THE US, NOT JAPAN, WAS THE AGGRESSOR
Moteki Hiromichi, Secretary-General
SOCIETY FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF HISTORICAL FACT
13 years to the day before Pearl Harbor
On March 10, 1948, at the Tokyo Trials, William Logan, Jr., one of the defense
attorneys, delivered his closing argument. In it he maintained that “Japan was
provoked into a war of self-defense.”
Thirteen years ago to the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor announcing the commencement of open hostilities in the
Pacific, a group of distinguished American statesmen were assembled
in the Capitol Building at Washington, D.C. Their purpose was todiscuss the advisability of the United States ratification of the now
famous Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact. In the group was none other thanthe co-author of that document himself, then Secretary of State, theHonorable Frank B. Kellogg.1

The Kellogg-Briand Treaty (also known as the Pact of Paris) was the sole basis ininternational law for the charges of aggressive war levied against Japan. Deliberationsin the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations over the ratification of that treaty
took place on December 7, 1928, 13 years to the day before the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor. Frank B. Kellogg, then Secretary of State and one of the authors of thetreaty, was, of course, present.
During those deliberations Senator Claude A. Swanson (Virginia) posed the following
question to Secretary Kellogg: “Suppose a country is not attacked. Suppose there is an
economic blockade, and they carry out their obligations under the League of Nations
for an economic blockade; would this treaty interfere with it?” Kellogg’s reply: Thereis no such thing as a blockade without you are in war.” He added, “An act of war,absolutely.”2 From this interchange we can conclude that, in 1928, the notion that an
economic blockade was an act of war was firmly ingrained, if not in the minds of theAmerican public, certainly in the minds of the authors of the Pact of Paris and thesenators who ratified it.
In fact, the oft-referred-to perception prevailing at that time, i.e., that sovereignty gave
nations the right to determine what constitutes a legitimate act of self-defense, had its
origin in a statement made by Kellogg at those hearings.

1

Kobori Keiichiro, The Tokyo Trials: The Unheard Defense (Rockport, ME: New England
History Press, 2003), p.240.
2“Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, SeventiethCongress on The General Pact for the Renunciation of War signed at Paris August 27, 1928,”
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kbhear.asp.

As I have explained before, nobody on earth, probably, could write anarticle defining “self-defense” or “aggressor” that some country could
not get around, and I made up my mind that the only safe thing for any
country to do was to judge for itself within its sovereign rights whether
it was unjustly attacked and had a right to defend itself, and it must
answer to the opinion of the world.3

Economic blockades and their effects
Now let us return to the question of whether an economic blockade is an act of war.
At the IMTFE, the prosecution attempted to justify the economic blockade with thefollowing rhetoric: “We are all clear that you cannot justify an attack on anothercountry because the other country decides not to trade with you unless perhaps that
trade is vital to your very existence.”4
However, the economic blockade imposed by the US and its allies was not simply amatter of one nation’s refusing to trade with Japan. Here is Logan’s rebuttal.
This was more than the old fashioned encirclement of a nation by shipsof overwhelming superiority and refusing to allow commerce to enteror leave. It was the act of all powerful and greatly superior economic
states against a confessedly dependent island nation whose existence
and economics were predicated upon world commercial relations.5

Then Logan proceeded to prove that, contrary to the prosecution’s claim thatdiminution of military supplies was the objective of the Allied economic blockade ofJapan, said blockade “affected all types of civilian goods and trade, even food.”
The terrific impact of the freezing orders on the civilian life of Japan has been amply
demonstrated by the evidence. A large number of trades, industries, and commodities
whose very existence depended upon the importation of raw materials and theexportation of finished products unrelated to the production of military goods wereimmediately affected. Some of these were as follows: Cement, aluminum, lead,copper, coal, rice, beans, phosphate rock, fats, oil and oil bearing materials, hides andskin, tanning materials, leather and leather manufactures, potassium salts, wheat andwheat flour, zinc, sugar, lumber, textile machinery, sulphur and sulphuric acid, wool
and wool manufactures, marine products, soda, ash and caustic soda, chemical
nitrogen, rayon yarn and staple fibre, bicycles, electrical equipment, silk fabrics,
cotton textiles, rubber and rubber manufactures, rayon fabrics, and raw cotton. The
evidence further discloses that the freezing orders effected [sic] such basic
commodities as rice, fodder, cattle, sugar, fertilizers, salt and so forth. Its textile
industries including such materials as cotton, wool, silk and rayon upon which manyof the civilian population depended for a living were practically brought to a

3

Ibid.

