Re: I'm Somewhat Mystified

Tom,

I am generally fairly impervious to conspiracy theories myself, and will offer a few countervailing impressions on this.

Although it was clearly not something the NEI/Dutch would care to have had advertised, I'm tempted to say that there's Less rather than More that Meets the Eye here. For one thing, the Japanese overtures could just as easily have been used for pro-Dutch propaganda:
"We spurned Japan's attempts to inveigle us into relinquishing the East Indies without a fight," etc.

I also feel that in the furious post-Pearl Harbor/Malaya/Philippines climate of the day in the West, and after so much backroom wrangling among the Dutch, British, Americans, and Australians, there really wasn't the slightest chance--I mean, think about it--that the Dutch would countenance such overtures seriously. [We will also recall that the Dutch & Australians had some intermixed defensive arrangements throughout the East Indies.]

That these "revelations" appeared through Anglo sources (GB./Aus. I mean) suggests to me the British chiefly were worried about something like the scenario in France again. (One might also reconsider what had happened in the Dutch West Indies, with its invaluable oil resources, in 1940, but it isn't absolutely critical to do so, IMO.)

It may well have been swept under the rug, but there's absolutely no indication it had a wider or more profound implication on the policies or conduct of the Dutch or their allies in the following months/years. [Now, as regards the Japanese, it's another--and far more interesting matter--as this might to some (small?) degree help explain Japan's tremendous anger and viciousness in the NEI campaign. But, let's say that's another issue, for now anyway.]

These are just my immediate impressions, and I do reserve the right to alter them if more documentary evidence to the contrary surfaces, etc.

MthW