The author would like to thank Professor Ohata Tokushirō and Dr Eleanor Breuning for their encouragement and advice.Google Scholar

¹ International Military Tribunal for the Far East (hereafter cited as I.M.T.F.E.), Transcript of Proceedings, pp. 7236–7, 22,676–7.Google Scholar

² These sources have been used to varying extents by Hirai Tomoyoshi, ‘Manshū Jihen to Nisso Kankei’, in Kokusai Seiji, No. 31, pp. 99–113;Google ScholarLensen, George A., The Damned Inheritance: The Soviet Union and the Manchurian Crises, 1924–1935 (Tallahassee, 1974), pp. 335–60;Google Scholar and Kutakov, Leonid N., Istoriya Sovetsko-iaponskikh Diplomaticheskikh Otnoshenii (Moscow, 1962), pp. 114–21, but the materials from the Gaimushō files to be presented here were not utilized.Google Scholar

³ British Foreign Office Archives, held in the Public Record Office, London. Sir Ronald Macleay, British Minister in Peking, to Sir Austen Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary,26 April 1926, F2596/2347/10, Fo 371/11690.Google Scholar

⁴ SirCraigie, Robert, Behind the Japanese Mask (London, 1945), p. 28.Google Scholar

⁵ H.M.S.O., Documents on British Foreign Policy, Series II, Volume X, (hereafter cited as D.B.F.P. Series/Volume), Doc. No. 380.Google Scholar

⁶ Lensen, George A., ‘Japan and Manchukuo. Ambassador Forbes, Appraisal of American Policy towards Japan in the years 1931–1932’, in Monumenta Nipponica, 1968, Nos. 1–2, p. 81;Google ScholarKennedy, Captain Malcolm, The Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan, 1917–1935 (Manchester, 1969), p. 189.Google Scholar

⁷ Details of Yoshizawa's early can be found in his disappointingly brief autobiography, Gaikō Rokujūnen (Tokyo, 1958).Google Scholar

⁸ Erickson, John, Soviet High Command (New York, 1962), pp. 336–7. In October 1933 Karakhan wrote to the Soviet Ambassador in Tokyo: ‘The situation now is really different from what it was 1½ or 2 years ago, and we are far from feeling defenceless if the enemy tries to feel us out’. Ministerstvo Inostrannikh Del, Dokumenty Vneshnei Politiki SSSR (hereafter cited as D.V.P.), Vol. XVI, Doc. No. 320.Google Scholar

⁹ Izedatelstvo, Voennoe Ministertva Oboroni SSSR, Istoriya Vtoroi Mirovoi Voini 1939–1945 (Moscow, 1973), Vol I, p. 277.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Both the Japanese and Soviet accounts confirm that the initiative came from Litvinov, not from Yoshizawa as suggested by Nish, Ian, Japanese Foreign Policy 1869–1942 (London, 1977), p. 195.Google Scholar

¹¹ Japanese Foreign Ministry Archives (hereafter cited as J.F.M.A.), Tokyo. File B.I.O.O.J/R 5, ‘Nisso Fukashin Jōyaku Kankei Ikken’, pp. 4–8.Google ScholarThese recollections were transcribed verbatim at the Foreign Ministry in July 1947. A part of this material was printed in Kokusai Seiji, No. 33, pp. 105–19, under the title of ‘Yoshizawa Gaishō no Nisso Fukashin Jōyaku, Manshū Jihen ni kansuru Kaisōdan’, but with many of Yoshizawa's comments omitted. The pagination is therefore from the complete text in the Gaimushō archives.Google Scholar

¹² D.V.P. Vol. XIV, Doc. No. 401. Litvinov's record of the conversation agrees substantially with Yoshizawa's account. Part of Litvinov's record was submitted as evidence to the International Military Tribunal. I.M.T.F.E., Transcript, pp. 7714–5, 22,677–9. The meeting actually took place on 31 December 1931.Google Scholar

¹³ Yoshizawa, , Gaikō Rokujūnen p. 79;Google ScholarNaotake, Satō, Kaisō Hachijūnen, (Tokyo, 1963), p. 183.Google Scholar

¹⁴ D.V.P. Vol. XIV, Doc. No. 401.Google Scholar

¹⁵ D.B.F.P. II/X, Doc. No. 362.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid., II/VII, Doc. No. 147.