4

Kobori, op. cit., p. 261.

5

Ibid., p. 241.

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standstill.6
On July 26, 1939 the US announced the abrogation of the Treaty of Commerce andNavigation, which it had signed with Japan in 1911. The reason given by Secretary ofState Cordell Hull was that “the operation of the most favored nation clause of thetreaty was a bar to the adoption of retaliatory measures against Japanese commerce.”7Japan had not infringed upon American rights in any way whatsoever. The retaliatory
measures of which Hull spoke concerned Japan’s China policy, and was intended torestrict Japanese activity there. At that point the US was already, through China,
engaged in behavior that was clearly antagonistic toward Japan.
And a new version of Plan Orange formulated in 1938 included putting pressure on
Japan by halting the export of petroleum, upon which Japan depended, from the US.
In December 1939 a “moral embargo” banning the export of aviation gasoline toJapan was imposed. More embargos followed: one on lower-quality, high-octane
aviation gasoline in August 1940; another on iron and steel (and iron and steel
products) in December 1940; and still others on radium and uranium in January 1941.
Finally, on July 25, 1941 the US issued an order freezing all Japanese assets in the US,
citing as its reason the advance of Japanese troops into southern French Indochina.
The order effectively halted all trade between Japan and the US. The coup de grâce
came on August 1 when an embargo was placed on the export of petroleum, a vital
resource, to Japan. Great Britain and the Netherlands, which had already limited
imports from and exports to Japan, followed suit.
The consequences of these actions amounted, needless to say, to a lethal blow toJapan, since, prosecution’s argument notwithstanding, trade was indeed vital to
Japan’s very existence.
MacArthur’s testimony validates Japanese position
Gen. Douglas MacArthur obviously agreed with this assessment, given his testimony
before the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees of the US Senate, 82nd
Congress, on May 3, 1951. An excerpt follows.
Potentially the labor pool in Japan, both in quantity and quality, is as
good as anything that I have ever known. Some place down the line
they have discovered what you might call the dignity of labor, that
men are happier when they are working and constructing than when
they are idling.
This enormous capacity for work meant that they had to havesomething to work on. They built the factories, they had the labor, butthey didn’t have the basic materials.

6

Ibid., pp. 267-8.

7

Ibid., p. 262.

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There is practically nothing indigenous to Japan except the silkworm.
They lack cotton, they lack wool, they lack petroleum products, theylack tin, they lack rubber, they lack a great many other things, all ofwhich was in the Asiatic basin.
They feared that if those supplies were cut off, there would be 10 to 12
million people unoccupied in Japan. Their purpose, therefore, in goingto war was largely dictated by security.8

Here we have Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the former Supreme Commander of theAllied Forces (and the highest authority over the IMTFE, which deemed Japan anaggressor nation) saying in no uncertain terms that Japan, in initiating hostilities, wasexercising its right of self-defense. At this point I would very much like to say that
this controversy has been settled once and for all. However, since there are some who
remain unconvinced, I shall respond to their objections.
One argument that has come to my attention is that when MacArthur said that Japan’s
purpose “in going to war was largely dictated by security,” he did not necessarilymean “national security.” But MacArthur was a military man; he could not havemeant anything else but “national security” — the sort of security on which national
survival hinges.
Another argument goes as follows: in his testimony MacArthur was not speaking on
behalf of the US government, nor was he asked what caused war to break out between
the two nations. Accordingly, his remarks were not official, but personal — he wassimply speaking his mind. Perhaps that was the case, but we should be mindful that
this was an extraordinarily significant statement for someone who was the supreme
authority during the Japanese occupation to make before two Senate committees. It is
possible that if he had been asked specifically about the causes of the war, MacArthur
might not have made such an open, honest statement. However, it is very likely thathe spoke candidly during a long session that covered many topics.
Therefore, we Japanese have the right to make full use of this testimony in our quest
to settle the debate about the causes of war with the US.
American solipsism caused the war
With some help from MacArthur, we have demonstrated that the economic blockade,an act of war perpetrated by the US, prompted Japan to exercise its right of selfdefense. However, the story does not end here. The truth is that long before theeconomic blockade, the US was acting in a manner that was bound to thrust Japan
into dire economic straits.
The Wall Street crash on October 24, 1929, dealt a devastating blow not only to the
US economy, but also to the world economy. The resulting panic was long-lasting and,again, global. US industrial production in 1932 plummeted to half what it had been in1929. Since the US had accounted for approximately one-third of the world GDP, the8United States Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Inquiry into the militarysituation in the Far East and the facts surrounding the relief of General of the Army Douglas
MacArthur from his assignment in that area (Washington, DC: Ward and Paul, 1951), p. 57.

