In fact he bowed so low that the startled supreme commander found himself holding the emperor’s hand over Hirohito’s head. MacArthur escorted the emperor into the drawing room, where a photographer snapped three pictures one after the other, and quickly departed. The only other person in the room was Hirohito’s translator. As at Atsugi, MacArthur put all his trust in the Japanese: He had no translator of his own to ensure his words weren’t being misstated. To make his guest feel at ease, MacArthur began by relating how he had at one time been received by the emperor’s father at the end of the Russo-Japanese War. The emperor, hands still trembling, declined to touch his cup of coffee lest he spill it. MacArthur, seeing his distress, pulled out his gold cigarette case and offered an American cigarette; Hirohito, no regular smoker, eagerly accepted, and MacArthur leaned forward and flicked his cigarette lighter.
The two men were not entirely strangers; under less traumatic circumstances there were a number of things they could have talked about. They had met once before, back in 1937 when Manuel Quezon of the Philippines met with the emperor and MacArthur sat next to Quezon as his military advisor. Had either Hirohito or MacArthur been invited into the other’s private office, he might have been thrilled to discover a mutual idol, Abraham Lincoln: MacArthur had pictures of Lincoln and Washington on the wall; Hirohito had busts of Lincoln, Napoleon, and Darwin. Both men had exalted military titles, MacArthur as Commander of the American Army of the Southwest Pacific and now Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Hirohito as emperor and commander of the Japanese armed forces. Both men were well traveled: The general had visited Japan and the Far East in 1905–6 and lived in Asia since 1937; in 1921 the emperor had taken a six-month royal tour of Hong Kong, Singapore, Egypt, Malta, England, France, Belgium, Holland, and Italy. Finally, and not least, each man was absolutely convinced that he alone was a man of destiny and represented God’s favored race.
Normally in a meeting of the conqueror and the vanquished, the vanquished must be the more nervous: Is he going to have his head cut off? Thrown into a dungeon for the rest of his life?
Actually, in this case it was MacArthur who was the more tense. Japan was prostrate, what more could the emperor lose? But for MacArthur, having won a war, he could easily lose the peace—a grim prospect after such a hard-fought war. He had to tread carefully, for he had politicians and generals back in Washington snapping at his heels. A lot of people back home wanted vengeance. He had to be careful. While he enjoyed unprecedented power as a supreme commander, he knew his standing with President Truman and Army Chief George Marshall was hardly rock solid and could be taken away at a moment’s notice.*
Ever since the surrender on the Missouri he had known he would have to move with utmost delicacy. His first test would be what he was going to do with the emperor.
MacArthur also knew that he was in a fairly weak position, like any head of a military occupation. Without the emperor’s support, he would need a million soldiers to maintain order. He did not have a million soldiers, at the moment he had barely five hundred thousand—and almost all of them were clamoring to go back home.
MacArthur was a general: The same style of thinking he had used in war he would use in this new form of war called peace: “To avoid the frontal attack with its terrible loss of life; to bypass Japanese strong points and neutralize them by cutting their lines of supply; to thus isolate their armies and starve them in the battlefield; to, as baseball player Willie Keeler used to say: ‘hit ’em where they ain’t.’ ” In other words, be clever and outfox them. Be patient. Don’t rush into battle, sit back and wait and take advantage of the other side’s impatience.
Urged by his staff weeks earlier to summon the emperor to his headquarters, MacArthur had refused: “To do so would be to outrage the feelings of the Japanese people and make a martyr of the Emperor in their eyes. No, I shall wait and in time the Emperor will voluntarily come to see me.” MacArthur explained: “In this case the patience of the East rather than the haste of the West will best serve our purpose.” Asked if the emperor initiated a visit, would he return it, MacArthur again said no: “I shall never call upon the Emperor until a treaty of peace is signed and the occupation comes to a close. To do otherwise would be universally construed as an acknowledgement of the equality between his position and that which I occupy in representation of the Allied Powers—an equality which does not exist.”