¹⁷ Yoshizawa, , Gaikō Rokujūnen, p. 131.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 141; Shigeru, Honjō, Honjō Nikki (Tokyo, 1967), p. 62.Google Scholar

¹⁹ J.F.M.A. file B.I.O.O.J/R 5, pp. 8–12.Google Scholar

²⁰ Gaimushō-hen, , Daiikka, Ōakyoku, Nisso Kōshōshi (Tokyo, 1969), pp. 282–6;Google ScholarKutakov, , Istoriya Sovetsko-iaponskikh Diplomaticheskikh Otnoshenii, pp. 71–80;Google ScholarBessedovsky, Grigori, Revelations of a Soviet Diplomat (London, 1931), pp. 156–61.Google Scholar

²¹ Japan Times, 22 January 1932.Google Scholar

²² I.M.T.F.E., Transcript, p. 28, 583.Google Scholar

²³ D.V.P. Vol. XV, Doc. No. 102.Google Scholar

²⁴ The memorandum, ‘Soren no Fushinryaku Jōyaku Teigi ni taisuru Wagahō Taido Kettei ni itaru Keii Shiryō’, is included in J.F.M.A. file B.I.O.O.J/R 5, and is dated ‘January 1932’.Google Scholar

²⁵ J.F.M.A. file ibid., pp. 12–13.

²⁶ Ibid., pp. 84–5.

²⁷ D.V.P. Vol. XV, Doc. No. 13. Arita Hachirō, the source of the report on Inukai's intervention, gives no precise date, merely ‘in Premier Inukai's time’. Kumao, Harada, Saionjikō to Seikyoku (Tokyo, 1950–1956), Vol. II, p. 314, Bekkan (Vol. IX), p. 141.Google Scholar

²⁸ I.M.T.F.E., Transcript, p. 28, 583.Google Scholar

²⁹ Senshishitsu, Bōeichō Bōeikenshūjo, Daihonei Rikugunbu (Tokyo, 1967), Vol. I, p. 347.Google Scholar

³⁰ J.F.M.A. file B.I.O.O.J/R 5, pp. 13–16.Google Scholar

³¹ Crowley, James, ‘Japanese Army Factionalism in the Early 1930s’, in Journal of Asian Studies (05 1962), pp. 309–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Eizō, Imanishi, Shōwa Rikugun Habatsu Kōsōshi (Tokyo, 1975).Google Scholar

³² Daihonei Rikungunbu, pp. 347–8.Google Scholar

³³ Hikomatsu, Kamikawa (ed.), ‘Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa ni okeru Seiji to Gunji ni kansuru Rekishiteki Kōsatsu’, Kenshū Shiryō Bessatsu, No. 132 (held in the archives of the Military History Department, National Defence College, Tokyo), p. 167.Google Scholar

³⁴ Shobō, Misuzu, Gendaishi Shiryō, Vol. 7 (Tokyo, 1966), p. 178. The document is dated 04–05 1932.Google Scholar

³⁵ Keijirō, Ōtani, Shōwa Rikugunshi. Rakujitsu no Jōshō (Tokyo, 1959), pp. 127–8.Google Scholar

³⁶ D.V.P. Vol. XV, Doc. No. 145.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid., Doc. No. 328.

³⁸ Krutiskaya, E. I. and Mitrofanova, L. S., Polpred Aleksandr Troyanovsky (Moscow, 1975), pp. 121–2.Google Scholar

³⁹ The memorandum cited in footnote 24.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ J.F.M.A. file B.I.O.O.J/R 5, pp. 35–6.Google Scholar A contemporary diplomat, Morito, Morishima, in Inbō, Ansatsu, Guntō. Ichigaikōkan no Kaisō (Tokyo, 1950), p. 104, records Matsushima's legalistic and technical arguments against the pact.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Lensen, , Damned Inheritance, p. 339.Google Scholar

⁴² Katsumi, Usui, ‘The Role of the Foreign Ministry’ in Borg, Dorothy and Okamoto, Shumpei (eds), Pearl Harbor as History (New York, 1973), p. 134.Google Scholar

⁴³ Morishima, , Inbō, Ansatsu, Guntō, pp. 102–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ J.F.M.A. file B.I.O.O.J/R 5, pp. 24–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ D.V.P. Vol. XV, Doc. No. 124.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Lensen, , Damned Inheritance, pp. 364–74.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ikuhiko, Hata, Reality and Illusion. The Hidden Crisis between Japan and the U.S.S.R. 1932–1934 (New York, 1957), p. 21;Google ScholarMolotov, V. M., V Borbe za Sotsializm. Rechi i Stati (Moscow, 1935), pp. 328–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ J.F.M.A. file B.I.O.O.J/R 5, PP. 27–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid., pp. 29–31. A cease-fire agreement was reached on 3 March, but the armistice agreement was not signed until 5 May 1932.Google Scholar At the end of January one observer described Yoshizawa at a press conference about Shanghai as looking ‘tired and pale and made no attempt to hide his anxiety’. Kennedy, , Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan, p. 189.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Usui, ‘Role of the Foreign Ministry’, pp. 127–8, 146–8.Google Scholar See also Morley's, James, introduction in Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan (Princeton, 1971), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁵¹ The defense lawyers, replying in May 1947 to the prosecution's case, could use only Litvinov's record. I.M.T.F.E., Transcript, pp. 22, 676–9.Google Scholar

