ABSTRACT
Matsuoka led Japan into the Tripartite Pact, then in 1941 failed to prevent Japan's occupation of southern French Indo-China, thus losing control of Japan's foreign policy. It is important to note that Japan's foreign policy at that time often seemed like actual decision-making in favour of aggression carried out in accordance with those 'National Policies', whereas in fact those 'National Policies' were deliberately misleading documents which purported to reflect. The priority of the Army's order was, thus, to force Matsuoka to accept the plan since a unanimous agreement for policy-making could never be reached as long as Matsuoka disagreed. In October 1940 Roosevelt objected to Morgenthau's pleas for a strong policy against Japan, reminding him that the president and the secretary of state alone were 'handling foreign affairs'. Japan's admirals had no intention of fighting Britain and the United States, but they wanted a greater share of the budget and a larger allocation of war materiel.
