Eugen Ott, who expressed fears that the negotiations in Washington would negate the Tripartite Pact, that if the United States entered the war, Japan would definitely get in it. Notwithstanding, Hitler was suspicious of Matsuoka, and told Mussolini that Matsuoka was a Catholic who also sacrificed to pagan gods and “one must conclude that he was combining the hypocrisy of an American Bible missionary with the craftiness of a Japanese Asiatic.”

  i About two weeks earlier Ambassador Hiroshi Oshima had cabled from Berlin that he had just been told by Dr. Heinrich Stahmer, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of Japanese-German affairs, that German intelligence was fairly certain the American government was reading Nomura’s coded messages. “There are at least two circumstances to substantiate the suspicion,” said Oshima. “One is that Germany is also reading our coded messages. And the other is that the Americans once before succeeded in compromising our codes, in 1922, during the Washington Conference.” But Kazuji Kameyama, chief of the Cable Section, assured Matsuoka that it was humanly impossible to break the diplomatic code, and it was assumed that any secret information America obtained had come through security leaks.

  j Snakes and cats hiss by expelling breath. Japanese do just the opposite, sucking in at times of cogitation, uncertainty or embarrassment.

  k “I am still convinced,” Ushiba wrote in 1970, “that on the U. S. side, Hull’s formalism and orthodox diplomacy and Hornbeck’s stubbornness proved the undoing of Konoye’s efforts (granted there was much more stubbornness on the Japanese side!)”

  l According to A Short History of the U.S.S.R.: “The country’s poor preparedness was due to grave errors of judgement made by Stalin in evaluating the general strategic situation and in his estimates of the probable time the war would break out.… Hitler hoped that his surprise attack would knock out the Red Army, and to be sure, Stalin’s errors of judgement, and his outright mistakes, went a long way to further his designs.”

  Early in 1969, however, the Soviet Communist party’s most authoritative journal, Kommunist, declared that Stalin was an “outstanding military leader,” and that Nikita Khrushchev’s dramatic attack on Stalin at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 was completely unfounded. “Not a stone remains of the irresponsible statements about his military incompetence, of his direction of the war ‘on a globe,’ of his supposedly absolute intolerance of other views, and of other similar inventions grasped and spread by foreign falsifiers of history.” This reappraisal was echoed a few days later by the Red Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda in a lengthy attack on “revisionists” in such countries as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and France.

  m In going over this portion of the manuscript for corrections, Marquis Kido wrote: “My grandfather is generally called Koin, but the proper pronunciation of the Japanese characters is Takayoshi.” Takayoshi had no son to carry on the family name, and his nephew Takamasa (his younger sister’s son) was legally made a Kido after he married Takayoshi’s only daughter. She died and Takamasa married again; Koichi Kido was the eldest son of that union.

  n The U. S. military agreed. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox prognosticated that “it would take anywhere from six weeks to two months for Hitler to clean up in Russia.” Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary; “I cannot help feeling that it offers to us and Great Britain a great chance, provided we use it promptly,” and then told Roosevelt that in his opinion it would take Germany from one to three months to whip the Soviet Union. Ambassador Grew thought only good could come of the attack and wrote in his diary: “Let the Nazis and the Communists so weaken each other that the democracies will soon gain the upper hand or at least be released from their dire peril.”

  o On the day after Hitler’s invasion of Russia, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes wrote Roosevelt: “To embargo oil to Japan would be as popular a move in all parts of the country as you could make. There might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it, not only possible but easy, to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia.”

  PART TWO

  The Lowering Clouds

  4

  “Go Back to Blank Paper”

  1.

