American Ambassador: Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the United States Diplomatic Tradition

479 Pages·1986·29.68 MB·English

by  Waldo H. Heinrichs

American Ambassador
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American Ambassador
JOSEPH C. GREW and the Development of
the United States Diplomatic Tradition
BY WALDO H. HEINRICHS, JR.
with photographs
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland
and associated companies in
Beirut Berlin Ibadan Nicosia
Copyright © 1966 by Waldo H. Heinrichs
First published in 1966 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston
First issued in paperback in 1986 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heinrichs, Waldo H.
American ambassador.
Reprint. Originally published: Boston : Little,
Brown, 1966.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Grew, Joseph C. (Joseph Clark), 1880-1965.
2. Ambassadors—United States—Biography.
3. United States—Foreign relations—20th century.
4. United States—Foreign relations—Japan.
5. Japan—Foreign relations—United States.
6. United States—Diplomatic and consular service.
I. Title.
E748.G835H4 1986 327.2'092'4 |B] 86-16184
ISBN 0-19-504159-3 (pbk.)
Printing (last digit): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
For Audrey
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Preface
D
URING most of their past Americans have barely tolerated diplomats.
The art is a mysterious one and its practice tends to set the diplomat
apart from his country. Diplomacy was alien to the American experience
and contradictory to the national virtues of democratic simplicity and non-
entanglement abroad. American diplomats have received more than their
share of criticism, being described from time to time as soft, snobbish, sub-
versive, or simply inept. The only diplomat who has always been acceptable
was the most guileful of them all, Benjamin Franklin.
However alien, diplomacy and diplomats have been increasingly impor-
tant to the United States. Rise to world power and the growing complexity
of the nation's interests abroad have required expert conduct of relations
with foreign nations. The United States dispensed with the idea of amateur
representation, became more amenable to European diplomatic practice,
and provided various inducements to retain a corps of experienced diplo-
matic officers. In time the nation established a full-fledged diplomatic ca-
reer. The officers retained and promoted developed a sense of professional-
ism about diplomacy.
American professional diplomacy is perhaps best understood as a dis-
agreeable necessity. Because they were necessary, the diplomats were in a
strategic position to define their role. Up to a point, they could establish
their own criteria of performance, develop an independent perspective in
keeping with their role as middlemen, adopt European practice, and relate
themselves in their own way to American values. However, the American
public and government were bound to take a hand in defining the role of
the diplomat. They would seek to housebreak diplomacy, determining
the values to be represented, setting the style, describing the functions, and
deciding what degree of independence was tolerable. The nature of Amer-
ican professional diplomacy was defined by the interaction resulting from
these different perspectives.
viii Preface
The process of definition began at the turn of the century and has pro-
ceeded ever since, though with lessening intensity in recent years. A crucial
point in the process was the passage of the Rogers Act in 1924, which cre-
ated a single American Foreign Service from the old Diplomatic and Con-
sular Services. In my brief career in the Foreign Service I became interested
in the nature of American professional diplomacy, and later, as a graduate
student at Harvard, I took advantage of Professor Oscar Handlin's seminar
to start an investigation of its origins. It seemed that 1924 was a strategic
point of attack. In a sense then, I began this book with Chapter 7, which is
about the establishment of the American Foreign Service.
Research introduced me to the papers of Joseph C. Grew, who as Under
Secretary of State figured prominently in the establishment and early ad-
ministration of the new Service. This collection, conveniently located at
Harvard's Houghton Library, proved astonishingly rich. It consisted mainly
of well over a hundred typed, neatly ordered, leatherbound volumes. In-
cluded were Grew's correspondence, memoranda of official conversations,
newspaper clippings, and most important, the huge diary, which runs to
some six thousand pages for the Japan mission alone.
Grew started his extraordinary collection in 1909 when he was a junior
