Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

by Herbert P. Bix

  Also in October, the problem of abdication resurfaced in the Japanese press. On October 12 Prince Konoe informed a reporter that the emperor was aware of the problem; on the twenty-first, Konoe told Russell Brines of the Associated Press that the Imperial Household Law did not provide for abdication; four days later the Mainichi shinbun reported that the emperor could not possibly abdicate because he had accepted the Potsdam Declaration and had a duty to carry it out. The abdication rumors of October aroused the trepidations of Hirohito’s court defenders and kept alive the problem of his moral, political, and legal responsibility for the war. Court officials responded by making minor reforms, while signaling to the nation the emperor’s intention to remain on the throne.39 In addition, from this time onward arguments for the emperor’s abdication began to intersect with the search by conservative intellectuals for an “indigenous” democratization based on the reconstruction of the national morality—something that could not occur while Hirohito was monarch.40

  Meanwhile military agencies were steadily being lopped off. On September 13 the Imperial Headquarters that had existed for seven years and ten months was abolished. On October 10 the Combined Fleet and the Navy General Headquarters were formally dissolved. Five days later the general headquarters of both the army and navy closed, and on December 1, the two service ministries themselves were abolished.41 By the end of 1945 the armed forces Hirohito had commanded no longer existed. Still, despite the demystifying effect of the emperor-MacArthur photograph, the image of him as uniformed supreme commander of the nation persisted.

  IV

  The emperor’s advisers now focused on extinguishing his military image. Availing themselves of MacArthur’s personal generosity, they sought, and were quickly granted, permission for him to worship “privately” at Ise Shrine in Mie prefecture.

  Accompanied by high court officials, as well as curious Allied journalists, Hirohito departed Tokyo on November 12 for a three-day trip to the national Shinto shrines of his imperial ancestors. Outwardly the trip seemed a simple undertaking for purely religious purposes. He visited the inner and outer shrines of Ise and the mausoleum of the legendary first emperor, Jimmu (in Nara), and the Meiji emperor (in Kyoto), staying overnight at the Kyoto Palace on both occasions. The hidden purpose of the trip was to affirm, in the new context of defeat, the viability of imperial history, based on religion and myth. Hirohito used the occasion to test public opinion and shed his military image. The trip was his first opportunity to display a new, postwar royal uniform. It closely resembled the duty garb of a railroad conductor, the collar closed and stiffly stand-up. Understandably he never wore this outfit again, but went completely civilian in a plain, poorly fitting business suit. The manufacture of the imperial railwaymanlike uniform may have signaled an intention to impress the public, at home and abroad, with his determination to remain on the throne rather than to abdicate.42

  The signal Hirohito received from his subjects, however, was clear. When the imperial train stopped for six minutes at Numazu Station on October 12, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kido was anxious, wondering whether people living in the burnt-out area around the station “might throw stones or something.”43 Wherever the emperor appeared in Ise and Kyoto, however, he was warmly welcomed, thus putting to rest Kido’s fear. Even though the mystique of the throne had been punctured by defeat, his subjects remained loyal, and many still regarded him as “sacred and inviolable.” The Ise-Kyoto tour thus contributed to the emperor’s later decision to go out among the people, something he disliked doing and had always kept to a necessary minimum. A month after returning to Tokyo, Hirohito visited the tomb of his father, the Taish emperor. His October train trip and this visit were his first announced postwar tours.

