unofficial Japanese emissaries, who had hurriedly been dispatched on secret trips to the Middle East, were reporting back that the Arabs regarded “neutrality” as insufficient and indeed, as opposition to their cause. On November 22, Tokyo issued its own statement endorsing the Arab position. That declaration represented Japan’s first major split on foreign policy with the United States in the postwar era. Such an action was hardly to be undertaken lightly, as the U.S.-Japan alliance was the basis of Japanese foreign policy—or had been.
