Australia's Curtin sought a Japan deal

Former PM Curtin wanted Japan peace deal - ©AAP 2006
Tuesday Apr 25 21:30 AEST
Australia's wartime Prime Minister John Curtin sought a deal giving Japan access to Australia's iron ore in exchange for guarantees of freedom from attack just months before war in the Pacific broke out, new evidence has revealed.

According to this week's Bulletin magazine, the wartime leader sought the secret peace deal with Japan's first ambassador to Australia, Tatsuo Kawai, as late as mid-1941.

The details of the agreement are detailed in a new book, Saving Australia, Curtin's Secret Peace with Japan, by Bob Wurth, of which an edited extract is published in The Bulletin.

Curtin and Kawai, who first met in Canberra in March 1941, held a series of confidential meetings aimed at preventing war but Curtin, opposition leader at the time, called the deal off, according to the book.

The Australian government had imposed a ban on iron ore exports in 1938 after Japan had secured the rights from the state government to mine and export iron ore from Yampi Sound, in remote Western Australia.

But according to the previously unpublished writings of Kawai, Curtin told the Japanese ambassador to Australia: "If Japan will do that (boost trade for us), then it would be okay for the subordinate Australian side to lift the seizure of the Yampi Sound, but Japan must guarantee Australia's safety".

Kawai wrote: "I was deeply impressed by his attitude and character.

"From that moment, my feelings of friendship towards him grew rapidly."

When Curtin became prime minister in October that year, his foreign minister H.V. "Doc" Evatt tried to pull off a last-minute peace deal between Japan and the US, Bob Wurth's book says.

According to Kawai's writings, which along with poetry and photos were discovered by Wurth during five years research, Curtin "exploded into action" after Kawai had told him in November 1941 that full war was inevitable.

By that time, Evatt and Curtin feared talks between the US and Japan were deteriorating, the extract said.

Evatt, who remained confident of brokering a peace settlement until days before Pearl Harbour, told Australian envoy Richard Casey in Washington to do "anything and everything in your power" to prevent a complete breakdown in discussions.

Despite the outbreak of war, Kawai maintained his strong friendship with the wartime leader until his death, even making a trip to Perth in 1959 to visit his widow Elsie.

Wurth's book will be released next week.