Fundamental Issues underlying US-Japan Alliance

（Part 1）

 

by Katsumi SUGIYAMA

Member of Research Committee, DRC

Introduction

In the past, every time a Japanese Prime Minister has visited Washington D.C.,the President of the United States has affirmed that the most important alliance between any two nations in the world is the US-Japan alliance. Japanese People know that the statement is just diplomatic lip service. At the same time, most people in the US do not share this opinion with the President.

In order to promote peace, stability, and prosperity in the US and Japan in the twenty-first century, the two most prosperous nations in the world must build an honest alliance. As long as the people of the two nations have misunderstandings, friendship between the nations will not develop. As the larger of the two nations, the United States needs to correct these misunderstandings. Following are three examples.

 

1. Rectify Misunderstandings of Japan by Americans

 

(1) The Difference between Suicide Terrorist and Kamikaze Attack Unit

When terrorists attacked New York City on September 11^th, we vividly remember President Bush’s statement,” This is war against the US, and the last time American soil was attacked was at Pearl Harbor”.

It is the general understanding among Americans that the terrorist attack on the core of an American city and the attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought America into World War II, are similar incidents. As long as this perception persists, there will be no true understanding between the US and Japan. Even President Bush with his pro-Japan policy is not aware of the facts about Japanese.

First of all, Americans do not comprehend the philosophy that an individual is willing to sacrifice one’s life by suicide bombing or by Kamikaze Attack Pilots (Kamikaze Tokkoutai) . Christians see these attacks as strange Oriental religious zealots arming themselves to make sneaky attacks against the highly civilized Western world. When Americans relate Bin Laden’s terrorist attacks to Pearl Harbor, it proves that they have not changed their perception of the Japanese after 55 years.

Second, Americans do not know the difference between the terrorist of Islamic extremists and the Japanese Kamikaze Pilots. The Kamikaze pilots attacked American war ships in order to protect their homeland. The Japanese have never loaded civilians on a plane and intentionally crashed the plane into buildings that are filled with civilians. Members of the Tokkoutai are very different from the Islamic suicide-bombers; the Japanese soldiers wrote to their parents, families, loved ones and friends that they were willing to sacrifice their lives for their country and that they would not die disgracefully.

On a Japanese TV program, a story was told that when the Emperor of Japan announced over the radio that the war was ended, the last Kamikaze attack plane was in the air. When the pilot reached the targeted US camp and saw American soldiers happily gathered without arms in their lighted camp, he turned his plane away from the US camp and crashed it into a rock. This was right after the soldier gave the signal to a surveillance plane nearby that he was about to crash into the enemy camp. When he saw happy unarmed American soldiers gathered under the camp’s lanterns, he must have thought that it would be a cowardly act to kill them after the war was ended.

(2) Dangerous Right to Execute Absolute Righteousness    

Third, while the US strongly criticized the indiscriminate killings of many civilians by terrorists, the US forces killed many civilians in a war and called it necessary collateral damage. According to the US’s and Bin Laden’s logic, it is acceptable to kill innocent people in the course of achieving a right cause.

The US considers itself the leader of the world and claims the right to attack a politically non-affiliated terrorist group. In other words, it is a right cause; therefore, innocent civilians killed by the bombing are a collateral damage.

In the name of absolute righteousness, it is permissible to kill many civilians by dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by carpet-bombing the city of Tokyo and by wars in Korea and Vietnam. The latest Afghan war also killed many innocent people by indiscriminate and mis-targeted. The US, as a nation of white people, believes that the lives of uncivilized and unworthy people are unimportant. Past historical incidents reveal the inescapable truth: the wholesale massacre of American Indians, enslaving and discrimination of Africans, and forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, while German- and Italian- American were not interned.

Likewise, Bin Laden faction terrorists destroying the World Trade Center and people from 80 nations shows their hardcore Islamic beliefs and ideology. The limited space of this document prevents me from writing about all of the historical incidents, but I would like to mention three facts that the American people should know for a better foundation of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

First is that the three-nation conspiracy of the United States, Great Britain and the USSR against Japan revealed by the investigation into the 1931 Manchuria Incident.

Second is that five months before the Pearl Harbor attack, the American President had signed on a plan to launch a surprise attack on Japan

Third is that there is an evidential document which reveals that the US government knew of the Japanese plan for a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, but they conspired to let Japan attack first, so that the US could officially declare war.

