WAR RESPONSIBILITY--delving into the past (4) / Tojo erases 'seeds for avoiding war'

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Why did Japan initiate hostilities against the United States without rationally assessing whether it had the material capacity to fight such a war?

Senior army officers who supported the idea of going to war included Hajime Sugiyama, chief of the Army General Staff Office, Deputy Chief Osamu Tsukada and Shinichi Tanaka, chief of operations at the Army General Staff. At the midcareer level, Takushiro Hattori, chief of the Operations Section, and Kenryo Sato, chief of the Military Affairs Section, among others, supported the war.

In the navy, midcareer officers such as Naval Chief of Staff Adm. Osami Nagano and Shingo Ishikawa, chief of the Second Military Affairs Section, advocated going to war against the United States.

Despite having some qualms about such a war, many military and political leaders were persuaded by war proponents.

Asked by War Minister Hideki Tojo about the prospects for victory against the United States, Navy Minister Koshiro Oikawa replied he was not confident the United States could be defeated.

Shigetaro Shimada, Oikawa's successor as navy minister, and Takazumi Oka, chief of the Navy Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau, also did not clearly state where they stood.

Akira Muto, then the chief of the War Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau, told Oka the army would follow the navy if it declared "the navy does not want the war."

But Oka rejected this proposal, and a chance to avert the war was lost.

In December 1940, a year before the war started, the second cabinet of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe started negotiations with the United States to avoid a war.

However, Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, who gambled that concluding the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in September 1940 was in Japan's interests, took a different course of action from the Konoe Cabinet and concluded the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact with Soviet leader Josef Stalin in April 1941.

The Japan-U.S. negotiations initially started as talks between figures in the private sector. However, Matsuoka strongly opposed the civilian-led negotiations. The negotiations became deadlocked because the army opposed withdrawing its troops from China, which was one condition for peace put forward by Washington.

Konoe dismissed Matsuoka and sought to break the stalemate through direct negotiations with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Konoe, however, faced strong resistance from War Minister Tojo against any military withdrawal from China, and stepped down from the office in October 1941, as he did in January 1939.

After the fall of the second Konoe Cabinet, Koichi Kido, lord keeper of the privy seal, strongly pressed for Tojo to succeed Konoe. Since the second Konoe Cabinet, Kido had been deeply involved in choosing prime ministers. The Tojo administration was established, but Kido's recommendation of Tojo to be prime minister was an error of judgment.

Kido told Tojo that he had a message from the Emperor Showa to scrap the policy of seeking war against the United States. For a time, Tojo charted a course that sought to avert the war with the United States.

However, he was unable to stop the slide toward war because war advocates dominated the opinions of the army and navy, just like in the previous cabinet.

Meanwhile, Teiichi Suzuki, the president of the Cabinet Planning Board, which was tasked with planning the nation's wartime economy, was also heavily responsible for Japan going to war with the United States. Suzuki was in a position to object, or at least raise doubts, about Japan's capability to conduct a war from the viewpoint of military-related supplies.

In fact, Suzuki reportedly said at the time of the Konoe Cabinet that Japan would become unable to obtain oil even if it occupied oil bases in Dutch Indochina because the bases likely would be destroyed by the enemy.

However, he did an about-face during the final assessment on the national strength immediately before the war's start, and said Japan would "be able to sustain itself with effort" in terms of oil supply.

Convinced that opening the war "would be advantageous for Japan in terms of maintaining and boosting the national strength," Suzuki supported the pro-war forces.

The main responsibility for the decision to start the war against the United States should rest with each minister in the Tojo Cabinet, including Tojo himself as prime minister, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo and Finance Minister Okinori Kaya, as they were in a position to advise the Emperor.

It is known that Togo and Kaya actually tried to persuade Cabinet ministers to try to avoid the war.

On the other hand, the navy was preparing for an operation toward Hawaii. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, went ahead with the Pearl Harbor attack that has often been described as a "gamble."

The handing of a memorandum effectively declaring war on the United States was delayed by mistakes by the Japanese Embassy in Washington. This caused the escalation of anti-Japan sentiment and a growing perception in the United States of "the dirty Japanese."

Those mainly responsible

-- Hideki Tojo, prime minister, war minister

-- Hajime Sugiyama, chief of the Army General Staff

-- Osami Nagano, chief of the Naval General Staff

-- Shigetaro Shimada, navy minister

-- Takazumi Oka, chief of the Navy Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau

-- Shinichi Tanaka, chief of operations at the Army General Staff

-- Teiichi Suzuki, president of the Cabinet Planning Board

-- Koichi Kido, lord keeper of the privy seal