The Last Days

Cordell Hull, old and ill, raised a trem bling hand to be sworn in as a witness.

During the reading of his 20,000-word statement, he went off to rest. He returned to sit for an hour, an overcoat around his shoulders, while Senators asked questions.

After the former Secretary of State came former Under Secretary Sumner Welles, austere, correct and unshakable.

Although the two had disagreed on many things, they saw eye-to-eye on the events leading up to Pearl Harbor. Their testimony gave the most intimate account yet told of the fated diplomacy of 1941 : August 9-11. At the Atlantic Conference, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were confronted with the fact that Japanese troops had moved into French Indo-China, were massing on the Thailand border, that bellicose Japanese spokesmen were complaining of "encirclement" by the U.S., Britain and China. Churchill urged a joint warning to the Japs, wanted Roosevelt to declare that further Jap aggression would force the U.S. to take counter-measures "even though these might lead to war." The President agreed to the joint warning, boggled at the harsh Churchill phraseology.

August 17. Sumner Welles prepared a "watered-down" version of the warning. It was delivered to the Japs secretly on Aug. 17.

November 18. Kurusu and Nomura called on Hull, proposed as a temporary modus vivendi that the U.S. lift trade restrictions laid on Japan in July. By this time Secretary Hull was convinced that there was "not one chance in a hundred of reaching a peaceful settlement"; Welles thought the chances were one in a thousand.

November 20. The Jap envoys handed Hull a five-point ultimatum which called for the U.S. to abandon all its checks on Japanese aggression.

November 20-25. Franklin Roosevelt, alarmed by the Jap ultimatum, wavered, seriously considered a modus vivendi to last six months. In a penciled note to Cordell Hull he wrote: "U.S. to resume economic relations--some oil and rice now--more later. ... U.S. to introduce Japanese to Chinese to talk things over. . . . Later on Pacific agreements." To Winston Churchill he cabled that this would be "a fair proposition" for the Japs but that he was not hopeful of its acceptance; "we must all be prepared for real trouble, possibly soon."

Chinese reaction to the plan to temporize with Japan was prompt and bitter. Owen Lattimore, U.S. political adviser to Chiang Kaishek, cabled: "I have never seen the Generalissimo really agitated before. . . . [This] would dangerously increase Japan's military advantage in China. . . . The Generalissimo questions his ability to hold the situation together if the Chinese national trust in America is undermined."

From London Churchill cabled with typical British understatement: "What about Chiang Kaishek? Is he not having a very thin diet? ... If [the Chinese] collapse our joint dangers would enormously increase. . . ."

November 26. The objections to temporizing prevailed; Franklin Roosevelt abandoned his plan for retreat. Secretary Hull handed the Japs a ten-point counterproposal to the Nov. 20 ultimatum. The negotiations, as events eleven days later proved, were over. On Nov. 30 Churchill again urged the President by cable to warn the Japs that any further aggression would "lead immediately to the gravest consequences"; instead, Franklin Roosevelt sent his now-famous personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito on Dec. 6. But the war was on.

Said Cordell Hull: "There was never any question of this nation's forcing Japan to fight. The question was whether this country was willing to sacrifice its principles. To have accepted the Japanese proposal of Nov. 20 ... would have made the United States an ally of Japan in Japan's program of conquest and aggression and of collaboration with Hitler."

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