This essay examines the historical reality that Asahi Shimbun was the principal force inflaming anti-American sentiment and pushing Japan into war. It analyzes Prince Konoe’s desperate peace efforts, the Hull Note, FDR’s actions and personal conduct, and the role of Soviet agent Hotsumi Ozaki in preventing any retreat from war.

It is a historical fact that the largest force that shouted “Demonize America and Britain” and drove Japan into war with the United States was the Asahi Shimbun.
2017-06-10
I will explain here why I denounce Franklin D. Roosevelt as a sordid adulterer.
The historical fact that Prince Fumimaro Konoe, then Prime Minister of Japan,
made a desperate attempt to avoid war by arranging a Japan–U.S. summit
is something I myself only came to know after August three years ago.
Since the Immigration Act of 1924, which completely banned immigration from Japan,
anti-American sentiment had been rising within Japan.
It goes without saying that the Asahi Shimbun was the leading force that inflamed those feelings.
Ultimately, after Japan was presented with the “Hull Note” by Secretary of State Cordell Hull of the FDR administration,
it was the Asahi Shimbun that became the greatest force shouting “Demonize America and Britain”
and pushing Japan into war,
a fact firmly established in history.
That the Hull Note was a unilateral and final ultimatum to Japan by the FDR administration,
criticized even within the United States,
is something Helen Mears, author of Mirror for Americans: Japan, makes clear.
It was only natural that the Japanese military wished to avoid war with the United States,
which at the time was far and away the largest and strongest power in the world.
If one looks at how today’s Chinese Communist one-party dictatorship,
despite its blatant disregard for international law,
regards avoiding war with the United States as its supreme priority,
there can be no doubt that Japan’s military at the time likewise sought to avoid war with America.
What prevented any retreat was the maneuvering of Soviet spy Hotsumi Ozaki,
and the Asahi Shimbun’s “Demonize America and Britain” campaign,
which pushed public opinion to a point even the military could no longer restrain.
Under such circumstances,
Prince Konoe’s attempt to convene a Japan–U.S. summit to avert war
was nothing short of a resolve to risk his life.
He was prepared, if the summit succeeded in preventing war,
to commit seppuku in order to persuade those who were expected to oppose him fiercely.
Japan was a great power,
the first in Asia to join the ranks of the Western powers.
It had won both the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.
Above all, the Russo-Japanese War was a historic event
in which a non-white nation defeated a white power.
Japan’s victory over Russia, then regarded as one of the world’s strongest nations,
sent shockwaves of admiration and inspiration from the Middle East to Asia.
At the very moment when the prime minister of that great power
was desperately striving, at the risk of his life,
to secretly arrange a Japan–U.S. summit for the sake of one hundred million people,
FDR ignored it all and led Japan toward war with the United States.
And what was FDR doing at that time.
Whether to forget the evil he was advancing,
or simply because it was his nature,
he was indulging in adulterous affairs.
A paper that vividly reveals this reality
was contributed by Soki Watanabe
to the May issue of Voice magazine.
The continuation will be presented in the next chapter.