48. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, p. 449. Needless to say Stalin did not need Suzuki’s mokusatsu statement or the Yalta agreement to enter the war against defeated Japan. He would have done so in any case. Walter LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.-Japan relations throughout History, p. 248.
49. LaFeber, The Clash, p. 247.
50. The Soviet declaration of war stated: “Japan remains the only great power after the defeat and surrender of Hitlerian Germany which still insists on continuing the war, and has rejected the demand for the unconditional surrender of its armed forces, put forth on July 26 by the three nations: the United States of America, Britain, and China.” Nihon Jynarizumu Kenkykai, ed., Shwa “hatsugen” no kiroku (Toky jensh Shuppan Jigybu, 1989), p. 94.
51. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, p. 475. See also Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings (New York, 1981), p. 114. Even today the entire picture of the human damage wrought by the atomic bombs is difficult to grasp.
52. Cyril Clemens, ed., Truman Speaks (Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 69.
53. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, pp. 1220–21.
54. Ishiguro Tadaatsu, Nsei rakuyr (Oka Shoin, 1956), pp. 421–22; Suzuki Kantar Denki Hensan Iinkai, ed., Suzuki Kantar den (1960), p. 372. Minister of State Shimomura conveyed the concerns of the Advisory Council to the cabinet. Agricultural Minister Ishiguro in his memoirs commented on Suzuki’s motivations (p. 422):
I still don’t know his true intention in making this statement…. At cabinet meetings [Suzuki] only stressed fighting through to the end. He maintained the same attitude in his press conferences and toward the Potsdam Declaration. So I couldn’t understand whether this cabinet was going to continue the war or end it. Judging solely from appearances, I could only understand that the cabinet intended to continue fighting. There was not a single sign of their wanting to quit. Yet I imagined that precisely because the prime minister did not give expression to quitting the war meant that, at heart, he wanted to.
This was Ishiguro’s invocation of the haragei defense on Suzuki’s behalf. Haragei is the Japanese cultural practice whereby two parties in a negotiation advance their respective positions by subtle, nonverbal mutual deception.
55. STD, p. 120.
56. Wada Haruki, “Nisso sens,” in Hara Teruyuki, Sotogawa Tsugio, eds., Kza Suravu no sekai 8, Suravu to Nihon (Kbund, 1995), p. 110.
57. Sait Haruko, “Nihon no tai-So shsen gaik,” in Shiron (Tokyo Joshi Daigaku) 41 (Mar. 1988), p. 49; see Wada Haruki, “Nisso sens,” p. 110.
58. Sait, pp. 49, 52. In May 1943 Stalin had declared: “Only when it is facing grave danger does the fascist camp talk about peace.” On Nov. 6, 1944, he called Japan an “aggressor state.”
59. STD, p. 121.
60. Arita concluded his memorial with the words: “Your majesty confronts this crisis with his inherent wisdom. I humbly ask your majesty to view the trend of the war and resolutely act to save the imperial nation at its critical moment. I am respectfully reporting this with utter trepidation and awe.” See Gaimush, ed., Shsen shiroku 3, p. 208.
61. Sat to Tg, June 8, 1945, in ibid., p. 191.
62. Sat to Tg, Moscow, July 13, 1945, in FRUS, Diplomatic Papers: The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1960), p. 881.
63. Satto Tg, no. 1227, Moscow, July 19, and no. 1228, Moscow, July 20, 1945, in FRUS, Diplomatic Papers: The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1960), pp. 1251 and 1256. For the Japanese original see Gaimush, ed., Shsen shiroku 3 (Hokuysha, 1977), p. 199.
64. Tanaka Nobumasa, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, p. 439, citing Gaimush ed., Shsen shiroku (Shinbun Gekkansha, 1952), pp. 524–25.
65. Ibid., p. 440.
66. Ibid., p. 444.
67. Cited in David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (Yale University Press, 1994), p. 128.
68. Tanaka, pp. 461–62. In his memoirs Truman claims not to have been surprised by the Soviet decision. On the initial Soviet reaction to Hiroshima, see Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, pp. 127–29, and the review of Holloway by Vladislav Zubok in Science 266 (Oct. 21, 1994), pp. 466–68.
69. Historians of the A-bomb decision generally conclude that Truman knew of the contents of the intercepted and decoded Japanese “peace feelers,” and that Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and Army Chief of Staff Marshall were also informed of the cables. But these cables were evidence only of the Japanese government’s desire to make peace, not of its commitment to surrender unconditionally, because there was no such commitment prior to Hiroshima and the Soviet entry into the war. What the emperor and Kido were asking for up to that time was not “peace” but the preservation of the emperor’s power and the entire monarchical system. On U.S. knowledge, see Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (Viking Press, 1951), pp. 74–77; Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (Harper & Row, 1980), pp. 53–54; and Memoirs by Harry S. Truman, vol. 1, p. 396.
