Fire Extinguisher
(See Cover)
"All over Tokyo are no taxicab."
When cheerful Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura says this the sparkle goes out of his one good eye. To him it is a sentence full of unhappy foreign policy. It means that Japan is desperately hard up for oil and gasoline; that therefore Japan must for the time being say uncle to Uncle Sam —or else fight for oil.
Admiral Nomura would be most reluctant to have Japan fight for oil. He personally likes peace.
"I am old man, I am most earnest," he says in his much-better-than-pidgin English. "We maintained ever since opening Japan 87 year ago good relations you and us. Most of time we're happy hours. Now Japanese and United States policy, they are many divergencies. But human being must be able to make some formulas." Last week, as he had been ever since his appointment as Ambassador, Admiral Nomura was a man in search of a formula. There was not much chance that he would find anything but a temporary equation.
Ten years of mutual shoving, glowering, apologizing and more shoving had put the U.S. and Japan dangerously close to war. It did not look last week as if Admiral Nomura or anyone else could make either side withdraw cleanly and permanently from the brink. The best formula the Admiral could hope to achieve would be a minor deal which would freeze both sides' positions for as long as possible.
Toward Coolness. As he set sail last January aboard the Kamakura Maru to take up his appointment in the U.S., Admiral Nomura was tall with hope. At first things went swimmingly. At Honolulu U.S. naval officers, among them Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet Admiral James O. Richardson, greeted him as pretty girls laid leis about his neck. Off California two destroyers met his ship. As he sailed through the Golden Gate a battery at Fort Winfield Scott fired a 19-gun salute. In San Francisco reporters interviewed him and Nisei (U.S.-born Japanese) feted him.
But then the chill set in. He was met at Washington by no one of first importance, and the presence of Counselor of the German Embassy Dr. Hans Thomsen at Union Station did not help. That very day (it was the 2,601st anniversary of the Japanese Empire) President Roosevelt, in a press conference, said that war with Japan would not affect deliveries to Great Britain. Admiral Nomura's first call on Secretary of State Cordell Hull lasted only four minutes; it was an all-time quickie. President Roosevelt was a little more cordial. The Admiral told reporters that the U.S. atmosphere was worse than he had expected.
Two months later Sumner Welles publicly warned Japan that the U.S. is interested in deeds, not vaguely peaceful words. Admiral Nomura promptly called in 50 reporters and told them that the U.S. atmosphere was worse than when he arrived.
By May he had not seen the President a second time and had seen Cordell Hull only "once or twice." In June Japanese oil negotiations with The Netherlands East Indies broke down. In July the U.S. froze all Japanese assets, stopping the flow of American oil. In August—final blow—the U.S. announced that it would ship oil to Russia via Vladivostok, right under the Japanese nose.