⁵² Inverchapel, Br. F. O. Lord, British Ambassador in Washington, to Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary, 21 November 1946, F17108/95/23, FO 371/54162.Google Scholar

⁵³ Nisso Kōshōshi, p. 294.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Saionjikō to Seikyoku, Vol. II, p. 314, Bekkan, p. 141.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 314–15, Bekkan, pp. 141–2. Matsushima's recollections on this point are in J.F.M.A. B.I.O.O.J/R 5, pp. 36–9.

⁵⁶ Krutiskaya and Mitrofanova, Polpred Aleksandr Troyanovsky, p. 120.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ J.F.M.A. file B.I.O.O.J/R 5, p. 24.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Izvestiya, 15 May 1932.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Japan Advertiser, 20 May 1932.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ A large number of Army and Gaimushō officials welcomed the installation of Uchida. Yasuya, UchidaIinkai, Denkihensan, Uchida Yasuya (Tokyo, 1969), pp. 342–50.Google Scholar On Uchida's thinking about the pact proposal see Lensen, , Damned Inheritance, pp. 341–60.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Yoshizawa, , Gaikō Rokujūnen, pp. 148–235.Google ScholarAfter being depurged in 1951, his career had a further turn when, in August 1952, he was asked to become the first Japanese Ambassador to Taiwan, a post which he held until December 1955.Google ScholarIbid., pp. 296–310.

⁶² In 1940 a British diplomat gave the following assessment: ‘it appears that Mr Yoshizawa has considerable diplomatic experience, is an admirer of Herr Hitler and is an expert in discussions of the “delay action” kind’. Br.F.O. British Consul-General in Batavia, Walsh, to Lord Halifax, Foreign Secretary, F717/141/61, FO 371/27785. On Shidehara see Nish, , Japanese Foreign Policy, pp. 174, 256.Google Scholar

⁶³ Japan Chronicle, 31 January 1934.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Yoshizawa, , Gaikō Rokujūnen, p. 188; D.V.P. Vol. XVIII, Doc. No. 124. In 1937 Soviet diplomats made a point of visiting him to discuss the North China Incident. Report from Tokyo Metropolitan Police Commissioner, 4 September 1937, in J.F.M.A. file M.2.5.0.3–1, ‘Zaihonro Kakkoku Gaikōkan Ryōjikan oyobi Kanin Dōsei Kankei Zakken. Sorenpo no Bu’, Vol. II.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Nish, , Japanese Foreign Policy, pp. 240–3;Google ScholarLensen, George A., The Strange Neutrality: Soviet–Japanese Relations during the Second World War 1941–1945, (Tallahassee, 1972), pp. 2–20, 277–9.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Kokusai, NihonGakkai, Seiji, Taiheiyō Sensō e no Michi (Tokyo, 1963), Vol. 5, p. 300;Google ScholarBr. F. O. Sir Robert Craigie, British Ambassador in Tokyo, to Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary, 16 April 1941, F3114/421/23, FO 371/27956. In October 1932 Matsuoka had brief talks with Litvinov in Moscow regarding the pact question. J.F.M.A. file A.I.O.O.11, ‘Gaimu Daijin sonota no Jōsō-shi’.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Erickson, , Soviet High Command, pp. 577–8;Google ScholarDeakin, F. W., and Storry, G. R., The Case of Richard Sorge (New York, 1966), pp. 225–36.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Usui, , ‘Role of the Foreign Ministry’, pp. 127–48;Google ScholarNish, , Japanese Foreign Policy, pp. 175–7, 197–203, 256–65.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Yoshizawa failed to persuade the Kwantung Army to postpone the independence of Manchukuo (he feared international repercussions), but, together with Inukai, he did carry the Cabinet against Japanese recognition of the new state. Yoshizawa, , Gaikō Rokujūnen, p. 147;Google ScholarSadako, Ogata, Defiance in Manchuria (Berkeley, 1964), pp. 141–2, 145.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Berger, Gordon M., Parties Out of Power in Japan 1931–1941 (Princeton, 1977), pp. 42–52. Mori Kaku, Secretary of the Seiyukai Party, told Prince Konoe in February 1932: ‘I will not be able to rest until Yoshizawa is somehow made to resign’.Google ScholarSaionjikō to Seikyoku, Vol. II, p. 222.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Nish, , Japanese Foreign Policy, p. 192.Google Scholar

⁷² Ogata, , Defiance in Manchuria, pp. 167–8.Google Scholar