His position was clear: The emperor must make the first move. The days went by, he waited. He was in no hurry, time was on his side, he had plenty of other things to do. He did, however, make quiet overtures through two Japanese Quaker friends of Bonner Fellers who were anxious to prove that the emperor was “a lover of peace.” Sure enough, after two weeks an inquiry was received by the American Embassy and the highly anticipated meeting quickly arranged. The Japanese were given no clue what to expect other than that the meeting would take place at the American Embassy—not at MacArthur’s official office in the Dai Ichi Building. The emperor’s visit was to be a courtesy call, nothing more.
Now sitting in the reception hall of the American Embassy, smoking his cigarette and looking at the man across from him, the emperor was dumbfounded at the supreme commander’s attire. Here he was, the Son of Heaven, dressed in the full diplomatic outfit of cutaway jacket and striped trousers, calling on a man wearing military khaki trousers and shirt, no jacket or tie. The American’s only mark of military power was a small circle of five stars on his right collar. Yet he was the most powerful general in the world.
The emperor had no idea how much MacArthur knew of his involvement in the war, how much he had rewarded his military commanders after the bloody conquest of China, how he had known of the plan to bomb Pearl Harbor and done nothing to stop it, how he could have prevented the beheading of captured American pilots. The emperor knew the Americans were seething with anger over the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, plus the Japanese atrocities of war. He also knew that his former prime minister, Hideki Tojo, had been arrested two days ago and was now cooling his heels in Sugamo Prison, possibly to be executed any moment. Was that the fate awaiting him?
He had a vague hope that he would be allowed to stay on as emperor, for the Potsdam Declaration had specified that the occupation would be conducted according to the “freely expressed will of the Japanese people.” Was not the emperor beloved by his people? Was he not the expression of their will?
He knew that the Hague Convention of 1928 precluded tampering with the political machinery of an occupied country, and that there was also the Atlantic Charter of 1941, which proclaimed America’s commitment to the right of all peoples to determine their own form of government. But he also knew that Japan had submitted to unconditional surrender, meaning the victors could do whatever they chose, and that his own army chief of staff had told him unconditional surrender meant the end of the imperial system. He knew further, totally apart from what the Americans’ disposition might be, that the Australians, the British, the Chinese, and especially the Russians were out to get his scalp.
MacArthur, for his part, planned to be quiet and hear what the emperor had to say. As Theodore Roosevelt had once said to him when MacArthur was serving as the president’s personal military aide in 1903: “You must listen to the grass grow.”
What MacArthur didn’t want to hear was a plea for mercy. He had already made up his mind to follow the Potsdam Declaration—how could he not?—but he had no intention of revealing his hand. Military men have a code of honor. To forgive someone you must first of all respect him. If the emperor was to be let off the hook, he must earn his way.
The meeting began. “I come to you, General MacArthur, to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you represent . . . as the one to bear sole responsibility for every political and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct of war.” The key operative word in this sentence was “every.” There was no equivocating here, no mea culpa, no skirting the edges about Pearl Harbor, or the Rape of Nan
king, or the atrocities of the Bataan March. Everything was on the table.
MacArthur, knowing how deep and dreadful the emperor’s humiliation must be, was stunned. “A tremendous impression swept me,” he wrote later. “This courageous assumption of a responsibility implicit with death, a responsibility clearly belied by facts of which I was fully aware, moved me to the very marrow of my bones. He was an emperor by inherent birth, but in that instant, I knew I faced the First Gentleman of Japan in his own right.” After the meeting he told Faubion Bowers: “To see someone who is so high, reduced to such a position of humility is very painful.”
Of course the emperor’s admission also suggested he might be talking in riddles to absolve all the generals who engaged in atrocities, but that was a question for another day when SCAP conducted a war crimes trial. For MacArthur what was important now was that the emperor had not begged for mercy or put him on the spot. The emperor—like MacArthur—was a man of honor.
The two men engaged in casual conversation. There was no discussion of politics or war crimes—that was taboo. MacArthur, though he had no idea how true it was, made a specific point of praising Hirohito for his role in ending the war. Then Hirohito dropped a surprise. He told MacArthur that the bombing of Hiroshima was what had impelled Japan to finally surrender: “The peace party did not prevail until the bombing of Hiroshima created a situation which could be dramatized.” If MacArthur, who had gone on record opposing the bomb, was amazed by this revelation, he did not admit it, nor did he necessarily believe it. By blaming everything on the bomb, the emperor was protecting himself and the Japanese people. MacArthur would play along. He was there, after all, not as an investigator to unravel deep truths but rather to search common ground on which to base future cooperation and harmony.
