MR. GREW'S CHRONICLE OF TWO JAPANS

...Grew informs us that he learned from "a Japanese friend of high standing" with "close contacts in the Black Dragon Society" that "political circles in Tokyo now know of the Prime Minister's proposal to meet the President of the United States on American soil and that this proposal is generally approved, even among the military, in view of the absolute necessity of arriving at a settlement with the United States because of -the economic situation...

...The point of Grew's account is that it makes clear beyond all question that the envoy to whom it was presented came here seeking peace...

...That Japanese military machine and military caste and military system must be utterly crushed, their credit and predominance must be utterly broken...

...But there is the other side to the picture, the ugly side of cruelty, brutality, and other bestiality, the ruthlessness and rapaciousness of the Japanese military machine which brought on this war...

...The announcement of President Roosevelt's August 1941 meeting with Winston Churchill in the Atlantic was immediately followed by a Japanese proposal for a similar meeting between President Roosevelt and Premier Konoye, on American territory in the Pacific...

...Berlin was desperately anxious and worried...

...The change in Rooseveltian policy towards Japan took place in 1940...

...But the latter really marked our new alignment—our entente with Britain by the destroyers-tankers-naval bases-Burma agreement...

...The Emperor's definite stand necessitated the selection of a Prime Minister who would be in a position effectively to control the Army...

...WHEN Ambassador Grew left for Japan, in 1932, the Japanese military machine was engaged in the conquest of China's northeastern provinces—better known as Manchuria...

...The American Government could have taken such action years before...

...But it was not until the . latter half of 1941, with France "out" and the British desperately involved iri the West, that the Roosevelt Administration decided to apply economic sanctions against Japan...

...Not merely Konoye and similar elements, but the militarists themselves were anxiously desirous of an agreement, especially after the adoption of economic war measures against Japan by the American Government...

...Grew, and the Anglo-American agreement of ' September 1940 is hardly touched upon...

...Grew is an experienced diplomat, and has recently become head of the Far Eastern Division of the State Department—a change with quite definite implications with regard to our Far Eastern policy, which was for some years greatly influenced by Dr...

...But the Roosevelt Administration had decided differently...

...For that we must turn elsewhere—to the actual test of that amazing document, to Hull's subsequent statement that he "expected" the Japanese-reply would be war, to the Roberts Report showing that this note "ended negotiations" and that a Japanese attack was "momentarily possible...

...Hornbeck and his China attitudes...

...He writes, as every decent and intelligent American who has really known the Japanese people in their homeland must write: "I have had many friends in Japan, some of whom I admired, respected, and loved...

...Such an alignment would have been similar to that in World War I, when it made possible (with the aid of Wilson's Fourteen Points political offensive) a rapid victory over Germany...

...Grew's book will see that the turn of the Roosevelt government to a policy of war with Japan took place in these latter months cf 1940...

...Grew's native diplomatic discretion has evidently been supplemented by a careful going-over with a fine-tooth comb to blunt or omit certain too-obvious points—a process ¦which seems to have taken some time...

...Ambassador Grew held the American clipper at Hong Kong for two days to enable Kurusu to fly across...

...Grew's eminence and official position may save him from some of this, and will certainly give increased weight to his words...

...IN OCTOBER, Konoye resigned and General Tojo formed his Cabinet, with aims made unusually clear by Ambassador Grew, who notes that "a reasonable motive for the resignation of the previous government was Prince Konoye's belief that the conversations with the United States would make more rapid progress if our Government were dealing with a Prime Minister whose power was based on a commanding position in and on support of the Army, which is the controlling force in matters affecting policy . . . Thus the Japanese Army for the first time in recent years has openly assumed responsibility for the policies and conduct of government In Japan, which it had previously steadfastly declined to accept...

...Grew's book contains bo trace of hatred or contempt of the Japanese as a people...

...An American-Japanese agreement meant the speedy doom of Hitler and his power...

...As patriots they will fight for their Emperor and country, to the last ditch if necessary, but they did not want this war and it was not they who began it...

...Following the re-election of Roosevelt (on a pledge that American boys would not be sent overseas to fight in foreign wars), we find the first serious discussion between Roosevelt and Grew on "getting into war with Japan...