  Konoye’s actions over the past few years had baffled those who sympathized with the tremendous problems he faced. Why had a liberal allowed the Army to gain ascendancy? Why had he subordinated himself to his own Foreign Minister, permitted him to endanger the negotiations in Washington? Ambassador Craigie was impressed by Konoye’s numerous acts of statesmanship “only to be irritated just as often by his apparent lack of firmness in leadership and his failure at times of crisis to use his strong personal position to curb the extremists.”*

  In the opinion of Lieutenant General Teiichi Suzuki, director of the Cabinet Planning Board and an Army intellectual, Konoye wavered at critical moments not from weakness, but from intellectual doubts, and his objectivity rendered him almost incapable of making a clear-cut decision and taking action on it.

  But both Suzuki and Craigie agreed on one thing—Konoye was another Hamlet. And like Hamlet he was finally spurred to decisive action—he would meet privately with President Roosevelt to settle once and for all the question of China.† On August 4 he summoned War Minister Tojo and Navy Minister Oikawa and told them of his decision. “If the President still does not see reason I shall, of course, be fully prepared to break off the talks and return home.” Both Japan and America would have to make concessions, but he felt agreement could be reached if the high-level talks were “carried out with broad-mindedness.” He promised that he would neither be “too anxious or hasty to come to terms, nor assume a supercilious manner or act submissively.”

  Tojo and Oikawa refused to commit themselves without consulting their colleagues. Within hours the admiral reported back that the Navy was in “complete accord and, moreover, anticipated the success of the conference.” But Tojo found Army opinion divided. He wrote the Prime Minister that it was feared the summit meeting would weaken Japan’s current policy, which was based on the Tripartite Pact, as well as cause repercussions at home. Nevertheless, the Army had no objections to the meeting so long as Konoye promised to lead the war against America if Roosevelt refused to appreciate Japan’s position. He concluded the letter with the pessimistic observation that “the probability of failure of this meeting is eight to ten.”

  Konoye himself had no doubts, and over lunch told his close friend Shigeharu Matsumoto, editor in chief of the Domei News Agency, about the proposed meeting with Roosevelt. On the morning of August 6 the prince advised the Emperor of his intentions. “You had better see Roosevelt at once,” said His Majesty, recalling what Admiral Nagano had told him about the dwindling oil stockpile. The following morning a message was sent to Secretary of State Hull suggesting that Konoye and Roosevelt meet in Honolulu to discuss means of adjusting the differences between the two countries.

  But Hull was dubious of Konoye’s proposal. It had the same �
�hand-to-heart touch” used by Hitler on Chamberlain at Munich. Secretary of War Stimson was in accord and wrote in his diary: “The invitation to the President is merely a blind to try to keep us from taking definite action.” After two days the Secretary of State saw Ambassador Nomura, who wanted a definite reply. But Hull, mixing accusations with moral observations, contended that it was now clear that those in Japan who favored peace “had lost control.” The Japanese press “was being constantly stimulated to speak of encirclement of Japan by the United States.” That very day, he continued, he had told correspondents “there is no occasion for any nation in the world that is law-abiding and peaceful to become encircled by anybody except itself.” The frustrated Nomura finally asked if this was the reply to the suggested summit meeting and Hull reiterated everything he had just uttered, concluding that “it remained with the Japanese Government to decide whether it could find means of shaping its policies accordingly and then endeavor to evolve some satisfactory plan.”

  Since the Japanese military leaders felt they had bent a good deal to approve the meeting, its cool reception in Washington sharpened a growing suspicion. Did the Americans really want peace or were they playing for time? Each day twelve thousand tons of irreplaceable oil were being consumed and soon the armed forces would be as helpless as a whale thrown up on the beach.

  Roosevelt was not on hand to discuss the situation. The cruiser Augusta was taking him to a rendezvous in Argentia Bay, Newfoundland, with Winston Churchill. On Sunday, August 10, the President attended church services on the deck of the British battleship Prince of Wales, in the shadows of its big guns. The lesson, appropriately, was from Joshua: “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

  After the service Roosevelt, in his wheelchair, was taken on a tour of the ship by Churchill. Belowdecks, Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles was being shown two messages to Japan drafted by Churchill, to be sent simultaneously from Washington and London, warning of severe countermeasures if Japan continued her aggression in the southwest Pacific.

