Posted on 12/07/2019 4:53:35 AM PST by Kaslin
Marie L. Yovanovitch—the American ambassador to Ukraine unceremoniously recalled in May 2019 for allegedly being out of touch with President Trump’s policies—is not the first American ambassador to be at odds with a president’s policy. Joseph Grew, America’s ambassador to Japan in the months before Pearl Harbor, experienced a similar frustration.
Grew saw that U.S. economic sanctions were crippling the Japanese economy—rice was being rationed, the absence of gasoline meant that the few cars traversing Tokyo’s streets had been fitted with charcoal engines, and even imported coffee had been replaced by another questionable brew. Back in Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration were hopeful that a crippled economy would curb Japan’s military aggressions in China and Southeast Asia—and thus minimize the chance of the United States being dragged into a war in the Pacific.
Grew knew otherwise. In August 1941, as the sanctions escalated, he advised Secretary of State Cordell Hull that “a psychology of despair leads characteristically to a do-or-die reaction.” And so, in two telegrams sent in November 1941—only a few weeks before Pearl Harbor—Grew warned Hull that Japan was prepared to launch a “suicidal” war with the United States and that armed conflict could come with “dangerous and dramatic suddenness.” A Japanese attack on the United States might seem foolhardy, Grew continued, but “Japanese sanity cannot be measured by American standards of logic.” For the Japanese, annihilation through a suicidal war was better than the humiliation of succumbing to American pressure.
It was a development that saddened the American ambassador. He had pressed Roosevelt and Hull to be more responsive to Japan’s effort to reach an agreement with the United States to resolve the two countries’ differences. That was an uphill struggle for reasons largely unbeknownst to Grew. From the beginning, Hull thought the chances of reaching an agreement with the Japanese “were no bigger than a gnat.” He regarded Japan as “one of the worst international desperadoes in the history of mankind.” And he subscribed to the view that “no promises of the Japs on paper would be worth anything.”
Still, Hull spent untold hours from the spring of 1941 through the summer and into the fall talking with Japanese representatives about an agreement he knew would probably never come to fruition. America’s military capabilities were woefully inadequate, and Hull acceded to the urging of Roosevelt and the military chiefs to drag the conversations out as long as possible to defer a possible armed conflict in the Pacific for which the United States was not prepared.
Grew did not know of the demands that Roosevelt and the military chiefs had made on Hull, but the ambassador could see the results from his perch in Tokyo. The Japanese prime minister was frustrated because Roosevelt (at Hull’s behest) had sidestepped the prime minister’s request for a meeting on American soil. And, as Grew would later write, Hull’s strategy of delay had conveyed to the Japanese “the unfortunate impression that our Government was merely playing for time and had no real intention to come to an agreement with Japan.”
The ambassador wanted to be helpful, but he sensed that he and the president were on a different page. American policy in those few months before Pearl Harbor, Grew would later write, was “completely inflexible,” and, for him, “reporting to our Government was like throwing pebbles into a lake at night” because “our recommendations were not welcome.”
Grew was bitter after the Pearl Harbor attack—not only because of the loss of American life but also because he thought the Roosevelt administration had squandered a chance to avoid war. During the six months he was held as a prisoner of war in Tokyo, Grew wrote a 60-page report that detailed his criticism of American policy in the months before Pearl Harbor. He thought the report would “be carefully weighed by future historians” on the question whether “war with Japan could have been avoided.”
Roosevelt never had a chance to read the report. When Grew first showed the report to Hull upon his return to the United States in August 1942, the Secretary of State—seeing that it criticized decisions he had made—demanded that Grew destroy it. As a subordinate official in the State Department, the ambassador felt he had no choice but to comply with that demand. And so, while he never had to suffer the humiliation of Yovanovitch in being recalled from his post, Grew did experience the same ultimate disappointment for an ambassador: failing to effectuate a policy that he thought would best serve his country’s interests.
Joe Kennedy
Read the transcript of the phone call. Zelensky said she was a Poroshenko loyalist. He was very clear. He didn’t want her around and she only had a couple months to go with her 3 year stint.
The article reads like “ambassadors know better than presidents”. If FDR had listened to Grew, could Pearl Harbor have been avoided? I guess Grew thought so. And is the lesson now that Trump made a huge mistake by firing Yovonovich? I guess Yavonovich thinks so. And Joe Biden agrees.