 

2. Lytton Report and Anglo-Russo-Americana (ARA) Secret Treaty  

 

(1) The US Showed Intense Interest in Obtaining Rights to China

The worldwide financial depression, which started November 1929, revealed a great gap between “the haves”, the US, Britain and France, and “the have-nots”, Japan, Germany and Italy. Since the US blocked the advancement of Japan into Southeast Asia by the Washington Naval Reduction Treaty of 1921, she was trying to find an economic advantage  in Manchuria where Japan had won the war with Soviet Russia and China after sacrificing many lives. The Kantou Army leaders wanted to get the rights to Manchuria by direct insertion of the Japanese army while the leaders of the Japanese government, who feared possible isolation from the international society, wanted to obtain the rights by negotiations; hence the two groups of Japanese leaders could not come to an agreement. One thing is true, that the consensus of Japan at the time was to get the rights to Manchuria so that Japan could find a way to economic recovery.

During the 1920s and early 1930s, the Chiang Kai-shek party managed to overpower regional militant groups in China and was about to extend its power to Manchuria. The Kantou Army leaders stationed in Manchuria felt the danger of the Chiang Kai-shek party’s invasion of Manchuria and decided by themselves to blow up the Manchuria Rails on September 18,1931 (the Ryujouko Incident), without waiting for the Japanese government to negotiate with the world leaders.

The Kantou army leaders blamed the incident on the militant group led by Chang Hsueh-liang. This was the beginning of the Manchurian Incident. The leaders of the Kantou Army managed to occupy the entire region of Manchuria within three months and established the Manchurian Nation on March 1, 1932.

Three days after the Manchurian Railroad was blown up, Chiang Kai-shek filed an emergency complaint with the League of Nations against Japan. Four days later, the US Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, issued a statement indicating that the US had a grave interest in Japan. The other leading nations of the world kept silent while the US criticized Japan.

What was the reason that the US took such a keen interest in China? By the year 1880, the US had become the number one economic power in the world, but they did not have oversea markets to sell their surplus goods. In 1899, the US declared open trade with China so that they could have access to the Chinese market. Unfortunately, Japan had exclusive rights to Manchuria after winning wars with Soviet Russia and China. Consequently, the US was afraid of Japan monopolizing the Chinese market.

(2) Secret Meeting between US and Soviet Russia regarding Rights to Manchuria while Neither Had Diplomatic Relations with China

When the League of Nations received the complaint from Chiang Kai-shek, the board of members held a meeting on October 15, 1931, at the protest of Japan and decided to invite a nonmember, the US, as an observer. On December 18, 1931, the General Assembly of the League of Nations approved the creation of an investigative committee for the Japan-China dispute and to send their international investigative team to the site. The investigative committee has represented by four nations: England, Germany, France and Italy, and an additional representative from the US. The following are the names of the five representatives: England: Lord Lytton, France:Lieutenant-General Claudel, Germany:Dr.Schnee, Italy:Count Aldrovandi, US:Major General McCoy. Each nation was allowed to bring up to 13 assistants and eight typists. As a result, there were a total of 53 people on the investigation team. On February 29, 1932, they arrived at Yokohama and started their investigation by meeting with the Japanese leaders. Next the team went on to Shanghai, Nanking and Peking and arrived at Houten (Shengyang) in Manchuria on April 21^st. Then the team went from Houten on to Shinking and Harbin, on May 16^th, they headed for Manchurian without the US delegate.

An important incident took place at that time. Just before the team left for Sui-feng ho, Colonel Alexey Ivanov of the USSR(chief of the GPU Far East division) secretly met Lord Lytton at the hotel where the team was staying. The clandestine meeting lasted for an hour. On May 22^nd, there was a clandestine meeting between the US delegate, Major General McCoy, and Colonel Ivanov of the USSR. Later, Colonel Ivanov left for Sui-feng ho and continued on to Vladivostok. At that time in history, the USSR was not a member of the League of Nations because of her disapproval of the League of Nations, which was created by the Versailles Treaty. Furthermore, the US did not have diplomatic relations with the USSR. The US accepted a diplomatic tie with the USSR later in 1933. It is very interesting that despite the circumstances, the representative of the USSR had clandestine meetings with representatives of the League of Nations and the US.

