Journey to the Missouri Book

JOURNEY TO FH E BY TOSHIKAZU KASE W Former Member of the Japanese Foreign Office EDITED WITH A FOREWORD BY DAVID NELSON ROWE Professor of Political Science Research Associate, Institute of International Studies Yale University NEW HAVEN Tale University Press LONDON GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form except by reviewers for the public press, without written permission from the publishers. TO Joseph C. Grew In appreciation of our old friendship Editors Foreword THIS VOLUME was written by its Japanese author in the English language and primarily for the American public. It is mainly concerned with the background of the Pacific war, the chief causes of Japans entry into that war and of her defeat, and the efforts of responsible Japanese, beginning as early as 1944, to bring the war to an end by surrender. To the student of contem porary Japan, however, the book is also important for its disclosure of the authors attitudes as they bear on problems of the present. They come out as he treats his main themes, and they are the atti tudes of an American-educated former diplomat who served the Japanese Foreign Office in various responsible capacities around the world over a period of some twenty years. The views held by such an individual on the subjects and persons discussed here assume an especial significance as the sixth year of the occupation begins. The volume is particularly interesting in view of the fact that few if any of the many Japanese publications appearing since the surrender have been made generally available to the American public. Only one of the reasons for this is, of course, that very few Americans read the Japanese language. Mr. Kase must be given high praise for his courage and initiative in undertaking to write his book in English. One does not need to ask how many American diplomats, past or present, could have written a book in Japanese, or, for that matter, in any other Far Eastern language. The ques tion answers itself. All this lends particular interest to this Japanese story of the com ing of the war, the war itself, and the eventual surrender on the deck of the battleship Missouri. Mr. Kase, for example, takes a very strongly pro-American attitude, to which is joined an only less strongly stated pro-British point of view. He fully acknowledges the great debt owed by his people to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander for the Allied powers. He supports the Jap anese Emperor, both the institution and the present ruler. One of his chief concerns is to clear the Emperor of any possible responsi vi JOURNEY TO THE MISSOURI bility for bringing on the Pacific war. On the other hand, he is equally interested in connecting the Emperor with the decision to surrender, a connection which seems well supported by the evi dence. There is apparent in this book, however, the difficulty in herent in attributing power and influence to the Emperor in the latter instance while denying it in the former. As the editor had occasion to point out in August, 1 945, the posi tion of the Emperor was crucial in the minds of the Japanese oli gkrchy in the days before the surrender, perhaps because the government had previously made every effort to connect the Emperor in the minds of the people with the inception and conduct of the Pacific war. 1 This propaganda line, which at best enjoyed only a partial success, was doubtless aimed at giving the Emperor credit for an eventual victory, as well as mobilizing public support to make that victory possible. At any rate, Mr. Kase performs a valuable service in corroborating previous evidence of the central concern of the governing group in Japan before surrender with the preservation of the position of the Emperor...Read More