Although much has been written in publications of every sort concerning Japan’s treachery at Pearl Harbor in 1941, there are few events in American history which provide more fascinating reading and which offer more and more thought for mature reflection. For in the strange annals of international intrigue and diplomatic plotting, there is perhaps no single instance of treachery contemplated on so grand a scale and executed with so solemn a national face.
Nor is the record entirely clear even at the present time. Only recently, for example, our Department of State made available for public consideration certain secret documents which had been captured by American and British troops in 1945 from the archives of the German Foreign Office and which include hitherto unknown facts concerning Japan’s intentions in the Pacific. Similar secret documents uncovered in Tokyo after the war have made it equally necessary to revise the record. For although the one significant fact of Japan’s treachery is irrevocably patent—and grows even more astonishing with each new turn of the page—the complete diplomatic prelude to the disaster of Pearl Harbor is as yet still less than a swan song.
Although Japan’s initial thoughts of a major Pacific conquest had been manifested in devious ways from the time of the Russo- Japanese peace in 1905, it was not until the 1920’s that thoughts became theories, and it was not until the Manchurian coup of 1931 that the theories themselves began to assume an increasingly recognizable form. But as the power of the young Army fanatics increased, it became apparent that a new order for Asia was already in the mold. And with the commencement of the “Chinese Incident” in 1937, the outside world was given its first significant glimpse of that mold.
That high stakes were involved was plain enough even then to certain astute diplomatic and military observers. Thus, for example, on November 13, 1937, approximately two weeks after Japan had declined to attend a Brussels Conference on the Sino-Japanese dispute, Ambassador Grew sent a dispatch from Tokyo to the effect that “The threat to England is very real and immediately apparent upon reflection that with the addition of Japan to the Rome-Berlin axis the life-line of the British Empire is threatened from the North Sea through the Mediterranean and beyond Singapore.” To Ambassador Grew, Japan’s decision to cast her lot with Germany and Italy marked the definite termination of Japan’s political and moral isolation and emphasized “the abandonment of Japan’s previous and almost traditional alignment with the democratic powers.”
Japan’s own statement came soon afterwards in the form of an attack on the U.S.S. Panay, then situated, together with various other American and British warships, on the Yangtze River. The Japanese excuse—poor visibility and the inability of their aircraft to discern American markings on the Panay—was completely unacceptable to the United States Navy Court of Inquiry. The Court, contending that the Japanese pilots should have been familiar with the characteristics and distinguishing markings of the Panay since the vessel had been present at Nanking during Japan’s aerial attacks against the city, cited the added fact that the Japanese had known that neutral vessels were present in the Yangtze. It rightfully concluded that “it was utterly inconceivable that the six light bombing planes coming within six hundred feet of the ships and attacking for over a period of twenty minutes could not be aware of the identity of the ships they were attacking,” and it ruled that the Japanese were “solely and wholly responsible” for all losses incurred by us as a result of the attack.
The Japanese promptly apologized with the usual diplomatic version of “so sorry, please,” and made restitution for American losses, but the apology was, of course, only a smoke screen. What the Japanese Army fanatics had considered it of the utmost importance to ascertain was the immediate temper of the American public—and that they presumably discovered. At any rate, they gleefully concluded that our firm Navy stand in the matter in no way typified the attitude of a soft and almost incredibly unrealistic public. Their conclusion, true in 1937, was later to prove their undoing, however. For in their own unrealistic and conceited fashion they conceived the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor as merely a major kind of Panay Incident to which we would respond with a half-hearted war. But they soon discovered that we not only could fight, but that we would fight.
As a counter-measure to foreign armament programs which seemed to involve a threat to world peace, President Roosevelt called upon Congress in his message of January, 1938, to approve a rearmament program at home, and on February 5 the United States, Great Britain, and France inquired of Japan concerning her naval construction plans. Japan’s reply, a refusal to divulge any information whatsoever, was in reality a tacit admission of her plans. And when Hitler chose to recognize Manchukuo on February 20, the facts became even clearer.
