TWO CRITICAL MONTHS

Yuasa, one of the Emperor's close advisers, and Count Makino, all
of whom had been studying the speech in detail. He said that he
had talked for between an hour and a half and two hours with each
of them. The speech, he said, had made a very deep impression ;
I had started the ball rolling at precisely the right moment, and now
the people mentioned, plus the War Minister, General Hata, and
General Yanagawa, who is heading the China Board, would form a
team to keep it rolling in the right direction.

He said that some doubt is felt with regard to solving the problem
of the New Order in East Asia versus the Nine-Power Treaty but
there is a genuine determination to take steps to clear the atmo-
sphere with a view to improving public opinion in the United States
and to demonstrate Japan's desire for good relations. He said he
believed that General Nishio, who had been sent to China to unify
the command and to stop the constant bickerings between the
military in the north and the military in the south, is likewise sym-
pathetic to such a programme. The time had come to stop the
laissez-faire policy of letting America and Japan simply argue back
and forth across the Pacific without constructive action in Japan
and that my speech had turned the trick. He said that there was a
general consensus among the high personages he had talked with
that my more than two hundred notes of protest, which had lain
dormant in the Foreign Office or had been answered with empty
assurances of favourable action, should be constructively dealt with ;
that Admiral Nomura, the new Foreign Minister, would send for me
soon and was ready to listen in sympathetic vein to anything I might
say. He said that I must also have a talk with the Prime Minister,
who would be equally ready to listen.

TWO CRITICAL MONTHS

November i, 1939

While the text of my speech was promptly given to the American
news agencies, I did not give it to the Japanese press, in spite of the
advice of a prominent Japanese to do so, because I wanted the
Foreign Office to know that I had observed this minimum of discretion
in not going over the heads of the Japanese Government in that
respect, and we so informed Yoshizawa, who was present, together
with Kishi and Mitani of the Foreign Office, and heard the address
delivered. I was banking on a public demand for publication of
the text and, sure enough, two days later the Foreign Office itself
asked me to release the text to the local press and it was promptly
done. This was perhaps a small point, but such points loom large
in Japan and it was duly noted.

The next two months, in my opinion, are going to be the most
critical in the,history of American-Japanese relations. Unless we can
get concrete results promptly and not only negative but also positive
Steps to show the American people that Japan desires and intends