The Emperor's General

by James Webb

  At the door MacArthur paused for a moment, smiling serenely and lighting his pipe. He touched the saluting, pimply faced young airman on the chest.

  “Remember this moment, son. We’re making history here.”

  And then he stepped outside.

  As MacArthur walked onto the ramp a mob of journalists rushed forward, surrounding the airplane’s tail area. Cameras clicked and flashed. The army band began to play a spirited march. He paused dramatically a few steps down the ramp, clearly enthused by this welcoming. The cameras clicked in greater earnest as he puffed away on his trademark pipe, wearing those famous sunglasses, turning this way and that as if surveying the conquered landscape. MacArthur knew a good photo opportunity as well as any seasoned politician. This was indeed the payoff, a moment far greater than he might ever have anticipated when he escaped in humiliation on a PT boat little more than three years before as the Japanese guns pounded Corregidor and the soldiers he abandoned on Bataan prepared to surrender.

  General Eichelberger waited for him at the bottom of the ramp. They grinned widely to each other as they exchanged salutes and handshakes. Then he and Eichelberger went over to thank the band and to shake hands with the crowd of clamoring American soldiers and airmen.

  One of General Eichelberger’s aides had recognized me as I followed MacArthur down the ramp. As soon as MacArthur and Eichelberger walked away, the young major began pulling me toward the terminal building.

  “You’re General MacArthur’s interpreter, right?”

  “One of them,” I answered.

  “We’ve got a little problem over here.”

  Forty of the ugliest cars I had ever seen awaited us in a long line just outside the terminal building. An ancient red fire truck was parked at their front. Behind the fire truck sat a battered American Lincoln that was at least ten years old. The rest of the cars, most of them charcoal-burners, made the Lincoln look absolutely elegant. Uniformed chauffeurs sat dutifully inside each car, staring straight ahead.

  A dozen formally dressed Japanese waited somberly near the cars, lined up in two ranks, nervously watching MacArthur as he waded through a crowd of reporters and well-wishers. A small man dressed in full morning dress and top hat stood in front of them at a rigid, near-military attention. He was obviously acting as their leader. As I approached him it occurred to me that even though he was motionless, he was probably the most animated person I had ever seen. He simply emanated energy. He looked to be in his sixties. He had wide, shocked eyes that were accentuated by full grey eyebrows. Underneath his long curving nose was a thick, Hitleresque mustache, trimmed and shot with grey. He seemed to be taking in everything at once, peering from behind round, wire-framed glasses as though he were looking through binoculars at a new and confusing battlefield.

  As I neared him the Japanese dignitary smiled brightly, intuitively knowing that I was his man. Without waiting for the formality of an introduction he nodded to General Eichelberger’s aide as if dismissing him, and then began speaking to me in Japanese.

  “So,” he said, “you speak Japanese.”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I’m Captain Jay Marsh. I work with General MacArthur.”

  “Ah, so.” He took off his top hat, revealing a pate of sparse, greying hair, and bowed ever so slightly, a gesture of moderate respect. “Yes, you speak our language very well! I am Koichi Kido. Lord privy seal to Emperor Hirohito. The emperor asked me to meet General MacArthur, and to welcome him to our country.”

  I returned his bow, restraining my astonishment. This dapper little man now standing in near anonymity amid all the celebration and confusion happened to be the chief civilian adviser to the emperor himself. I already knew from Willoughby’s intelligence briefings that Kido, a marquis in the royal family and the son of the emperor’s foster father, had been a close confidant and friend to the emperor for more than twenty years. Since childhood the emperor had called Kido the first of his Big Brothers, a special term of endearment. And Kido had served inside the Imperial Palace as lord privy seal since 1940, spending the entire war literally at the right hand of the throne. Prime ministers and generals had risen and fallen from the words of advice Kido had whispered inside the impenetrable palace walls. There could have been no greater signal, other than the emperor himself driving out to Atsugi, that the emperor was in a cooperative mood.

  But cooperative hardly meant humiliated. Having in his own mind dismissed Eichelberger’s aide, Kido began taking charge of me as if I worked directly for him. He cocked his head, giving him a look of great confusion, and pointed toward the army band, where MacArthur was still working his way through the crowd like a campaigning politician.

