Talk:Joseph Grew

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Readers,

The article on Joseph Grew has a serious historical error with regard to his status in Tokyo, Japan beginning on the afternoon of December 8, 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and a state of war existed. The error consists of the statement that Ambassador Grew was subsequently INTERNED, then later released.

Joseph Grew tells his own story of the period of detention in Tokyo between December 8, 1941 and June 25, 1942 in two books:1) "Report from Tokyo, a Message to the American People", published in 1942, and 2) in his 1944 book "Ten Years in Japan". The final part of this latter book consists of diary entries for the six months of confinement to the embassy.

It would be clear to any reader of these works that Ambassador Grew and the diplomatic staff were placed under what is fairly described as "house arrest". They could not leave the embassy compound. No hands were laid upon the ambassador or diplomatic staff, no one was placed in bonds and removed to a prison or interrogation facility. After initial search of the embassy grounds and confiscation of radio equipment, the ambassador and others were unmolested. Grew's diary suggests, in fact, that they were treated quite curteously. On approximately June 18, 1942 they were escorted to Yokohama Harbor and placed aboard the MS Gripsholm, a ship under neutral registry and bearing wartime immunity. There followed seven days of diplomatic negotiations regarding exchange of Japanese citizens in the USA. On June 25, 1942 the Gripsholm weighed anchor and departed Japan.

There are an unknown number of secondary and tertiary sources that make the erroneous claim that Ambassador Joseph Grew was interned. They are all wrong. Every last one of them. I have attempted to correct the article but my changes have been removed.

Trylon 02:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Broken Link
The link to the nuclear history database is broken, and should be replaced with. That is, unless my computer is acting funnily. 128.208.60.138 (talk) 01:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Citation Found!
I have found a citation for the sentence "If surrender could have been brought about in May, 1945, or even in June or July, before the entrance of Soviet Russia into the war and the use of the atomic bomb, the world would have been the gainer.": (Chicago format) Grew, Joseph C., Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, 1904-1945, Volume 2 (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1952), 1425. 128.208.60.88 (talk) 05:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Atomic bomb dilemma
This section has no citation, and also stands out as highly inaccurate. Specifically the sentence "Grew knew how important the emperor was to the Japanese people and believed that the condition could have led to Japanese surrender without using the atomic bombs." A check of historical resources, like the book "Japan's Longest Day" or even the Wikipedia article on the surrender, will show that it mattered very little what the Japanese people at large thought with regard to surrender negotiations. What mattered was the opinion of the six people on the Supreme War Council (Anami, Suzuki, Togo, etc) along with the opinion of the emperor and his close advisors. It is true that these half-dozen leaders could have been influenced by a Potsdam declaration that maintained a "constitutional monarchy". But to ascribe influence to the Japanese people at large is to make the mistake of viewing Japan as democracy with freedom of speech, which it was neither. --Westwind273 (talk) 22:21, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Keep in mind that the Supreme War Council was still evenly split AFTER both A-bombs had been dropped! Half still opposed surrender. President Truman had to bluff that the USA had more than two bombs! (It didn't.) This is what required the emperor's direct intervention (and Imperial Rescript, in which he never mentions the word "surrender" by the way), as the tie-breaker. Starhistory22 (talk) 21:39, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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