by Toland, John
The office workers throughout the city had no idea this was anything but an ordinary day until police detoured their buses around the Imperial Palace and government offices. By now the violence was over. The rebels occupied a square mile of central Tokyo—the Diet Building and the entire area around the Prime Minister’s residence—and were using the Sanno Hotel as a temporary headquarters. They commandeered tablecloths from the Peers Club dining room, paid for them, and made them into banners reading in black ink, “Revere the Emperor—Restoration Army,” and hoisted them over the Prime Minister’s residence.
When General Rokuro Iwasa, head of the kempeitai, learned of the revolt he got out of bed, half paralyzed from palsy, and drove to the rebel area. Here he was stopped by guards. “Is this the Emperor’s Army?” he asked and wept in mortification.
The rebels were distributing their “manifesto” to all newspapers and news agencies. The police impounded almost every copy, but correspondent Chamberlin managed to get one. To most Westerners it seemed further proof of the inscrutability of the Orient, but to Chamberlin, a student of Japanese history, it made frightening sense.
The national essence [kokutai] of Japan, as a land of the gods, exists in the fact that the Emperor reigns with undiminished power from time immemorial into the farthest future in order that the natural beauty of the country may be propagated throughout the universe, so that all men under the sun may be able to enjoy their lives to the fullest extent.…
In recent years, however, there have appeared many persons whose chief aim and purpose have been to amass personal material wealth, disregarding the general welfare and prosperity of the Japanese people, with the result that the sovereignty of the Emperor has been greatly impaired. The people of Japan have suffered deeply as a result of this tendency and many vexing issues now confronting Japan are attributable to this fact.
The genro, the senior statesmen, military cliques, plutocrats, bureaucrats and political parties are all traitors who are destroying the national essence.…
It is our duty to remove the evil retainers from around the Throne and to smash the group of senior statesmen. It is our duty as subjects of His Majesty the Emperor.
May the gods bless and help us in our endeavor to save the land of our ancestors from the worst that confronts it.
Near the edge of the rebel zone at the American Embassy, Ambassador Grew cabled the first news of the revolt to the State Department:
THE MILITARY TOOK PARTIAL POSSESSION OF THE GOVERNMENT AND CITY EARLY THIS MORNING AND IT IS REPORTED HAVE ASSASSINATED SEVERAL PROMINENT MEN. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE AS YET TO CONFIRM ANYTHING. THE NEWS CORRESPONDENTS ARE NOT PERMITTED TO SEND TELEGRAMS OR TO TELEPHONE ABROAD. THIS TELEGRAM IS BEING SENT PRIMARILY AS A TEST MESSAGE, TO ASCERTAIN IF OUR CODE TELEGRAMS WILL BE TRANSMITTED. CODE ROOM PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT.
The German embassy was also in range of rebel fire. Here the unofficial correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung and secretary to the military attaché was writing his preliminary report on the revolt—one copy for the German Foreign Ministry and a duplicate for the Red Army’s Fourth Bureau, Intelligence. This was Dr. Richard Sorge, born in Russia of a German father and Russian mother and raised in Germany. Sorge was flamboyant and resourceful. He had managed to gain the complete confidence of the German ambassador, General Eugen Ott (who unwittingly supplied Sorge with some of the most devastating intelligence material which he sent to Moscow), and their business relationship had grown into a warm personal friendship. He was irresistible to women and was at the time writing love letters to his first wife in Russia, living with a second in Tokyo and carrying on several love affairs. He could not resist alcohol in any form and often shocked his fellow countrymen by drunken bouts which were sometimes staged. He was a Communist of bohemian bent (his great-uncle had been friends with Marx and Engels) who had joined the Nazi party as a cover for his role as head of the Red Army spy ring in the Far East. It had taken him almost two years to set up his organization in Japan, and this rebellion was his first genuine test.