  On November 29, 1945, the emperor told Vice Grand Chamberlain Kinoshita Michio that seven of the imperial princes were going to visit the imperial mausoleums on his behalf, and that he intended to tell them that “his last tour to the Kansai region [that is, his Ise-Kyoto trip] had a great effect in promoting intimacy between the high and the low. The imperial family, which is a presence between him and the people, should make great efforts [to nurture that intimacy].”44

  Concurrently, following Hirohito’s return from Kyoto, the Japanese people learned that the imperial portrait would be removed from display in all schools, government offices, and overseas embassies and consulates. The Imperial Household Ministry planned a new portrait as replacement, which the emperor would eventually “bestow” on the nation, as he had before. Unlike his military uniform, however, the imperial likeness could not be carelessly discarded. If it were, the emperor’s bond with his people might be weakened.45

  Three weeks after the emperor’s train trip for ostensibly private religious purposes, GHQ’s Civil Information and Education Section (CIE) launched a carefully prepared campaign to remold Japanese opinion on the lost war and the evils of militarism. Bradley Smith, chief of CIE’s Planning Division, wrote a series of ten articles that were translated into Japanese by the official news agency, Kyd Tsshinsha. “A History of the Pacific War: The Destruction of Deceit and Militarism in Japan,” was described as having been “Contributed by Allied General Headquarters.” The prologue for the first installment started in all national newspapers on December 8, 1945, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. It listed Japan’s main war crimes and declared that “the concealment of the truth” by successive wartime governments had produced the “gravest consequences.”

  [For] even after Japan retreated on many fronts and its navy ceased to exist, the true situation was never publicized. Recently, the emperor himself said that it had not been his wish to attack Pearl Harbor without warning, but the military police [kempeitai] exerted every effort to prevent [his statement] from reaching the people…. It is absolutely essential for the people to know the full history of this war so they may understand why Japan was defeated and…why they now suffer such a miserable plight. Only in this way will they gain the knowledge and strength to oppose militaristic actions and reconstruct the state as a member of international peaceful society…. 46

  The “History of the Pacific War” emphasized “the crimes resulting from Japanese militarism,” including the rapes and other outrages in Nanking, but also highlighted the efforts for peace of the “moderate faction,” centering on Emperor Hirohito. Reaching back, the initial article described Prime Minister Shidehara (the main defender of the Kwantung Army during its 1931 Manchurian aggression) as a man who had respected “the principles of peace and international cooperation” during his tenure as foreign minister. But by placing the most blame on a handful of “military cliques,” thus depicting the people one-sidedly as deceived victims—as even the emperor had been deceived—this GHQ effort to reshape historical consciousness ultimately confused the Japanese acceptance of war responsibility.

  CIE reinforced its press campaign with a radio news program designed to remold Japanese opinion. From December 9 to February 10, 1946, NHK radio broadcast a thirty-minute, thrice-weekly evening program called “Shins wa k da” [Now it can be told]. Based on the “History of the Pacific War” and produced by Americans, it was designed as the Japanese version of America’s best-known news program of the 1930s: “The March of Time.”47 The opening scene began with an announcer’s authoritative voice declaring melodramatically,

  We, the people of Japan, already know the war criminal suspects. Those who betrayed us are now being exposed to the light of day.

  Who? Who are they?

  Be patient and I’ll tell you. Above all, I’ll give you the facts so you can draw your own conclusions.

  [Music rises, dies out.]

  Announcer: This is the first in a series of radio broadcasts entitled “Now It Can Be Told.” Through these broadcasts you will come to understand the true facts about the great war and the circumstances that brought it about.48

  “Now It Can Be Told” spread the message that Japan had fought a war of aggression rather than of self-defense; its leader
s had deceived the nation. Directly contradicting familiar wartime propaganda about the “War of Greater East Asia,” the program hit its Japanese listeners hard, infuriating many. Hundreds of letters poured into NHK protesting the punitive spirit of the program and the dogmatic style of presentation by its unidentified Japanese performers.49

  Japan’s political elites could not recognize the lost war as one of aggression, for then they would have had to discuss where responsibility for starting and losing it lay. They would have been unable to push the entire blame onto the military. Yet they had to prevent GHQ from driving too deep a wedge between the military and the people, or it would affect the emperor. Ever since the emperor’s surrender broadcast, they had tried to counteract the Allied information on the war by sedulously avoiding issues of accountability while emphasizing “the emperor’s gracious consideration and benevolence for the people.” Prime Minister Higashikuni set the tone at his first press conference, on August 28:

  We have come to this ending because the government’s policies were flawed. But another cause [of the defeat] was a decline in the moral behavior of the people. So at this time I feel the entire nation—the military, the government officials, and the people—must thoroughly reflect and repent. Repentance of the whole nation is the first step in reconstruction, and the first step toward national unity.50

  Later, at a press conference on September 4, Higashikuni repeated the message: Imperial initiative had ended the war, national repentance was now in order, and “protection of the national polity” was called for. The war had ended thanks to “the gracious benevolence of His Majesty, who paved the way to an eternal peace in order to save the people from suffering. Never before had we been so profoundly moved by the deep sympathy of His Majesty. We deeply regret having caused Him so much concern.” 51

  Higashikuni’s plea for general repentance and national unity had mixed consequences. Some Japanese were immediately persuaded, but the reaction of most was bafflement or anger. Hard economic times, combined with the recent experience of vast inequalities in the sacrifices that had been demanded of the people during the war, undercut Higashikuni’s message and contributed to growing distrust of the national leadership. His admission that a major cause of Japan’s defeat had been the enormous discrepancy between its war power and the national strength of its enemies made many feel that their leaders had acted recklessly in waging war against the United States and Britain.52

  After Higashikuni resigned, Prime Minister Shidehara went further in rewriting history. On November 5, 1945, the Shidehara cabinet adopted a document on war responsibility that eventually became a major prop in the postwar conservative politicians’ view of the war. Entitled “Matters Concerning War Responsibility and Other Issues,” the document showed that the conservatives believed that “the empire was compelled to embark on the Greater East Asian War in view of the surrounding circumstances.” This was tantamount to saying that the Tj cabinet’s surprise attack on the United States and Britain had been in self-defense. The document also laid down the egregiously false, official line that the emperor had always been a peace-minded constitutionalist, kept in the dark about the actual details of the attack on Pearl Harbor.53

  If CIE’s “History of the Pacific War” slighted Japan’s war against the peoples of Asia, Shidehara’s dishonest policy document simply ignored Japanese aggression in China since 1931, and in Southeast Asia starting in 1940. Inverting cause and effect, the November 5 policy decision on war responsibility began the lost war from the commencement of “ABCD encirclement,” a term that denoted the military and economic pressure the United States, Britain, China, and the Netherlands had placed on Japan during the very last stage of its pre–Pearl Harbor aggression.54

  At the end of 1945, men in the emperor’s entourage, and former members of the wartime cabinets, were acting independently to protect Hirohito and the kokutai. The Asahi shinbun, for example, published a serialized account of Hirohito’s heroic role in the surrender process. Authored by Sakomizu Hisatsune and titled, in Japanese, “In the Time of Surrender,” it ran concurrently with the publication of CIE’s “History of the Pacific War” series, reflecting the basic consensual agreement between GHQ and Japan’s “moderate” leaders on the matter of protecting the emperor.

  Thus, in defending the emperor, GHQ and the conservative ruling elites were also promoting their respective versions of Japan’s lost war. GHQ succeeded in establishing only the militarists as aggressors, not the emperor who had commanded them. The Japanese conservatives were unable to negate openly the American version of the “Pacific War.” Nevertheless they wished at least to keep alive the position that the war had been fought for self-defense, just as the imperial rescript said, and that Japan had been forced into it. Eventually, both sides were successful in implanting their views. Japan never pursued war crimes on its own with a view to seeking punishment of those who had committed them, and its government paid reparations only to other governments, never to individuals.