The emperor thanked MacArthur for the Americans’ occupying Japan so peaceably; MacArthur responded that this was wholly due to Hirohito’s cooperation. Hirohito suggested it would be interesting to know what future historians would say about responsibility for the war; no reply from MacArthur. Hirohito sounded him out on abdication; again no response. The general was being very cagey. In thirty-eight minutes Hirohito had learned nothing about what would come next or what his fate would be.
The meeting was over, and MacArthur escorted the emperor down to his car, then abruptly turned around without shaking hands and walked back into the embassy. The next day the photograph was developed and released. The Japanese government was appalled and banned this picture as insulting to the emperor; MacArthur rejected the ban and ordered the picture to be published in all the newspapers, pronto. It appeared the following day, September 29, and generated a firestorm of controversy: It was “Mahomet going to the mountain.” For the first time in his life the emperor was photographed with no advisor present. MacArthur was big, confident, and dead serious, almost grim; the emperor was small and subservient, a man snapping to attention like a waiter. Such was the fate of an emperor “without peer on the land, the sea, and in the air, the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu.”
Considered by many to be the most influential single political photograph of the twentieth century, this picture became key in persuading the Japanese not to rise up against their powerful occupier, a man who looked more like an emperor than even Hirohito himself.
Douglas MacArthur was off to a good start.
8
What to Do with the Emperor and the Militarists?
WITH HIS THREE bold moves—the Atsugi landing, the surrender ceremony, and the meeting with the emperor—MacArthur had surprised and impressed the enemy. The emperor and the militarists had good reason to be nervous: They knew full well there was tremendous pressure in the United States to try them as war criminals. Even before he arrived as supreme commander, MacArthur was the most feared of all Americans because of what he had done in the war. Leaving Bataan, he had promised he would return. The local people in the Philippines took his words to heart. On folders, blotters, match covers, leaflets, and cards, the magic words “I shall return” appeared. Japanese officials and soldiers found the words scrawled on signs, windows, and buses. Observed one journalist: The Japanese “erased the words, burned them, stomped them into the ground, but they would not be destroyed. It was a psychological weapon MacArthur had forged in the fight and it worked. I shall return was an invisible weapon poised at the heart and brains of the Japanese soldier. It frightened him, worried him, tore down his morale.”
So when the man who uttered those powerful words ended up ruling Japan, he possessed the aura Machiavelli said every prince must have: He was feared.
MacArthur was especially pleased by his meeting with the emperor. He had promised nothing, and he had gleaned useful information confirming he was on the right path. A lot of work and thought had gone into this meeting, a lot more than what most people assumed for such a short encounter. Well before the surrender, he had assigned General Fellers to evaluate the situation concerning the emperor. The report he received included the following:
There must be no weakness in the peace terms. However, to dethrone, or hang, the emperor would cause a tremendous and violent reaction from all Japanese. Hanging of the emperor to them would be comparable to the crucifixion of Christ to us. All would fight to die like ants. The position of the gangster militarists would be strengthened immeasurably. The war would be unduly prolonged. . . . An independent Japanese army responsible only to the emperor is a permanent menace to peace. But the mystic hold the emperor has on his people and the spiritual strength of the Shinto faith properly directed need not be dangerous. The emperor can be made a force for good and peace provided Japan is totally defeated and the military clique destroyed. . . . The Government must have a system of checks and balances. The emperor must be surrounded by liberal civilian leaders. The military must be limited to an internal police force, responsible to the civil authority.
The Potsdam Declaration had implied, but not stated, that the emperor would be spared. In its directive to MacArthur appointing him Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, the Truman administration had made it clear that the final decision would be his.