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repercussions were huge. Under such circumstances the US should have accepted acommensurate amount of responsibility toward the world economy, but in thatparticular crisis the American stance was solipsistic.
In 1930 the US Congress passed the Smooth-Hawley Tariff Act. The legislation,
intended to protect the US from foreign competition, raised tariffs on 20,000 imported
items to a record high of 40% on average.
The blow to Japan, 42% of whose exports were destined for the US, was exceedingly
severe. The effects of the legislation spread throughout the entire world, and hastened
the formation of economic blocs.
The British Empire Economic Conference, held in Ottawa, Canada in 1932, gave riseto the Ottawa Agreements, which imposed tariffs on goods imported from noncommonwealth nations.
The year 1933 saw the Netherlands implement emergency limits on imports, which
affected imports to Indonesia as well. In the same year France and its colonies formed
a franc bloc.
In 1934 the US passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. This legislation made it
possible to lower tariffs on imports from nations with which the US had concluded
trade agreements. Japan was not a party to any such pact with the US; it was mainly
Latin American nations with which the US signed such agreements, thus forming an
American bloc.
In other words, the US spearheaded the displacement of free trade from the world’s
markets, and turned the world into protectionist blocs.
With the world economy divided into blocs, Japan was forced to secure neighboringmarkets. The Manchurian Incident was a legitimate act of self-defense on Japan’s part,a response to having its legitimate interests encroached on, time after time, by
warlords with regional power bases. It was also a minimal response to the division of
the world’s markets into blocs.
US refuses to recognize Manzhouguo
But the US refused to recognize Manzhouguo, [the fruit of Japanese enterprise]. At
one point Theodore Roosevelt had encouraged Japan to adopt the Monroe Doctrine in
Asia. Furthermore, according to the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, signed in 1917, the US
acknowledged special Japanese interests in China. However, the US later did an
about-face and refused to recognize Manzhouguo, using the affirmation of Chinese
territorial integrity in the Nine-Power Treaty, signed in Washington, DC in 1922, as
an excuse. In a memorandum entitled “Developments Affecting American Policy in
the Far East,” John MacMurray (US envoy to the Republic of China from 1925 to1929 and one of the chief proponents of the Nine-Power Treaty) writes that whatcaused the Washington framework to collapse was China’s revolutionary diplomacy,

5and that Japan was simply exercising, and rightfully so, its right of self-defense.9
The US preached the Monroe Doctrine, refusing to brook interference from othernations in Central and South America. Though it retained considerable special
interests in those regions, and wielded considerable political and economic control
over them, why was the US unwilling to recognize the Japanese version of that
doctrine? Several reasons have been cited, but perhaps the most convincing argument
is that the nature of manifest destiny, the fundamental American belief in
expansionism, changed.
When Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency, manifest destiny was construed as
the westward advancement of Anglo-Saxon civilization and Christianity. Roosevelt
perceived Japan as a kindred spirit — the sole Asian proponent of the Anglo-Saxon
civilization. He did not seem view Japan as an enemy of Christianity.
But in the 1930s the prospects changed. The problem was Christianity. Christian
missionaries are the embodiment of manifest destiny, but they proselytized with much
more fervor in China than Japan. In China they were subjected to persecution innumerous instances, much more so than in Japan. Willing to die for their beliefs, themissionaries soldiered on, and ultimately tasted decisive victory, which came in theform of Chiang Kai-shek’s conversion in 1927. Subsequently they came to view
Chiang as a guardian of Christianity, as the exemplar of Christianity in the Far East.
Manchurian Incident invites American hostility
Both the Manchurian Incident and the founding of Manzhouguo were legitimate acts.
Japan’s survival hinged on them, given the division of the world into economic blocs,
spearheaded by the US. But the US invoked the Stimson Doctrine, according to which
the US government would not recognize “any situation, treaty, or agreement … which
may impair the treaty rights of the United States or its citizens in China, including
those which relate to the sovereignty, the independence, or the territorial andadministrative integrity of the Republic of China, or to the international policy
relative to China, commonly known as the open door policy … .”10
Stimson mentioned the sovereignty of China, but that was a baseless claim. The Qing
dynasty — not China — had sovereignty over Manchuria. With Emperor Puyi’s
restoration to the throne, that sovereignty reverted to him as head of state.
Furthermore, Manzhouguo in no way infringed on the treaty rights of the US or its
citizens. The claim was audacious, particularly since the US had supposedly adopted
an open-door policy. Secretary Stimson went as far as to propose economic sanctions
against Japan, but President Herbert Hoover rejected his proposal.