Kohsuke Miura, an attaché for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was observing the movements of the Lytton investigative committee. He saw Colonel Ivanov come out of the hotel and get on a train carrying an attaché case, which was chained to his wrist. He suspected that the case contained a very important document, and so he followed the Colonel and snatched the case by force from him on the train. Inside the attaché case, he found a thick set of documents. One of the documents was Lord Lytton’s cfficial report to the League of Nations. Lord Lytton had written to the League of Nations that they should not recognize the Nation of Manchuria, because it was a fabrication of the Japanese  authorities. There were a total of ten articles in the document, stating that they should give Japan the rights to and profits in Manchuria as a condition of Japan returning Manchuria to China, and that Japan and China establish a new treaty, and advise the self-government of Manchuria.

(3) ARA (Anglo-Russo-Americana) Secret Treaty       

There were not any disadvantageous conditions for Japan in the Lord Lytton’s official report. Yet on March 27, 1933, Japan sent its resignation to the League of Nations. The reasons for Japan’s resignation are found in the ARA secret treaty.

The draft of the secret treaty document reads as follows:

�@        China has the right to Manchuria, and the right to control is given to an international Joint Committee;

�A        We recognize Japan’s specific rights and interests, and the international Joint Committee has the right to appoint armed forces stationed in Manchuria;

�B        Japan has the right to sell its rights and interests in Manchuria to another nation; Japan would then lose all positions in the International Joint Committee;

�C        The International Joint Committee appoints the control of Manchuria to the following nations; the US controls the State of Houten (present Sheng yan), England controls of Girin province, the USSR controls Heilongcheng province, and three nations, France, Germany, and Italy controls the State of Johol province; and

�D        It is of the utmost importance to keep the contents and existence of this treaty secret.

 

There was a separate secret treaty between the US and the USSR, which read as follows:

�@   The USSR’s general administrative power of the State of Heilongcheng shall be   unconditionally transferred over to the US one year after the US acknowledges the USSR;

�A   The USSR sells to the US all the rights and control of the East China Railway in the disputed territory, which is owned by the USSR, at a price agreed upon by both parties; and

�B   In return for the above articles 1 and 2, the US shall acknowledge without delay the USSR as a nation and as a most preferred trading nation.

Kousuke Miura was　utterly shocked and tried to deliver the draft to the Ambassador Plenipotentiary Matsuoka. Miura was about to board a ship to Japan and was arrested by the Kanto Army who saw him as suspicious. Kanji Ishihara and Seishiro Itagaki were also very surprised by the contents of the secret document ,but they kept silence so that they could bring it up when the situation became advantageous for them. The Kanto Army gained military control after winning a hard campaign in Manchuria and did not want to hand the document over to the International Joint Committee. They did not want to be eclipsed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and planned to reveal the document at such a times as the Japanese government was about to receive Lytton’s official report. They calculated that the Japanese government would not have any choice but to resign from the League of Nations. This would give the Kanto Army the power to govern and control Manchuria.  

(4) Japan’s Resignation from League of Nation Was to Halt  ARA Secret Treaty

The fact is that the Kanto Army kept the document secret until just prior to the opening day of the League of Nation’s general meeting in March 1933. The elder statesmen of Japan, Kinmochi Saionji and Nobuaki Makino, knew that it would be disadvantageous for Japan if she was isolated from the international society, and they were about to accept the Lytton report, for it at least gave Japan the rights to and profits of Manchuria. Then, Seishiro Itagaki returned from Manchuria, visited Saionji at his home, and showed him the ARA secret treaty. Saionji and Makino were utterly surprised and immediately dispatched an order to Matsuoka in Geneva that Japan would resign from the League of Nations.

The ARA Secret Treaty was going to be released to the public in the US in 1957, but President Eisenhower realized the grave influence of the document and prohibited the release for 50 years; therefore, the document will come to light in 2007.

Incidentally, Ambassador Plenipotentiary Yusuke Matsuoka made his famous speech, titled “Japan on the Cross” at a general meeting of the League of Nations. “Japan created the nation of Manchuria, which was essential to maintain the peace in the Orient,” said Matsuoka, “Currently, no one sees the significance of it, but in 30 or 50 years, the world will recognize that Japan was right.” He added, “Japan is about to be put on a cross like Christ, and just like He was redeemed later in the European societies, Japan will be redeemed someday.” “I am not guilty but I am willing to be put on the cross.” The very nations who made the plot against Japan gave a standing ovation to Matsuoka’s speech; thinking that Japan would not resign from the League of the Nations.