The turmoil in Europe and the events at Berchtesgaden in September, 1938, obscured the importance of Japan’s movements until November 3 of that year, when suddenly Premier Konoye announced Japan’s intentions of establishing a new order in Asia and of shutting the door on China. The Japanese rejection of the United States protest constituted a masterpiece of double-talk and hypocrisy:
Japan at present is devoting her energy to the establishment of a new order based on genuine international justice throughout East Asia, the attainment of which end is not only an indispensable condition of the very existence of Japan, but also constitutes the very foundation of the enduring peace and stability of East Asia.
It is the firm conviction of the Japanese Government that in the face of the new situation, fast developing in East Asia, any attempt to apply to the conditions of today and tomorrow inapplicable ideas and principles of the past neither would contribute toward the establishment of a real peace in East Asia nor solve the immediate issues.
But on the following day Japan’s Foreign Minister Arita brazenly declared that there had, in fact, been no change in policy at all.
On December 31, 1938, the United States officially rejected Japan’s new order in China. Stating that the plans and practices of the Japanese authorities implied an assumption of sovereignty actually not theirs, the United States refused to admit “that there is need or warrant for any one power to take upon itself to prescribe what shall be the terms and conditions of a ‘new order’ in areas not under its sovereignty and to constitute itself the repository of authority and the agent of destiny in regard thereto.”
Since it was obvious that we would not support our convictions with force, Japan remained largely indifferent to them. Nevertheless, she made no significant move after that until the early summer of 1939, when Ambassador Horinouchi told Secretary of State Hull that Japan had no intention of entering into a military pact with the Axis Powers. In reality, however, Japanese plans were quite the reverse of their mouthings. But Hitler, who was hardly known for his qualms of conscience or honesty, suddenly ripped up the Anti-Comintern Pact and concluded a surprise treaty with Russia. For Japan it was the worst diplomatic kick in the teeth she had experienced in her modern history.
In view of Hitler’s sudden affection for Russia, Japan’s Ambassador to Germany, Hiroshi Oshima, was at a great loss as to what was to be done and he became so un-Japanese as to appear uneasy before Baron Von Weizsacker, State Secretary in the German Foreign Office. In a secret memorandum only recently released, the latter described the reactions of Oshima, who had apparently consulted him for an hour after midnight in order to ascertain what he could best tell his government concerning the pact between Germany and Russia. Naturally Oshima’s chief fear was that if Russia were relieved of anxiety in Europe, she would strengthen her East Asia front and would thus be a new and greater threat to Japan in the Orient. Oshima, an Army general, was clearly aware of what that meant to Japan’s plans for expansion in the Pacific. His second concern was that of face—both his and his government’s—at home. He told Weizsacker that since he expected “a certain shock” in Tokyo, he was eager to abate this in some manner.
But Weizsacker was as slick a liar as the Japanese, and he assured Oshima in his most sincere manner that Germany’s relations with Japan remained unchanged, and that, after all, the new pact would help Germany to stabilize Russo-Japanese affairs. He concluded with the tongue-in-cheek assurance that England, not Russia, was Japan’s mortal enemy, and he threw in virtually everything but the fact that the moon was made of green cheese. For Oshima, an arch admirer of Hitler and Hitler’s methods, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
But if Japan needed Germany in order to keep Russia’s hands tied behind her back, Hitler also wanted Japan as a neutral partner—and as a threat to Russia at such a time as he might find it expedient to tear up the non-aggression pact and attack her. Thus Hitler kept Japan dangling on the string, and the Japanese, bogged down in China, temporarily confused, and in incredible awe of Germany’s military might, were content to dangle.
On August 1, 1940, however, the Japanese suddenly cut the puppet string and tried their own legs again when their Foreign Minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, a prize trickster from away back, issued an announcement concerning a still newer policy for “Greater East Asia.” Japan’s mission, declared Matsuoka, was to “proclaim and demonstrate the imperial way throughout the world.” Ambassador Grew, correctly appraising the situation, warned Secretary of State Hull that Japan had been deterred to some extent because of her respect for our military potential, but that it was his ardent belief that
Japan would trample upon American rights “in exact ratio to the strength of her conviction that the people of the United States would not permit that power to be used.” It was a singularly sound estimate.