  “They have taken our interpreter!” said the lord privy seal, as the men behind him solemnly nodded. “I don’t know what for. To talk to the press, I think. We have prepared a formal welcome for General MacArthur, and so it is necessary to ask for your assistance.”

  MacArthur and Eichelberger were slowly heading in our direction. I moved as if to retrieve them, but Kido grabbed my arm.

  “First,” said Kido, as if it were natural to be giving me instructions, “let me tell you about the cars. Your superiors asked for fifty. It is perhaps a compliment to your General LeMay and his bombers that we could not find fifty. We have forty-one. Yokohama is not far, fifteen miles away. If forty-one are not enough, they can come back and make two trips.”

  “I will tell the supreme commander.”

  “Yes,” said Kido, his eyebrows arching as he instinctively caught on to the manner in which we were now addressing MacArthur. “And tell him that according to the wishes of the emperor, we have made all necessary arrangements for security along the way.” He gave me a small, almost conspiratorial smile. “I think the supreme commander will be satisfied with the emperor’s welcome.”

  MacArthur had seen me standing with the Japanese delegation and now was approaching us, Seeing this, Kido’s eyes went even wider. He gave off another confused look that I began to understand was his normal call to action and then grunted a quick command as he pointed to one of his fustily dressed subalterns. The middle-aged deputy ran quickly inside the terminal building. And by the time MacArthur and Eichelberger reached us, the assistant was standing at Kido’s side, smiling expectantly as he held a tray with a dozen glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice just underneath MacArthur’s chin.

  “What have we got here, Jay?”

  MacArthur stood facing me, his face lit almost dreamily from his enjoyment of the moment. Except for the tray-holder, the entire Japanese delegation had leaned forward in identical deep bows, their faces below their waists. The deeper the bow, the greater the respect, and their bows could not have been deeper unless they had prostrated themselves on the tarmac.

  “It looks like orange juice, sir.”

  He shot me an irritated glance. “Are you trying to be funny, Jay?”

  “No, sir,” I protested, quickly recovering. “I thought that was what you were talking about. This is Lord Privy Seal Marquis Koichi Kido, the emperor’s closest personal adviser. The emperor sent him here to personally greet you.”

  MacArthur watched the deeply bowing Kido for a moment, then gave him a polite nod. “That was kind of the emperor.”

  “Yes, sir. But I was getting a little worried about the juice.”

  “What about it?”

  “I don’t know what it is.”

  “Then why don’t you ask him?”

  “I mean—what it really might be.”

  MacArthur gave me an impatient look. “Ask him.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered rather sheepishly. “I was just getting ready to do that.”

  I tapped the bowing Kido on the shoulder, causing him to rise up. It would have been easy to mistake the lord privy seal’s too-glad smile and hyperactive eyes for foolishness and his deep bow for sycophancy, and I wondered at that moment if MacArthur or even I was making that mistake.

  I switched to Japanese. “The supreme comm
ander is very thankful to the emperor for having sent his regards. And he was wondering what the orange liquid was.”

  Kido uttered a quick command and the entire delegation ceased its bowing. He pushed the subaltern forward, urging the tray again on MacArthur. “General Kawabe informed us that when he boarded the American plane in Okinawa on his way to Manila, he was served orange juice. And when he reached the meetings with General Sutherland they served orange juice. And when they had breakfast after the meetings they gave them—”

  “—orange juice,” I said, repressing a smile. “I understand.” I turned back to MacArthur. “He says General Kawabe told him that all Americans like orange juice.”

  “Well, I can’t speak for all Americans, but I do,” smiled MacArthur, looking at Kido with a condescension he had formerly reserved for native Papuan chieftains. “Tell him thank you very much.”

  As MacArthur reached for a glass, General Willoughby stepped forward. “Be careful, General!”

  “What are you talking about?” said MacArthur.

  “It could be poison,” said Willoughby.

  Court Whitney, who had just joined them, pointed suspiciously toward Kido. “There’s plenty on that tray. Make them drink one first.”

