How the Peace Was Lost: The 1935 Memorandum Developments Affecting American Foreign Policy in the Far East, Prepared for the State Department by John Van Antwerp MacMurray

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-164
Author(s):  
A. A. Sidorov

Signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945 had formally ended the most destructive and bloody war in the history of mankind. Even before that a new balance of power on the international arena began to form, that would persist for almost half a century. At the same time, it was obvious from the outright that the Allies had very different views on how the post-war world order should look like. Traditionally, both Russian and foreign academic literature focused on their disputes regarding the German question. This paper provides a brief overview of the US Department of State planning and recommendation process for the post-war reconstruction of Japan in 1939–1945, which had eventually led to the formation of the socalled San Francisco subsystem of international relations. The first section of the paper outlines the challenges faced by the State Department when it came to planning the post-war architecture of the Far East. In that regard, the author pays particular attention to the staff shortage, which forced the Department of State to strengthen partnership with private research organizations and involve them in long-term planning.The author emphasizes that if before the United States entered the war the US planners adopted a rather tough stance on Japan, after the attack on Pearl Harbor their approaches paradoxically changed. The second section examines the contradictions and tensions between those politicians and experts who believed that in the establishment of the post-war order in the Far East the US should cooperate with China, and those who promoted rapprochement with Japan. These groups were unofficially referred to as the ‘Chinese team’ and the ‘Japanese crowd’ accordingly. The paper shows that as the end of the war approached, these contradictions gradually faded into the background. The needs to promote the interdepartmental cooperation and to reconcile the positions of the State Department, the Military and Naval Ministries on the future of Japan came to the fore. This work resulted in a series of memoranda, which laid the foundation for the US post-war policy towards Japan. In conclusion the author provides a general assessment of the strategic decision-making process in the United States during wartime and emphasizes its consistency, thoroughness and flexibility. As a result, it enabled the US to achieve what seemed impossible: to turn Japan from an ardent adversary of the United States in the Pacific into one of its most reliable allies, and it remains such today.


Worldview ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 43-45
Author(s):  
O. Edmund Clubb

In view of the succession of failures that have marked U.S. policy in Indochina a clear assessment of responsibility would seem to be in order. The Congress is, to be sure, talking about the need to reassert itself on questions of war and peace. But, strangely enough, there has been no inclination to isolate and condemn specific bureaucratic or political figures in connection with the Indochina debacle. The instrumentalities of our foreign policy were not always so sacrosanct.As World War II ended, the Department of State came under heavy political attack for alleged errors and deviations. Shortly after resigning his position as Ambassador to China in November, 1945, Major General Patrick J. Hurley charged that "The weakness of the American foreign policy together with the Communist conspiracy within the State Department are responsible for the evils that are abroad in the world today."


2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Krige

The U.S. emerged from World War II as the world's leading scientific and technological nation, consolidating its advantage for the next two or three decades. This paper describes how the State Department used the nation's dominance in the nuclear field, inherited from the Manhattan Project, to divert the resources of Western European states, notably France and Germany, into a civilian nuclear power program undertaken by a new supranational organization, Euratom. The determination on the continent to re-launch the European integration process in 1955, the Suez crisis in 1956, and the launch of the Sputniks in 1957 were opportunities ably exploited by officers in the State Department to use America's scientific, technological, and industrial depth in nuclear power as a political weapon. To this end they withheld the supply of enriched uranium for as long as possible from nations that wanted the fuel through bilateral agreements with the Atomic Energy Commission. In parallel they offered nuclear materials and know how, along with economic and political incentives, to encourage nations to commit to Euratom. This policy was strongly opposed by senior officials in the AEC and in the fledgling International Atomic Energy Agency, as well in Britain and in some continental countries, but to no avail. Though the State Department's efforts eventually bore little fruit, the paper clearly shows how U.S. leadership in science and technology was mobilized to promote America's foreign policy agenda in Western Europe in the early Cold War.


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