...At Grew's suggestion, the Japanese Government cracked down hard on anti-American comments in the Japanese press...

...He does not, however, mention Secretary Hull's proposals to Japan in May 1941, for an alignment between Britain, Japan, and the United States against Germany...

...The representatives of the Army and Navy who attended this conference did not reply to the Emperor's question, whereupon the latter, with a reference to the progressive policy pursued by the Emperor Meiji, his grandfather, in an unprecedented action ordered the armed forces to obey his wishes...

...The Japanese seem to have been eager for such an alignment in 1941—even with our modification of our long-continued support to them in China—with an agreement corresponding to that reached in 1917-18...

...The Cabinet was formed, and its special envoy Kur-usu was sent to Washington, for the specific purpose of reaching a settlement with the American Government...

...Japanese militarism could not possibly have struck back while Britain was still strong and France still independent—and they, like the Dutch, increasingly apprehensive of the Japanese menace to their Imperial possessions in the Far East...

...Grew does not seem to have been enthusiastic about it...

...Grew writes of the Japanese proposal: "For a Prime Minister of Japan thus to shatter all precedent and tradition, and to wish to come hat in hand, so to speak, to meet the President of the United States on American soil, is a gauge of the determination of the Government to undo the vast harm already accomplished in alienating our powerful and progressively angry country...

...We were already financing Chiang Kai-shek (as well as Japan), and by-the September agreement Britain agreed to put its Burma colony at our disposal for the supplying of our undeclared war against Japan in China, thus aligning itself with our policy in the Far East...

...As late as August of that year the President declared with regard to Indo-China that pueh Asiatic matters should be settled by the Asiatics themselves—which at that time and in that context meant principally the Japanese...

...Here and there is a significant glimpse of how almost alone Washington stood as the consistent friend and economic life-line of Japanese militarism down to a few years ago...

...Grew, the diplomat, does not seriously analyze the note presented to Japan by the State Department on Nov...

...They are not the people who brought on this war...

...These are the two Japans...

...Germans in Japan were already under surveillance...

...That is just what it was...

...Grew leaves no doubt whatever of this: "Just prior to the fall of the Konoye cabinet a conference of the leading members of the Privy Council and of the Japanese armed forces had been summoned by the Emperor, who inquired if they were prepared to pursue a policy which would guarantee that there would be no war with the United States...

...But Mr...

...At times, Grew essays to contradict the "arguments" of those who pointed out that economic sanctions would "stop Japan," but his own picture of the great difficulties created in Japan by the economic war launched by our Government in August 1941 proves the point up to the hilt...

...If the American alignment with the rulers of India and Burma and Hong Kong could give birth to the Atlantic Charter, how about an alignment with the rulers of Korea and Formosa and Manchuria—especially since the United States had been the most effective supporter of Japanese military expansion both in those areas and in the bloody war in China since 1937...

...Reviewed by Harry Paxton Howard JOSEPH C. GREW'S account of his 10-year ambassadorship to Japan has some interesting items, though there are few "startling revelations...

...THE careful reader_pf Mr...

...The special envoy Kurusu was sent to the United States...

...Only once, in quotation marks, does Grew give what all Japanese (and keen-minded American editors here) were saying: "Washington has delivered an ultimatum to us...

...We "unofficial" exiles from Japan who have written similarly have repeatedly been attacked by some of our sheltered super-patriots and professional "Jap-haters," who have accused us of being "pro-Jap...

...One useful aspect of the book is as a counter-weight to the violent racialist propaganda against the Japanese people as a "sub-human breed," so fiercely promoted by Administration agencies for war purposes— particularly during campaigns to sell war bonds...

...This is not mentioned by Mr...

...increasing numbers of the American people had long been demanding such sanctions...

...Grew correctly points out the serious economic difficulties Japan was facing, but carefully omits the extent to which these difficulties were met by the U. S. Treasury's big purchases (at artificially inflated prices) of Manchurian-mined gold from Japan, and of silver smuggled out of China from Japan...

...The book was first announced more than a year ago...