In any event, Japan’s campaign for a “Greater East Asia” evoked a quick response from the Reich. On September 25, 1940, Von Ribbentrop, another master plotter, sent a “strictly secret” telegram to the Charge at the German Embassy in Moscow. Part of it is as follows:
Please call on Herr Molotov on Thursday, September 26, and tell him on my behalf that in view of the cordial relations existing between Germany and the Soviet Union I was desirous of informing him in advance, in strict confidence, of the following:
- The warmongering agitation in America, which at this stage of the final defeat of England is seeking a last outlet in the extension and prolongation of the war, has led to negotiations between the two Axis Powers on the one hand and Japan on the other, which will result, presumably in the next few days, in the signing of a military alliance between the three powers.
- This alliance, consistent with its origin, is directed exclusively against American warmongers. To be sure, this is, as usual, not expressly stated in the treaty, but can be unmistakably inferred from its terms.
- The treaty, of course, does not pursue any aggressive aims against America. Its exclusive purpose is rather to bring the elements pressing for America’s entry into the war to their senses, by conclusively demonstrating to them that if they enter the present struggle, they will automatically have to deal with the three great powers as adversaries.
Two days later Germany, Japan, and Italy signed a ten-year military agreement in Berlin. Now it was Molotov’s turn to squirm.
From this point on, Japan’s descent along the slippery road to destruction progressed by leaps and bounds. Only a week after the signing of the Tripartite Pact, Premier Konoye openly warned that if the United States persisted in its refusal to comprehend the Axis’ real intentions “for positive cooperation in creating a new world order” and continued to challenge the Axis, war would be the inevitable result. A week later, by some peculiar twist of his mind, Matsuoka invited the United States to join the Axis alliance. The proposal would have been an insult had it not been so characteristically stupid.
In the meantime, of course, Japan continued to plot the means for her Pacific expansion. Hitler had already decided that the Axis powers were to seek their expansion to the south, and Japan, with greedy eyes on the rich Philippines, Indo-China, and the South Seas, assented.
On December 18, 1940, Hitler filed a top secret directive which laid plans for a quick campaign to crush the Soviet Union,1 but Matsuoka, who knew only what Hitler wanted him to know, decided to visit Berlin and to stop off at Moscow on his way to Germany. Russia, of course, which had already been secretly warned concerning Germany’s plans,2 was now exceedingly delighted to have Matsuoka there, and Stalin himself undertook to chat with Japan’s Foreign Minister. Thus, when Matsuoka finally arrived in Berlin a few days later, Hitler and Von Ribbentrop found it extremely advisable, as a diplomatic countermeasure, to lay some fairly important cards on the table. For now, more than ever, Germany needed Japan on her side.
The record of the meeting between Matsuoka and Von Ribbentrop, two congenital liars, makes interesting reading, since it includes not only some careful flattery invariably welcome to the Japanese, but an equally careful hint concerning the possibility of a rupture in the relations between Germany and Russia. Von Ribbentrop’s references to American strength were singularly deprecating and were intended to build up Japan’s confidence. Thus, American airplanes, for example, were shrugged off as “junk,” and it was assumed that in any event the Tripartite Pact would continue to scare the United States out of any war.
One section of the official memorandum, which was prepared by Dr. Paul Otto Gustav Schmidt, Chief of the Bureau of the Reich Foreign Minister, is particularly noteworthy:
In examining the possibilities that existed for further collaboration between Germany and Japan, the question had repeatedly come up in the talks with the Führer as to whether . . . active participation in the war on the part of Japan might not be useful. The Führer had carefully considered this question and believed that it would actually be very advantageous if Japan would decide as soon as possible to take an active part in the war upon England. Germany believed, for instance, that a quick attack upon Singapore would be a very decisive factor in the speedy overthrow of England. . . . He also believed that the capture of Singapore would perhaps be most likely to keep America out of the war, because the United States could scarcely risk sending its fleet into Japanese waters. If today, in a war against England, Japan were to succeed with one decisive stroke, such as the attack on Singapore, Roosevelt would be in a very difficult position. It would be difficult for him to take any effective action against Japan. If he did so, nevertheless, and declared war upon Japan, then he must expect that the Philippine question, for example, would be resolved in favor of Japan. This would mean a serious loss of prestige for the President, so that he would probably reflect for a long time before taking any action against Japan.
