"The "Soft Peace Boys

Before retiring in August 1945, Joseph Grew had risen through the ranks in the State Department to become the acting secretary of state. Yet he was and remains most readily identified by the ten years he spent as the American ambassador to Tokyo. It was on the basis of his tenure there, and with the. help of friends and colleagues drawn pri marily from embassy, he exercised a considerable influence on American planning for the Occupation of Japan. Keenly aware of the failure of the last European peace settlement, these Japan hands were often criticized as the advocates of a soft peace. As if to invite such criticism, Grew publicly urged the abandonment of any vindic tiveness in planning for the peace. It was the same kind of blind preju dice which in the last war had been directed against the Germans, he told a Chicago audience in December 1943, prevented so many Americans from admitting that there can be anything good in Japan or any good elements in the Japanese race. Without a postwar policy would seek to strengthen these good elements and win their co operation, he implied, the Japanese might simply follow the German example and wait a generation before trying again. There would be

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