  As Welles was leaving Prince of Wales, Churchill said he didn’t think “there was much hope left unless the United States made such a clear-cut declaration of preventing Japan from expanding further to the south, in which event the prevention of war between Great Britain and Japan appeared to be hopeless.”

  The next day Roosevelt and Churchill conferred on Augusta. Roosevelt felt “very strongly that every effort should be made to prevent the outbreak of war with Japan.” The problem was what line to take—tough, medium or soft? Tough, said Churchill; the proposals from Tokyo were no more than “smoothly worded offers by which Japan would take all she could for the moment and give nothing for the future.”

  Roosevelt suggested that he negotiate “about these unacceptable conditions” and win a delay of some thirty days while Britain secured its position in the Singapore area. The month gained would be valuable. “Leave that to me,” he observed. “I think I can baby them along for three months.”

  Confident that he had swayed Roosevelt to take the “tough” line, Churchill telegraphed Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden:

  … AT THE END OF THE NOTE WHICH THE PRESIDENT WILL HAND TO THE JAPANESE AMBASSADOR WHEN HE RETURNS FROM HIS CRUISE IN ABOUT A WEEK’S TIME HE WILL ADD THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE, WHICH IS TAKEN FROM MY DRAFT: “ANY FURTHER ENCROACHMENT BY JAPAN IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC WOULD PRODUCE A SITUATION IN WHICH THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT WOULD BE COMPELLED TO TAKE COUNTERMEASURES, EVEN THOUGH THESE MIGHT LEAD TO WAR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN.” HE WOULD ALSO ADD SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT THAT IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT THE SOVIET BEING A FRIENDLY POWER, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT WOULD BE SIMILARLY INTERESTED IN ANY SIMILAR CONFLICT IN THE NORTHWEST PACIFIC.

  Perhaps Churchill was right, but once at home Hull, who was himself convinced that nothing would stop the Japanese except force (recently, he had told Welles over the phone, “I just don’t want us to take for granted a single word they say, but to appear to do so to whatever extent it may satisfy our purpose to delay further action by them”), convinced the President to reconsider and take a more moderate course. On August 17, though it was Sunday, he sent for Ambassador Nomura. Roosevelt was in high spirits and said that if Japan halted her expansion activities and decided “to embark upon a program of peace in the Pacific,” the United States would be “prepared to reopen the unofficial preparatory discussions which were broken off in July, and every effort will then be made to select a time and place to exchange views.” He was intrigued by the idea of a secret meeting and even suggested that it take place in Juneau, Alaska, “around the middle of October.”

  Nomura immediately cabled Tokyo: A REPLY SHOULD BE MADE BEFORE THIS OPPORTUNITY IS LOST.

  The following afternoon, August 18, Ambassador Grew was summoned by Foreign Minister Teijiro Toyoda. The admiral (“a sympathetic and very human type,” according to Grew) said he wanted to speak frankly, as a naval officer and not as a diplomat. Japan had gone into Indochina to solve the China affair and not because of pressure from Germany. The freezing of funds which followed had left “a big black spot on the long history of peaceful relations” between Japan and America, and future historians would be unable to understand if the negotiations broke down. The solution was a meeting between the two leaders of both countries in which the problems could be settled “in a calm and friendly atmosphere on an equal basis.”

  Grew, who had not been informed by the State Department of the proposed Konoye-Roosevelt meeting, was taken by the novel idea. Both leaders were gentlemen from distinguished families and they could reach an honorable settlement. Moreover, he would be in attendance and it could be the crowning moment of his own career.

  With the heat so oppressive in the ministry, the admiral ordered iced drinks and cold wet towels, and suggested that they remove their coats. As they swabbed themselves with the towels, Grew said, “Admiral, you have often stood on the bridge of a battleship and have seen bad storms which lasted for several days, but ever since you took over the bridge of the Foreign Office you have undergone one long, continuous storm without any rest. You and I will have to pour some oil on those angry waves.”

