Word: matsuoka
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When all the nuances and morals were brushed away, alternative U. S. programs for the Far East, he realized, fell into three general heads: 1) crush Japan; 2) make a deal with Japan; 3) prolong the conflict as long as possible. What really distressed Yosuke Matsuoka was that last week's quasi-embargo could be used, paradoxically, to further any one of the three programs, if & when the U. S. State Department ever should make up its mind to pick...
Japan reacted to the embargo violently, but alert Foreign Minister Matsuoka was a jump ahead of his own countrymen. He instructed Ambassador to the U. S. Kensuke Horinouchi to call on Sumner Welles and lodge a protest. He instructed Spokesman Suma to use strong words. That master of anticlimax told reporters: "Our reaction will be very great." But the most serious thing Yosuke Matsuoka did was to let word get about that Japan might have to retaliate by cutting off U. S. supplies of rubber and tin from the East Indies...
After the Jolt, Yosuke Matsuoka quickly rebounded, confident that he was the man to straighten things out. He has not felt many twinges of modesty in his 60 years. Urbane, roly-poly, positive as an electric shock, with a flair for guessing what others are thinking and hiding what he is, Yosuke Matsuoka is ideally suited to ride the second biggest saddle in a near-totalitarian regime. In his own person he symbolizes the collapse of the ideal of collective security: it was he who, with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth, imperiously beckoned to the Japanese delegates...
...word which Prince Konoye used last week in connection with foreign policy, Matsuoka once used of domestic-in an intuitive anticipation of the streamlined Government into which he was called fortnight ago: "Japan," he said as he assumed presidency of the monopolistic South Manchuria Railway five years ago, "cannot halt its North China operations. The arrow has already left the bow ... to carry through these operations a domestic renovation is inevitable." When he re signed from the S. M. R. last year because he could not tolerate Army interference, he declared: "If they would just let a businessman...
This epidemic of hate was not the work of Foreign Minister Matsuoka, not yet a matter of policy. The hand of the Imperial Army, trembling with frustration and fury, was clearly to be seen in each of these incidents. But the Foreign Office did nothing to check them. The one phrase which occurred over & over in the news papers and statements of Cabinet Ministers last week was: "We must free ourselves of dependence on the United States and Britain." And the phrase which Yosuke Matsuoka fancied most was this: from now on, Japan's diplomacy would be something...