 

3. President Franklin Roosevelt’s Plan to Bomb Japan   

 

(1) China Support Plan

The Japanese Naval airwing fighter planes attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 8, 1941 (December 7, 1941 in US time). The fact is that American President Roosevelt signed an authorization to bomb mainland Japan 5 months prior to this incident, which was exactly 138 days before the Pearl Harbor attack. This official document is called “JB-355”, which was created by the US Joint Bureau (JB) and the presidential assistants. It consisted of 97 pages and was called “China Aid Strategy Implementation and Authorization”.

China and Japan went into an all- out war since they collided on the Marco Polo Bridge in July 1937. In the beginning of 1940, the Chinese army lost many battles against Japan and they had no choice but to withdraw back inland. In October 1940, Chiang Kai-shek requested a meeting with the US Ambassador to China, Nelson T. Johnson, and complained about the situation that the Chinese were facing. That year, the Japanese Navy deployed the “Zero fighter planes”, which had a longer cruising range and could accompany army fighter planes all the way to Chyong-chin, deeper into China. The Chinese Armies were about to collapse and their spirits were at their lowest point. The economy in China was at near crash and Chiang Kai-shek was fearful that the Chinese Communist Party would take advantage of the situation and would advance their control over China. He informed US Ambassador to China Johnson that he needed extensive aid. Johnson conveyed Chiang Kai-shek’s message to President Roosevelt. At the same time, an adviser to the Chinese Air Force, Captain Shennote who arrived at Washington, D.C., brought China’s request to the US joint tactical headquarters and started the review and planning.

(2) The Deadlock of New Deal Policy   

Even before economic crises hit the world, the US always wanted to secure the vast Chinese market for themselves; therefore, the US was afraid that Japan would control the entire Chinese market if they just sat and watched. The new deal policy helped raise the 1937 GNP up to 90.4 billion dollars, and reduce unemployment from 12.83 million to 7.7 million. The Roosevelt government assumed that the US economy was recovering in the past year, so the President adopted “the Wagner Act” to protect worker’s rights and placed welfare policy above big business. Consequently, in 1938, GNP went down and the number of unemployed went as high as 10.37 million.

As a result, President Roosevelt’s economic advisers put emphasis on increased production of the munitions industry, but the American public was not paying attention to European and Asian movements. The President thought that to achieve economic recovery, the US needed to be involved in a war. In 1934, immediately after Japan notified the US that she denounced the Washington Naval Reduction Treaty, the US Congress approved the “First Vinson Navy Expansion Plan” and one hundred naval vessels and a great number of planes were manufactured.

 

(3) Pretext to Join War against Germany and Removing Japanese out of China 

What the “No. JB-355” the plan stated was that 150 Lockheed-Hudson bomber planes accompanied by 350 Curtis P-40 fighter planes would fly from China and go on a bombing mission over the Japanese mainland. The date of the attack was set for September 1941. The US would provide all the costs of the planes, fuel, ammunitions and other materials. All the planes would be piloted by US reserve officers and the supreme commander of the campaign was a retired army officer, Clare Lee Shannote. Furthermore, all the planes were painted with the insignia of the Republic of China Air Force and Chinese flag, and were ready to fly to Japan.

Captain Shennnote, who promoted the plan, retired from the US army flying corps in 1937. Since the Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, recruited Captain Shannote as his military adviser for training the Chinese Air Force, he arrived at Shanghai via Japan in May 1937. Chiang Kai-shek and his wife trusted him, and in September 1937, he was given total authority to develop a strategy for the entire Chinese Air Force and to oversee its training.

The Plan told in detail of the Japanese mainland bombing which would be executed in three stages. The purpose of the campaign was to protect the Burma Route, which ran from Yun-nang in China to Burma. The campaign was aimed to weaken Japan by bombing industrial cities in Japan, to crush the Japanese fighting spirit by destroying the country, and further to smash the Japanese army.

By the time the President signed the “JB-355” plan in July 1941, Germany had defeated France, England was severely weakened by German bombing and the USSR was getting ready to fight Germany. The Japanese army already occupied almost all the towns along the ocean shores of China, and Japanese forces occupied airfields that the US wanted to use to bomb the Japanese mainland; consequently, the plan JB-355 was scrapped.

In July 1999, professor Sharler of the University of Arizona, U.S.A. found the official document that was signed by the President Roosevelt, and it was reported in the newspapers. The JB-355 plan detailed a scheme in which the US plotted to attack Japan with fighter planes disguised as Chinese planes five months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan. The JB-355 plan must be publicly disclosed to the world. By doing so, Americans can learn the true historical events of the US and Japan. The Japanese can also clear up their suspicions against the US.