“Back in Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration were hopeful that a crippled economy would curb Japan’s military aggressions in China and Southeast Asia—and thus minimize the chance of the United States being dragged into a war in the Pacific. “
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That was patently false. Think of it a MSM Fake News back then on steriods. Roosevelt and his ilk were SALIVATING to get into the war.
Their problem? Getting in there at just the right time, with just the right reason to con the American peoples into being willing to sacrifice their young sons and fathers.
It worked. Unfortunately.
Hardly comparable.
And, following the author’s “logic”, Trump’s failure to listen to the ambassador’s great wisdom will now lead us into a war with-—Ukraine?
Sheesh!!
Yovanovitch had her three year tour CURTAILED by THREE MONTHS. She served longer under Trump than Obama.
An ambassador serves as the personal representative of the President. The President does not need a reason to change ambassadors. All US agencies at post report to the ambassador except for operational military commanders. When a career State Department officer serves as an ambassador, he/she must take a leave of absence from the State Department.
I agree. There were huge differences between Grew and Yovanovitch. She was co-opted by hostile foreign players Poroshenko and Soros...she also showed an obvious animus for Trump.
Oh? So it would have been better if the US had never entered WWII?
Lets play out the scenarios had we not.
Scenario 1: The Germans ultimately defeat the Russians, England reluctantly signs an Armistice with Germany, and the Nazis rule Continental Europe. The Jewish race in Europe is exterminated.
Scenario 2: The Russians beat back the Germans, Germany and Russia sign a ceasefire, and the Nazis and Communists divide Europe.
The British were in no way going to defeat the Axis without our help. And that doesn’t even begin to consider what the Japanese would have done to China and the rest of the far east.
“Give Peace a Chance”, right?
So the demoncrats started WWII. I often wondered why Pearl Harbour was attacked and now we know, the demoncrats and their state department with their sanctions pushed Japan into a corner from where they had no other choice to save face.
Hi, bigdaddy45-!
“The Jewish race in Europe is exterminated.”
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Let’s start with what is probably the most important part of your objection to my ping.
The Jewish race in Europe would never be exterminated.
NEVER.
As the Christians will never be exterminated.
By the very design of our Lord God.
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I didn’t say we should not have entered the war at some point.
I really wish you would find that statement or even the thought process you malign me with concerning your statement.
The President and his ilk were SALIVATING to get into that war. The issue was his using our troops as an excuse to do so.
I have a fundamental issue with lying to the American peoples about using our troops as bait.
Perhaps I was mistaken, I will admit to thinking you were of the same degree expecting out Presidents, Past and Present, to being honest with the American People.
As to wondering what might have happened.
At Midway, Japan lost all of the Aircraft Carriers they brought to the battle. It was an unforeseen VICTORY from the American standpoint. The Japanese couldn’t even tell the Japanese Emperor they lost all those Aircraft Carriers at once. They decided to tell him they lost those Aircraft Carriers over time and not during that one battle.
There were so many unexpected small victories the Americans were granted during the WWII that we simply overlook.
Despite the soldiers killed/maimed/unaccounted for, we really were blessed by the Lord God.
And let me tell you, it wasn’t because of the way we were gotten into the war by a deceptive President and his ilk.
Throwing out a WHAT IF question????
That’s what the Democrats are doing at this precise moment in our history with our current president.
Let us deal with facts, okay?
I bet Yovanovich thinks she will get her job back if President Trump is impeached. If she does I guess Soros will be given a free hand to operate in Ukraine, and Hunter Biden can get another do-nothing $80K stint.
This is all about shutting Soros/Clinton down and the Bidens, Inc got caught up in the corruption net.
The Japs would have had plenty of gas for their cars except it was fueling aggression, murder, rape, slavery, & genocide on its neighbors. Every drop of US oil sold to Japan would be used to continue those crimes. There is no reason to believe than any trade with Japan would have benefited Japanese civilians. FDR was right.
Grew was wrong & a coward. There is plenty of evidence that Japan intended to continue its conquests to India, the Philippines, Australia, & all the Pacific islands, many of them US territories, allies, & friends. Japan would have forced the US into war sooner or later. No amount of negotiation would have prevented this.
Recommended reading - Day of Deceit by Robert Stinnett. Some have dismissed it as conspiracy theory. Yet its basic premise that the US was forewarned about Pearl Harbor is well documented.