  MacArthur shook his head, belittling them. “Gentlemen, what did I tell you on the plane?” He raised the glass, silently toasting the delighted Kido, and drained it. “Come on, boys,” he now said. “Have some orange juice.” Willoughby, Eichelberger, and Whitney looked abashedly at one another and reached for glasses on the tray.

  “They’ve only been able to find forty-one cars,” I continued, as the generals obediently drank their juice. “But he says that they can make two trips. And that the emperor has arranged for your security.”

  “We don’t need the emperor’s security,” scolded Willoughby. “What kind of signal would that be sending? And how can we trust it?”

  “If it’s genuine, we’ll take all the help we can get,” answered General Eichelberger, checking his watch and peering at the antiquated cars.

  “It will be genuine,” said MacArthur. “Make no mistake about that.” MacArthur placed his glass back on the tray, causing the subaltern to bow deeply. The General grinned delightedly at the little man. He was enjoying himself beyond all expectations. “Well, gentlemen, let’s head to the hotel, shall we? Jay, thank Mr. Kido for me, will you? And tell him to give my regards to the emperor, whom I hope to meet very soon.”

  I turned to Kido. “The supreme commander is very appreciative of your thoughtfulness and thanks the emperor for all of his courtesies. He now wishes to go to the hotel.”

  “Good,” said Kido, still sounding as though he were somehow in charge. “It is time for that.”

  MacArthur and Eichelberger were now walking toward the old Lincoln that was parked just behind the thoroughly ancient fire truck. General Willoughby had caught up with them and was earnestly discussing something with MacArthur. Kido made a move as if to join them. “We will ride with the supreme commander, if that is considered permissible?”

  I watched MacArthur, Eichelberger, and Willoughby climb into the car, clearly savoring this moment of absolute triumph. I had instinctively picked up on where MacArthur was placing Kido, and it was not with them. The emperor’s chief adviser might properly welcome the supreme commander to Atsugi, but he surely was not going to deliver Douglas MacArthur to Yokohama. Only the emperor might have been permissible, and on this journey I wasn’t sure that even Hirohito would have made the lead car.

  “I am very sorry,” I said as I began leading the lord privy seal toward a car further back in the column. “But that will not be permissible.” And so we boarded a sputtering charcoal-burner, and settled into its musty, just-brushed rear seat.

  Off to Yokohama went our ludicrous convoy of battered cars, led by the hopeless old red fire truck. The truck’s siren wailed mournfully. It turned off only when the truck broke down, which seemed to be every few minutes. Behind it our column of charcoal-burners sizzled and popped and roared, backfiring through worn gaskets. And yet these were the best that had survived the war’s final bombings. Never in history, except perhaps at Carthage, had a great and aspiring nation been so reduced to junk.

  But once outside the airport we came upon a sight so chilling and yet so magnificent that even now I can only recall it with a breathless awe. Before us on both sides of the road, under the searing summer sun for as far as the eye could see, two interminable lines of Japanese infantrymen stood side by side, spaced only a few feet apart, their lines stretched endlessly over nearby hills and around far turns. This trail of identical leather and khaki uniforms, of seemingly changeless bronzed skin and coal-black hair underneath khaki caps, of glinting bayonets fixed onto rifles and rifles pushed forward at the ready, was peering out with the forlorn emptiness of Ozymandias toward a desert of dry fields and the dusty ruins of what once were cities.

  For mile after mile we drove between the two rows of rigid, sweating, unsmiling infantrymen. I did not see one of them so much as twitch. Their eyes remained averted, as if the emperor himself were driving past. Kido informed me that we had passed thirty thousand of them by the time we reached Yokohama, a steadfast honor guard that at the same time both welcomed and protected the new supreme commander. Watching them, I knew what MacArthur would be thinking as he peered out from his car behind the stuttering, whining fire truck: our century’s Caesar was now entering the latest Gaul.

  Next to me in the old car, Lord Privy Seal Kido caught my amazed stare. He smiled proudly, as if he had personally conjured up this commanding scene. And looking at him, I realized at once that he had.

  “Before, only for the emperor,” said Kido. “But now for the supreme commander, too. This is the emperor’s gift. You will please tell General MacArthur that?”

