Robert Joseph Charles Butow, March 19, 1924-October 17, 2017
Memorial from University of Washington Department of History and Jackson School
Curriculum vitae
Memorial Service
A memorial will be held on December 9, 2017 at 3:00 PM at Aljoya, 450 NE 100th St., Seattle, WA 98125. In lieu of flowers, consider making a donation to Seattle Children's or the The Alzheimer's Association. Memorial service program
Biography
Robert Joseph Charles Butow was born in San Bruno, California on March 19, 1924, to Frederick William Butow (born in Germany) and Louise Gut (born in Saaren Switzerland). Bob was the youngest of three brothers.
He attended college at Stanford University, where he was a member of the Army Reserve, and a student of the Japanese language. He received his B.A. in 1947, M.A. in 1948, and Ph.D. in 1953, all from Stanford. Butow was an instructor in history from 1954 to 1959, and an Assistant Professor from 1959 to 1960 at Princeton University in New Jersey. He joined the faculty of the University of Washington as an associate professor in 1960, then became a full professor in 1966 and professor emeritus in 1990. He held a joint appointment with the UW's Jackson School of International Studies.
When his Army Reserve unit was activated, Butow was selected to attend the Army Japanese Language School. He served in the United States Army during the early months of the occupation of Japan in 1945 and 1946, and became interested in Japanese history and culture. Upon his discharge as a second lieutenant, he returned to Stanford. His doctoral thesis on the Japanese surrender (Japan's Decision to Surrender) was subsequently published as his first book. His next book, Tojo and the Coming of the War, was a biography of Hideki Tōjō, the prime minister of Japan during most of World War II. His third book (The John Doe Associates: Backdoor Diplomacy for Peace, 1941) was about a small group of Americans who, without diplomatic authority, tried to promote peace with Japan before 1941, but only ended up worsening relations between the two nations. Butow's final work, a history of Franklin Roosevelt and the war in the Pacific, remains unfinished.
Bob died peacefully and painlessly on October 17, 2017 in the presence of his loving wife and daughter. He is survived by his widow, Reiko Hurvitz; daughter, Stephanie; grandchildren Elijah and Meital; stepchildren Hannah, Nathaniel, and Philip; a niece, Ellen Emma and two nephews, Richard Butow and William Butow, and many grandnieces and nephews in California.
Memorial from University of Washington Department of History and Jackson School
Robert
Butow who taught in the UW Jackson School and History Department for
three
decades (1960-1990) died at the age of 93 on October 17, 2017. He was a
preeminent historian of US-Japan relations, focusing much of his work
on the
diplomatic efforts to avoid war in 1941 and to end the war in 1945. His
first
book, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (published in 1954) is
still universally
regarded as “the classic work” on the end of the Asia-Pacific War. His
next
book, Tōjō and the Coming of the War (1969) became the standard
study of
Japan’s wartime leader. His third book, the result of painstaking
research, was
The John Doe Associates: Backdoor Diplomacy for Peace, 1941
(1974) which
revealed the tangled web of a small group of American citizens who
attempted to
prevent war but only added confusion to the peace efforts.
In
the last decades of his life Professor Butow was at work on a book on
Franklin
Roosevelt and Japan. He published important articles on FDR including
one that
was featured in the national media in 1982 describing what the
historian Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr. called Butow’s “astonishing discovery” of “the
Roosevelt tapes”
in the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park which recorded FDR’s Oval Office
conversations on the eve of war in 1940. This article was a remarkable
bit of detective
work telling the details of how and why these recordings were made. His
book on
Roosevelt remained unfinished and his papers and drafts for his book
are
archived in the Roosevelt Library and in the Special Collections of the
UW.
Bob
Butow is fondly remembered by all who knew him. He was a meticulous
researcher,
a scholar’s scholar, a warm and gentle person, a wonderful human being.
