762.94/364
Memorandum by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck)
Reference, statements marked in news dispatch from Mr. Fleisher, Tokyo, May 14, 1939, of which a copy is here attached.36
Mr. Fleisher reports:
“The belief is held in Japan that the United States would almost certainly enter such a war [a war which, beginning in Europe, would involve the totalitarian states and any states allied to them]37 on the side of the democracies and that Japan would find herself at war with America against her will. The navy, in particular, is strongly opposed to such a policy. Those who share the navy’s view point out that Japan has plenty to do in East Asia …38 and had better not look farther afield.
“On the other hand, advocates of a military alliance with Germany and Italy point out … Seito Nakano …, an open advocate of the proposed alliance, argues in a current magazine article that the combined strength of Germany, Italy and Japan would ‘equally balance’ that of Britain, France and the Soviet Union and thus contribute [Page 38] to peace in Europe. He believes the United States ‘too cautious’ to become involved in a European conflict and says America would remain neutral.”
Assuming that this indication of the lines on which Japanese opinion is divided is an accurate index, it would seem that anything which the American Government might do, in word or in act, which would tend to amplify the impression in Japan that, in the event of a war, the United States might become associated with the democracies, and which would tend to diminish the impression that the United States would remain neutral, would lend support to the opponents in Japan of entry by Japan into the proposed alliance.