Joseph Grew (27 May 1880-25 May 1965) was the US ambassador to Japan from 14 June 1932 to 8 December 1941, succeeding W. Cameron Forbes and preceding William J. Sebald.
Biography[]
Joseph Grew was born on 27 May 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts, and he attended the Groton School boys' preparatory school, two grades above the future US president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Grew served as a clerk at the US embassy in Cairo in 1904 before being promoted to vice-consul to Egypt, and he was the aide to the American ambassador in Berlin, German Empire from 1912 to 1917. From 1927 to 1932, he served as the ambassador to Turkey in Istanbul, and he achieved his dream of being sent to the Far East in 1932 when he was sent to Tokyo, Japan. Grew and his family joined Japanese clubs and societies and became popular in Japan, and he had a unique position to preserve peace with Japan. On 7 December 1941, he demanded an immediate audience with the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito, over the Japanese government's plans to attack Pearl Harbor, but it was too late to stop the attack. Grew ceased his diplomatic duties on 8 December 1941, and he returned home in July 1942 with 1,450 American citizens. From 20 December 1944 to 15 August 1945, he served as Under Secretary of State, and he left the state department that year. He died at the age of 84 in 1965, two days before his eighty-fifth birthday.