---Kenneth B. Pyle
Curriculum vitae
Education
Stanford University, BA,
1947
Stanford University, MA,
1948
Stanford University, PhD,
1953, dissertation title: “Japan’s Decision to Surrender: A Study in
Policy
Evolution”
Military Service
US Army, 1942-1946.
Enlisted in ROTC at Stanford 1942-09-10; entered active service
1943-04-05; commissioned
as 2nd Lieutenant 1945-05-17; honorable discharge 1946-10-16
Employment
Princeton University,
Department of History
Instructor, 1954-1959
Assistant Professor, 1959-1960
Research Associate, Center of International Studies,
1954-1960
University of Washington,
Department of History and Jackson School of International Studies
Associate Professor,
1960-1966
Professor, 1966-1990
Academic Awards and Fellowships
Rotary International
Foundation Fellowhsip, 1951-1952. Research in Japan on the termination
of WWII.
Center of International
Studies, Princeton University, Post-doctoral Research Fellowship,
1953-1954. Researchh
on Japanese-American relations.
Social Science Research
Council and Rockerfeller Foundatation grants, 1956-1957. Research in
Japan on
the career of General Tojo.
The Institute for
Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies, Princeton University.
Member,
1962-1963, concurrent with Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. Reseaarch
on
American-Far Eastern relations.
John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1965-1966. Reseaarch on American-Far
Eastern
relations, including private efforts for peace.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Institute Research Grant, 1977-1978. Rsearch on “Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the
Far Eastern Crisis, 1933-1941”
John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1978-1979. Rsearch on “Franklin D.
Roosevelt
and the Far Eastern Crisis, 1933-1941”
Publications
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1954. Japan’s Decision to Surrender. Stanford:
Stanford,
Stanford University Press.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1955. “The Surrender of Japan.” U. S. Naval Proceedings
853–65.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1960. “The Hull-Nomura Conversations: A Fundamental
Misconception.” The
American Historical Review 65(4):822–36. Retrieved
(http://www.jstor.org/stable/1849406).
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1961a. Tojo and the Coming of the War. edited by R. D.
S.
Collection. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton, N.J., Princeton University
Press.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1961b. Tojo Hideki. edited by H. Kinoshita. Tokyo,
Japan:
Tōkyō Jiji Tsūshinsha.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1972. “Backdoor Diplomacy in the Pacific: The Proposal for a
Konoye-Roosevelt Meeting, 1941.” Journal of American History
59(1):48–72. Retrieved (http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1888386).
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1974. The John Doe Associates : Backdoor Diplomacy for
Peace, 1941.
edited by M. H. Collection and R. D. S. Collection. Stanford, Calif. :
Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1982a. “How FDR Got His Tape Recorder.” American Heritage
33(6):109–12.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1982b. “The FDR Tapes: Secret Recordings Made in the Oval
Office of
the President in the Autumn of 1940.” American Heritage
33(2):8–24.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1989a. “How the Delano Logbooks Came to Light.” Naval
History
3(3):22–27.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1989b. “Thar She Spaouts and Blows!” Naval History
3(3):22–27.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1990. “The Dual Image of the Japanese Emperior (Review).” J.
Jpn.
Stud. 16(1):178–84.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1991. “Pearl Harbor Jitters: Defending the White House against
Attack.”
Prologue-Q. Natl. Archives 23(4):383–91.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1994. “Marching off to War on the Wrong Foot: The Final Note
Tokyo Did
Not Send to Washington.” Pacific Historical Review 63(1):67–79.
Butow, Robert Joseph
Charles. 1996. “How Roosevelt Attacked Japan at Pearl-Harbor - Myth
Masquerading as History.” Prologue-Q. Natl. Archives 28(3):209-.
Butow, Robert
Joseph Charles. 1999. “A Notable
Passage to China - Myth and Memory in FDR’s Family History.” Prologue-Q.
Natl. Archives 31(3):159-.
Courses Taught
The United States and
Japan: From Perry to MacArthur
Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and His World, 1882-1945
The United States and Japan: The Road to War
American Diplomacy and the Far Eastern Crisis, 1931-1941 (graduate course)