General Billy Mitchell and General George Patton both warned of a Japanese attack on the Hawaiian Islands. In 1940, Navy Captain Arthur McCollum issued a report on steps to goad Japan into war. One important step was moving the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, despite objections from Navy brass.
“Recommended reading - Day of Deceit by Robert Stinnett. Some have dismissed it as conspiracy theory. Yet its basic premise that the US was forewarned about Pearl Harbor is well documented.
General Billy Mitchell and General George Patton both warned of a Japanese attack on the Hawaiian Islands. In 1940, Navy Captain Arthur McCollum issued a report on steps to goad Japan into war. One important step was moving the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, despite objections from Navy brass.” [NTHockey, post 15]
“...Roosevelt and his ilk were SALIVATING to get into the war.
Their problem? Getting in there at just the right time, with just the right reason to con the American peoples into being willing to sacrifice their young sons and fathers.
It worked. Unfortunately.” [Notthereyet, post 5]
“...the demoncrats and their state department with their sanctions pushed Japan into a corner from where they had no other choice to save face.” [Colo9250, post 11]
“...The President and his ilk were SALIVATING to get into that war. The issue was his using our troops as an excuse to do so...” [Notthereyet, post 12]
Conspiracy theories are not rendered more valid by citing additional conspiracy theories which cite the first conspiracy theory as fact. Sorry.
There have been ten official investigations into purported failure to anticipate the Japanese air attacks on Hawaii, on 7 December 1941. On the eve of the 75th anniversary in 2016, Air Force Magazine published a summary of them all; the overall conclusion was that none delivered what those demanding them really wanted. Nothing clear-cut could be found - because nothing clear-cut ever existed.
It’s very American to believe that if something really big and bad happens, the cause simply has to be equally big and bad. It’s cute, and superficially plausible, to believe in that sort of symmetry, but it doesn’t always happen that way in the real world: small errors can have big consequences. Even the sharpest, canniest, most careful experts slip up now and then. Coincidence does exist. The future is not set in stone; reading it correctly in advance is never an exact art. Nor can it be. To expect otherwise - especially with regard to military endeavors - is to cling to fiction while denying reality.
Insisting that US forces were not surprised on that Sunday morning 78 years ago save by malfeasance is to succumb to chauvinism. No military establishment, however organized, trained, or equipped, is perfect. Confusion is more common than amateur strategists can bear to admit.
Tactical warning would not have mattered anyway.
Had the US Pacific Fleet steamed forth to battle, it would have been sunk with all hands - in water far too deep to permit recovery. The carriers were not there to provide air cover. Even the staunchest navalists admit that defeat may have happened anyway. The Imperial Japanese Navy was better organized, had thought it through in greater detail, and was more proficient.
Condemnation of the Army Air Corps failure to correctly identify the first wave of attackers detected by radar is likewise meaningless. There were no interceptors on strip alert to be launched; there were no communications to warn them; no command and control system existed to direct their efforts.
The Monday-morning quarterbacks need to get over their self-righteous, self-congratulatory, butthurt indignation. Read _At Dawn We Slept_ by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon. It is at once exhaustive, authoritative, and dispositive: additional books don’t add anything.
The authors conclude that the chief reason the Japanese caught the American forces so flat-footed was lack of air-mindedness on the part of commanders and staffs in the Hawaiian Department: ADM Kimmel and staff had prepared to counter a naval attack. Gen Short and staff had planned to counter an invasion on land. No one gave a moment’s thought to a purely aerial assault. It’s all on record.
The authors also admonish readers that there is no substance to the assertions that the United States somehow “maneuvered” or hoodwinked Imperial Japan into attacking. The decision to go to war was taken at the highest levels of the Imperial government, and nowhere else. American sanctions did not panic then, did not back them into a corner, did not ignite any burning desire on their part to save face. The Japanese had made solid assessments of what their forces could do, planned accordingly, and moved open-eyed into the execution with skill and care and intensity. They erred in reading the mood of the American public before the fact: they gambled that Americans were too soft, too weak-willed, too enamored of their own comfort and ease, to do anything more than fold.
A strange echo of how Hitler & lackeys misread the Soviet Union before striking it the previous summer. A deficiency in understanding foes of the Axis?