Secretary in the American Embassy at St. Petersburg. Like anyone abroad,
he wanted to keep in touch with his family and friends and to describe his
travels and exotic experiences. He wrote his letters on a typewriter and kept
copies of all his correspondence. By 1911 he saw the advantage of a diary.
One account and extra carbons would provide a record for his own family
as well as his wife's. Ultimately it provided for intimate friends, daughters,
and sons-in-law as well. As Grew's career and responsibilities advanced, the
diary became more historical. With a keen sense of history, he determined
to enlarge the record from his vantage point inside events. It also served as
a record for himself, to which he would refer for what he had thought or
heard or said on any particular diplomatic event or subject. He found the
diary a useful way of mulling over ideas and problems. Given some success
in diplomacy, he might also use the diary as a basis for publishing his mem-
oirs.
Any daily record with so many addressees cannot be entirely candid or
intimate. The value of his diary, together with his other papers, lies mostly
in the sheer bulk and detail. Grew provided sufficient information to recon-
struct not only the manner and substance of his diplomacy over large parts
of his career but also for certain periods the day-to-day framework of as-
sumption, knowledge, and belief with which he viewed events.
The more familiar I became with Grew's career, the more interesting it
seemed as the basis for a study of American professional diplomacy. He
started out at the turn of the century, when American diplomacy was an
episodic, amateurish affair, and saw it develop into a fully established and
Preface ix
accepted career. Indeed, he was one of the first Americans to achieve a full
career in diplomacy. He not only figured prominently in setting up the
Foreign Service in 1924 but had already developed a strong sense of profes-
sionalism that animated the rest of his career. He was the model profes-
sional diplomat of his generation.
His career spanned most of the modern age of American diplomacy, from
Theodore Roosevelt to Harry Truman. He attended two major interna-
tional conferences and held two ambassadorships, two Under Secretary-
ships, two ministerships, and every junior rank in the Service. He was at
Berlin when the United States went to war with Germany in 1917 and at
Tokyo when Japan went to war with the United States in 1941. He was
Ambassador to Japan from Manchuria to Pearl Harbor and played a part in
Japan's surrender in 1945. If anyone was likely to reveal what American
professional diplomacy was really like, it would be Joseph C. Grew.
I decided to make a full-scale study of Grew's career. It would be a biog-
raphy, but one concerned with his life mostly for the way it revealed him as
a diplomat. It would be diplomatic history insofar as the context of Grew's
diplomacy contributed to an understanding of his diplomacy. Grew's career
up to 1925 was the subject of my doctoral dissertation, and since then I
have carried the study forward to completion. This book is the result.
In the course of this study I met Mr. Grew several times. He was invari-
ably kind and helpful. He gave me permission to use his papers and was
always available when I wished to consult him. At no point did he interfere
or comment, either adversely or favorably. He was content to let his records
speak for themselves. I could not have asked for more. After Mr. Grew's
death, his daughter, Mrs. Albert Levitt, assumed the responsibility for giv-
ing permission to publish from the Grew Papers, as well as from the papers
of her former husband, Jay Pierrepont Moffat, who died in 1943. She read
the entire manuscript and pointed out a few minor inaccuracies but in no
case asked for a deletion or change. For her gracious assistance I am deeply
grateful.
This study would have been impossible without the time, effort, and
expert advice of many people. Professor Frank Freidel and Professor Er-
nest R. May of Harvard directed the dissertation and have continued to
assist me far beyond the call of duty. Professor Keith M. Greenwood and
several of his colleagues at Robert College, Istanbul, read the chapters on
the mission to Turkey and offered valuable comments and corrections. Pro-
fessor Akira Iriye of Harvard read most of the chapters on the Japan mis-
sion and Mr. Ikuhiko Hata the early chapters. If I have erred in describing
Japanese politics and policies, it is not for want of effort on their part to
explain. The chapters on the Japan mission would have been hopelessly
difficult without their advice and encouragement. Dr. Kent Roberts Green-
field gave me the benefit of his wisdom and precise criticism on a number