Von Ribbentrop concluded with the remark that a Japanese conquest of Singapore would be tantamount to cutting the Gordian knot in East Asia.
After an intimate lunch, Matsuoka was whisked off to see Hitler himself. The latter, inquiring how Matsuoka had found the long trip from Japan to Germany, outdid himself in his efforts to be the congenial host. But he did, of course, have an axe to grind, and soon he was grinding it with his mouth in his best carpet-chewing manner. Once again the facts are recorded in Dr. Schmidt’s official memorandum of the interview:
The Führer then spoke of his conviction that England had already lost the war. It was only a matter of having the intelligence to admit it. Then would occur the collapse of the individuals and of the government which had been responsible for the insane policy of England.
In her present critical Situation England was looking for any straw to grasp. She was relying principally on two hopes:
First, on American help. Germany, however, had taken such help into her calculations in advance. It could appear in tangible form only in the year 1942 at the earliest, but even then the extent of such help would bear no relation to the increased productive capacity of Germany.
The second hope of England was Russia. Both the British Empire and the United States hoped that in spite of everything they would be able to bring Russia in on the side of England. They believed that they could attain this goal, if not this year, perhaps next, and thus produce a new balance of power in Europe.
In this connection it should be noted that Germany had concluded well-known treaties with Russia, but much weightier than this was the fact that Germany had at her disposal in case of necessity some 160 to 180 divisions for defense against Russia. She therefore did not fear such a possibility in the slightest and would not hesitate a second to take the necessary steps in case of danger. He (the Führer) believed, however, that this danger would not arise.
Concerning the German war aims in Europe, the Führer said that under any circumstances British hegemony would be destroyed, British influence would be excluded from Europe, and any attempt at American interference in Europe would be beaten back. . . . Few situations could be envisaged which offered greater facilities for the realization of Japanese aims and larger possibility of success. England was completely engaged . . . America was confronted by three possibilities: she could arm herself, she could assist England, or she could wage war on another front. If she helped England, she could not arm herself. If she abandoned England, the latter would be destroyed and America would then find herself confronting the powers of the Three Power Pact alone. In no case, however, could America wage war on another front. . . . Such a moment would never return. It was unique in history.
Again Hitler mentioned the 150 divisions which were ready on Russia’s western border, and he waited for Matsuoka’s reaction.
The ambitious Matsuoka put most of his cards on the table, but he still concealed the ace that was to make the treachery at Pearl Harbor possible. Stating that there were Cabinet colleagues in Japan who would be alarmed by his kind of talk and who would seek to remove him from office if they knew his full point of view, he requested that Hitler regard his opinions as strictly confidential:
On the whole he agreed with the views expressed by the Führer. He was especially of the opinion that any action which was determined upon always carried with it a certain risk. Matsuoka declared . . . that he would personally set forth the situation in the frankest fashion. There were in Japan, as in other countries, certain intellectual circles which only a powerful individual could hold firmly under control. He meant by that the sort of person who would like to capture the tiger cub, but who was not prepared to go into the den and take it away from its mother. He had used this line of thought in making the same point in the presence of two princes of the Imperial Family in a conference at headquarters. It was regrettable that Japan had not yet eliminated those elements and that some of these people were even occupying influential positions. Confidentially, he could state that in the interview at headquarters, after an earnest discussion, his point of view had prevailed. Japan would take action, and in a decisive form, if she had the feeling that otherwise she would lose a chance which could only occur once in a thousand years; and in fact Japan would act without consideration of the state of her preparations, since there were always some people who claimed that preparations were insufficient. Matsuoka had also made this point with the two princes. The hesitant politicians in Japan would always delay and act partly from a pro-British or pro-American attitude.
