Pinch Hitter

"The less said about Japanese-American relations, the better."

This pregnant opinion was offered in Manila last week by Japan's new and superspecial envoy to the U.S., Saburo Kurusu. Envoy Kurusu was speeding by Clipper to Washington, where officials were equally tight-lipped on the subject of his country and theirs.

That jittery, encircled, embargoed Japan proposed to follow months of Washington conversations with still more conversations was a clear sign that Japan still did not dare to follow its sword-brandishing with swordplay. Yet there was an ominous air of urgency about every move that smooth, solid, bespectacled Saburo Kurusu made.

He left Tokyo on two hours' notice. Just before leaving he told his son, Sublieutenant Ryo Kurusu: "Maybe I will not be able to come back. Look after the family." Then he took a Japanese Army plane to Portuguese Macao, motored to Hong Kong, where he caught the Clipper.

Landing in Manila, Saburo Kurusu was nattily equipped with a Homburg, black morning suit, cane, and bulging brief case. But the smile on his face was fabricated. At a cocktail party he drank sobering orange juice. The editor of the Tokyo Yomiuri, who shares the Japanese lust for baseball, had called him "a pinch hitter on the diplomatic diamond." Pinch Hitter Kurusu was well aware of the pinch.

It was a pinch that hurt more & more. The U.S. had steadily insisted on the freedom of the seas (including the Pacific).

It had steadily insisted that Japan had no special status in East Asia. Between the U.S. Pacific force of arms and increasing U.S. economic pressure, Japan was being squeezed to the point of desperation.

Seven Silly Points. Behind Pinch Hitter Kurusu in Tokyo the Japan Times and Advertiser, which sends up trial balloons for the Foreign Office, sent up a whopper labeled the Seven Points. The U.S., it threatened, must "face the alternatives" if the U.S. did not: 1) Stop aiding Chungking; 2) Leave China free to deal with Japan, advise China to make peace; 3) End Japan's military and economic encirclement; 4) Acknowledge Japan's "co-prosperity" sphere; 5) Recognize Manchukuo; 6) End the freezing of Japanese and Chinese assets; 7) Restore trade treaties and end restrictions on shipping and commerce.

More interesting than these grandiose demands was the fact that they said nothing about Japan's Axis Pact, implying that Japan was weakening on that score. Even more significant was the fact that Japan's new sword-brandishing Army Premier, General Hideki Tojo, had never officially mentioned Japan's Axis alliance, nor gone beyond conveniently vague demands for a "successful" conclusion of the China Incident and for that vast vagueness, the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.

Alternatives: War. If the U.S. and Japan reach no solution, what are the "alternatives" the U.S. must face? Last week Japan appeared too witch-nervous to make up its mind. The war threats in Japan's armory were getting rustier as time went on. English and Dutch defenses in the East Indies were growing stronger. So were U.S. naval and air preparations in the Pacific.

But there was one alternative which would embarrass the U.S. The Times and Advertiser stated it clearly:

"There is always the possibility, even the probability, of a direct march on the Burma Road. America's choice between letting Chungking down or keeping Chungking up would be solved automatically, for it could not assist Chiang Kai-shek's party if the sole remaining major avenue of supply were cut. . . . Chungking then could not blame the U.S. for abandonment of Lend-Lease aid. .. . Perhaps it would be appreciated by peace groups in the U.S."

Would the U.S. fight Japan to keep the Burma Road open? No one was saying. But if the U.S. wanted to fight Japan for any reason, Winston Churchill promised a declaration of war "within the hour."

Alternatives: Peace. If Japan were ready to abandon the Axis and conduct a face-saving withdrawal from China, there would be advantages of peace as obvious to Japanese statesmen as to the U.S. To the U.S. they included resumption of trade with Japan, freedom to use the Pacific Fleet in the Atlantic. To Japan they included resumption of trade with the U.S. (access to the oil and other raw materials that Japan badly wants) and an alliance against Germany's world aims, which are a threat to Japan in the end.

The very best indication that Japan was still shy of war was, after all, Pinch Hitter Kurusu's long, sudden hop. For the most grievous pinch in Japanese history, Japan had at least picked its likeliest pinch hitter. Fifty-four-year-old Saburo Kurusu had just about the maximum sense of the American temper possible to a patriotic, native-born Japanese. Known as the most Westernized of Japanese diplomats, he speaks English well, is an after-dinner wit in several languages. His diplomatic career has taken him to China, the Philippines, Hawaii, Chile, Italy, Greece, New York,

Chicago, Peru. Recently he has been Ambassador to Belgium and Germany.

In Brussels Ambassador Kurusu was suspected of being as anti-Axis as his American wife, who was Alice Little of Chicago. He was a member of the swank Circle Gaulois, to which no German belongs. In Berlin it was Ambassador Kurusu's duty to sign Japan's Axis Pact.

As he soared over the Pacific last week he may well have remembered Japan's first emissary to the U.S. and Europe. He was Takenouchi, Lord of Shimitsuke, who sailed from Yokohama on the British war ship Odin in January 1862, charged with postponing for five years the opening of Japanese ports to foreign vessels. Takenouchi was successful. Last week world-traveled Saburo Kurusu may have wished that he could regain for Japan the U.S. trade contacts that Takenouchi had postponed. But that was up to Pinch Hitter Kurusu's bosses.

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