Should the emperor be allowed to stay or not? It was the question on everyone’s mind—and it was one that must not linger. Immediately after the surrender MacArthur had assigned to his latest chief of counterintelligence, Brig. Gen. Elliott Thorpe, the task of confirming that the emperor’s support among the Japanese people was as widespread as MacArthur assumed it was. Would the exemplary behavior of the Japanese at Atsugi be likely to continue? When Thorpe responded affirmatively, MacArthur moved to put some pressure on the emperor for a meeting. He did so by having Thorpe arrest and lock up Marquis Koichi Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and personal advisor to the emperor, on charges of war crimes. Naturally this set the alarm bells ringing in the royal household.
Thorpe got a visit from Toshikazu Kase, the bilingual delegate at the Missouri surrender signing, offering an invitation for Thorpe to have a geisha dinner with Kido’s replacement, Marquis Yasumasa Matsudaira. Thorpe agreed to what he knew would be a session of having his tongue pulled for clues and hints. After a lengthy and lavish dinner enjoyed by all, Thorpe related what had happened: “Did I think General MacArthur would grab the Emperor? The Emperor was worried.” Thorpe responded vaguely, so as to make the emperor’s advisors “sweat a bit.” He recalled:
I told Matsudaira straight out that nothing could save the imperial institution if Japan was to be run on the same old lines. I suggested the Emperor and his government get busy and do something about the plight of the people and not sit there bewailing the firmness of General MacArthur’s directives. I reminded the group that there had been monarchies in France and elsewhere that had been swept away on the tide of revolution simply because of such oppressive conditions and do-nothingism as existed in Japan. If such a revolution came in Japan, I warned, no one could stop it, not even the occupation forces. Moreover, we would not try to stop it unless it imperiled our ow
n safety. . . . If you love your Emperor so much why don’t you get to work and make him a genuine, worthwhile being?
Matsudaira replied: “How could that be done?”
Thorpe told Matsudaira the emperor was being too aloof—he needed to get out and mix more in public, to exercise some American-style public relations.
This was strong advice to give about a man who had never before ventured out in public except in his military uniform and riding his big white horse, but MacArthur was betting on a trait he had noticed about the Japanese that separated them from all the other countries in Asia: their tremendous curiosity about the best way to do things. For decades Japan had sent missions to the West to study the building of railroads, ships, dams, and factories. MacArthur was sure the emperor shared this same desire for improvement. Whatever he suggested in the way of subtle hints, Hirohito would do out of respect for him as a conqueror.
As Thorpe himself admitted, “Otherwise we would have had nothing but chaos. The religion was gone, the government was gone, and he was the only symbol of control. Now, I know he had his hand in the cookie jar, and he wasn’t any innocent little child. But he was of great use to us.” By now MacArthur’s decision was clear: The emperor would be allowed to stay so long as he provided a symbol of continuity. MacArthur would separate Hirohito from the militarists, retain him as a constitutional monarch (but only as a figurehead), and use him to bring about a spiritual transformation of the Japanese people. MacArthur made his decision official by notifying Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, the recently appointed army chief of staff, that the emperor was not responsible for the war.
Just as the militarists had used the emperor as their tool, so would MacArthur. “I could have humiliated him, publicly exposed him, but what for?” he told Faubion Bowers. “I fought the war, he ended it. He deserves respect, the magnanimous gesture a noble defeated enemy deserves. Besides, with him as figurehead, our job is so much more easy.” Several days earlier he had said: “I was born a democrat; I was reared as a liberal. But I tell you I find it painful to see a man once so high and mighty brought down so low.” Of course, not many Americans would have called the Japanese “a noble . . . enemy” or found bringing down the emperor “painful.” “I don’t trust the vermin,” said Admiral Halsey of the emperor. MacArthur was willing to do so: It was part of his strategic game plan to overlook inconvenient truths in pursuit of long-term goals. If he was to lead a successful and peaceful occupation, he would need the emperor just as much as the emperor needed him. Looking back many years later, MacArthur wrote in his memoirs: “The Emperor called on me often after that, our conversation ranging over most of the problems of the world. I always explained carefully the underlying reasons for the occupation policy, and I found he had a more thorough grasp of the democratic concept than almost any Japanese with whom I talked. He played a major role in the spiritual regeneration of Japan, and his loyal co-operation and influence had much to do with the success of the occupation.”
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