Page 1 of Enclosure no. 1 to despatch no. 148 Dated February 7, 1949 from the American Embassy, Lima. UNCLASSIFIED TRANSLATION (Excerpt from article appearing in El Comercio of February 5, 1949) "WITH THE AMBASSDOR OF PERU IN ITALY, DOCTOR RICARDO RIVERA SCHREIBER" ........... "Look, I am going to tell you how things happened," the Ambassador said to us when we asked him how his intervention in the announcement of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came about. "I did not seek the information, lacking the means for that, and moreover it was com- pletely outside the sphere of my activities. It came to me directly in a casual manner. In the Peruvian Consulate in Yokohama we had a Japanese interpreter who turned out to be a member of the Nipponese secret police. This man made frequent journeys to Tokyo and visited the Embassy on occasions in his capacity as translator. I never had a discussion with him, but my valet told me many times of his prophecies concerning international political incidents, and I finally became aware that they always came true. In these circumstances, on a certain day my valet came to me highly excited and told me "Powerful JapanÑ Japan is going to war and will destroy the American fleet". I paid no great attention to these words, but ten days afterward the valet again appeared very nervous and repeated the same thing, and upon questioning him as to whether the destruction of the United States fleet would be accomplished in San Diego (California) he said no, that it would be in the middle of the Pacific. As you understand, the middle of the Pacific was Pearl Harbor. A little more interested now, I asked if he had had one of his customary visits from the inter- preter of the Consulate and I obtained an affirmative response. Upon ascertaining when the former visit had been made, I know that it was exactly ten days before, coinciding precisely with the previous state- ment of my valet. This worried me a little, although I considered the possibility that such a thing could occur very remote, but then something unusual occurred which decided me to act without further delay. "I was in the Embassy when they announced a visitor, Professor Yoshuda of the University of Tokyo, who was giving courses on South American and often came to the Embassy to secure date, leaflets and books on Peru. Yoshuda was my friend and a decided antimilitarist. Upon receiving him and after completing the prolonged greetings required by Nipponese courtesy, the professor seized with great excitement, revealed to me that we were on the brink of a great misfortune which would bring everlasting ruin upon his country. He told me that Admiral Yamamoto had already outlined the plan to attack the American fleet in Pearl Harbor and that a sham battle of attack was at the very moment being brought to a conclusion in one of the islands to the south of Japan; he added that Yamamoto had prepared the suicide aviators and that the plan was ready to enter into action without the least doubt. "Before a declaration of such magnitude, itemized in such signi- ficant details, I became apprehensive with dread and immediately proceeded to call Mr. Joseph Grew, the North American Ambassador, on the telephone, and requested an urgent interview. I developed a cordial friendship with Mr. Grew, who immediately told me to take my car