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A recent thread has once again raised the question: what if Giuseppe Zangara had succeeded, and Franklin Roosevelt had died in 1933?

I did a long TL on this over on soc.history.what-if a few years back. Here's an excerpt.

* * * * *

Washington, DC
December 1940


"Honorable Mr. Ambassador... sir..." Saburo Kurusu's voice is strained. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, Kurusu?" Hiroshi Saito carefully tips another line of white powder out of the vial and onto the mirror. "Now be quiet. If you make me spill
this, you're on the first plane back to Tokyo." Saito doesn't turn to see the effect his words are having. He doesn't have to. Kurusu, he knows, will be choking with indignation and outrage. But will he dare to protest? I think not.

Saito smiles. He is a full ambassador, while Kurusu is merely a "special envoy". True, the other man is close friends with the Prime Minister, and could destroy an ordinary ambassador's career. But Hiroshi Saito is no ordinary ambassador.

Savoring his invulnerability, Saito inhales deeply.

The cocaine is fine, very fine. The burning sensation fades in seconds to cold numbness. Glorious, wonderful numbness: the thick pain in his lung is gone, wiped away by the wonderful white powder. Saito feels the easy tears of a cocaine addict rising in his eyes, but this time they are tears of happiness.

"Mr. Ambassador... this is not..."

The door to the men's room swings open, and two black men step in. They are very large black men, and they are wearing zoot suits -- canary yellow and lime green -- with padded shoulders and clawhammer tails. (1) They glance incuriously at Imperial Japan's Ambassador to the United States as he licks the last bit of cocaine off his mirror, and shove past Tokyo's Special Envoy without a word. To Saito's delight, Kurusu recoils visibly. _He probably thinks we're about to be robbed, raped and murdered._ Saito feels a wide cocaine smile coming on.

"Kurusu! I thought you were a diplomat!" He is aware that he's talking too loud and too fast, but it doesn't matter. The cocaine is kicking in, and suddenly he can feel his heartbeat, boom boom boom. "Control yourself, man! Do you want to get us robbed, raped and murdered?"

Kurusu flinches slightly. He's normally an excellent diplomat, poised and suave. But Hiroshi Saito has taken him far, far out of his element. At 14th Street and T, the Club Bali is only two miles from Foggy Bottom, but it might as well be on another continent. "Ah, yes, Mr. Ambassador, I... yes, yes."

"Do you need to piss?

"No."

"Then come on. I want to hear some jazz."

* * * * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Lionel Hampton."

"Last week it was Louis Armstrong. Ah, you've heard of him. I couldn't get a seat, though, so I went to the Howard Club instead. Ella Fitzgerald, very fine." The band has struck up a wild tune, loose and jangling, all horns and strings. "This place opened in August. I've been here twice. Some swing band in September, and the Billie Holliday gig in October. (2) That wasn't really my thing, too slow and sad." For all its speed and vigor, the music seems oddly incomplete; something is missing. "This Hampton fellow is supposed to be good, though." A tall black man strides to the center of the stage and raises his arms dramatically. Each hand holds a long, slender wooden mallet.

"What... what is that thing?"

"Vibraphone. See, Kurusu, I told you you'd learn something tonight." (3) And suddenly Lionel Hampton's arms are in blurring motion, clang bong boom, and the hole in the music is filled with a solid spine of high-speed percussion. Hiroshi Saito takes a sip of his whiskey. It's not very good whiskey, but that doesn't matter just now. "I think this piece is called 'Hot Mallets'." The sound is like bells mixed with drums, an avalanche of sound that he can feel in his sick bones. "Do you know, Kurusu, I always liked jazz. And Washington is maybe the second greatest jazz town in the country. But until... last year... I never went to any clubs here. I thought I didn't have time for such amusements. No time! Isn't that funny, Kurusu?" Kurusu smiles stiffly.

The club is dark, the air is hot and smoky. The crowd is almost entirely black, with a few white tables near the door. Saito and Suburu are the only Asians, of course. Smoke and cocaine and the taste of bad whiskey: if Saito were a poet he would try to make something our of that. But poetry is one vice he has managed to avoid.

Kurusu looks like the sort of fellow who would write poetry, the sort of poetry appropriate for a diplomat. Will he write a poem about this evening? Probably not. "Do you know why I'm still alive, Kurusu?"

"Your health is undoubtedly excellent, Mr. Ambassador." Kurusu's face is a bland mask again. (4)

Saito laughs, too loudly. (Boom, boom, says his heartbeat in his ears.) "I'm alive for two reasons, Kurusu. One, I don't want to die without seeing a lasting settlement with the Americans. We're close now, so close." Saito waves a hand. "I have great hopes for the new President. If those fools, those stupid fools in Tokyo can just wait a few weeks longer. If they can just /wait/. The Americans don't really care about China, it's just a few sentimental liberals in the State department. We're so close. If Tokyo can wait, it could still happen. The problem is Indochina, not China. Nobody really cares about China." Saito stops himself, aware that he's starting to babble. He breathes deeply, savoring the numbness in his lung.