The coup, he later wrote, had “a very typical Japanese character and hence its motivations required particular study. A discerning study of it, and, in particular, a study of the social strains and internal crisis it revealed, was of much greater value to an understanding of Japan’s internal structure than mere records of troop strength or secret documents.” Once the report was dispatched to Moscow, Sorge ordered his ring to find out all possible details of the uprising. Then he induced the German ambassador and the military and naval attachés to make independent investigations and share their findings with him.
At the Palace the War Minister had just informed the Emperor about the rebellion. Ordinarily, if His Majesty spoke at all, it would be in vague terms, but today he was so distressed that he replied directly. “This event is extremely regrettable regardless of the question of spirit. In my judgment this action mars the glory of our national essence.” Later he confided to his chief aide-de-camp that he felt the Army was going “to tie its own neck with floss silk”—that is, no more than gently admonish the rebels.
The role the Emperor played was difficult if not impossible for foreigners to understand. His powers and duties were unlike those of any other monarch in the world. His grandfather, Meiji, a man of strong will and conviction, had led the nation from semifeudalism to modern times under the slogans “Rich Country, Strong Army” and “Civilization and Enlightenment”; in his reign the welfare of the nation took precedence over that of the individual. Meiji’s heir, Taisho, was an eccentric who once rolled up a speech he was to make to the Diet and used it as a telescope; his antics and tantrums became so exaggerated that his heir, the crown prince, was named regent in 1921. Five years later, on Christmas Day, Taisho died and his twenty-five-year-old son became emperor.
Since childhood Hirohito had been trained for this role principally by Prince Saionji, who himself had been influenced by the French Revolution and English liberalism. Time and again the last genro would tell the young man that Japan needed a father figure, not a despot, and that he should therefore assume a position of responsibility in all affairs of state, yet never issue any positive order on his own volition. He should be objective and selfless.
Theoretically the Emperor had plenary power; all state decisions needed his sanction. But according to tradition, once the Cabinet and military leaders had agreed on a policy, he could not withhold his approval. He was to remain above politics and transcend party considerations and feuds, for he represented the entire nation.
All these restrictions notwithstanding, he exercised prodigious influence since he was in the unique position of being able to warn or approve without getting involved. More important, every Japanese was pledged to serve him unto death. This moral power was so potent that he used it sparingly and then only in vague terms. Those reporting to the Throne had to divine his wishes, since he almost always spoke cryptically without expression.
A more positive emperor, like his grandfather, might have consolidated his power; by the Meiji Constitution he was Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. But Hirohito was a studious man who would rather be a scientist than a monarch. His happiest days were Monday and Saturday when he could retire to his modest laboratory and study marine biology. Neither did he have the slightest wish to be a despot. From his trip to Europe as crown prince he had brought back a taste for whiskey, Occidental music and golf, along with an abiding respect for the English version of constitutional monarchy. He could also defy tradition and court pressure when principle was involved. After the Empress Nagako had given birth to four daughters he refused to take a concubine or two so he could sire a male heir—and within a few years was rewarded with two sons by Nagako.
He was an unlikely-looking emperor, slouching around the Palace in frayed, baggy trousers and crooked tie, dreamily peering through glasses as thick as portholes, so oblivious of his appearance that occasionally his jacket would be fastened with the wrong button. He disl
iked buying new clothes, on the grounds that he couldn’t “afford” them. He was so frugal that he even refrained from buying books he wanted, and he wore down every pencil to a stub. He was completely without vanity, a natural and unaffected individual who looked and acted like a village mayor. Yet this small round-shouldered man had some of the qualifications of a great one: he was pure, free of pride, ambition and selfishness. He wanted what was best for the nation.
His subjects regarded him as a god, and children were warned that they would be struck blind if they dared look at his face. If a public speaker mentioned the word “Emperor” the entire audience would sit at attention. If a reporter had the temerity to ask a personal question about the Emperor, he was icily told one should not pose such queries about a deity.
