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Show A ini tor. Story From a Diplomat; -One Day Before a War CorrespondenTpt Telling of Last Interview With Peace . Envoy Before War's Beginning. By-BAUKHAGE National Farm and Home Hour Comment seemed satisfied. He concluded "Jaan has been fighting four yea Must talk facts, mus be reah.bc and talk principles afterward. Chinese Duplicity Argument There was more of the often-heard arlumen? about Chinese duplicity. 3 . United States wants war, it can have war. If it wants peace can have peace. And Japan can be much more than a friend to nerica. You can beat "s m, the end but it will be no P-ov- He was friendliness itself. Hav ing spoken his piece he made a telephone tele-phone call and led me from the chancery into the embassy which it adjoins. I was impressed as . I was the first time I walked down the long reception hall, with the delicate beauty of the setting. The priceless price-less paintings on the walls with their weird and elusive charm of oriental art, the graceful furniture, the gentle blending of tints in wall decorations and wainscoting. "This room is too large for conversation," con-versation," said Mr. Terasaki, indicating indi-cating the main reception room. So he took me to a smaUer one and we sat down for a moment. Almost immediately "Good-will" Ambassador Ambassa-dor Kurusu appeared, a little man dressed in an expensive tweed suit. He had a small, close-cropped mustache mus-tache and wore spectacles. His face was long and under a hurried glance he might pass as an American. Terasaki bowed low from the hips, but Kurusu took my hand informally in-formally when I was presented. Terasaki opened the conversation by saying that I had said as long as Kurusu was still here no news was good news. Kurusu either misunderstood mis-understood Terasaki or chose to ignore ig-nore his remark. We sat down and Kurusu repeated in less formal phraseology the general argument which Terasaki had offered. Kurusu Presents Japan' Case The two nations could agree on -WNU Service, 1343. H Street, N-W, Washington, D. C. Here in Washington where we feel the repercussions of the war more deeply than anywhere in the country coun-try except coast cities where enemy planes threaten, and even the thoughts we had last week seem very far away. To me an even greater gulf seems to exist between Friday and Saturday, Satur-day, between peacetime and wartime. war-time. On Saturday, December 5, i sat in the drawing room of the Japanese Japa-nese embassy talking with the embassy's em-bassy's first secretary. His card which he gave me as I left it on the desk as I write. "Hidenari Terasaki, Tera-saki, first secretary of the Japanese Japa-nese embassy, Washington," the engraved en-graved script reads. With us was Saburo Kurusu, the man who was supposed to be planning plan-ning a peaceful settlement of Japanese-American relations at the very moment when Japanese bombers and battleships were already on their way to Pearl Harbor. I did not know it then, but I was the last American reporter perhaps the only one to interview him. Washington Diary The next afternoon just as I was starting out to take a walk in Rock Creek park, the news of the astounding astound-ing attack on Hawaii reached me. From then on radio and news reporters re-porters have been pretty busy. But I took time out to jot down the events of Saturday that were a tragically trag-ically stupid prelude to war. I am now offering this record (in part) as a sort of "Washington Diary": Saturday, December 6: Spent the whole day preparing for a special Far Eastern broadcast, a pick-up of Far Eastern capitals, London and Washington. Went first to call on "X" whom I knew would be informed in-formed as well as anyone on the negotiations. We sat in his beautiful beauti-ful library. The ancient books, the mellow leathered chairs all gave the place an atmosphere of dignity nrl cnliriaritv that seemed far away from the little Saturday afternoon world. Mr. "X" suggested two phrases of which I made mental note. First: "Kurusu is still here." The second: "The center of gravity has shifted from the state department depart-ment to the navy department." Since Kurusu was still here it was explained, the situation had not changed. But the next move was decidedly Japan's; the state department depart-ment had probably said its last word. Mr. "X" was cl the opinion that it was still possible that some face-saving method would be worked out to permit the military element to accede to our demands and thus "keep Japan from committing suicide." sui-cide." His impression was that nothing noth-ing would happen before Tuesday when he thought Kurusu would hand Secretary Hull Japan's answer to the state department's note. Next Stop The Embassy . As I was leaving, a memorandum was handed in saying that Kurusu would receive me at the Japanese embassy immediately. I had been trying very hard to get that appointment ap-pointment and after two davs' ne- principles with lengthy and leisurely discussion but now an emergency existed. Japan was in a position where she was forced to take certain cer-tain steps for her survival. The United States would have to agree to the discussion of realistic issues first and leave the principles to later discussion. Unless that happened no progress could be made. "Of course we are hopeful," he said, rather hopelessly, I thought. On the whole his attitude seemed to confirm what Mr. "X" had said, that Japanese-American relations were in status quo that Japan was playing for time. When I left I made a remark to the effect that I was glad to see Ambassador Kurusu had provided himself with a heavy suit, that evidently evi-dently he was prepared to stay all winter. At that remark he saw fit to laugh heartily. As I went out through the chancery, chan-cery, escorted by one of the idol-faced idol-faced clerks, 1 asked if they, were always as busy as that on a Saturday Satur-day afternoon. "Al, i, l. gotiating, my assistant had finally succeeded. I was first shown through the busy chancery of the Japanese embassy to the office of First Secretary Terasaki, Tera-saki, a smiling little brown man with eyes that came as near to slanting as any oriental's do. He warned me that I could not quote Mr. Kurusu nor was I to mention my visit at all for a week or so as others would demand interviews. Terasaki said he would give me some background. When we were settled he told me a sort of parable. He said: "Suppose a man has been fighting for four days and four nights in the street Another man who has been sitting in his comfortable chair every evening wants to do something. some-thing. Should man in arm chair come to fighting man and talk about principles, about Confucius and Aristotle?" He paused a moment and stared at me steadily with brown eyes that looked as solid as bullets. "No, I think," he went on, "man in armchair should approach man who is fighting with tact and sympathy." sym-pathy." . He paused again to see how 1 was taking it. I dropped my eyes to the notes I was making and he l : wu, nu, ue answered, only these days." That concludes my "diary" for December 6. As I read it over in the light of what happened within less than 24 hours after I rode away from the Japanese embassy in a- cab which had just brought one of the staff to the door with luggage and golf bags, some of the words spoken there took on a new meaning. I had a close-up of one phase of what is probably the world's greatest great-est achievement in diplomatic duplicity. du-plicity. Mr. Kurusu, I believe, has not been available for interviews since. In Jones county, Mississippi, 60 farmers needed workstock. They pitched in together, bought 60 mules in one lot at a nice price. To save a little more money the farmers all of them borrowers from the department de-partment of agriculture, went one step farther, put in a co-operative order for plow gear. Their county purchasing association, sponsored tL I I SeUrity admimstra-tion. admimstra-tion. bought 60,. complete, sets of harness from a local, dealer, assem-bled assem-bled then, at , the mule, barn, Sav-mgs Sav-mgs on this deal ran into $125 The mule dealer fitted the gear nn th! animals at no extra cost assured Perfect harness fittings ' d |