The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(25)

Secretary of State Cordell Hull was meeting once again with Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura, this time near the Lincoln Memorial—away from both the State Department and the Japanese Embassy.

The two men were visual opposites. Hull was tall, slim, and white-haired—the very picture of an American aristocrat, even though he’d been born in a log cabin in Tennessee. Now in his sixties, Nomura had come up through the Japanese Navy and Japanese politics, and had been chosen for the position of Japanese Ambassador to the United States for the number of his American connections, including having known President Roosevelt when FDR had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson Administration, while he had been the naval attaché. Nomura was short, plump, and jolly looking, with etched smile lines. But he wasn’t smiling today, and hadn’t been for some time.

The year 1941 had been long and difficult for the two men, and it wasn’t over yet. Nomura had arrived in Washington, DC, in March, charged with improving the increasingly strained diplomatic relationship between the United States and Japan. In the eight months he’d spent in the U.S., he looked as if he had aged at least a decade. He’d repeatedly offered his resignation to his higher-ups in Japan to no avail—they would not let him leave Washington.

To say negotiations between the two countries were not going well would be an understatement.

Ambassador Nomura was trying his best. Hull was not an unreasonable man, nor was President Roosevelt. Nomura and Hull had spent countless hours in meetings, attempting to resolve sticky diplomatic points such as the Japanese conflict with China, the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, and the U.S. oil embargo against Japan. Hull could do little, as the President was convinced that any compromises with Japan would be seen by most Americans as “appeasement.”

And Nomura’s own requests to his superiors in Tokyo to offer the Americans meaningful concessions were summarily rejected. Diplomacy had stalled and tensions were rising. Still the two men met, as they always did, with open minds—both desperate to avert war.

“Well, Mr. Ambassador,” Hull said, sitting down on their usual bench with a sigh, “here we are again.” The wind had died down, but the air remained chill. They were surrounded by small and delicate newly planted maple trees, their branches leafless, their trunks the color of bruises.

“Yes, Mr. Secretary, here we are again.” The two men’s voices betrayed the exhaustion at the diplomatic dance they had been engaged in for so long—one step forward, two steps back.

“I like your President Lincoln,” Nomura continued, looking up at the oversized marble statue. “All men created equal. What would he have made of this Japanese man, in his own nation’s capital?”

“I believe he would have been honored,” Hull replied, reaching into his coat pocket. He had a brown bag full of doughnuts. “My secretary brought them in this morning,” he said. “Hope the pigeons don’t mind cinnamon.” He took a doughnut from the bag, then broke it in half, handing part to Nomura. Hull threw a few crumbs onto the path, hoping to attract birds.

“As always, Japan wishes America nothing but harmony.”

“But—as your own Emperor said—‘If all men are brethren, then why are the winds and waves so restless?’ ”

Nomura gave a nervous smile as he, too, sprinkled crumbs onto the path in front of him. “Mr. Secretary, as we have said—if America could find her way toward lifting some of the embargoes on oil and other resources Japan needs …”

Hull shook his head. “President Roosevelt will not budge.” He threw out a few more crumbs.

Nomura tried again. “As you know, our goal is to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere—”

Hull lifted one eyebrow. “Your goal is to colonize China.”

Nomura smiled apologetically, his wide face creasing. “Many Western powers—including the United States and Britain, of course—have colonies in Asia. We consider the situation inequitable. The British have colonized the planet and America doesn’t say anything—”

“Well, we had a little something to say about it, back in 1776—”

“But not if it’s far away and has nothing to do with you. The European countries have taken territory in Asia—France, Portugal … We are only doing what they have done for many centuries. And we took Singapore and Malaysia from the British, not fellow Asians. America took the Philippines, who took it from the Spanish. Why should only we be punished? Why not the British, French, Dutch, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese … and the Americans, as well, who set the example?” He took a piece of the doughnut and popped it in his mouth. “It’s not a black-and-white issue.”