30 Facts About Joseph Grew

Joseph Clark Grew was an American career diplomat and Foreign Service officer.

Joseph Grew is best known as the ambassador to Japan from 1932 to 1941 and as a high official in the State Department in Washington from 1944 to 1945.

Joseph Grew opposed American hardliners, sought to avoid war, and helped to ensure the soft Japanese surrender in 1945 that enabled a peaceful American Occupation of Japan after the war.

In 1924, Joseph Grew became the Under Secretary of State and oversaw the establishment of the US Foreign Service.

Joseph Grew was interned until American and Japanese diplomats were formally exchanged in 1942.

Joseph Grew successfully promoted a soft peace with Japan that would allow Emperor Hirohito to maintain his status, which facilitated the Emperor's decision to surrender in 1945.

Joseph Grew was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in May 1880 to a wealthy Yankee family.

Joseph Grew became acting chief of the State Department's Division of Western European Affairs during the war and was the secretary of the American peace commission in Paris.

From April 7,1920 to October 14,1921, Joseph Grew served as the US Ambassador to Denmark after his appointment by President Woodrow Wilson.

Joseph Grew was preceded by Norman Hapgood and succeeded by John Dyneley Prince.

Joseph Grew replaced Hampson Gary as the United States Ambassador to Switzerland after his appointment by President Warren Harding.

From April 16,1924 to June 30,1927, Joseph Grew served as the Under Secretary of State in Washington under President Calvin Coolidge and succeeded William Phillips.

Joseph Grew used his position to manipulate the oral part of the exam specifically to prevent further hiring of Black candidates.

In 1927, Joseph Grew was appointed as the American ambassador to Turkey.

Joseph Grew served in Ankara until 1932, when he was offered the opportunity to return to the Far East.

In 1932, Joseph Grew was appointed by President Herbert Hoover to succeed William Cameron Forbes as the Ambassador to Japan, where he took up his posting on June 6.

Ambassador and Mrs Joseph Grew had been happy in Turkey, and were hesitant about the move, but decided that Joseph Grew would have a unique opportunity to make the difference between peace and war between the United States and Japan.

The historian Jonathan Utley argues in Before Pearl Harbor that Joseph Grew took the position that Japan had legitimate economic and security interests in Greater East Asia and that he hoped that President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull would accommodate them by high-level negotiations.

Joseph Grew served as ambassador until December 8,1941, when the United States and Japan severed diplomatic relations during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Joseph Grew wrote in 1942 that he expected Nazi Germany to collapse, like the German Empire in 1918, but not the Japanese Empire:.

Joseph Grew returned to Washington in 1942 and served as a special assistant to Secretary Hull.

Joseph Grew was again appointed as Under Secretary of State and served from December 20,1944 to August 15,1945.

Joseph Grew served as the Acting Secretary of State for most of the period from January to August 1945, while Secretaries of State Edward Stettinius and James F Byrnes were away at conferences.

Joseph Grew was the author of an influential book about Japan, titled Ten Years in Japan.

Joseph Grew advocated a soft peace that would be acceptable to the Japanese people and would maintain an honorable status for the Emperor.

Joseph Grew successfully opposed treating the Emperor as a war criminal and thereby prepared the way for a speedy Japanese surrender and the friendly postwar relations during which Japan was closely supervised by American officials.

Truman granted the men a temporary reprieve, but Joseph Grew, as Acting Secretary of State, signed an order on July 11,1945 forcing the repatriation of the Soviet POWs to the Soviet Union.

Joseph Grew's book Sport and Travel in the Far East was a favorite one of Theodore Roosevelt's.

In 1945, after Joseph Grew left the State Department, he wrote two volumes of professional memoirs, published in 1952.

Joseph Grew died two days before his 85th birthday on May 25,1965.