The Taft-Katsura Memorandum Reconsidered

Abstract

SINCE 1959, when Raymond A. Esthus' revisionist view appeared in the Journal of Modern History, the TaftKatsura memorandum has become one of the important issues in American diplomatic history.? The controversy is whether the agreed-upon memorandum was a secret pact and, thus, an international agreement2-a view first asserted by Tyler Dennett in 1924 and until 1959 generally accepted by the major scholars in the area of American-Far Eastern relations3-or whether it was a mere exchange of views as Esthus maintained. Most authors who have recently touched upon the subject accept much of the revisionist view,4 but