"Hope, Kurusu. Hope that we can make this happen. That's what's keeping me alive. Well, that and this excellent cocaine, of course." Cling clang bong boom, it shouldn't be possible but Lionel Hampton's arms are moving faster. "Let's order something to eat." (5)

"Any discussion with the new administration will of course be welcome. However..." Kurusu purses his lips. "I understand that negotiations with the Vichy French authorities in Indochina are, ah, not progressing to the complete satisfaction of all parties."

"Johnny? My regular, extra noodles. And another for my buddy here." Saito turns back to the table. "Well, they'll just have to fucking hold their water, Kurusu. And I expect you to go back and tell them so." Suddenly Saito is angry, almost blindly angry. The cocaine, of course (boom boom) but not only the cocaine.

"The Americans will not let us move into Indochina. China, President Garner didn't care about China, as long as we protected American investments there. (6) But if they think we're moving on southeast Asia too, they'll fight. They'll fight!" Saito pounds the table, boom. "They'll fight -- unless they have another war to distract them first!"

"Timing. Timing! It's all timing, like love or music or... anything else that matters. You have to come in at just the right moment. If we wait just a year or two... they'll be at war with the Germans, one way or another."

"Hitler attacked Poland, boom. Norway, boom. Belgium, Holland, France, boom boom boom. He's like a hammer, he sees a world full of nails. He won't be able to resist attacking Russia. Anyone can see that. And then the Americans will have to join the British. Join the British, or give Hitler the world. And then we can just _walk_ into Indochina!"

"But moving now, when we have a working agreement with the Americans, and everything to lose... How can they even think of being so stupid? So god... damned... stupid?" Saito realizes that he is banging the table so loudly that people are turning to watch. Kurusu has gone absolutely stiff.

Saito sighs. There's no point in terrorizing this foolish little man. The fools in Tokyo will decide what they'll decide. It's going to be close, he knows that much. Very close. Three years of successful detente with America have strengthened the hand of the peace faction. Have they strengthened it enough? He may live to see the decision; he certainly won't live to see its outcome. He'll be ashes scattered over Tokyo Bay before that hammer comes down.

"Two beef bulgogi with kimchi, one side of noodles." Johnny whisks two plates onto the table, ladles steaming lumps of savory meat, is gone. Lionel Hampton brings his mallets down with a final crash, raises his arms in triumph. Kurusu gapes.

"Come, Kurusu. Haven't you ever had Korean food before? Best in Washington." He takes a steaming forkful of bulgogi. Tomorrow, perhaps, despair and death will arrive in a telegram. Tonight he is away from all that. Tonight he has a full plate of bulgogi, half a bottle of whiskey, three vials in his pocket and a table by the orchestra. Tonight the band has just begun to play.

Tonight, Hiroshi Saito is a happy man.


Doug M.


(1) http://www.catscorner.com/zoot.html

(2) http://www.gwu.edu/~jazz/QHolidayBali.html

(3) http://www.thevibe.net/vn/

(4) Saito and Kurusu are both historical characters. Hiroshi Saito was Japan's ambassador to the US, OTL, from 1936 to 1939. Saito spoke colloquial English so well that people assumed he must have been raised in Brooklyn; he spent seven years travelling all over the US, and had the habit of startling Americans by knowing as much about their home town as they did. Saito's good ol' boy manners concealed a razor-keen mind, and his talents for observation were used in his country's service; he reported back to Tokyo regularly on everything from the worker productivity of the ceramic industry to the grammar of the peace plank in the 1940 Republican party platform.

OTL Saito died of lung cancer in 1939. TTL he's hanging on, barely, in 1940. OTL he died in despair, watching his good work being wasted by the militarists; TTL he has clung to hope, and so to life.

(5) Cocaine was still being occasionally used to treat lung and throat cancers OTL well into the 1940s; it's a decent topical anesthetic, after all, and might raise the patient's spirits too. IDK if Saito ever got any OTL, but TTL he's had more than enough to bring on full-fledged addiction.

(6) Two things to keep in mind about US policy in Asia pre-WWII OTL. One, FDR was a Sinophile; he liked China, was sympathetic to Chiang Kai-Shek, and so opposed Japan's war there on moral as well as pragmatic grounds. ATL, President Garner would see things rather differently -- he'd have little objection to Japanese imperialism as long as it didn't directly threaten US interests.

The other thing is, OTL the 1930s State Department was sort of a dumping ground for conservatives. In this TL, with a much more conservative President, the opposite has been true; State has been a place for Garner to put his liberals, where they can make noise and feel important but not affect anything that matters. (Or so it seems in 1933-4.)

(7) No, seriously. The Bali Club was famous for its Korean food.
http://www.gwu.edu/~jazz/venuesb.html
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