But “god” did not mean in Japan what it meant in the West. To a Japanese the emperor was a god, just as his own mother, father and teacher were lesser gods. His reverence for the monarch was not only a feeling of awe but also of affection and obligation, and no matter how low his station, each subject felt a family kinship to the emperor, who was the father of them all. As Meiji lay on his deathbed, all Japan prayed for his recovery and multitudes remained in the Palace plaza day and night; the entire nation grieved his death as a single family. For Japan was one great family, a modernized clan which had evolved from a number of warring tribes.
Every child was taught kodo, the Imperial Way: that the basis for Japanese morality was on (obligation) to the emperor and one’s parents. Without the emperor one would be without country; without parents, homeless. For centuries the Japanese ruler had been benevolent, never attempting to exert his authority. Just as a parent loved and guided his children, he loved and guided his people with compassion. The imperial line had once gone 346 years without sanctioning a single execution throughout the land.
Out of the present Emperor’s vague status evolved an almost autocratic power for the Army and Navy Chiefs of Staff. They had become, in essence, responsible to themselves alone. Only once had the Emperor challenged the military and that was in 1928 upon learning of the assassination of old Marshal Chang Tso-lin by the Ishihara-Itagaki group. His fury was such that he forgot his rigid training and sharply criticized the Prime Minister. Prince Saionji, who was the influence behind the Emperor’s distrust of the military, was just as angry—but his target was the Emperor. He spoke out as a teacher, not as a subject, and accused Hirohito of acting like a tyrant. The old man’s rebuke so shook the Emperor that with three exceptions, he would never again fail to follow the last genro’s primary rule: “Reign, not rule.”h
4.
Okada’s secretary, Hisatsune Sakomizu, had returned to the Prime Minister’s official residence with the rebels’ permission, and when he found his father-in-law safe in the closet he whispered, “I’ll come back; keep up your spirits,” and returned to his own home to plan a rescue. Shortly before ten o’clock an official of the Imperial Household Ministry phoned, with polite condolences on the Prime Minister’s demise. He said the Emperor wished to send an imperial messenger to the family; should the messenger go to the ministry or to Okada’s home?
Fearing the phone was tapped, Sakomizu put him off; the truth had to be reported in person to the Emperor, and Sakomizu changed into a morning suit, with a bulletproof vest underneath. Armed with an umbrella, he walked across the street to the official residence, and after an argument got authorization from the rebels to pass through their lines. He took a taxi to the Hirakawa Gate of the Imperial Palace grounds, and struggled on foot through the deep snow to the concrete headquarters of the Imperial Household Ministry.
Household Minister Kurahei Yuasa began to express his condolences, but Sakomizu interrupted to tell him Okada was still alive. Startled, Yuasa dropped something, said he must relay the good news to His Majesty and disappeared. He must have run all the way to the Emperor’s wing of the rambling building and back, for he returned in minutes to tell Sakomizu in a solemn voice, “When I reported that Prime Minister Okada was alive, His Majesty was most pleased. He said, ‘That is excellent,’ and told me to bring Okada to safety as soon as possible.”
Sakomizu suggested that they get help from the commander of the 1st Division, who could send troops to rescue Okada. Yuasa disagreed; it would be too risky because the commander would have to get clearance from his superiors. “And you never know which way they are looking.”
This made sense and Sakomizu decided to seek help from a more imdependent source. He went into a room filled with high-ranking officers. They all looked worried, as if they were about to be reprimanded. Many expressed regrets at Okada’s death, but a few rudely remarked that something like this was bound to happen, since the Prime Minister ignored the Army’s suggestions.
The rebels’ manifesto was being passed around and hotly debated but nobody seemed to be in charge. War Minister Kawashima appeared to be completely perplexed; he certainly couldn’t be depended on. Sakomizu surveyed the gathering in dismay. This was the hierarchy of the Army and it was a mob—vacillating, undependable, opportunistic. There was not one he felt he could trust with his secret, so he elbowed his way out of the crowd. He went into another room where the Cabinet was convening and found just as chaotic a scene. The ministers were apprehensive and truculent and doing nothing until the arrival of their senior member, Minister of the Interior Fumio Goto. They descended on Sakomizu, deluging him with questions about the Prime Minister. How had he died? Where was the body? Who killed him?. While Sakomizu gave evasive answers, he caught sight of someone he could trust—the Navy Minister, who was an old friend of Okada’s and a fellow admiral. Picking his words carefully in case someone was eavesdropping, Sakomizu said, “Mr. Minister, we’d like to claim the body of a senior member of the Navy. Will you send a landing force unit to the Prime Minister’s residence to give us protection?”
