The Evening Star (November 21, 1946)
Tokyo trial defense implies that U.S. hid ‘41 memoranda
TOKYO (AP) – The defense at the international war crimes trial strongly implied in questioning today that the State Department suppressed significant memoranda on 1941 Japanese-American negotiations.
Outside the courtroom, Lt. Col. Franklin E. N. Warren of defense counsel replied to correspondents’ questions: “I would not be surprised to see another congressional investigation of the State Department regarding events prior to Pearl Harbor.”
He did not elaborate.
Grew report cited
Col. Warren also implied by cross-examination of Joseph W. Ballantine, special assistant to the Secretary of State, that Cordell Hull, then secretary, refused to accept a report prepared by former Ambassador Joseph C. Grew. The Grew report was submitted after he was released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp and returned to Washington.
Mr. Ballantine said “I know nothing of such a report.”
Col. Warren inquired if Stanley Hornbeck, Mr. Hull’s adviser on Far Eastern matters, hadn’t prepared a memorandum “about using a policy of economic strangulation to force Japan to do what the United States wanted” and if it hadn’t been suppressed.
“I do not recall such a memorandum,” Mr. Ballantine replied.
‘Scramble’ to recover papers
“Is it not a fact that it is common knowledge in the State Department that there was a mad scramble in the State Department after hostilities commenced to recover those (Hornbeck) memoranda and keep them from knowledge of the American people?” Col. Warren demanded.
“As far as I know, official memoranda are still there in the department,” Mr. Ballantine said.
“Were not Hull and Hornbeck from the outset opposed to having the President meet Prince Konoye (then premier) and settle differences between the two nations?” asked Col. Warren. Mr. Hull advised Mr. Roosevelt not to accept a Japanese bid for such a conference in 1941, contending it would fail and the Japanese could use the fact to their advantage in propaganda in Asia.
“Mr. Hull was 99.9 percent of the State Department,” replied Mr. Ballantine. “I think he has made his position clear in the records.”
The Evening Star (November 23, 1946)
Tokyo defense lawyer to practice in Japan
TOKYO (AP) – Edward P. McDermott of Kearney, Nebraska, and Washington, a defense attorney at war crimes trials and the first American admitted to the bar of Japan since the surrender, announced today he will remain in Japan to practice law.
Mr. McDermott formerly was district attorney of Nebraska’s 12th judicial district. As a member of the Justice Department, he was special trial attorney with a war fraud unit at Detroit.
He is counsel here for Adm. Shigetaro Shimada, one of the 27 defendants currently on trial before the international war crimes tribunal.
The Evening Star (November 25, 1946)
Richardson sheds no light on Pearl Harbor surprise
TOKYO (AP) – Japan succeeded in achieving “complete secrecy and complete surprise” in its 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor through “careful planning,” retired Adm. James O. Richardson testified today before the war crimes tribunal trying 27 Japanese.
Adm. Richardson, who commanded the U.S. Fleet for one year prior to 1941, shed no new light on why the American Army and Navy were surprised by the attack. His two and one-half hours of testimony, he said, was culled entirely from documents on file in the Navy Department, and was generally a repetition of his testimony during the Pearl Harbor inquiry in Washington.
Earlier the admiral blamed one of the defendants, Adm. Osami Nagano, and Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, who was shot down in the Solomons during the war, as being chiefly responsible for Japan’s naval expansion after withdrawal from naval limitations treaties in 1936. Nagano was chief of the general naval staff, and Yamamoto was commander in chief of the Imperial Combined Fleet.