Robert Craigie

Sir Robert Leslie Craigie, GCMG, CB, PC (6 December 1883 – 16 May 1959) was the British ambassador in Japan from 1937 to 1941. Ambassador In June 1939, on the authority of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Craigie successfully managed to end the Tientsin incident with only limited loss to British prestige. During the course of negotiations with the Japanese, Craigie took advantage of divisions within the Japanese leadership, especially between the prime minister, Hiranuma Kiichirō, who wished for a greater degree of control over the military, and the military itself, which wanted less civilian control. In July 1939, Craigie took part in negotiations with Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Hachiro Arita, leading to the acceptance of the Craigie–Arita formula by which the British government agreed not to resist Japanese actions in China but did not recognise their legality. In July 1940, following the arrest of several British nationals in Japan, he suggested to the British government to arrest some Japanese nationals in British territory against whom a case could be made in court as a move to prove Japanese subversive intentions against Britain. On the morning of 8 December 1941, he received from Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Shigenori Togo an official document, stating that negotiations with the US government had failed but without mentioning any war between the Japanese and the British governments.