  The meeting lasted for an hour and a half, and as soon as Grew returned to the embassy he sent an extraordinary message to Hull:

  … THE AMBASSADOR [Grew] URGES … WITH ALL THE FORCE AT HIS COMMAND, FOR THE SAKE OF AVOIDING THE OBVIOUSLY GROWING POSSIBILITY OF AN UTTERLY FUTILE WAR BETWEEN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES, THAT THIS JAPANESE PROPOSAL NOT BE TURNED ASIDE WITHOUT VERY PRAYERFUL CONSIDERATION. NOT ONLY IS THE PROPOSAL UNPRECEDENTED IN JAPANESE HISTORY, BUT IT IS AN INDICATION THAT JAPANESE INTRANSIGENCE IS NOT CRYSTALLIZED COMPLETELY OWING TO THE FACT THAT THE PROPOSAL HAS THE APPROVAL OF THE EMPEROR AND, THE HIGHEST AUTHORITIES IN THE LAND. THE GOOD WHICH MAY FLOW FROM A MEETING BETWEEN PRINCE KONOYE AND PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IS INCALCULABLE. THE OPPORTUNITY IS HERE PRESENTED, THE AMBASSADOR VENTURES TO BELIEVE, FOR AN ACT OF THE HIGHEST STATESMANSHIP, SUCH AS THE RECENT MEETING OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT WITH PRIME MINISTER CHURCHILL AT SEA, WITH THE POSSIBLE OVERCOMING THEREBY OF APPARENTLY INSURMOUNTABLE OBSTACLES TO PEACE HEREAFTER IN THE PACIFIC.

  A few weeks before, Colonel Iwakuro and Ikawa, who had labored so diligently on the Draft Understanding, realized that their attempt at independent diplomacy had failed. On the last day of July they had left Washington, arriving home two weeks later. Iwakuro was struck by the warlike atmosphere in Tokyo on all levels. There was growing hatred of America and Britain and a general feeling that the ABCD encirclement was strangling the nation. In America the predominant mood, though anti-Axis, seemed one of peace. Antiwar groups were picketing the White House, and the isolationists’ opposition to Roosevelt’s aid to China and Britain was widespread and vocal. A bill extending the service of draftees had passed with a margin of one vote, and in Army camps the word Ohio was given a cryptic meaning–Over the Hill In Oct
ober.

  Iwakuro made dozens of speeches to top-level military, political and industrial groups urging that the negotiations be continued; America’s potential was far superior to Japan’s and a conflict would end in disaster. But the staff officers were far more interested in talking about an advance to the south, and at naval headquarters one said, “Japan is blockaded by the ABCD line. We cannot afford to lose time. We have only one course now—to fight.” Iwakuro remembered that several months before, the Navy had been almost solidly aligned for a peaceful settlement with America, and sadly concluded that “the die was cast.”

  Nevertheless, he refused to give up and went pleading from ministry to ministry. But his words had no more effect than “hitting a nail into rice bran.” During the last week in August he attended a liaison conference, where he contrasted the alarming differences between American and Japanese war potential. In steel, he said, the ratio was 20 to 1; oil more than 100 to 1; coal 10 to 1; planes 5 to 1; shipping 2 to 1; labor force 5 to 1. The overall potential was 10 to 1. At such odds, Japan could not possibly win, despite Yamato damashii—the spirit of Japan. For once his listeners were impressed and Tojo ordered Iwakuro to make a written report of everything he had just said.

  The following day Iwakuro arrived at the War Minister’s office to discuss the report but was summarily told by Tojo that he was being transferred to a unit in Cambodia. “You need not submit the notes in writing I requested yesterday.”

  As Iwakuro was boarding the train for the first leg of the trip south, he told his friends, “So many of you have come to bid me farewell, but when I return to Tokyo—if I survive—I’m afraid I shall find myself alone in the ruins of Tokyo station.”