Like a Foggy Bottom Forrest Gump, American diplomat Joseph C. Grew inadvertently found himself at the very center of two of the most consequential foreign policy efforts in the nation’s history.  From 1912 to 1917, Grew served in the United States embassy in Germany as the U.S. struggled vainly to stay out of the First World War. Twenty years later, as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Grew was a key participant in America’s increasingly desperate attempts to avoid war with Japan.

In the end, of course, German intransigence and Japanese militarism overcame America’s diplomatic exertions, and the nation found itself embroiled in both world wars.

While other American officials served through both pre-war periods, Grew’s presence at the embassies in Berlin and Tokyo in the final days before war is remarkable.

From the start of the First World War in August 1914 until the U.S. declaration of war in 1917, the American government worked tirelessly to keep the U.S. out of the European conflict.  The American public had no desire to enter the war, the U.S. military was completely unprepared, and U.S. vital interests were not obviously threatened. President Woodrow Wilson hoped that by staying out of the conflict America could mediate negotiations that would bring the conflict to a close, achieving peace without victory for all parties, demonstrating the futility of war and leading to an era of collective security maintained by an international organization of nations.

But despite determined American diplomacy, the momentum of events inexorably drew the U.S. into the conflict. Initial U.S. resentment at Britain’s naval blockade was overshadowed by U.S. anger at Germany’s continued use of unrestricted submarine warfare and later by the Zimmerman telegram, which revealed German efforts to enlist Mexico in the war against America.  As a senior aide to Ambassador James W. Gerard, Grew participated in talks with the German Emperor and had a front row seat to the unsuccessful U.S. effort to avoid combat.

Twenty years later, as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Grew again found himself struggling to keep America out of war.  Again, he saw the slow breakdown of the international order and the rise of a militarized, predatory state.  Isolationist, unprepared, and frightened by the rise of Nazi Germany, the United States government sought vainly to avoid or at least postpone conflict with Japan.  Through countless meetings, dinners, conversations, and encounters with Japanese citizens, military officers, and political leaders, Grew sadly witnessed the unstoppable slide to war. From his long experience in the country, Grew understood the motivations and capabilities of Japan. As early as January 1941, he warned the U.S. government that in case of trouble with the United States, Japan planned to attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

May 4, 2018