  V

  While the battle to shape historical consciousness unfolded, GHQ resumed arrests of suspected war criminals, extended its investigations to include the imperial family, and continued to await the Japanese government’s plans for revision of the constitution that would inaugurate the new era of democracy. Japanese public opinion surveys showed a strong desire to have the imperial system reformed. According to one such survey, 15.9 percent “wanted the prewar system to remain”; 45.3 percent wanted “the center of morality placed outside of politics; and 28.4 percent wanted a British-style emperor system.”55 But the Shidehara cabinet was deliberately procrastinating while crafting a plan for only token revision of the Meiji constitution that would leave the kokutai virtually unchanged. Watching these developments, and desiring to encourage “spontaneous” popular organizational efforts, the reformers in GHQ turned their attention to the “emperor system.”

  On December 15 a GHQ directive ended state support of Shinto shrines and eliminated Shinto from the education system by banning militaristic and ultranationalistic teachings connected with Shinto. The “Shinto Directive” introduced the principle of the separation of state and religion, thereby effectively ending the “unity of rites and politics” (saisei itchi) that all governments had professed to uphold since early Meiji. It also banned the use in official documents of terms such as “War of Greater East Asia” and “eight corners of the world under one roof.”

  On January 1, 1946, the Japanese press printed the entire text of Emperor Hirohito’s first-ever New Year’s rescript to the nation, formally titled “Rescript to Promote the National Destiny” but popularly known as the “Declaration of Humanity” (ningen sengen).56 Couched in obscure, classical language, it quoted in its entirety Emperor Meiji’s egalitarian-sounding imperial oath of five articles, starting with: “We shall determine all matters of state by public discussion, after assemblies have been convoked far and wide;” and ending: “We shall seek knowledge throughout the world and thus invigorate the foundations of this imperial nation.”57 Buried in the text was a denial that the emperor’s ties with his people was based on “the false conception” of him as “a living deity” (akitsumikami).

  Drafted earlier at GHQ, the rescript had undergone translation and revision by the Shidehara cabinet and the court. The draft-translation-revision process had imaged the interplay between the court, intent on defending the kokutai, and American policy makers, who were ambivalent about the monarchy but believed that its reform was best approached indirectly. Both sides intended to use the rescript to open a new phase in their campaigns to rehabilitate Hirohito’s image.

  Hirohito’s failure to deny his reputed descent from the sun goddess, Amaterasu mikami, stands out. To emphasize the union of monarchy and democracy since the Meiji period, he inserted the oath Meiji had sworn not to the Japanese people but to Amaterasu mikami. In so doing, he pushed into the background the message that his relationship with the people was not based on his supposed divinity
. Certainly the thinking of the Japanese leadership, including the emperor, was changing at this time. By putting forth the view that “mutual trust and reverent affection” (shin’ai to keiai) between the emperor and the people were the basis of the imperial system, they could downplay, without ever explicitly repudiating, the Shinto foundation myths that, in any event, few Japanese still believed.58

  GHQ and Western journalists chose to deemphasize the New Year’s rescript’s primary focus on political continuity and instead gave importance to its repudiation of false doctrine. Western press coverage of the rescript also ignored the emperor’s failure to refer to the doctrine that his sovereign powers of state derived from the sun goddess, thereby leaving undenied the myth that was the basis of his renounced divinity in the first place. Hirohito’s omissions did not stop the New York Times from saying, in its lead editorial, that by issuing the rescript, the emperor had become “one of the great reformers in Japanese history.”59 Nor did they prevent MacArthur from promptly declaring that: “The emperor’s New Year’s statement pleases me very much. By it he undertakes a leading part in democratization of his people. He squarely takes his stand for the future along liberal lines. His action reflects the irresistible influence of a sound idea. A sound idea cannot be stopped.”60

  What MacArthur did not report to the American public, and what the American press also slighted, was Emperor Hirohito’s false linkage of the Meiji past with the current postwar democracy. In effect Emperor Meiji, dead since 1912, was made the founding father of the political system about to be born in 1946. Far from the progressive and liberating statement MacArthur called it, the Declaration of Humanity was one more attempt by Hirohito and his advisers to limit, not to lead, the “democratization of his people,” something he had been doing all his adult life.