9

John Van Antwerp MacMurray, How the Peace Was Lost: The 1935 Memorandum,
Developments Affecting American Policy in the Far East, ed. Arthur Waldron (Stanford, California:
Hoover Institution Press, 1992), p.2.
10

United States Department of State, Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers,
1932. The Far East, pp. 7-8; http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUSidx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1932v03.p0112&id=FRUS.FRUS1932v03&isize=M&q1=impair%20the%20treaty

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When the Hoover administration was succeeded by that of Franklin Roosevelt, themood became even more hostile toward Japan, for the following reasons.
First, Roosevelt harbored favorable notions about China. Second, he detested, or
rather, looked down on Japan. This is a man who actually believed in cross-breeding
the inferior, lunatic Japanese race with the bright and cheery natives of the South
Pacific.11
The third is the belief that Japan has a feudalistic, backward culture, which can betraced to a Marxist historical standpoint (at the time the historical standpoint
embraced by the Frankfurt School, or neo-Marxism, dominated in American
academic circles). This factor combined with the second formed the conviction thatJapan needed to be completely reformed.
When the Second Sino-Japanese War commenced in 1937 American pro-China
leanings grew stronger. The conflict began with hostilities in Shanghai in August ofthat year. Even the normally anti-Japanese, pro-Chinese New York Times blamed
China.
“Opinions may differ regarding the responsibility for the opening of
hostilities in the vicinity of Peiping [Beijing] early in July,” said one
foreign official … “but concerning the Shanghai hostilities the records
will justify only one decision. The Japanese did not want a repetitionof the fighting here and exhibited forbearance and patience and did
everything possible to avoid aggravating the situation. But they wereliterally pushed into the clash by the Chinese, who seemed intent on
involving the foreign area and foreign interests in this clash.”12

However, on October 5, President Roosevelt delivered what came to be known as his“Quarantine Speech” in Chicago. Here is an excerpt.
Without a declaration of war and without warning or justification of
any kind, civilians, including vast numbers of women and children, arebeing ruthlessly murdered with bombs from the air.
(…)
And mark this well: When an epidemic of physical disease starts to
spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of thepatients in order to protect the health of the community against the
spread of the disease.13

One could easily mistake Roosevelt’s language for that of wartime Chinese or proChinese propaganda. It later became clear that by “quarantine,” Roosevelt’s meant
11

Kase Hideaki, Nippon wo ayamaraseta Kokurenkyo to kenpo shinja (How undue faith in the
UN and the Constitution led Japan astray) (Tokyo: Tendensha, 2004), p. 126.
12

“Japan May Start Drive on Nanking,” New York Times, 31 August 1937.

13

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Quarantine” Speech: AMDOCS: Documents for the Study ofAmerican History, http://www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/fdrquarn.html.