  “The emperor’s gift?”

  “Yes,” said Kido matter-of-factly. “The emperor is expressing his thanks to the supreme commander.”

  “I will tell him,” I said, somewhat uncertainly.

  “We received very good reports about the American point of view from General Kawabe,” said Kido, as if explaining. “I am glad that attitudes are positive, as I have been working on this for some time.”

  “On what, Lord Privy Seal?”

  “On an honorable peace,” said Kido, as if my question were ludicrous. “A way to end the war and still preserve the dignity of our emperor. I have been working on this every day for more than a year. General Kawabe reports that MacArthur understands this.” He gestured grandly toward the long line of soldiers outside the car window. “And we especially thank him for preserving the royal Chin.”

  The royal Chin. Yes, I thought, remembering the intense discussion in the General’s office in Manila. If it were not for MacArthur’s intervention, the emperor would have been forced to refer to himself in public by the humiliating word Watakushi, forever diminishing his position and shaming not only himself but his ancestors. MacArthur had protected the emperor’s royal prerogative. And this honored welcome, which was certain both to please and flatter the supreme commander, was not so much an act of obeisance as a gesture of thanks.

  MacArthur was no doubt in ecstasy as we drove past the long lines of conquered soldiers, congratulating himself on his mastery of the Oriental mind. But it was not simply MacArthur’s arrival that had brought the lord privy seal to the airport and conjured up the thousands of soldiers along the roadway. The emperor’s edict had ordered it. And so long as the supreme commander continued to protect the emperor from shame, he would never be in true danger in Japan. MacArthur might never admit it, but at that moment I comprehended that he had known this all along.

  Nearing Yokohama the desolation from our bombings seemed almost total. I looked out at the dusty, crumbling ruins, at the boarded windows of little shops, at ragged people of all ages who stared curiously toward us over the heads of the rigidly solemn lines of soldiers. Piles of rubbish overflowed into the streets. Electricity and w
ater service were still knocked out. Since the fire bombings began in March, hundreds of thousands had died between this road and downtown Tokyo, perhaps twenty miles away. And I could not help but think in my own mind that the terrible debt for the rape of Manila had in some way already been paid.

  Kido nodded sagely, catching every innuendo in my absorbing stare. “It has been very bad for our people. And it is wise that the supreme commander chose first to stay in Yokohama rather than entering Tokyo at once. The supreme commander has a very profound understanding. We are impressed with him. He is an immensely wise man. Maybe in one week he can come to Tokyo. It will be better after the official ceremonies ending the war. We will ease into this new situation. There are still many preparations to be made. Many people who need to be worked with and reassured.”

  Listening to the lord privy seal as I continued to absorb the enormous destruction that surrounded us, I could not help but marvel at his unbreakable self-assurance. We had entered a beaten and ravaged nation, but this was not a beaten man. His crisp words and certain judgments would have been more fitting if MacArthur had been a visiting dignitary rather than a conquering proconsul. Then it occurred to me. He hadn’t even used the word “surrender.” He spoke of “ceremonies ending the war,” Of this “new situation.” In their language the Japanese did not even have a word for surrender. In their minds they did not understand the concept of surrender. To discuss what westerners termed surrender, Kido would have been required to mention shame. So he did not broach it. And despite all the bowing and the laying down of arms and the spiking of the guns and even the coming pomp and ceremony where Allied military leaders would be profusely congratulating themselves, I knew that somehow in their own minds the Japanese were not actually surrendering.

  And then I remembered the text of the emperor’s radio message of two weeks before. In his stilted broadcast, given in the odd idiom used by the imperial court, the emperor had been strangely unrepentant about the war. He told his subjects that Japan “had declared war on America and Great Britain out of Our sincere desire to ensure Japan’s self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from Our thought to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.” He lamented that “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Our advantage” and criticized “the enemy” for its “new and most cruel bomb.” He thanked “Our Allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire toward the emancipation of East Asia.” And then he warned the Japanese people about their conduct in the coming occupation, saying that they should “beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may engender needless complications,” that would take away from his ultimate goal: “We have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come, by enduring the unendurable and suffering that which is insufferable.”