ABSTRACT
Not only the length of the mission, but also its members, comprising as it did almost all members of Japan’s new political leadership, made the mission a bold undertaking. ‘The scale of the operation was enormous’, J.E.Thomas writes. ‘Apart from the travelling, the number of countries visited, the range of visits, and discussions in every kind of institution and organization, the speed at which they accumulated and integrated information in the eighteen-month visit, must make the operation one of the most remarkable missions in not only Japanese, but world history.’3
