Dimensions
176 x 214 x 26mm
A new history by Bob Wurth reveals for the first time Australia's desperate attempts to prevent war with Japan during 1941. 'Saving Australia' is the result of five years research, frequently from the Japanese side.
The book documents an arrangement Japan's first Japanese ambassador to Australia, Tatsuo Kawai, came to with John Curtin in which Japan would guarantee Australia's safety in exchange for iron ore exports. A two-pronged approach to Australia's pre-war peace initiatives with Japan is disclosed, involving clandestine peace talks with Kawai and attempts at Australian diplomatic intervention in the US – Japan peace talks in Washington.
'Saving Australia' reveals the friendship between Curtin and Kawai and how Curtin helped change Kawai from extremist to pacifist. The book discloses the highly sympathetic understanding of Japan's pre-war plight by Labor's Bert Evatt, who might have compromised Australia's national security through his closeness to Kawai. Evatt is shown to have ignored the Army's advice to introduce stricter security measures on Japanese diplomats. Tatsuo Kawai and his staff, under house arrest in a Melbourne mansion, gathered military intelligence and used a collaborator to get it to Japan.
Japan expert Professor Alan Rix says 'Saving Australia' is very relevant to the history of Australia -Japan relations and opens up new areas concerning Curtin and the Japanese side of the relationship.
