• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1639 0

moved to repair the breach with Washington. In early 1941 Tokyo replaced its ambassador to the United States with Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, a former foreign minister who had served as naval attaché in Washington during World War I and was acquainted with Roosevelt from that time. As foreign minister, Nomura had shown a keen interest in improving relations with the United States.23 He feared the drift to war and undertook the Washington posting at the urging of naval colleagues to help prevent it.24 Roosevelt received Nomura cordially. He recalled their earlier friendship, said he intended to call him “Admiral” rather than “Ambassador,” and proposed they talk candidly. “There is plenty of room in the Pacific area for everybody,” said the president. “It would not do this country any good nor Japan any good, but both of them harm to get into war,” to which Nomura readily assented.25

Roosevelt suggested that Nomura might find it useful to sit down with Hull and discuss how relations could be improved. For the next nine months Nomura and Hull met some fifty times, often at the secretary’s home in the Wardman Park Hotel. Hull wrote later he credited Nomura “with being honestly sincere in trying to avoid war between his country and mine.”26 Both men worked under severe handicaps. Nomura was out of step with his government in Tokyo, and Hull, who was in poor health, was often excluded from White House strategy sessions.27

Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 took Tokyo by surprise. When he recovered from the shock, Foreign Minister Matsuoka said it provided Japan with a golden opportunity to extinguish for all time the Russian threat in Siberia. “He who would search for pearls must dive deep,” he told the cabinet.28 Despite the recently concluded neutrality agreement with Moscow, Matsuoka maintained that the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy took precedence. In his view, which he put directly to the Emperor, Japan should join the war against Russia immediately.29

The Army high command agreed that Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union offered an opportunity, but they wanted no part of another northern adventure. In May 1939 the Japanese Kwantung Army had crossed the Khalkhin-Gol River separating Manchukuo from Soviet-controlled Mongolia to attack Red Army troops stationed on the other side. The fighting escalated through the summer, culminating in the humiliating defeat of the Japanese at the end of August. Japan’s losses totaled more than 50,000 men killed and wounded; the Russians (under General Georgi Zhukov) lost one-fifth that number.30* There was as yet no evidence that Stalin was reducing his Siberian garrison to meet the German invasion, and without overwhelming numerical superiority the Japanese generals had no interest in attacking the Red Army again.31

Instead of going north, the Army advocated a southern strategy. The German attack would keep the Russians at bay, and with its northern flank protected Japan could move south against Burma, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. Seizing Southeast Asia would further isolate China, ensuring Chiang’s eventual defeat. But above all it would provide continued access to vital raw materials. And the petroleum from the rich oil fields of the East Indies would eliminate Japan’s dependence on the United States.

“The Japs are having a real drag-down and knock-out fight trying to decide which way to jump,” Roosevelt (who thanks to MAGIC intercepts was privy to the Tokyo debate) told Harold Ickes on July 1. “No one knows what the decision will be, but it is terribly important for the control of the Atlantic for us to keep peace in the Pacific. I simply have not got enough Navy to go round.”32

At a meeting of the privy council held in the presence of the Emperor on July 2, the Japanese government chose to go south. The Kwantung Army would be reinforced to take advantage of the situation should Russia suddenly collapse, but the principal thrust would be southward. “The Imperial Government will continue its efforts to effect a settlement of the China Incident, and seek