Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

196 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
and Italian allies that they were planning to move south—that
is, in the direction of the Philippines, Indochina, and the Malay
Peninsula.
Th e second November 30 cable from Tokyo to Berlin was in
two parts. Th e negotiations had been started in April under the
previous Konoye administration. Th e “intent” of these negotiations,
Tokyo reminded the ambassador, had been to restrain the
United States from participating in the war. During the negotiations
of the last few days, however, the Japanese had found it
gradually more and more clear that the Imperial Government
could no longer continue negotiations with the United States.
. . . Th eir views and ours on the question of the evacuation of
troops, upon which the negotiations rested (they demanded the
evacuation of Imperial troops from China and French Indo-
China), were completely in opposition to each other.
Tokyo told the ambassador that
before the United States brought forth this plan [to reject
Japan’s modus vivendi proposal], they conferred with England,
Australia, the Netherlands and China—they did so repeatedly.
Th erefore, it is clear that the United States is now in collusion
with those nations and has decided to regard Japan, along with
Germany and Italy, as an enemy. 25
Japan Orders her Embassies Worldwide to
Destroy Codes and Code Machines
On December 1, Tokyo sent two short circular cables to its
embassies around the world, giving instructions for abandoning
the use of code machines and describing how to destroy them. 26
25 Ibid., part 12, pp. 205–06.
26 Ibid., part 12, pp. 208–09.