The Winds of War

at this time, though most historians agree he later went stark mad. In any case, the deranged Matsuoka was in charge of Japan’s relations with the world, when the deranged Hitler attacked the deranged Stalin.

Japanese historians recount that Matsuoka obtained an urgent audience with the emperor and begged him to invade Siberia right away. But the army and navy leaders were cool to the idea. In 1939, the army had had a nasty unpublicized tangle with Stalin’s Siberian army, taking losses in the tens of thousands. They wanted to go south, where the Vichy French were impotent, the Dutch were cut off from home, and the beleaguered English could spare little force. Warren Henry’s amateur analysis on the Enterprise’s hangar deck had not been wrong on these main alternatives.

But Matsuoka insisted that by signing the Tripartite pact with Germany and Italy, Japan had pledged to help them if they were attacked; and the German invasion clearly had taken place to fend off a Russian attack. Morality therefore required Japan to invade Siberia at once. As for the nonaggression pact with Russia — which he had himself negotiated — Russia never kept pacts anyway. To attack right now was vital, before Russia collapsed, in order for the onslaught to appear honorable, and not just picking up pieces. Matsuoka called this position “moral diplomacy.”

One high-placed official is supposed to have commented quite seriously at this time that the foreign minister was insane; to which an elder statesman replied that insanity in Matsuoka would be an improvement. So much one can sift from the Japanese record.

The official secret decision was to “let the persimmon ripen on the tree” — that is, not to attack the Soviet Union until its defeat looked like more of a sure thing. For the China war went on and on, an endless bog, and the Japanese leaders were not eager to take on heavy new land operations. The thrust south looked like the easier option, if they had to fight. Planning for this was to proceed. Matsuoka was dismayed, and he soon fell from office.

At the time of sunrise in Tokyo, the sun had already been traversing Siberia for over three hours, starting at Bering Strait. Before bringing a second sunrise to the battlefront, it had eight more hours to travel, for the Soviet Union stretches halfway around the globe.

Amid the invasion rumors of May and June, a bitter story had swept through Europe, crossing the frontiers between German-held and free territory. A Berlin actress, the story went, resting after lovemaking with a Wehrmacht general, persuaded him to tell her about the coming invasion of Russia. He obligingly took down an atlas of the world and began, but she soon interrupted him:

“Liebchen, but what is that great big green space there all across the map?”

“Why that, Liebchen, as I told you, is the Soviet Union.”

“Ach so. And where did you say Germany was?”

The general showed her the narrow black blob in mid-Europe.

“Liebchen, the actress said pensively, “has the Fuhrer seen this map?”

It was a good joke. But the nerve center of the Soviet Union was not in Vladiavostok, at the far eastern end of the green space. The sunrise of June 23, passing west of the Russian capital, shone out within the hour on German columns, twenty-five miles advanced toward Minsk and Moscow in one day, through the massed forces of the Red Army and its heaviest border defenses.

Chapter 46

Purple lightning cracked down the black sky, forking behind the Washington Monument in jagged streams. July on the Potomac was going out, as usual, in choking heat and wild thunderstorms. “There goes my walk home,” Victor Henry said. Through the open window, a tongue of cool air licked into the stifling, humid office, scattering heavy raindrops on the wall charts. It began to pour in the street, a thick hissing shower.

“Maybe it’ll break the heat wave,” Julius said. Julius was a chief yeoman who had worked with him in the Bureau of Ordnance, a fat placid man of fifty with a remarkable head for statistics.

“No such luck. The steam will be denser, that’s all.” Pug looked at his watch. “Hey, it’s after six. Ring my house, will you? Tell the cook dinner at seven.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Tightening his tie and slipping into a seersucker jacket, Pug scooped up papers from the desk. “I want to study these figures some more. They’re kind of incredible, Julius.”

With a shrug and wave of both hands, Julius said, “They’re as good as the premises you gave me to work from.”

“Jehosephat, if it comes to that many landing craft for the two oceans, how can we build anything else for the next three years?”

Julius gave him the slightly superior smile of an underling who, on a narrow topic, knows more than the boss. “We produce sixty million tons of steel a year, sir. But making all those hair dryers and refrigerators and forty different models of cars too — that’s the problem.”

Pug dove through the rain to a taxicab that drew up at the Navy Building. A very tall man got out, pulling a soft hat low on his head. “All yours — why, hello there.”

“Well, hi!” Pug pulled out his wallet and gave the taxi driver a bill saying, “Wait, please. — How long have you been in Washington, Kirby?

“About a month.”

“Come home with me for a drink. Better yet, join me for dinner.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I can.”

“I’m alone,” said Victor Henry.

Kirby hesitated. “Where’s your wife?”

“Spending my money in New York. She saw off our daughter-in-law and grandson on a plane to Hawaii. Now she’s shopping for furniture and stuff. We bought a house.”

“Oh? Did she get the one on Foxhall Road?”

“That’s the one. How’d you know about it?”

“Well — I ran into Rhoda when she was house-hunting. You were out at sea, I guess. We had lunch and she showed me the place. I was all for it.”

“Got much to do?” Pug insisted. “I’ll wait for you.”

“As a matter of fact,” Kirby said abruptly, “I only have to pick up some papers. Let me dash in here for a minute. I’ll be glad to have that drink with you.”

Soon they sat together in the cab, moving slowly in the clogged rush-hour traffic of Constitution Avenue, in torrents of rain. “What are you doing in this dismal town?” Pug said.

“Oh, this and that.”

“U know what?” grinned Pug, stressing U for uranium.

Kirby glanced at the bald round head and red ears of the driver.

“Driver, turn on your radio,” Pug said. “Let’s catch the news.”

But the driver could only get jazz, buzzing with static.

“I don’t know what you hope to hear,” Kirby said, “except that the Germans are another fifty miles nearer Moscow.”

“Our department’s getting edgy about the Japs.”

“I can’t figure out the President’s order,” Kirby said. “Neither can the papers, it seems. Okay, he froze their credits. Does it or doesn’t it cut off their oil?”

“Sure it does. They can’t pay.”

“Doesn’t that force them to go to war?”

“Maybe. The President had to do something about this Vichy deal that puts Jap airfields and armies in Indo- China. Saigon’s a mighty handy jump-off point for Malaya and Java — and Australia, for that matter.”

Kirby deliberately packed his pipe. “How is Rhoda?”

“Snappish about various foul-ups in the new house. Otherwise fine.”

Through puffs of blue smoke, the scientist said, “What do we actually want of the Japs now?”