Kurusu Saburo (Saburō Kurusu) (March 6, 1886 – April 7, 1954), the Japanese diplomat.
Kurusu Saburo began his diplomatic career in 1910. In 1914, he first came to the United States as a Japanese consul in Chicago. During his six-year service in Chicago Kurusu Saburo married an American woman, Alice Jay Litlot, from whom he had three children.
In 1937, Kurusu Saburo was appointed ambassador to Belgium, then ambassador to Germany (1939-1940). He signed the “Tripartite Pact” of Germany, Italy and Japan as the representative of Japan.
On November 15, Kurusu Saburo arrived in Washington as the personal representative of the new foreign minister, Sigenori Togo. Appointed an assistant to Ambassador Nomur Kichisaburo, he actually played a major role in conducting pre-war negotiations in the United States. After the attack on Pearl Harbor Kurusu, Saburo was interned in the United States in Hot Springs, Va., Until the United States and Japan agreed to exchange their diplomatic staff and citizens.
In June 1942, Kurusu Saburo sailed to Mozambique aboard the MS Gripsholm ocean liner, which then returned to America the American ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, and other Americans interned in Japan.
After the capitulation of Japan, the American military courts decided not to prosecute Kurus Saburo and Nomura. Kurusu Saburo was invited as a professor at Tokyo University and lived on the estate at Karuizawa with his wife Alice. Until the end of his days, he claimed that he did not know about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. Kurusu Saburo is the only participant in the signing of the “Tripartite Pact” on September 27, 1940 and November 20, 1940, who survived World War II and was not executed.
Kurusu Saburo is listed on the cast list in Pearl Harbor (2001).
Location: USA
Date of the photo: 1941
By Bob Landry