Enormous Room

Mussolini placed his desk at the end of a huge room so that visitors would have time to grow uncomfortable as they approached it. Last week Saburo Kurusu. Japan's special envoy, crossed the U.S. like a man going across a more enormous room.

Nobody tried to make Saburo Kurusu uncomfortable as he made his way across the wide U.S. floor of deserts, mountains, factories, farms, politics, confusion, but at each step he could see reminders of the power of the U.S.

This was not Kurusu's first trip to the U.S. He had seen it as a young man, when, in the consular service, he had met and married Alice Little of Chicago. He had seen the U.S. in the days when Japanese, in their first enthusiastic adherence to the Axis, made no secret of their indifference to U.S. opinion, of their reliance on power alone. But when the Clipper came down in San Francisco, after slipping in through the huge ring of defenses that guard the Golden Gate, Saburo Kurusu made his first U.S. statement, hopefully. Said he: "The people of Japan and the United States should take peace for granted. . . . I fully realize the difficulty of my task, but, making a tight scrum, I wish I could break through the line and make a touchdown."(A fellow Japanese hastily explained that the word scrum was borrowed from British rugby.) "There are many people,"added Kurusu earnestly, "who want to bring our two countries into war for their own advantage."

"Do you mean Germany and Italy?"a reporter asked.

Without seeming to hear. Envoy Kurusu turned, walked away, got aboard the plane to Burbank.

Nobody planned Saburo Kurusu's trip to impress him. But there is now no way to cross the U.S.--except on foot through the woods, or on a dark night above the clouds--and not see signs of U.S. arms, signs of U.S. strength. Kurusu flew southward over United's crow line, over California's infinitely fertile farmlands, over forests of oil derricks, in fields which alone produce many times as much oil as Japan consumes. Around them lay the exotic square miles of California, in itself almost twice as big as the mainland of Japan. If the envoy was impressed, he did not show it. Behind his American-made Ful-Vue glasses his agate eyes were expressionless.

He talked politely to fellow passengers, gave no hint of his thoughts. He must have known that in Washington, at the other end of the enormous room, it was estimated that the chances were 9-to-10 that Japan and the U.S. would go to war.

When his plane came down at Burbank, it landed beside the great Lockheed and Vega plants that cover nearly 400 acres. Hundreds of war planes, complete and incomplete, stood in the fields outside the guarded buildings. TWA's stratoliner roared off with him toward the darkening east, above the clouds, over the Painted Desert, past the San Francisco Mountains, whose highest peak rises higher than sacred Fujiyama. When the plane came down at Albuquerque (on another huge new Army air field) Saburo Kurusu had already flown in the U.S. farther than from Shanghai to Chungking. And he was less than a third of the way across the enormous room.

Saburo Kurusu was tired. He went to bed early. Next morning, beyond Chicago, the envoy read the violently isolationist Chicago Tribune: REPEAL u.s. NEUTRALITY ACT. Yet if he looked more closely at that edition of the paper he could have found reason for comfort. There were editorials saying that the U.S. was being tricked into war, two stories about bitter U.S.-British quarrels, a half-dozen about U.S. divorces, three about U.S. murders, many about U.S. strikes. By the time he reached LaGuardia Field, Saburo Kurusu was a little fresher. "This country is the land of liberty," said he. "Please give me the liberty of silence. I want to rest."

There was no chance to rest. The plane that carried Saburo Kurusu to Washington passed over the manufacturing plants that stretch like a single enormous factory to the Maryland line, over the giant Martin airplane plant. Saburo Kurusu was reaching the end of the enormous room. He had glimpsed steel, oil, aircraft and other productive facilities that make pygmies of those which Japan possesses. At Washington airport the only U.S. official on hand was amiable Joseph Ballantine, assistant chief of the State Department's Far Eastern Division. Envoy Kurusu no longer spoke of touchdowns. "Finishing my long and strenuous trip . . . courtesy of American Governmental officials . . . I still feel I have a fighting chance for the success of my mission. . . ."

A day passed while he rested. With Ambassador Nomura he called on Secretary Hull, remained 23 minutes, visited the White House where, at the end of the enormous room, President Roosevelt was waiting. When he emerged, an hour and ten minutes later, a reporter asked Nomura if he felt the discussion was successful. Saburo Kurusu nudged Nomura into silence. The U.S. speculated. But at week's end things stood as they had when Kurusu arrived.

Then a reporter had asked: "What would you put on your chances for success?"

Said Kurusu, with a short laugh: "You are the bookmakers."

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