From 1932 to 1942, Joseph C. Grew served because the United States ambassador to Japan, the place he was dedicated to cultivating peace between the 2 nations. Despite his extraordinary efforts, he left the put up in 1942 following six months of internment in the Tokyo embassy after Pearl Harbor was attacked. Author Steve Kemper attracts on a variety of sources, together with Grew’s memoirs and diary, diplomatic messages and Japanese accounts of occasions, as he recounts the lead-up to America’s involvement in World War II in Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor.
Grew was an unlikely profession diplomat. His background—Boston, Groton, Harvard—indicated a unique path, maybe a profession in enterprise or banking. But he sought journey. On his option to assume new duties in Tokyo, he wrote in his diary that of all his 14 posts, Japan “promises to be the most adventurous of all.”
Kemper takes readers behind the scenes to see the advanced realities that Grew coped with each day. He tried to alert America’s leaders to the challenges of Japan’s growing militarism and fervent nationalism whereas doing what he may to maintain their international coverage in examine. Where he was open-minded and pragmatic, his boss, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, had a basic mistrust of Japan. Grew strongly protested Japan’s many devastating acts in opposition to Americans, however he was additionally involved by the ignorance of American isolationists and pacifists at residence who noticed the U.S. as a warmonger.
On January 27, 1941, lengthy earlier than the assault on Pearl Harbor, the ambassador first heard the rumor that if the Japanese authorities broke with the United States, it will plan a shock mass assault. He handed that phrase alongside to the U.S. State Department—nonetheless, the Navy had already studied the chance of a Pearl Harbor assault and thought of it unlikely.
Grew’s tireless efforts to avert conflict with Japan display each the worth and the constraints of anyone particular person in worldwide energy politics. This enlightening and well-written historical past ought to be of curiosity to a variety of readers.
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