Lessons of-History

Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew went to Tokyo in 1932 resolved to keep the peace between the U.S. and Japan. His diary published this week (Ten Years in Japan; Simon & Schuster, $3.75) explains why anyone would have failed.

Hardheaded and perceptive, with 28 years of diplomatic experience behind him, Ambassador Grew could read the signs-of Japanese militarism as well as anyone. But many of the princes and politicians with whom he hunted wild duck or played poker seemed anything but barbarians and fools. He determined to work with the moderates, hoping they would regain control over foreign policy.

Only after Japan joined the Axis in 1940 did he lose hope that the moderates might regain power. Then he knew that Japanese policy for an indefinite future had been summed up in a Jap statement made at a Dutch shipping conference: "How can we compromise when you refuse to accept our views?" To the State Department he sent one cautionary telegram after another. Ten months before Pearl Harbor, he warned Washington: "There is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor."

Two months after Pearl Harbor, locked up in his own Embassy, Ambassador Grew observed the tenth anniversary of his mission to Tokyo. Waiting, he jotted down in his diary some "Lessons of History." His timeliest observation, in view of the present rising tide of U.S. nationalism: "We cannot logically on the one hand exercise the right of intervention ... in situations between other nations ... on the ground that our national interests are affected thereby, while on the other hand manifesting indifference to the conditions creating such situations. ... So long as any nation follows policies designed exclusively for the protection and furtherance of its own interests . . . just so long will the welfare of mankind be retarded through unnecessary and futile wars."

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