Joseph Grew

Joseph Clark Grew (May 27, 1880 – May 25, 1965) was the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark 1920 – 1921 and U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland 1921 – 1924. In 1924, Grew became the Under Secretary of State and oversaw the establishment of the Foreign Service. Grew was the US Ambassador to Turkey 1927-1932 and the Ambassador to Japan beginning in 1932. He was the US Ambassador in Tokyo at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor and when the United States and Japan declared war on each other in December 1941. He was interned for a short time by the Japanese government but was released and returned to the United States on June 25, 1942. [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/po/com/10891.htm] [http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20050408-71.html] In 1944, Grew resumed his post as Under Secretary of State.

Life

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Grew was groomed for public service. At the age of 12 he was sent to Groton, a boys' preparatory school whose purpose was to "cultivate manly Christian character." He was two grades ahead of Franklin D. Roosevelt. During his youth, Grew enjoyed the outdoors, sailing, camping and hunting during his summers away from school. After graduating from Groton, one of only four in his class to graduate, he attended Harvard, joining Alpha Delta Phi and graduating in 1902. [Heinrichs, Waldo. "American Ambassador: Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the American Diplomatic Tradition", Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-19-504159-3.] Following graduation, Grew made a tour of the Far East, and nearly died after being stricken with malaria. While recovering in India, he became friends with the American consul there, abandoned his plans of following his father's career as a banker, and decided to go into diplomatic service [ "Current Biography Yearbook, 1941", pp 345-46. ] .

Grew's first job, in 1904, was as a clerk at the American consulate in Cairo, Egypt. President Theodore Roosevelt had read Grew's book about the 1902 trip, "Sport and Travel in the Far East", and was impressed with a chapter about Grew's experience in fighting a tiger, and wrestling with a bear; Grew was promoted to Vice-Consul in Egypt. [ Id. at p.346 ] Grew married Alice Perry, the granddaughter of famed American naval hero Oliver Hazard Perry. She became Joe Grew's life partner and helper as promotions took him to Mexico, Russia, and Germany. As aide to the American ambassador in Berlin from 1912 to 1917, Grew stayed in Germany until the United States entered World War One and broke diplomatic relations. Grew would find himself in a similar situation when the U.S. entered World War II. [ Id. at p.346 ]

Alice Perry Grew was the daughter of premier American impressionist painter Lilla Cabot Perry, daughter of Dr. Samuel Cabot (of the New England Cabots) and her husband, noted American scholar Thomas Sergeant Perry.

After the Armistice in 1918, Grew worked at the U.S. State Department until his appointment as Ambassador to Turkey in 1927. He served for five years until offered the opportunity to return to the Far East.

Ambassador to Japan

Grew was appointed, by President Herbert Hoover to succeed William Cameron Forbes as the United States Ambassador to Japan in 1932, where he took up his posting on June 6 [Joseph Grew, "Ten Years in Japan", Simon and Schuster, New York 1944 p.6 [. The Ambassador and Mrs. Grew had been happy in Turkey, and were hesitant about the move, but decided that Grew would have a unique opportunity to make the difference between peace and war between the U.S. and Japan. The Grews soon became popular in Japanese society, joining clubs and societies there and adapting to the culture, even as relations between the two countries deteriorated. On January 27, 1941, Grew secretly cabled the United States with the information, gathered from a Peruvian diplomat, that Japan was considering a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, information declassified twelve years later. [ "Papers Show Joseph Grew Saw Possible Jap Attack," "Frederick Post", August 4, 1953, p.2 ] . Grew continued to serve as U.S. Ambassador until December 7, 1941, when the United States and Japan severed diplomatic relations after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Though at war, the U.S. and Japan negotiated a plan for the repatriation of their diplomatic corps. In July 1942, Grew and 1,450 other Americans and foreign nationals sailed from Tokyo to Lourenço Marques in Portuguese East Africa (now Maputo, Mozambique) aboard the Japanese liner Asama Maru and its backup, the Comte di Verdi. Japan's ambassador to the United States, Kichisaburo Nomura, along with 1,096 other Japanese dignitaries, sailed from New York to Lourenço Marques on the Gripsholm, a liner registered to neutral Sweden. On July 22, the exchange took place, and the Gripsholm sailed to Rio de Janeiro and then to New Jersey. [ "Yank Free From Japan Reports 600 Tokio Raid Deaths, Army Suicides," "The Fresno Bee", July 24, 1942, p2 ] .

World War II and after

Grew was appointed as Under Secretary of State upon his return to the United States. He served as Acting Secretary of State for most of the period from January to August 1945 as Secretaries of State Edward Stettinius and James Byrnes were away at conferences. Among high level officials in the Truman Administration, Grew was the most knowledgeable of Japanese issues, having spent so much time in Japan. Grew was also the author of a profoundly influential book about Japan, entitled "Ten Years in Japan".

Grew was a member of the "Committee of Three," along with Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, a group that sought to obtain an alternative to the use of the atomic bomb in order to force Japan's surrender without using atomic bombs. Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy drafted a proposed surrender demand for the Committee of Three, which was incorporated into Article 12 of the Potsdam Declaration. The original language of the Proclamation would have increased the chances for Japanese surrender as it allowed the Japanese government to maintain its emperor as a "constitutional monarchy." President Harry S. Truman, who was influenced by his Secretary of State James Byrnes during the trip by ship to Europe for the Potsdam Conference, changed the language of the surrender demand. Grew knew how important the emperor was to the Japanese people and believed that the condition could have led to Japanese surrender without using the atomic bombs. Grew stated, "If surrender could have been brought about in May 1945 or even in June or July before the entrance of Soviet Russia into the war and the use of the atomic bomb, the world would have been the gainer." Fact|date=March 2007

Grew's daughter, Lilla Cabot Grew married Jay Pierrepont Moffat, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, in Hancock, New Hampshire in 1927.

Grew and Roosevelt

Grew's book "Sport and Travel in the Far East" was a favorite of Theodore Roosevelt. The Introduction to the 1910 Houghton Mifflin printing of the book features the following introduction written by Roosevelt:

"My dear Grew,- I was greatly interested in your book "Sport and Travel in the Far East" and I think it is a fine thing to have a member of our diplomatic service able both to do what you have done, and to write about it as well and as interestingly as you have written...Your description, both of the actual hunting and the people and surroundings, is really excellent;..."

In 1943 Grew received a L.H.D. from Bates College. Grew died two days before his 85th birthday, on May 25, 1965.

Works

* "Sport and Travel in the Far East", 1910
* Report From Tokyo, 1942
* Ten Years in Japan, 1944
* Turbulent Era, Volume I, 1952
* Turbulent Era, Volume II, 1952

References

External links

* [http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people/Grew,+Joseph, Annotated bibliography for Joseph Grew from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues]
* [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/gresham-griffey.html The Political Graveyard: Joseph C. Grew]
* [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/po/com/ United States Department of State: Chiefs of Mission by Country, 1778-2005]

Additional reading

* DeConde, Alexander, et al. "Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy", Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. ISBN 0-684-80658-4.
* Grew, Joseph C. "Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, 1904-1945," Books for Libraries Press, 1952.
*
* Van Der Vat, Dan. "Pearl Harbor: An Illustrated History", Basic Books, 2001. ISBN 0-465-08983-6.