Those present at the meeting of the Privy Council which approved the Anti-Comintern Pact were the accused, President HIRkNUIiA, Prime Minister HIROTA, Navy Minister NAGANO, and Chief of the European-Asiatic Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Ministry TOGO.22 The accused MATSUOKA, who later became Foreign Minister at a crucial period in the execution of the conspiracy charged was one of the proposers and originators of the Anti-Comintern Pact.23 The accused, HIROTA, NAGANO, OSHIIIA, SHILIADA, TOGO and uliEZU were rewarded for services in conclusion of the Pact. The accused UMEZU held at this time the important posts of Councillor of the Information Bureau and Councillor of the Cabinet 20.Exhibit 774-A, TP 7,884. A letter from the accused SHIRATORI to ARITA under date of 4 November 1935 stateds "Fate have that the Slavs and the Yamato race- must even¬tually fight each other for supremacy on the Asiatic continent. The question is not of the temporary change to be made in the state of affairs or the form of government in Soviet Russia. Thus taking a far-sighted view, I believe that adoption of a policy for an instan¬taneous removal of future calamity at this stage when they are comparatively impotent is a fact which should never be neglected by those who bear concern for the welfare of the people and nation. I am not saying that we should unreasonably force a war against Soviet Russia now. I an only saying that we should start negotiations with her with resolutions, not refusing war if it is inevitable, to shut her out completely from advancing into East Asia." 21.See Note 8(a). 22.Exhibit 485, TP 5,968. 23.Exhibit 545? TP 6,286. In a conference on 1 August 1940, Foreign Minister MATSUOKA made the following statement to German Ambassador Otts "But I think that Fuehrer Hitler and Foreign Minister of the Reich must know the fact as well as Your Excellency knows it, that I am one of the proposers and originators of the Japanese-German Anti-Comintern Pact. Later,-when the problem of the Japanese-German alliance occurred you saw my attitude and I think it is unnecessary to explain neither my feeling nor my standpoint for Germany and Italy repeatedly."