Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

GREW, JOSEPH C. • 95
GREW, JOSEPH C. (1880–1965). Joseph Grew was America’s ambassador
to Japan throughout the decade prior to Pearl Harbor from
1932 to 1944. Sensitive to Japan’s needs, he often found himself out
of step with his colleagues in the State Department, although during
the war he wielded a not-inconsiderable influence over planning for
post-surrender Japan.
A graduate of Harvard University, he began his diplomatic career
with a consular assignment in 1904. He went through the
whole process from third secretary to Counselor of Embassy before
achieving the rank of minister, as secretary of the United
States Commission to the Paris Peace Conference. For a short
time, he was assigned as counselor to the Paris Embassy and then
to Denmark as minister. After a tour as minister to Switzerland,
Grew was sent to Lausanne to negotiate the Turkish Treaty. He became
under secretary to Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes in
1924 and contributed to the reorganization of the Foreign Service.
He left Washington to assume the post of ambassador to Turkey in
1927. His mentor at the State Department, William R. Castle, Jr.,
successfully secured Grew’s appointment in 1932 as ambassador
to Japan.
Grew’s assignment was difficult. The Japanese occupation of
Manchuria in 1931 had poisoned Japanese–American relations, and
Tokyo continued to take actions that were inimical to American interests
throughout Grew’s time as ambassador. He nonetheless believed
that Japan could be a force for stability in the Far East. In his
communications with Washington—with a few notable exceptions—
he consistently counseled a moderate policy so as not to provoke the
hardliners in Tokyo. In his dealings with Japanese officials, he sought
to convey the fundamentals of American policy and to gently suggest
how Japan might prosper by working with—rather than against—
those interests.
Grew in February 1944 was appointed head of the State Department’s
Office of Far Eastern Affairs; in December of that year, he
was appointed under secretary of state. Throughout he propounded
his basic assumption that affording Japan a liberal peace was the
surest way to attain the ultimate American objective of peace and security
in the Pacific. He retired from the State Department the day after
Japan surrendered.