FAR EAST PEACE PARLEYS IN 1941

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21901, 20 December 1945, Page 7

FAR EAST PEACE PARLEYS IN 1941

KONOYE MEMOIRS ON U.S.-JAPAN TALKS

MATSUOKA BLAMED FOR PLAN’S FAILURE

(10 a.m.) ‘ TOKIO, December 19. A plan before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour to adjust relations between Japan and America, is revealed in the memoirs of Prince Konoye, a former Prime Minister of Japan, who committed suicide this week. The memoirs are now in the possession of the United States war crimes prosecutor. It is uncertain when these memoirs were written, but they include details of private and unofficial talks between Japan and America during the second and third Cabinets under Konoye’s leadership and run to within seven weeks of the attack on Pearl Harbour. President Roosevelt and Mr. Cordell Hull both knew of these talks, according to Konoye, and Mr. Hull later took part in the plan which emerged from the talks.

TermsJ’or Peace In China Konoye described the programme as being based on the American promise to help to obtain Chungking’s agreement to peace in China. It was proposed that a settlement of hostilities in China was vital for Japan and Japanese-American rapprochement. Under the plan, China would be guaranteed independence and Japan would withdraw her troops without annexation of territory and without reparations, and the open-door policy would be revived and General Chiang and the puppet regimes would be united.

goodwill. Matsuoka was stalled but he went as far as revising the plan which was accepted by Cabinet. Matsuoka’s Intrigues

Matsuoka sent the chief of the Japanese European and Asiatic diplomatic bureau to inform the German and Italian Ambassadors as an absolute secret that Japan had received a secret proposal for an adjustment of diplomatic relations.

Matsuoka then went to the Emperor and said that if America entered the European war, Japan must stand with Germany and Italy and the adjustment of Japanese-American relations would be in vain. In any case if Japan was going back on her trust with Germany and Italy, by too much concentration on the American question, he must be allowed to resign.

The memoirs added that neither the United States nor Japan was in a position to threaten each other, and a formal exchange of visits of fleets was proposed to celebrate peace in the Pacific. Konoye recounted that when Yosuke Matsuoka, the Foreign Minister, returned from Europe on April 22. 1941, he met him at the airport intending to present the important plan at the psychological moment, but Matsuoka was in a bad mood and assumed an attitude of disinterest. The same night Matsuoka waxed loud and fiery on his visit to Europe, and when the problem was shifted to the American plan, he stressed Germany’s trust of Japan under the tripartite pact.

Konoye said that the long-delayed revisions, when submitted to Mr. Cordell Hull, did not set well with him. The friction between the Cabinet and Matsuoka increased and even the Emperor is reported to have inquired about the possibility of his removal but he remained adamant in his atti tude towards America. “I wondered if Matsuoka had made an important promise whie he was in Germany,” said Konoye. “Tbe high hopes which the Japanese leaders held for a successful understanding with the United States then began to fail.’

Matsuoka said the American plan was 70 per cent evilwill and 30 per cent