14
A MONARCHY REINVENTED
Eleven-year-old Crown Prince Akihito had been evacuated to the safety of a hotel in the town of Nikk, Tochigi prefecture, to escape the American bombing. Following the capitulation, Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako wrote to him, explaining why Japan had been beaten so badly. Their letters, filled with parental warmth, furnish glimpses of the tense situation in the beleaguered capital; more important, they reveal the mind-set of Japan’s rulers in the immediate aftermath of defeat.
On August 30, 1945, Nagako reported: “Every day from morning to night B-29s, naval bombers, and fighters freely fly over the palace in all directions, making an enormous noise…. Unfortunately the B-29 is a splendid [plane]. As I sit at my desk writing and look up at the sky, countless numbers are passing over.”1 Hirohito too was impressed by the technological prowess of the Americans, embodied in their “superfortress.” Many months earlier he had mentioned to Akihito how he and Nagako had been going around the garden of the Gobunko “picking up various articles related to B-29s.”2
In a letter to his son dated September 9, the emperor skipped over the policy-making process in which he had been the central figure and laid out the large, general causes of the defeat:
Our people believed too much in the imperial country and were contemptuous of Britain and the United States. Our military men placed too much weight on spirit and forgot about science. In the time of the Meiji Emperor, there were great commanders like Yamagata, yama, and Yamamoto. But this time, as with Germany in World War I, military men predominated and gave no thought to the larger situation.
They knew how to advance but not how to retreat.
If we had continued the war, we would have been unable to protect the three imperial regalia. Not only that, more of our countrymen would have had to die. Repressing my emotions, I tried to save the seed of the nation.3
Young Akihito’s long diary entry, written on August 15, 1945, and formally headed “Constructing the New Japan,” revealed other factors. Echoing what his parents and palace tutors were teaching him about the nation’s humiliating defeat, he confessed that he felt “deeply mortified” by his father’s having had to take upon himself “the shame of the nation—unconditional surrender.” Japan, however, had been defeated:
because of the overwhelming material superiority of Britain and the United States…and the great skillfulness of the American way of fighting. [The Anglo-Americans] were defeated at the start because they were not then adequately prepared. But once they were prepared, they came at us like wild boars. Their methods of attack were very skillful and scientific…. Finally they used atomic bombs and killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of Japanese, destroyed towns and factories…. In the end we could fight no longer. The cause for this was the inferiority of Japanese national power and scientific power.4
Akihito concluded by blaming the defeat on the Japanese people rather than their leaders, and the political institutions under which they lived. “It was impossible for the Japanese to win this total war because from Taish to early Shwa, they thought only of their private interests rather than the country, and behaved selfishly.” Now the only course lay in following the emperor’s words:
…maintain the spirit of protecting the kokutai, unite, and labor to climb out of this pit of darkness. No matter how one looks at it, individually, Japanese are superior to Americans in every respect. But as a group, we are inferior to them. So from now on we must have group training, foster science, and the entire nation must labor hard to construct a new, better Japan than today.”5
The new Japan should foster science, tighten group commitment to national goals, and consider the past closed. From the outset, the elites dwelt on responsibility for the loss of the “War of Greater East Asia.” Their autopsy ignored the pre–Pearl Harbor expansion into Manchuria, which Hirohito had abetted, the North China Incident of 1937 that, with his encouragement, the Konoe cabinet had escalated into an all-out war, and the role of Asian nationalism in contributing to defeat. Responsibility for having attacked China in 1931 and the United States and Britain in December 1941 shifted to responsibility for final defeat, which had cost the nation so much shame and misery. Naturally Hirohito did not in any way hold himself or the court group responsible for this consequence.
Crown Prince Akihito’s sense that Japanese pursuit of self-interest was selfishness reflected another element in the official war autopsy. Hirohito’s character and training disposed him to distrust individual self-assertion. Following the dictates of one’s conscience posed, he believed, a threat to belief in the idealized collective self, and in the kokutai. From the start of Shwa, Hirohito and the court entourage had actively encouraged the indoctrination of the nation in habits of self-effacement and obedience to officials. From 1937 onward they had supported policies designed to drastically lower living standards in order to rapidly build up war power. When it came time to consider how to construct the new nation, they initially imagined that they could continue this old emphasis. Hostile to liberalism, individualism, and democracy, they decried, on the one hand, the Japanese people’s tendency to “follow blindly,” and on the other, the blindness of putting self-interest ahead of state interest.
These widely held views on the nature of the war prevented Hirohito, his entourage, and the old-guard leaders from ever pursuing the connection between the causes of defeat and the construction of a new Japan. They also colored the tack that they now took toward their American occupiers.
I
Having ended his alliance with the military hardliners, thus reunifying the court group, Hirohito tried to reconcile himself to a period of temporary disarmament and foreign occupation. A new campaign of “spiritual mobilization” to protect the monarchy, based on his imperial rescript of August 15, and driving home its message, was now an obvious necessity. The next prime minister would need to explain to a dazed, demoralized, and battered nation what had happened, and why all loyal subjects must now change their thinking, courteously accept the enemy, and raise no questions as to who was responsible for the horrendous plight in which they found themselves. The immediate tasks of the next cabinet were to prepare a peaceful reception for the largely American army of occupation, and to hearten the nation by conveying an impression of continuity with the past. Only a member of the extended imperial family at the head of the next government could accomplish these tasks.