 

４. Pearl Harbor Conspiracy        

 

(1) 15- year Surveillance Report by Robert B. Stinnett 

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy Task Force comprising of 31 naval vessels, led by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, attacked the US Naval Fleet at the naval port in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, U.S.A. It is a well-known fact that the Pearl Harbor attack brought the US into the war with Japan, as well as with Germany in Europe.

Many historical papers have raised the question that the Pearl Harbor attack could have been a trap planned by the US prior to the war. There have been over 60 articles published concerning the subject. For the past 15 years, Robert B. Stinnett, who is a retired Navy officer and was a journalist for the Oakland Tribune, had been relentlessly petitioning the government under the auspices of “The Freedom of Information Act” to release vast materials and records that were stored in a underground safe at the US Navy headquarters. He finally was able to have them declassified and saw the truth.

For the past 60 years, it has been an accepted theory that the decoders of the US forces could not break the Japanese Navy codes until May of 1942. The declassified documents tell a different story. The US cracked the Japanese Forces and diplomatic Secret codes in February 1940.

According to the US national consensus in 1940, the vast majority of people did not want to join the war in Europe. On the other hand, President Roosevelt and his advisors were concerned about the safety of the US if Germany won the war in Europe. And they felt an urgent need to persuade American people to help the war in Europe.

(2) US President Adopted Recommendation of Lieutenant Commander McCollum

Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum was the chief officer at the Office of Navy Intelligence (ONI) of the Far East. He shared the same conviction as President Roosevelt. He was born in 1898 in Nagasaki, Japan as the son of missionaries and spent his early years in various cities in Japan. He spoke Japanese better than English. When he was 18 years old, he entered the US Naval Academy and after graduation, he went back to Japan as a naval attaché at the US Embassy in Tokyo. Lieutenant Commander McCollum understood that war with Japan was inevitable. He also thought that it was best for the United States to provoke it at the time which suited US interests, and let Japan start the war with the United States. He wrote a five-page memorandum called “ Eight-Action Memo”. He sent the memorandum to Navy Captains Dudley W. Knox and Walter S. Anderson who were the most trusted military advisers to the President. President Roosevelt set forward the US-Japan policy based on this memorandum. The following are the Eight Actions.

�@     Make an agreement with Britain for use of the British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore.

�A     Make an agreement with Holland for use of the base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies ( now Indonesia)

�B     Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek.

�C     Send a division of long-range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines or Singapore.

�D     Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient..

�E     Keep the main strength of the US Fleet, now in the Pacific, in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.

�F     Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly with oil.

�G     Completely embargo all trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.

From November 1940, the US executed their military as well as diplomatic policies toward Japan according to the McCollum memorandum. At that time, McCollum was the one in the US government and armies who knew and understood Japan the best. The schemes to provoke Japan to start a war were executed one by one.

There were another matter that clearly revealed the US strategy against Japan at that time. The US intercepted Japanese communications and decrypted the code. As early as 1907, the US had a plan against Japan, which was called “The Orange Plan”. The US continued to intercept Japanese communications according to the plan. Starting in 1921, the Washington Naval Reduction Talks went on for two years; the three nations, the US, Britain and Japan conducted heated debates. Since the US had intercepted the telegram exchanges of Britain and Japan, the US knew the Japanese government’s plans ahead of the meetings and took the advantage for US policy making. Japan found that out after the talks ended, and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Kijyuro Shidehara, strongly protested to the US. But it was too late.

(3) The US Had 25 Ground Stations to Intercept Japanese Diplomatic and Military Communications     

By early 1941, the US had established 25 monitoring and decoding stations, geographically surrounding the Pacific Ocean. Four monitoring and decoding stations were for decrypting military and diplomatic codes of Japan. Some of the officers disclosed the operation later. The four stations consisted of Oahu wireless communication monitoring Station H on Oahu island headed by communication First Class Private Home Skinner, HYOP Pearl Harbor wireless communication monitoring station directed by Lieutenant Commander Joseph Rochefort, CAST Philippines wireless communication monitoring station on Corregidor Island staffed by communication First Class Private Duwyn Whitrock, and SAIL wireless communication monitoring station near Seattle.

