“Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.”

—  Isoroku Yamamoto

As quoted in At Dawn We Slept (1981) by Gordon W. Prange, p. 11; this quote was stated in a letter to Ryoichi Sasakawa prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Minus the last sentence, it was taken out of context and interpreted in the U.S. as a boast that Japan would conquer the entire contiguous United States. The omitted sentence showed Yamamoto's counsel of caution towards a war that would cost Japan dearly.

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Isoroku Yamamoto 7
Japanese Marshal Admiral 1884–1943

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