The admiral failed to see through this charade and said, “Impossible. What if it ends in a skirmish between the Army and Navy?”
Sakomizu lowered his voice. “I’m going to tell you something important. Now, if you don’t accept my proposal, I would like you to forget everything I say.” Sakomizu informed the puzzled minister that Okada was still alive and should be rescued by naval troops.
“I haven’t heard a thing,” said the embarrassed admiral and drifted away.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else to turn to and Sakomizu began to dream up wild schemes. He thought of imitating the dramatic balloon escape from Paris of French President Gambetta during the Franco-Prussian War, until he realized there were only advertising balloons in Tokyo. What about spiriting Okada and Matsuo’s body out of the residence in one coffin? No, that would take a suspiciously large coffin. It was already past noon and every moment counted. Desperate, he wandered restlessly from room to room, at a loss as to what to do.
By midafternoon there was a semblance of normalcy in the streets outside the square mile held by the rebels. Boys on bicycles pedaled through the snow with groceries. Shopkeepers near the edge of the action came out in their aprons and quizzed the young soldiers manning the barricades. Nobody seemed to know much about anything.
The Army leaders still vacillated. Though they were all repelled by the seditious actions of the rebels, so many agreed in principle with their aims that no decision could be reached. They couldn’t even agree on an appeal to Captain Koda and his comrades, not until it was watered down and hopelessly vague. Labeled an “admonition,” it failed to call them what they were—rebels:
1. The purpose of the uprising has reached the Emperor’s ears.
2. Your action has been recognized as motivated by your sincere feelings to seek manifestation of the national essence.
3. The present state of manifestation of kokutai is such that we feel unbearably awed.
4. The War Councilors unanimously agree to endeavor to attain the above purposes.
5. Anything else will be subject to the Emperor’s wishes.
This was published at thr
ee o’clock in the afternoon, along with a ridiculous emergency defense order placing the center of Tokyo under the jurisdiction of the 1st Division, the unit that had revolted. It was an attempt at expediency; with orders to guard the area they had seized, the rebels supposedly would regard themselves as loyal government troops.
Neither the conciliatory “admonition” nor the emergency order had the desired effect; they merely convinced Koda’s group that a large segment of the military hierarchy was on their side. Koda’s answer was: “If our original demands are granted, we will obey your orders. Otherwise we cannot evacuate the territory we have occupied.”
That night reinforcements arrived from Kofu and Sakura to take up positions opposite the barricades. At the American embassy, observers on the roof could see the rebel banner waving from the Prime Minister’s residence and the Sanno Hotel. Mrs. Grew was so nervous that she insisted on sleeping in a different room, even though the ambassador assured her that the last thing the insurgents wanted was trouble with the United States.
A few blocks away a car drove up to kempeitai headquarters and three spruce military figures stepped out—Captain Koda and two other rebel leaders. As they marched through the entrance to continue negotiations with the Army, two sentries smartly presented arms.
“Bakayaro [Idiot]!” shouted a noncom leaning out of a window. “Saluting rebel officers! They aren’t the Imperial Army!”
The three spent the next thirty minutes listening to Generals Mazaki and Araki urge them to end the rebellion, but again conciliation only made them more steadfast.
At the Imperial Household Ministry, Interior Minister Goto had finally arrived after a curious six-hour delay to get himself appointed “temporary and concurrent prime minister.” A few minutes later he was listening to demands for martial law by War Minister Kawashima. Goto and the other civilians in the Cabinet feared this might degenerate into a military dictatorship and argued that since this was strictly an Army insurrection which had nothing to do with the public, it should be settled within the Army itself.