Among the 25 communication monitoring facilities, 12 were for Japanese Navy communications, four were for Japanese Army communications, and the rest were for monitoring the Japanese government’s diplomatic coded messages. The wireless communication records and diaries during the four years, between 1938 and the Pearl Harbor Attack, show that 65 US communication personnel intercepted 1.46 million wireless communications of the Japanese Military. Currently, the records are sealed under the US Top Secret Document Act so Stinnett cannot see the documents yet.

On March 27,1941, eight months before the war started, Tadashi Morimura (his real name was Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa of the Imperial Navy of Japan) boarded a luxurious passenger boat under the disguise of a Chancellor to the Consul General of Japan in Hawaii. Meanwhile the US secretly observed all his movements and intercepted and decoded his communications in “Tsu Code” used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then everything was reported to the State Department and Naval Department in Washington, D.C.

The US knew the Japanese response to the last communiqué that the Secretary of State, Cordel Hull, dispatched to Japan on November 26. The US also knew all the movements of the Japanese Naval Task Forces gathered at the Hitokappu Bay of Etorofu Island, as well as the outcome of the Imperial Council with that the Task Force was headed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The US Government knew them all in detail.

(4) US knew Movements of Japanese Naval Fleet in Detail    

After the war, both the Japanese side and the US side claimed that the Japanese Navy Fleet led by Nagumo was under strict orders for a total communication blackout. Nonetheless, when Stinnett interviewed Skinner and Whitlock, they said that they intercepted 129 telegrams between the Fleet and Tokyo during the 13 days when when the Fleet left the Hitokappu Bay and attacked at the Pearl Harbor. They showed Stinnett the messages.

The following are the telegrams sorted into 7 categories:

�@　Radio transmissions by Admiral Nagumo:                                    60

�A Tokyo radio to the vessels of the First Air Fleet:                                24

�B　Broadcasts originated by aircraft carriers:                                    20

�C　Broadcasts originated by Carrier Division Commanders:                       12

�D　Message originated by vessels attached to the First Fleet,

But were not carriers:                                                        8

�E　Messages originated by Midway Neutralization Unit:                           4

�F　Tokyo radio to individual Carrier Division Commanders:                        1

                                                     TOTAL                 129

It is revealed that the commander in Chief of the Fleet, who knew the strict order for a total communication blackout, violated the order the most. The reason for the violation of communication blackout was that two days after leaving Hitokappu Bay, an atmospheric low-pressure system that developed south of the Aleutian Islands plagued the Fleet. The Fleet consisting of 31 ships was separated and they communicated in low power, but the US was able to intercept their messages. The US was sending to the White House the detailed movements of the Nagumo Fleet approaching Pearl Harbor.

President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Hull, and Admiral Harold Stark did not relay the facts to the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. This incident showed that the US government took a long time to incite Japan to start the war so that American people would rise up to fight. It was a cowardly trap placed by the US for Japan.

After the Pearl Harbor incident, Admiral Kimmel was dismissed from his post for his failure to protect Hawaii. In 1995, the US government admitted that they intentionally did not warm Kimmel of the attack. The government apologized to Kimmel and reinstated his honor. At the same time, Japanese people are still shrouded under the cloak of infamy. The US has not come forward with the truth to Japan.

This article mentioned three historically significant incidents. Other incidents will follow in the next publication. The US needs to rectify the three incidents by investigating the facts of these three incidents and by making a public apology to Japan.

The US also needs to rewrite the history books by disclosing the facts. Currently, the American people are still distrustful of the Japanese people. It will take 30 to 50 years before the truth will prevail; therefore, there is an urgent need to correct the textbooks without delay. The US government has officially apologized and paid compensation to the Japanese Americans who were interned in the concentration camps in the US. Japanese people recognize the US’s courage to apologize when it is needed.

 

References

1. Stinnett, Robert B,: Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, translation by Satao Imose. Bungei-Shunjuu, June 2001.

2. Ikegami, Kaneo: Illusion of a Plan to Dismantle the Kanto Army: Shoden-Sha, April 1989.

3. Go, Zenka: The World America Does Not See; Japanese Culture. The Japanese Culture Research Institute, January 2002.

4. Koh, Bun-yuu: The legacy of the Manshu-Koku. Kobunsha, July 2001.

5. Sugiyama, Katsumi: History of the Super Nation’s Strategy of Foreign Policy. Taka-Shobo Yumi Press, December 1998.

6. Sugiyama, Katsumi: Ups and Downs of England and the US, and Strategy of Japan. Taka-shobo Yumi Press, January 1989.

 

○    Biographies of authors

○    Contents