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imposing an economic blockade against Japan. The Panay Incident occurred in
Nanjing on December 12, but soon after that, at a Cabinet meeting on December 17,
Roosevelt proposed applying economic pressure to Japan by instituting a blockade.
According to Harold Ickes, secretary of the interior from 1933-46, Roosevelt said hewould use the word “quarantine” as a euphemism for “economic blockade.”14 Perhaps
even at that point Roosevelt was contemplating an undeclared war.
On July 26, 1939 the US announced the termination of the Japan-US Treaty ofCommerce and Navigation.
On November 30, 1940 the US extended $100 million in loans to China (Great Britain
followed suit with £10 million in loans).
On March 11, 1941 the Lend-Lease Act was signed into law.
American (and British) aid to China considerably lengthened the war between Japanand China. In July 1940 the Japanese arranged to hold peace talks with the Chiang
government and Wang Jingwei in August. But the negotiations were first postponed
and then cancelled due to promises of significant financial support for China,
especially the $100 million loan from the US. It was American, British and Soviet aid
to the Chiang government that prolonged the Second Sino-Japanese War.
US approves plan to bomb Japan during Japan-US negotiations
The exact date on which the Roosevelt administration resolved to go to war withJapan is not known with complete certainty. In February 1941 the State Department
established the Division of Special Research, headed by Leo Pasvolsky, special
assistant to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The division’s mission was to prepare
studies on the appropriate way to deal with Japan after its defeat.15 Therefore, it is safe
to assume that at least Roosevelt and Hull had already decided at that point to wage
war against Japan, since they had officially established a division whose purpose wasto transform backward Japan.
On April 16, 1941, Nomura Kichisaburo, who had been sent to the US as ambassador
and entrusted with the mission of breaking the deadlock in Japan-US relations,submitted a proposal entitled “Japanese-American Understanding” to Secretary Hull.
Hull responded with what is known today as the “Four Hull Principles.” Those two
documents formed the basis of subsequent Japan-US negotiations. 16

14

Harold Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954).

15

Kase, op. cit., p. 125.

16

The four principles were: (1) respect for the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of eachand all nations; (2) support of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries;(3) support of the principle of equality, including equality of commercial opportunity; and (4) nondisturbance of the status quo in the Pacific, however the status quo may be altered by peaceful means.
(See http://www.jacar.go.jp/english/nichibei/popup/pop_26.html.)

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The talks were fraught with difficulties and major changes, such as the outbreak of
war between Germany and the USSR on June 22. The Japanese decided to (lawfully)
station troops in southern French Indochina on July 23 to counter the ABCD
encirclement. As already mentioned, the US responded by freezing all Japanese assets
in the US on July 25, and placing an embargo on petroleum and other importantresources.
But negotiations between the two nations continued, and Japan continued its
desperate search for a breakthrough. On August 8 Ambassador Nomura proposed a
conference involving top-level leaders from both nations. At that time Roosevelt wason board the Prince of Wales off Newfoundland, Canada conferring with British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill. On that occasion the two men agreed to cooperate
in war with Japan.
However, Roosevelt had already taken more decisive action in the form of the JB-355
Plan, which he had approved prior to that meeting. The plan involved supplying
China with long-distance bomber planes, which would then be used to bomb Japan
proper. Charts appended to the document show that it was prepared by the Joint Armyand Navy Board as an attack plan against Japan, and submitted to Roosevelt by thesecretaries of the Army and Navy on July 18; Roosevelt signed it on July 23.
The plan was to be executed no later October 1, 1941. Three hundred fifty fighter
planes and 150 B-17s and other long-distance bomber aircraft would be supplied toChina. They would fly to Japan from Chinese bases and bomb industrial areas in the
Kobe-Kyoto-Osaka triangle, as well as in Yokohama and Tokyo. It was a detailed
attack plan with maps showing which Chinese base would be the launching point foreach Japanese target location. Chinese troops would man the aircraft, but instructing
the Chinese Air Force and serving as key pilots would be members of the Flying
Tigers, recruited from the American Army and Navy, to whom the misnomer“volunteers” was applied.
The aforementioned charts and maps appear in Alan Armstrong’s Preemptive Strike.17
The book also contains a wealth of information about the Flying Tigers. They were
not volunteers, as their official name (the American Volunteer Group) implies. The
unit was a detached corps comprising men on active duty in one of the branches of the
US military, whose service in China would be counted as service in the units to which
they had originally been assigned. US support of China had progressed to the pointthat it was no longer simply support of China, but war against Japan.
If the JB-355 Plan had proceeded on schedule after Roosevelt approved it, the Flying
Tigers would have been begun bombing Japan in late September and continued
through October. However, the situation in the European theater became urgently
critical, and heavy bombers were of necessity sent there; the October attacks on Japannever took place.
But the JB-355 Plan was not a scheme developed to prepare for the future; it was anaction plan, and Japan was its target. We know that Roosevelt commissioned the plan,
17

Alan Armstrong, Preemptive Strike (Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2006).

9

five months before December 7.
It is now clear that not only did the US plot an economic blockade, i.e., an act of war,to draw Japan into a conflict, it also previously planned to bomb Japan in “war itself.”
If things had gone according to plan, the US would have perpetrated the sneak attack,not Japan.

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