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Toward Politeness. Japan's bluff was called. Japan's Army and Navy, like all others today, are huge internal combustion machines, which without oil must inevitably burn out bearings and rattle to a stop. So on Aug. 28 Kichisaburo Nomura carried to Franklin Roosevelt a note from Premier Prince Fumimaro Konoye. It contained, by inference, Japan's declaration of willingness to back down. Its proposition was that the U.S. and Japan ought not to let bad feelings deteriorate into worse, and worse into war.
With that proposition the U.S. State Department was in agreement. The U.S. wanted to devote more attention and more strength to the Battle of the Atlantic. It also happened that, with the oil weapon to brandish, the State Department thought it could get Japan to back down to some extent. In any case valuable time —time that was pro-Russian and anti-Hitler—would be gained by negotiations, which would certainly be delicate, undoubtedly be long. Accordingly, talks were begun both in Washington, where Admiral Nomura and Cordell Hull met several times "outside the State Department," and in Tokyo, where Foreign Minister Admiral Teijiro Toyoda received the American who has the most savvy about and the most sympathy with Japan, Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew.*
As to a real deal between Japan and the U.S., that is another matter. Last week, after two weeks of careful explorations, it was hard to find a responsible official in Washington who entertained serious thoughts that Japanese-U.S. talks would ever get beyond the stage of polite hopefulness. There were too many impediments.
So Sorry, Impossible. It would take a whopping Japanese backdown, all wrapped up and delivered, to rouse any U.S. interest in a deal which might turn out to be raw. Where could the Japanese back down? Certainly not from Indo-China. The occupation of French Indo-China was the only big Japanese success in nearly two years and was immensely popular in Japan. Last week the Japanese were busy entrenching themselves in their new conquests. The Foreign Office named sage, sharp-faced, experienced Kenkichi Yoshi-zawa Special Ambassador-at-Large (i.e., Gauleiter} to Hanoi. Said he, of Japan and Indo-China: "At present the two countries are connected with inseverable bonds."
Certainly not from China. The Japanese intention about remaining in China permanently is as clear as Yellow River mud. Prince Konoye said in March 1938: "We will never give up an inch of the territories already occupied." Prince Konoye said in July 1938: "Japan does not want an inch of Chinese territory." But clear as the Inland Sea is the Japanese position on withdrawing now: it is out of the question. Last week, to lend credence to Japan's apparent good intentions, Tokyo put out a palpably false story that Free China in Chungking and Puppet China in Nanking were on the .point of making peace. Chungking slapped the story down.
Certainly not from the Axis. Japan would not dare make a clean break with Berlin as long as there was a chance of Russia's folding up, with pickings for Japan in Siberia.
Not So Sorry, Just as Impossible. Conversely, the U.S. could not make big enough concessions even to save Japanese face in case of a deal.