Matsuoka declared that he had come out for the alliance long before the outbreak of the European war. He had been very active at that time to this end, but unfortunately he had had no success. After the outbreak of the European war he personally had held the opinion that Japan should first attack Singapore and bring to an end the British influence in that area and should then join the Three Power Pact, since he did not favor the idea that Japan should join the alliance without having made some contribution toward bringing about the collapse of England. While Germany had been engaged in a titanic struggle against England for a year, Japan, up to the conclusion of the alliance, had contributed nothing. He had therefore come out very strongly for the plan of an attack on Singapore, but he had not prevailed and, under the force of events, had then reversed his program and had come around to the entry into the alliance first.
He had not the slightest doubt that the South Sea problem could not be solved by Japan without the capture of Singapore. They would have to press into the tiger’s den and drag out the young by force.
It was only a question of the time when Japan would attack. According to his idea the attack should come as soon as possible. . . .
Matsuoka then continued that he had discussed with Stalin his ideas about the New Order and had stated that the Anglo-Saxon represented the greatest hindrance to the establishment of this order and that Japan therefore was compelled to fight against them. He had told Stalin that the Soviets on their part also were coming out for something new and that he believed that after the collapse of the British Empire the difficulties between Japan and Russia could be eliminated. He had represented the Anglo-Saxons as the common foe of Japan, Germany, and Soviet Russia . . . Stalin had arranged to give him an answer. . . .
Germany’s diplomatic drive was resumed on the following day, when Von Ribbentrop congratulated Matsuoka on the spirit with which he approached the matter of active collaboration between their two nations. But since Germany’s chief concern at the moment was England, Von Ribbentrop persisted in his contention that Japan’s new order could be established only after England had been completely smashed. And again he slyly pointed out that it was Singapore which blocked Japan’s expansion to the south.
A charming salesman—both by profession and by avocation—Von Ribbentrop even went so far as to make it clear that his own family had a long tradition of pro-Japanese sentiment, and that Hitler’s high esteem for Japan had begun with the Russo-Japanese War.
But Matsuoka, impressed though he undoubtedly was by the German flattery, still had one grave problem on his mind: what was to be done about the United States Navy. There were, he noted, certain Japanese circles “which viewed a conflict with America with great misgivings, since they assumed that this would involve a five or ten year war with the United States. He would readily admit that America would not risk its fleet in a war against Japan, but for that very reason these Japanese circles were worried, because under these circumstances the war would last for years.”
Matsuoka’s opinion is a startling but definitive example of the manner in which some of Japan’s militarists deluded themselves. Certainly they were wrong about the United States Navy. Indeed, one wonders in retrospect precisely what the Japanese really believed and what they merely wished to believe. But in any event Von Ribbentrop’s reply to Matsuoka was that in his opinion “Roosevelt would not let it come to war since he was well aware of the impossibility of any action against Japan.”
The blind was leading the lame, but Matsuoka expressed himself as pleased with that line of reasoning and concluded the conference with his own basic misconceptions. All he need do would be to keep the United States quiet for six months. For, said he, a nation “which continued to hesitate in a matter of such fundamental national importance thereby only showed that it lacked the most important quality, power of decision.” It was a fatal error in judgment.
Since Matsuoka was to return to Tokyo by way of Russia and was therefore to confer once more with Stalin, Von Ribbentrop decided that another conference might do Matsuoka even more good. Accordingly, on the following day, March 29, he again conferred with the Japanese Foreign Minister.
His assurances to Matsuoka were now made even stronger than they had been before, and they included the promise that if Russia should ever strike Japan, Germany would attack Russia immediately. He wanted to make that fact plain, he said, in order that Japan could push southward toward Singapore without any fear of the Soviet Union. Indeed, he added, the greater part of the German Army was already on the eastern boundary of the Reich and was ready to attack at any time.
Having expressed himself in that respect, Von Ribbentrop then returned to the subject of Singapore. Admiral Raeder, he told Matsuoka, had assured him personally “that the British Fleet would be so fully occupied this year in British home waters and in the Mediterranean that it could not send a single ship to the Far East. The American submarines were designated by Admiral Raeder as so poor that Japan need not concern herself about them at all.”
