II - To Tokyo and Back: The Making of a Diplomat

Summary

I shall see them as I have always seen them

A ragged processsional of gaunt, grim and ghostly men.

Marching from a field that slept;

No longer underneath their stars and stripes,

But under the blood-red banners

Of an alien conqueror that had come

Like shadows in the night…

Maximo V. Soliven, The Men of Bataan

“The enemies can kill all of us, their bombs may destroy, but they cannot kill the ideal, the aspiration and the longings of the one billion peoples of this part of the world to be free, to be left alone so that Asia may be for the Asiatics and my Philippines may be for the Filipinos…”

President Jose P. Laurel, Speech before Japanese imperial officials, 1945

“We are committed to the cause and the international program of the United States of America … Our safest course … is in the glistening wake of America whose sure advance with mighty prow breaks for smaller craft the waves of fear.”

President Manuel A. Roxas, Independence Day Address, 1946