Acting on the recommendation of Kido, who dispensed with a conference of the senior statesmen and consulted only Hiranuma, Hirohito, on August 17, appointed Prince Higashikuni as prime minister.6 The prince had close ties to the imperial family. His wife was Emperor’s Meiji’s ninth daughter, and his son was married to Hirohito’s daughter, Teru no miya. Having no reason at this time to think Higashikuni anything but trustworthy, even though he was a complete political novice, Hirohito charged him with overseering a swift, peaceful, and preemptive demobilization of the army and navy. Higashikuni’s “Imperial Family Cabinet,” as the press immediately labeled it, was charged with demonstrating to the Allies that the monarchy alone had the power to demobilize Japan peacefully and control the situation. Higashikuni selected Konoe to be vice prime minister, and Ogata Taketora, vice president of the Asahi newspaper company, to be chief cabinet secretary. Both men were to play key roles in protecting the kokutai, legitimizing the emperor’s actions, and shielding him from criticism. Ogata the propagandist directed the campaign to counter criticism of the war leaders; Konoe focused on preparations for the arrival of the American and British Commonwealth forces.
Although suicides occurred in different parts of the country immediately following surrender, the overwhelming majority of Japanese accepted the new situation. They also responded positively to Higashikuni’s unprecedented radio speech to the nation, on August 17, informing them of his general principles for government. Act together “in accordance with the imperial will,” he enjoined, and “we shall…construct the highest culture as advanced as a
ny in the world…. Toward that end…I wish to encourage the development of constructive discussion and recognize the freedom to form healthy associations.”7 Peace would offer hope for the return of loved ones, and also allow some shedding of wartime constraints.
On the other hand few Japanese had any idea of what occupation would bring. Some, living in the vicinity of military bases, worried whether Allied troops would behave as their own soldiers had in China: pillaging, plundering, and raping, and voiced fear of a weakening of the race through miscegenation. The issue of rape and the fear of violence once the occupation troops landed was dealt with promptly. Konoe suggested, and Higashikuni approved, mobilizing prostitutes to deal with the sex-starved Allied troops who would, in only a few weeks, be descending upon the land.
On August 19 the Home Ministry ordered local government offices to establish “Recreation and Amusement Associations” (RAA), funded from the National Treasury. Almost overnight advertisements appeared in the national press and elsewhere informing women in need that food, clothing, and accommodation would be provided to all who volunteered to join. At the inaugural declaration of the RAA, crowds formed on the Imperial Plaza and an estimated fifteen hundred young women gathered on the street outside the temporary headquarters of RAA at Ginza 7 chme (in the vicinity of today’s Matsuzaka Department Store). There they listened as an RAA official read a declaration stating:
[T]hrough the sacrifice of thousands of Okichis of the Shwa era, we shall construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy [of the occupation troops] and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future…. In this way we shall contribute to the peace of society. Stated differently, we are volunteering [our bodies] for the preservation of the kokutai.8
To deal with possible hostile reaction to such measures, the Home Ministry’s Police Bureau, on August 23, issued secret “guidelines” for police officials throughout the country, warning them not to permit public criticism of the senior statesmen or of the emperor’s decision to surrender. The imperial rescript had been issued, now the country must move forward, complying with the emperor’s orders and “reflecting on one thing only: that, ultimately, we troubled the emperor’s heart.” The guidelines warned the police to “prevent disputes with the Allied forces by staying cool, calm, patient, and prudent under all circumstances. By doing these things we shall assuage the emperor’s uneasiness and maintain the world’s trust.” Should any incident occur with the Allied armies, “it will be difficult to prevent the state and race from being destroyed.”9
Opposition from the defeated armed forces, however, proved largely nonexistent. Morale among troops stationed on the home islands was low before August 15; over the next three weeks it disintegrated. Reports forwarded to the office of Privy Seal Kido from prefectural governors and police officials told of units demanding immediate discharge, of kamikaze pilots loading their planes with food and other supplies and flying off to their home villages, of army doctors and nurses in a hospital in Kagoshima competing with one another to flee their posts, leaving their patients behind. As scenes of military disorder, theft of military stocks, and general unruliness within the armed forces multiplied, civilian respect for the military collapsed. Men in uniform quickly found themselves objects of widespread civilian contempt.10
Higashikuni also had to contend with massive theft of government stockpiles of raw materials and goods by civil and military officials at the highest levels. Secret police reports in late July and August indicated thousands of examples of government bureaucrats in the Munitions Ministry, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, as well as the Army and Navy Ministries engaging in black market activities and covering up the sale of government stores by large corporations.11 The one-sided way civil officials implemented wartime economic controls, arresting only small-scale black marketeers, exacerbated matters, and contributed to the nation’s demoralization and its worsening economic plight.