“The Monday-morning quarterbacks need to get over their self-righteous, self-congratulatory, butthurt indignation. “
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First, the way you address people you are wish to have a conversation with is demeaning. If you hope to sway people’s opinions with your speech pattern, I recommend you try another and much more amendable means.
Everything you point out does not remove the fact that the president at that time was SALIVATING to get into the war.
In today’s terms: A person can be raped by a stranger who is planning on being available when the time comes. What the victim does leading up to the rape in no way relieves the rapist from the INTENTIONAL decision to rape the victim.
Fate, via the Japanese Navy’s decision and other bits and pieces simply created the Perfect Storm required for the president of the United States to put into affect his desires.
He understood moving the fleet to where he did would create an impression that Japan would see as a possible threat. Compounded upon the warning of the American Ambassador advising him of the straits (suffering) of the Japanese nation he could hardly NOT SEE the resulting actions by the Japanese.
I am intelligent, as are the FReepers you try to malign.
Understanding and respecting of other’s opinions are a valuable trait you need when trying to instruct or convince others.
“First, the way you address people you are wish to have a conversation with is demeaning....the fact that the president at that time was SALIVATING to get into the war...
...moving the fleet to where he did would create an impression that Japan would see as a possible threat...
I am intelligent, as are the FReepers you try to malign.” [Notthereyet, post 17]
Let’s see. So many avenues for cogent analysis.
I’ve refuted these sorts of points before. More than once. Factual support for them hasn’t existed in the past, and no new material has come to light. Typing in all the details has become tiresome, since so many forum members apparently want to believe unverifiable theories than entertain facts that don’t fit.
I will, therefore, attempt to illuminate the historical and philosophical situation with a few general observations.
A trading nation cannot be isolationist. The two simply don’t match anywhere.
Lack of evidence for a conspiracy does not prove the existence of a conspiracy.
In early 1991, William F Buckley critiqued those opposed to DESERT STORM by offering an addendum to the quote about harboring a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” suggesting it should be emended to “a decent respect for the decent opinions of mankind.” He suggested the change to cut short the never-ending palaver: we shouldn’t have re-state the proof every day, that Communism was evil, that retreat from opposition to USSR or PRC was unwise, that Ba’athist Iraq’s aggression was too risky to tolerate, etc. Establishing those truths from the ground up simply wasted time we could spend better, in mounting a response.
For years, I have watched the debate on this forum, over broad policies such as isolationism, or more-specific events in history, such as US involvement in the World Wars, Cold War, counter-terror campaigns, coups in Guatemala, Iran, Chile, Allied bombing campaigns, etc. Changes in detail don’t happen, but the tone and style sure have.
These days the central point seems how strongly the moralizers, anti-interventionists, traditionalists, etc hold their beliefs. They march farther away from reality with each post. I would submit that their opinions can’t pass the decency test. How, then, can it be claimed that the rest of us are still unconditionally obligated to treat them with gentleness, deference, and respect?
At bottom, what they are saying is “I know what I know and that’s that.”
If that is your position, then no amount of detail I can post is going to help. Claiming to be the very model of “intelligence” is not really an honest answer; I’ve met hundreds of people who insisted they possessed more intelligence than I, but who did more harm than good, to the organization, the cause, and the task at hand.
Hanson, Victor Davis. _The Father of Us All: War and History/Ancient and Modern_. Bloomsbury, 2011 Reprint, paperback).
I offer my apologies to Notthereyet, and to other forum members who may have felt their feelings have been bruised, or their metaphorical toes trodden upon. If this forum has rules of conduct, expression, and etiquette beyond the basics, I’ve not been made aware of them.
Forum members post Victor Davis Hanson’s op-ed columns with enthusiasm and approval, but not many of us show much evidence of having read his books.
In _The Father of Us All_, he draws back some, from specific events and incidents, to present broader, more-generalized conclusions concerning armed conflict in human history.
One of his chief conclusions is that weakness, reluctance, irresolution, and low capabilities invite conflict - increasing the likelihood of war, not decreasing it.
Isolationism, waffling, unilateral disarmament, pacifism, and protestations of benign intentions thus bring more trouble. Not less.
I was drawn to history before I learned to read. My interest first took recognizable form over 60 years ago. But I failed to make the connection until yesterday.
So I beg forgiveness, for growing impatient.
Read up. Draw your own conclusions.
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