Matsuoka replied that Japan was not worried about the British Navy, but that it was worried about the American Navy. Japan was certain, of course, that it could destroy the American Navy “without trouble”—but it was afraid “that the Americans would not give battle with their fleet, and that in that way the conflict with the United States would perhaps last for five years. They were very uneasy over that in Japan.” As it turned out, of course, the Japanese became even more uneasy when our fleet did fight.
Von Ribbentrop’s reply was that the United States could and would do nothing. He concluded, however, with the warning that Japan attack Singapore first and declare war against England afterwards.
After a brief trip to Italy and to the Vatican, where he hypocritically assured the Pope that Japan’s intentions were entirely peaceful, Matsuoka returned to Berlin for a final conference with Hitler. Here he requested that Hitler instruct German authorities to meet the needs of Japan’s Military Commission, particularly in submarine warfare, and to make available all possible scientific and technical discoveries. But even while he talked of England, he had the United States in mind, and thus he told Hitler that Japan was forced to consider the worst—a war with the United States. Such a war, he believed, would be waged as a guerrilla war in the Pacific and in the South Seas. His parting admonition was that Hitler say nothing about their discussions, for he himself would say nothing in Japan until he could determine a favorable occasion to discuss the entire matter with Prince Konoye and the Emperor. But he was of the opinion that he could push his plans through. And with that he left for his meeting with Stalin.3
Five days later, on April 9, Count Von der Schulenburg, the German Ambassador to Russia, sent a “very urgent, secret” telegram to the German Foreign Office concerning the conversations between Matsuoka and Molotov. Schulenburg was concerned because, although he had reason to believe that Matsuoka had gone very much into detail with Molotov, he had “not yet been able to obtain any straightforward statement from him” regarding the talks. Matsuoka had, however, told him that the American Ambassador had tried time and again to find out from him “whether a Japanese attack on America had been decided upon in Berlin. Matsuoka added that he had the impression that Steinhardt had been directly requested by Roosevelt to do this. Naturally he had replied that this was entirely out of the question.”
The upshot of the Russo-Japanese talks was a Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact. Japan was paving the way on all sides for Pearl Harbor.
On October 16 Prince Konoye resigned as Japan’s Premier, and two days later General Hideki Tojo, Japan’s foremost military fanatic, assumed the position. That the die was now cast was patent, and on November 3 Ambassador Grew warned the United States that Japan might “resort with dangerous and dramatic suddenness to measures which might make inevitable war with the United States.” But two weeks later Japan’s new Foreign Minister, Shigenori Togo, replied with the hypocritical statement that peace was easily possible if the United States wanted it as badly as did Japan—and if we considered Japan’s position in East Asia “in the light of realities.”
On November 20 Japan’s special envoy, Kurusu, who had intimated only two days earlier that Japan might do something to “outshine” Germany and Italy, now suddenly declared that Japan had never pledged itself to a policy of expansion. It was the most flagrant sort of lie, but Secretary of State Hull, critically aware of Japan’s intentions, was not taken in by it. He warned our military officials in Washington that there was “practically no possibility of an agreement” with Japan. And on November 29, General Tojo, drunk with his own power and grandiose schemes, ranted in Tokyo that American and British exploitation of Asia could be purged only by vengeance. Japan’s sphere, he proclaimed, had been decreed by Providence.
Lieutenant Vogel, a fluent speaker of Japanese, served during the last part of World War II as Intelligence Officer on the Staff, Commander Fifth Fleet. Subsequent to the Japanese surrender, he acted as interpreter at conferences with various Japanese officials.
1 This directive, number 21, was taken from secret German Wehrmacht archives. Its opening paragraph serves as the keynote to the entire directive: “The German Armed Forces must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign (Operation Barbarossa) even before the conclusion of the war against England.”
2 Among those who informed Russia of Hitler’s plans was Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who on March 20 told the Soviet ambassador, Constantine Oumansky, that he had information concerning a German attack on Russia.
3 It is ironic that Hitler, who wanted Japan merely as a cat’s-paw in his war against England, never envisioned a Japanese attack on the United States. But the Japanese apparently understood that they would get nowhere in the Pacific as long as the United States Navy was there to fight. Presumably Admiral Yamamoto knew the United States better than did either Hitler or Matsuoka.