A bolt from the blue? : new evidence on the Japanese Navy and the Draft Understanding between Japan and the United States, April 1941

This article reproduces in its entirety a recently discovered document pertaining to the raft Understanding between Japan and the United States that establishes the existence of hitherto unknown communication between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburo¯. It challenges the long-standing historical consensus that Nomura worked independently of Tokyo in preparing the Draft Understanding.It reassesses Nomura's role in the confused process that led the Japanese government to conceive of the Draft Understanding as an American proposal and stresses the extent to which Navy Minister Oikawa Koshiro¯ was responsible for bringing the Draft Understanding to the point that it actually offered a chance at rapprochement. Finally, it investigates Oikawa's supine failure to act on his true responsibilities. In short, this article revises our understanding of a fateful step on the Japanese navy's path to Pearl Harbor.