A series of columns by journalist Hiroshi Yuasa has recently been compiled into a book entitled “Eiichi Tatsumi:Shigeru Yoshida’s Forgotten Military Advisor.” ( Sankei Shimbun Co. , Tokyo. 2011)
　　　Giving the book a fresh read, I felt as if I was actually living through the era in which Tatsumi was active, witnessing the scenes in which he was making a number of critical decisions for the future of Japan. What makes this book absolutely compelling is the immediacy with which the varied situations Tatsumi confronted are presented, smoldering almost too vividly before our eyes, as if they were problems faced by Japan today.
　　　In point of fact, many of the issues Tatsumi had to deal with during this pivotal period in Japan’s history -€ as well as the nature of the opposition he faced -€ are essentially the same as those confronting the country today. Like a chronic disease, they continue to plague Japan even at this very moment.
　　　The mistakes committed “at that time” – as well as those we did not dare rectify “at the time” – have resulted in the creation of an abnormal Japanese national character, causing the nation to shy away from its responsibility to defend its own land and seas and to relentlessly turn to the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty as a convenient means of dodging national security issues.
　　　A career officer who hailed from the Nabeshima clan in Saga Prefecture, Kyushu, Tatsumi served the Imperial Army as an able staff officer for some 30 years from 1915 through the end of the Pacific War. After the war, he supported Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida behind the scenes as his trusted advisor on military affairs.
　　　Of the many crucial issues Tatsumi tackled, what I suspect must have involved the fate of Japan most significantly was his desperate effort to restrain the forces in Japan that were single-mindedly forging ahead with plans to enforce the Tripartite Alliance involving Japan, Germany, and Italy. I see in Tatsumi a determined career staff officer who put up a solitary struggle against the pro-German elements in the military while attaching great importance to establishing harmonious relations with Britain and the United States. He was a true patriot with a broad view of things who desperately searched for a way to secure his motherland’s survival.
　　　In 1937 Japan concluded the Anti-Comintern Agreement with Germany and Italy. That same year, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident took place, followed by the second Shanghai Incident. The following year, Hitler annexed Austria and began dismantling Czechoslovakia. In the summer of that same year, Tatsumi -€ then a military attache in London serving under Ambassador Shigeru Yoshida -€ was called back to Tokyo as Chief of the European and American Section of the General Staff Office.

Rearmament and Revision of the Constitution
　　　At the time, the General Staff Office was maneuvering to strengthen the tripartite anti-comintern pact, with plans to elevate the relationship to a formal alliance between Japan, Germany, and Italy. It stubbornly believed such an alliance would pave the way to dealing effectively with the Soviet Union, while restraining Britain and the United States, which had been providing aid to Chiang Kai-shek’s government in China; if things went well, Britain and the United States might even withdraw their aid to China. However, such an analysis was attributable to nothing but an over-estimation of Germany and an under-estimation of Britain and the United States, as well as a horrendous lack of broader knowledge required in diplomacy.
　　　Tatsumi, who had compiled an outstanding record while in London under Yoshida, viewed world trends within a framework far larger than those of the Japanese government or the General Staff Office. Witnessing the intricate European political situation first-hand, Tatsumi tried his best to face the facts and nothing but the facts, improving his ability to analyze information. Both Yoshida and Tatsumi were fully mindful that the ultimate purpose of diplomacy is to secure the survival of the motherland.
　　　Therefore, it was natural that they resolutely made every effort to promote a policy of seeking harmonious ties with Britain and the United States under the conviction that Japan should never confront them as their overall national power far exceeded that of Japan’s and Germany’s combined, and that Japan should by no means join hands with the losing side.
　　　Pro-German military men and politicians, who had criticized Tatsumi as “weak-kneed, too pro-British, and too pro-American,” were stunned when Germany and the Soviet Union abruptly signed an non-aggression pact in the middle of the hot summer of 1939.
　　　For them, it was totally unimaginable that Germany, with which Japan had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, would ever join hands with the Soviet Union. But diplomacy is a war on the outcome of which the future of one’s own nation rests. Although weapons are not employed, every type of maneuver is permissible, including deception and cheating. There are countries like the Soviet Union which do not hesitate to ignore international agreements and treaties, and countries like China, where “lying” by the government is nothing out of the ordinary. Therefore, it is mandatory to be well versed in the values of other nations and their national characters, and to ascertain where the interests of other countries lie. Devoid of such intellectual training and judging the behavior of other nations simply on the basis of its own parochial standards, Japan completely misread the international situation in 1939, forcing Prime Minister Kiichiro Hiranuma to tender his resignation with this well-known statement :“Things are quite bizarre and complex in the Land of the Europeans.”
　　　Afterwards, Japanese diplomacy continued to be buffeted by the international situation. In fact, Japan failed to learn anything from the abrupt move made by Germany to join hands with the Soviet Union. A year later, in September 1940, Japan went ahead to sign the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. Both Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe and Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka pushed hard for the pact, replacing able talents who were considered members of the pro-British/American faction.
　　　A little before then -€ in May 1940 to be specific -€ Tatsumi returned to London on his third tour of duty. What greeted him there was Hitler’s invasion of Belgium and the Netherlands, and the coming to power of Prime Minister Winston Churchill -€ the politician who had continued to warn the world against the threat of Germany. We all know too well the details of what followed.
　　　Rearmament through a revision of Japan’s “peace” constitution was yet another vital step Tatsumi regretted having failed to implement despite his all-out effort. Yuasa describes in great detail how hard Tatsumi had pleaded with Yoshida to revise the constitution and rearm Japan, and how stubbornly Yoshida had kept turning him down.