Higashikuni was utterly unable to offer solutions to the problem of the burgeoning black market. In fact, at the start of his cabinet, he appointed as one of his cabinet councillors Kodama Yoshio, a black marketer and right-wing partisan. “Hereafter we’re going to obey the commands of General MacArthur, so let’s move smartly,” Kodama told a Diet member from Tsu City who visited him in his Tokyo mansion in early September.12 Kodama took charge of establishing sex and entertainment clubs for the occupation forces. So too did his friend Sasagawa Ryichi, leader of the wartime National Essence League, who was not a cabinet councillor. Sasagawa’s American Club in Minami Ward, Osaka, was one of the first to open in that city soon after American soldiers began arriving.13
Wittingly or not, the Higashikuni cabinet was laying a basis for the postwar reestablishment of ties between politicians, bureaucratic officials, and the underworld. The prime minister’s main concern, however, was to win public support for the kokutai preservation movement. To that end, he appointed, as his second “cabinet counselor,” Lt. Gen. Ishiwara Kanji, a man who had retired from active duty in 1941 and thereafter defined himself as an opponent of the Tj cabinet. Ishiwara was the leader of a new millenarian movement—the T’A renmei (East Asia League)—whose branches were spreading from northern Honsh to southern Kyush.
Like Higashikuni, Ishiwara blamed the defeat on the degeneration of the Japanese people’s morals. In his T’A renmei speeches he hammered home three themes: The gods had willed Japan’s defeat in order to make the nation repent and renew its belief in the kokutai; the military, the police, and the bureaucracy, by oppressing the people, bore great responsibility for what had happened; and the nation should “surprise the enemy by carrying out reforms” before occupation rule even began. Abolish armaments for the duration of the occupation; get rid of the special higher police; end restrictions on speech and belief. And for the next several years, while in retreat from the world, Japan should learn as much as it could from the United States and imitate American ways.
To help Ishiwara spread this message, Higashikuni diverted railway trains to carry league members to conventions in different cities. In Morioka, Iwate prefecture, on September 14, 1945, Ishiwara (according to a police report) called on the entire nation to “repent” for having lost the war. He reminded his audience that by the end of the twentieth century, the “final global battle [between the United States and the Soviet Union] will be upon us,” and that the principle of the hakk ichiu (the “eight corners of the world under one roof”) still lived.14
Hirohito kept close watch on Higashikuni’s actions and appointments and received him in audiences at least once or twice a day from August 16 to September 2. During this crucial two weeks before their conquerors arrived en masse, Hirohito, the court group, and the Higashikuni cabinet focused on the issue that really mattered to them: controlling the people’s reaction to defeat and keeping them obedient and unconcerned with questions of accountability. Nevertheless, no matter what they did, the feeling spread that once the foreign occupiers arrived, reform of the monarchy and punishment of those who had led the nation would ensue. The emperor himself, it was rumored, might even have to abdicate to assume responsibility for the war.
II
On August 30, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur, newly appointed supreme commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), arrived in Japan to head the Allied military occupation. He set up his temporary headquarters in Yokohama. Three days later, on September 2, the emperor’s representatives, led by Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, signed the formal surrender document aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri, moored in Tokyo Bay. Its concluding line was the operative sentence of Secretary of State Byrnes’s reply to Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration: “The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender.”15 That same day the Foreign Ministry established a “War Termination Liaison Committee,” headed by diplomat Suzuki Kyman, to obtain inf
ormation from MacArthur and sound out his intentions. For many Japanese these were the first indications that “preservation of the kokutai” might prove harder than previously imagined, and would depend largely on General MacArthur.
On September 17 MacArthur finally established his General Headquarters (GHQ) in the Dai Ichi Life Insurance Building in central Tokyo, directly opposite the Imperial Palace. On the eighteenth, a secret directive arrived from the Pentagon, with the first part of the Truman administration’s detailed blueprint for the reform of Japan.16 On the twentieth MacArthur let it be known to Foreign Minister Yoshida Shigeru that an informal visit by Emperor Hirohito would not be inappropriate. That same day Grand Chamberlain Fujita Hisanori visited GHQ with a message from the palace: The emperor hoped that the general was enjoying good health; he wished to inform the general that Japan intended to carry out the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.17
Within this early occupation period, MacArthur’s “military secretary” and former head of psychological warfare operations, Brig. Gen. Bonner F. Fellers, reestablished personal ties with two Japanese Quakers. One, Isshiki (Watanabe) Yuri, he had known from his days at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana; the other, Kawai Michi, a former secretary-general of the YWCA and founder in 1929 of Keisen Girls School in Tokyo, he had met on his first visit to Japan in 1920. During their initial reunion meetings, Fellers spoke frankly of his urgent concern to prove that no grounds existed for holding the emperor responsible for the Pearl Harbor attack. With Kawai acting as his consultant and collaborator, Fellers was soon put into contact with her acquaintance, Sekiya Teizabur, the high palace official who, since late Taish, had played a leading role as a liaison between the court and government ministries. Sekiya too wanted to prove that the emperor was “a lover of peace.”18
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Page 55