70. Yamada, Kketsu, Ososugita seidan, pp. 212–13. The “emperor’s letter” that Konoe was to have carried to Moscow was apparently quite short. A précis of the text can be found in Gaimush, ed., Shsen kiroku 3, pp. 160–61.
71. On Yonai and Takagi, see Yoshida, Shwa tenn no shsenshi, p. 27; and, for the full statement quoted here, Takagi kaigun shsh oboegaki (Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1979), p. 351, cited in Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, p. 475.
72. Kido always tried to leave the impression that he and Hirohito were consistent opponents of the militarists. Interviewed on April 6, 1966, he declared: “On the whole, our minds were already prepared [for surrender] earlier. That’s why we weren’t shocked by the atomic bombs…. There was also a plus aspect to the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war. I assumed at the time that if there had been no atomic bombs and the Soviet Union hadn’t joined in, we might not have succeeded.” The following year he opined boastfully: “Because the Soviets and the atomic bombs did the job for us, one could say that Japan was able to revive to this extent.” “Kido Kichi-shi to no taiwa,” in Kanazawa Makoto et al., eds., Kazoku: Meiji hyakunen sokumenshi (Hakuyo Sensho, 1978), p. 185; Wada Haruki, “Nisso sens” in Hara Teruyuki et al., eds., Kza Suravu no sekai 8, Suravu to Nihon (Kbund, 1995), p. 119.
73. For the text of “Wahei ksho no yk,” see Yabe Teiji, Konoe Fumimaro, ge (Kbunkan, 1952), pp. 559–62.
74. Yoshida, Shwa tenn no shsenshi, pp. 23–24.
75. Yoshida Yutaka, “Konoe Fumiraro: ‘kakushin’ ha kytei seijika no gosan” in Yoshida et al., Haisen zengo: Shwa tenn to gonin no shidsha, p. 40. In Aug. 1945 Soviet troops captured 639,676 Kwantung Army soldiers, “including 26,583 officers and 191 generals.” Except for the generals, most (about 570,000) were forced to work at hard labor in the camps. See S. I. Kuznetsov, “Kwantung Army Generals in Soviet Prisons (1945–1956),” in Journal of Slavic Military Studies 11, no. 3 (Sept. 1998), p. 187.
76. Around the time of capitulation, Kido met frequently with civil and military police officials, and collected the latest information about the worsening domestic situation. Rear Admiral Takagi recalled after the war that on July 12, 1945, when Prince Konoe told the emperor, “The situation today has reached the point where people hold a grudge against the Imperial House,” Hirohito “agreed completely.” See Yoshida, Shwa tenn no shsenshi, pp. 29–30, citing Takagi Skichi, Takagi kaigun shsh oboegaki (Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1979); Hayashi Shigeru, And Yoshio et al., eds., Nihon shsenshi jkan, hachi gatsu jgonichi no kdet hoka (Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1962), pp. 196–210; Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, p. 460; and John W. Dower, “Sensational Rumors, Seditious Graffiti, and the Nightmares of the Thought Police,” in Dower, Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays (New Press, 1993), pp. 101–54.
77. Kimishima Kazuhiko, “‘Shsen ksaku’ t
o ‘kokutai’ ni kansuru ichi shiron,” in Tokyo Gakugei Daigaku Kiy, Dai Sanbumon, Shakai Kagaku 34 (Dec. 1982), p. 157, citing Toyoda Soemu, Saigo no teikoku kaigun (Sekai no Nihonsha, 1950), pp. 206–7.
78. In his dictated statement to interviewer i Atsushi of GHQ’s Historical Section on November 28, 1949, Tg said, “I cannot recall that Minister of the Navy Yonai introduced all the four conditions,” and went on to accuse Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda of adding three conditions to the single one that he, Tg, had proposed. But other officials interrogated in the follow-up interviews stated otherwise.
79. According to Tanaka Nobumasa’s reconstruction, based on the memoirs of Toyoda Soemu and Tg Shigenori, General Umezu stated the case for self-disarmament as follows:
The word “surrender” is not in the Japanese military lexicon. In our military education, if you lose your weapons, you fight with your bare hands. When your hands will no longer help, you fight with your feet. When you can no longer use your hands and feet, you bite with your teeth. Finally, when you can no longer fight, you bite off your tongue and commit suicide. That’s what we teach. I do not think that it will go smoothly to order such an army to abandon its weapons and surrender. We should request that our army and the allied army designate the place and time in each theater of operations and the units will gather there to hand over their weapons. We ourselves will collect them…
Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, pp. 479–80.
80. Awaya Kentar, “Tokyo saiban ni miru sengo shori” in Awaya Kentar, et al., Sens sekinin, sengo sekinin: Nihon to Doitsu wa d chigau ka, pp. 79–80.
81. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, pp. 493–94; Tg’s dictated statements to investigators from the Historical Section of GHQ in the follow-up interviews of May 17, 1949 and August 17, 1950, in U.S. Army Statements of Japanese Officials on World War II (n.p. 1949–50), vol. 4, Microfilm Shelf No. 51256.
82. Gaimush, ed., Nihon gaik nenpy narabi shuy bunsho, ge, (Nihon Kokusai Reng Kykai, 1955), p. 630; Kimishima Kazuhiko, “‘Shsen ksaku’ to ‘kokutai’ ni kansuru ichi shiron,” p. 161.
83. Prince Takamatsu, maneuvering behind the scenes for the overthrow of the Tj cabinet, reportedly said at a meeting of the Naval General Staff Headquarters, on June 29, 1944, that, “Since the absolute defense perimeter has been broken from New Guinea and Saipan to Ogasawara, we should now abandon the former ideal of establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and focus our war goal on—to put it bluntly—how cleverly we should be defeated.” Hosokawa Morisada, Jh tenn ni tassezu, ge (Dksha Isobe Shob, 1953), p. 252.
84. Yoshida, Shwa tenn no shsenshi, p. 31.
85. Matsudaira’s essay, “The Japanese Emperor and the War,” appears as the “Appendix” to volume 2, part 2” of the Reports, which MacArthur’s staff group printed in Tokyo in 1950, under the general editorship of Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby. See Reports of General MacArthur: Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, vol. 2, part 2 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1966), pp. 763–71.
86. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 1223.
87. STD, pp. 125–26.
88. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, p. 472.
89. Hoshina’s notes of the imperial conference can be found in Gaimush, ed., Nihon gaik nenpy narabi shuy bunsho, ge, p. 630. See also Yoshida, Nihonjin no senskan, pp. 42–43, citing Ikeda Sumihisa, Nihon no magarikado (Senj Shuppan, 1986) and Hoshina Zenshir, Dai T’A sens hishi (Hara Shob, 1975).
90. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, p. 506.
91. Ibid., p. 507.
92. Yokota Kisabur, Tennsei (Rd Bunkasha, 1949), pp. 183–84.
93. mori Minoru, Sengo hishi 2: tenn to genshi bakudan (Kdansha, 1975), p. 267, and Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan: haisen, ge (Ryokuf Shuppan, 1989), p. 531.
94. STD, p. 129.
95. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 304.
96. Yoshida, Shwa tenn no shsenshi, p. 226.
97. In his “Monologue” Hirohito says, “Umezu returned from Manchuria the day after the [imperial] conference [of June 8]. According to his report, even with all our forces in China we could only resist eight American divisions. If the United States landed ten divisions in China, there was absolutely no chance of winning. It was the first time that Umezu ever complained like this.” STD, pp. 116–17.
98. At the mid-May meetings of the inner cabinet, Prime Minister Suzuki opined: “Stalin’s character resembles Saig Nansh [Takamori], so don’t you think we should put all of our efforts into peace mediation through the Soviet Union.” Army Minister Anami declared: “We have considerable room for negotiation because after the war the Soviet Union will confront America and not want Japan to become too weakened.” Navy Minister Yonai said: “Why not transfer warships to them and ask for oil and airplanes in return.” Sait Haruko, “Nihon no tai-So shsen gaik,” in Shiron 41 (Tokyo Joshi Daigaku), (Mar. 1988), p. 55, citing Nihon gaik nenpy narabi shuy bunsho, ge, p. 612.
99. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai gokan, pp. 459–460, citing Kido’s response to written questions concerning the ending of the war, given in Sugamo prison on May 17, 1949.
100. Tg himself conceded as much when he said, on August 17, 1950, that “although I asked the Soviet Union to act as peace mediator, I was unable to advise her of our peace conditions in any concrete form.” See Tg statement of Aug. 17, 1950, p. 4, in U.S. Army Statements of Japanese Officials on World War II, vol. 4, microfilm shelf no. 51256.
101. Sait, “Nihon no tai-So shsen gaik,” p. 58.
102. D. M. Giangreco, “Casualty Projections for the U.S. Invasions of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications,” Journal of Military History 61, no. 3 (July 1997), pp. 521–81. Giangreco has reproduced and annotated the minutes of the June 18 White House meeting. For the full text, together with the military estimates, see “Appendix” to Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race (Vintage Books, 1987), pp. 355–63.
103. Giangreco, “Casualty Projections,” p. 560.
104. Ibid., pp. 574–77. His analysis should be compared with Barton Bernstein’s discussion of casualty forecasting in “The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Narrative,” in Philip Nobile, ed., Judgment at the Smithsonian (Marlowe & Co., 1995), pp. 127–256.
105. Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Statesman, vol. 4 (Viking, 1987, p. 19, from Pogue’s February 1957 interview with Marshall.
106. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 1223.
107. Matsuura Sz, Tenn Hirohito to chih toshi ksh (tsuki Shoten, 1995), pp. 176–177. Kido nikki (ge), pp. 1225-1226.
108. For the official English translation, see Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender, appendix 1, p. 248; for discussion see Bix, “The Shwa Emperor’s ‘Monologue’…,” pp. 300–302; Fujita Shz, Tenk no shisshi teki kenky (Iwanami Shoten, 1975), pp. 227–30.
109. Takeyama Akiko, Gyokuon hs (Banseisha, 1989), p. 128.
110. Ibid., p. 103.
111. The idea of the surrender as a broadcast “ritual” comes from ibid., p. 71.
112. Senda Kak, Tenn to chokugo to Shwa shi (Sekibunsha, 1983), p. 394.
113. e Shinobu, “Hiroshima-Nagasaki o menzai shita Shwa tenn no sekinin,” in Shkan kinybi (Apr. 28, 1995), p. 40. For an English language translation of the August 17 rescript see U.S. Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, Psychological Warfare Part Two, Supplement No. 3 (n.p., CINCPAC-CINCPOA Bulletin No. 164–45, 15 Aug. 1945).
CHAPTER 14
A MONARCHY REINVENTED
1. Reprinted in Bungei shunj, tokubetsug: inaru Shwa (Mar. 1989), p. 364.
2. Hirohito’s letter to Akihito, dated Mar. 6, 1945, in ibid., p. 362.
3. Tsurumi Shunsuke, Nakagawa Roppei, eds., Tenn hyakuwa, ge (Chikuma Bunko, 1989), pp. 39–41. This letter was released to the nation’s press by the Kyd News Agency on Apr. 15, 1986. The cabinet of Nakasone Yasuhiro was then preparing for the sixtieth anniversary of Hirohito’s reign while conducting a campaign celebrating the centennial of the Meiji Res
toration. See Sakamoto Kjir, Shch tennsei e no pafmansu: Shwa-ki no tenn gyk no hensen (Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1989), p. 65; Asahi Evening News, Apr. 15, 1986.
4. Kinoshita Michio, Sokkin nisshi (Bungei Shunj, 1990), p. 48.
5. Kinoshita, Sokkin nisshi, pp. 48–49.
6. Chimoto Hideki, Tennsei no shinryaku sekinin to sengo sekinin (Aoki Shoten, 1990), p. 141.
7. Cited in Chimoto, p. 144; and Iokibe Makoto, Senryki: shushtachi no shin Nihon (Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1997), p. 39.
8. Cited in Kinbara Samon, Takemae Eiji, Shwashi: kokumin no naka no haran to gekid no hanseiki—zhoban (Yhikaku Sensho, 1989), p. 244. Okichi was the name of a young woman assigned by the bakufu (the government of the Tokugawa shogun) magistrate of Shimoda around 1856 to be the mistress of Townsend Harris, the first American consul to Japan.
9. Cited in Awaya Kentar, ed., Shiry Nihon gendaishi 2: Haisen chokugo no seiji to shakai 1 (tsuki Shoten, 1980), p. 24.
10. Awaya Kentar, Kawashima Takamine, eds., Haisenji zenkoku chian jh, dai rokkan: kokusai kensatsu kyoku sh jy bunsho 1 (Nihon Tosho Cent, 1994), pp. 8–10, 242–245; Awaya, Kawashima, “Gyokuon hs wa teki no bryaku da,” in This Is Yomiuri (Nov. 1994), pp. 50–52.
11. See the chian jh material cited in Awaya, Kawashima, “Gyokuon hs wa teki no bryaku da,” p. 44.
12. Ibid., p. 56.
13. Report of the Osaka Municipal Special Higher Police, First Section, Sept. 19, 1945, as cited in ibid., pp. 55–56.
14. The material in this and the preceeding paragraph on Ishiwara’s T’A renmei is drawn from Kokusai kensatsu kyoku sh jy bunsho 1: Haisenji zenkoku chian jh, dai nikan, pp. 84–85, 90; also cited in Awaya, Kawashima, “Gyokuon hs wa teki no bryaku da,” pp. 58–60.
15. “Text of the Instrument of Surrender” in Ramond Dennett and Robert K. Turner, eds., Documents on American Foreign Relations, vol. 3, July 1, 1945–December 31, 1946 (Princeton University Press, Kraus Reprint Co., 1976), pp. 109–10.
16. Theodore Cohen, Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal (Free Press, 1987), p. 4. MacArthur did not receive the second half of his reform directive until October 22.
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Page 82