Yoshida’s Repentance a Half Century Ago
　　　Yoshida’s remark that Japan “should only gradually increase its defensive strength in accordance with its national power” eerily overlaps with the infinitely absurd contentions of the incumbent government of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) vis-a-vis Japan’s national security. Comparing Japan to a scrawny horse, Yoshida tried to single-mindedly concentrate on postwar Japan’s economic recovery, claiming that Japan would never be able to sustain the economic burden required for full-fledged rearmament.
　　　Still intending to secure Japan’s commitment to a future military build-up prior to its declaration of independence, the US tried to convey to Yoshida the facts about the tense geo-political situation in the region. But when the Chief of the General Staff of the US Armed Forces asked to meet Yoshida, he snapped at Tatsumi:“Will you do me a favor, be my proxy, and hear whatever the visitor has to say?”
　　　Military power constitutes one of the most important pillars of any nation’s existence. However, Yoshida obviously had a prejudice against military power, and dared not try to know the truth about Japan’s security. Instead, he envisioned Japan coping with military threats by strengthening Japan’s intelligence-gathering capacity. In the end, Yoshida left office without having been able to nurture such an information-gathering network. As a result of Yoshida’s retirement from politics, Tatsumi was deprived of a means of putting his talents to good use. Despite having an exceptional advisor on military affairs, Yoshida sadly lacked the ability to make the most of his expertise.
　　　In his desire to see Japan shy away from military power as much as possible, Yoshida tended to slight matters of military concern, developing his style of politics by taking into consideration elements as he saw fit, and formulating Japan’s overall domestic and international strategy without making efforts to correctly analyze and interpret the developments in the nations involved. Yoshida’s limitations may most likely have been accounted for by the fact that he was a diplomat-turned-politician.
　　　Yoshida retired as prime minister in late 1954. Ten years later in October 1964, when China conducted its first nuclear test as Asia’s first Olympics were being staged in Tokyo, Yoshida is said to have sat formally on his heels before Tatsumi and apologized to him, saying he was seriously forced to reconsider his past posture towards Japan’s “rearmament and constitutional revision.” But Yoshida had taken too much time before coming to the realization that, without normal armed forces, there can be no normal nation, and that Japan needs constitutional revision in every respect. The tragedy of Japan is that, in the past half century since this grave repentance by Yoshida, it has yet to see an administration committed to grappling with the problems left unresolved by Tatsumi and Yoshida. To live through and survive the 21st century, we must make up our minds to walk in Tatsumi’s footsteps, and carry out his unfulfilled wishes.

(Translated from “Renaissance Japan” column 471 in the August 4, 2011 issue of The Weekly Shincho.)