ABSTRACT
Bishop James E. Walsh and Father James M. Drought operated intermittently behind the diplomatic scene of American-Japanese relations, with Drought playing a consistently moie active role than Walsh in his attempts to engender an American-Japanese settlement. Walsh and Drought shared an idealistic vision of Japan, infused with empathy and understanding. Drought identified with the Japanese cause and Japan's foreign policy objectives, and consistently justified any action taken by the Japanese government up to the very eve of Pearl Harbor. Drought hoped that the "working analyses" would provide the impetus for an American-Japanese understanding. Harold Ickes's dedication to liberal principles thus merged with wider global-strategic considerations. Ickes's propensity to think in categories of black and white and to cling persistently to his fixed image of Japan as an inherently aggressive homogeneous entity led him to overlook the highly complex nature of both American-Japanese relations and the Japanese decision-making process.
