Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-05-14
The New Books
Ten Years in Japan

SCHuSLcTJ
Supplemented by letters, speeches
and official papers, this is the diary
which Joseph C. Grew kept during
the 10 years preceding Pearl Harbor
when he was American Ambassador
to Japan. There are a number OF
things which can be said in the
volumes praise.
For one, it is a record of diplo-
macy at work. 1t takes its reader
right into the diplomatic machine
shop and shows him the processes in
action. This Is due to the fact that
Mr.. Grew wrote his journal as he
went along and entered in it, with
great frankness and detail, much
concerning confidential and unoffi-
cial conversations and communica-
tons, to which he then added his
own reactions. To be sure, he has
suppressed names where discretion
indicates that he do so, but that
does not detract from the vivid pic
ture which he shows us of diplo-
mat doing his job. 1t was not the
personalities but the processes
which we're significant.
For another thing. the work is a
solid, transformations monument to
American honor and idealism. Mr..
Grew is not a spinner OF fine
phrases. He writes plainly and EVIL
IDENTIFY wants his readers to know
that what interested him at all
times was the practical common
sense thing. But his practically
and commonsensiblenes are those
of man of private and public hon
or whose concept of service to his
country is concept of truth and
dignity. His report of his repre-
sentation of our Government before
one of the most subtle and evasive-
minded peoples of the world is a
thing for Americans to be proud of.
1t shows as an expression OF Ma
ton in adulthood confronting
vicious minded children. Though
the effort failed, it was the only
proper one to make. Any effort was
bound to fail unless it conformed
to the crimes which the Japanese
military were determined to COM
init.
That brings one to another ad-
mirable point in Mr.. Crews account
the frankness with which he faced
the failure. When the FESTIVE
strength of the military element
finally asserted itself by making the
country an Axis partner, the Am
bassador noted that the situation
had gone beyond diplomacy-he had
shot his bolt. His feeling then was
that war was practically certain. He
remained to observe and warn. As
early as January, 1871. incidentally,
he had reported the likelihood of a
| surprise mass attack on Pearl
| Harbor.
For the rest his book gives finely
human picture of the different jap
anese officials with whom he dealt,
for some of whom he came to have
not only respect but affection. In
|attributing the war guilt to the
military element, however, he states
that the generals provided only the
leadership; their following was the
mass Of the Japanese people, whose
reverence for war and "heroism" Is
profound and. emotionally unrea-
soning.
Ny Lives in Russia
By Markhoosha Ftscher.f Har-
per- 49, -a
Markhoosha Fischer is the wife
of Louis Fischer. American writer,
lecturer and Communist sympa-
thizer who for more than a decade
made his home in Russia. She IS
herself a Russian and spent her
childhood in Russia, but left that
country in 1915 and did not return
until 1921. There she married and
there her children were born. From
1927 until 1899, when they emil
grated to America, the Fschers
lived in Moscow, where they enjoyed
a wide acquaintance among people
prominent in the arts and politics.
1t was disillusion with Communism
which caused them to go, and what
Mrs. Fischer has written here is her
story of that disillusion's growth.
1t is by no means a new type of
confessional writing. Communists
who at some time in their lives had
experienced freedom in a demo-
cratic and capitalist state have
been recanting regularly these past
10 years, so one is not amazed by
Mrs. Fischer's startled account of
the temperance in the Soviet So
ciety of the ills which once plagued
the czarist. There is, however,
about her narrative one very sig
niflcant thing which certainly
merits comment. That is her
seemingly unconscious revelation of
the mental dishonesty which her
devotion to Communism demanded
Of her.
This is peculiarly clear in her &C
count of her children's education.
She wanted them to grow up good
citizens of the Russian state; she
preferred that state to any other
as their homeland At the age of
7, one of her boys informed her
that there were no workers in the
other countries of the world, for
in those luckless lands the working
people were all kept in prison by
the bourgeoisie. That was what he
had been taught at school and, in
stead of entering an indignant
protest with the board of educa-
ton as she would have done in
democracy, she did not dare to cor
rect the lie even in private. Know
ing that history, both past and pres
ent, was thus being misrepresented