Word: hirota
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Japan under Emperor Hirohito has much in common with England under Queen Victoria. Last week every Japanese read with pride a state-of-the-nation speech delivered to the 73rd session of the Imperial Parliament by Foreign Minister Koki Hirota. It might have been Lord Palmerston speaking, it might have been years ago, but it was actually Mr. Hirota voicing the aspirations of Japan in terms as serene as those used by Queen Victoria's ministers to express their gratification at the progress of Imperialism...
...Hull, Hirota, Hopes. What caused the Panay incident to retain its high rating as an international crisis was the conspicuous delay of a reply to the State Department's demand for a formal apology, promise of indemnity and "satisfactory guarantees" that the episode would not be repeated. At week's end the formal apology finally arrived-just in time to be published in the U. S. simultaneously with a complete report of the bombing by the Panay's Lieutenant Commander J. J. Hughes and the findings of a naval court of inquiry which had been sifting eyewitness...
Signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Koki Hirota, the Japanese apology added little to previous unofficial expressions of regret tendered just after the delivery of the first note from the U. S. For indemnities it referred Secretary Hull to the earlier note in which restitution had been freely promised. As its best guarantee that the "mistake" would not be repeated, Japan pointed out that "the recall of the Commander of the flying force [Teizo Mitsunami] has a significance of special importance," which, it was Minister Hirota's "fervent hope," would be appreciated...
...neither Commander Hughes's report nor that of the naval court-both of which called attention to the unmistakable deliberateness of the attack-was there any indication that the bombing of the Panay was a mistake of the sort which Minister Hirota seemed to imply. Nonetheless, since the Japanese apology fulfilled all the demands made by the U. S., Secretary Hull quickly accepted it, merely calling attention to this difference of opinion in his reply. The State Department's note presumably closed the incident but made it apparent that a repetition might be much less easy to explain...
...President, he found wiry, worried little Mr. Saito waiting to extend "full regrets and apologies." In Tokyo, before U. S. Ambassador Joseph C. Grew could make arrangements to transmit the President's note to the Tokyo Foreign Office, he received a call from Foreign Minister Koki Hirota. Later, in a formal note the Foreign Minister presented his Government's apologies for the incident and its promises to "deal appropriately with those responsible for the attack...