Based on Hiroshi Hasegawa’s analysis, this article explores why the Roosevelt administration rejected the Konoe–Roosevelt summit. It argues that what Roosevelt truly feared was not Japanese intransigence, but the possibility of an unexpected major compromise that could avert war.

What Franklin D. Roosevelt feared in the U.S.–Japan negotiations was probably that Japan might make an unexpected major compromise.
2016-12-14
The following is a continuation of the all-out essay by Hasegawa Hiroshi.
From the perspective of people with sound thinking such as Joseph Grew, America’s rejection of the Konoe–Roosevelt meeting must have seemed like sheer incompetence and a blunder on the part of the Roosevelt administration.
That is an impression born of integrity.
However, within the inner circle of Roosevelt or the Roosevelt administration, I believe they were sticking out their tongues and laughing, thinking it was a “masterstroke” and that they had “pulled it off.”
In the autumn of 1952, when the peace treaty with Japan came into effect and Japan’s sovereignty was restored, Eugene Dooman, a counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Japan who had supported Grew during the period when the war broke out, visited Japan.
However, the Japan he encountered again after ten years was a country utterly transformed, having lost its traditional virtues.
Even so, he met with his old friend Ushiba Tomohiko, former secretary to Prime Minister Konoe, and told him the following.
The American side had, during that period, systematically torpedoed every effort by Konoe Fumimaro to avoid war.
After returning to his homeland on an exchange ship, he seems to have learned the true circumstances of the matter.
This fact is recorded in a letter from Ushiba to the political scientist Yabe Teiji.
“To torpedo” means to destroy a warship with a torpedo, but it also means to crush a plan or scheme.
In short, the Roosevelt administration wanted to ignore any compromise proposal Japan might present and force Japan into war.
Once war was declared, the United States could enter the anti-Axis war, having waited precisely for that moment.
What Roosevelt feared in the U.S.–Japan negotiations was probably that Japan might make an unexpected major compromise.
Because reports from the earnest Ambassador Grew in Japan conveyed the sense that Konoe might accomplish this all at once at a summit meeting, Roosevelt likely could not bring himself to meet Konoe.
However, by fleeing from Konoe, the Roosevelt administration escaped from its predicament.
From the circumstances before and after, I judge the matter as follows.
This essay continues.