Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

by Herbert P. Bix

  Soon, however, the people became accustomed to seeing the emperor traveling about in his “democratic,” ill-fitting business suit, giving mechanical responses, sometimes even smiling—body movements that living gods were not supposed to make. Gradually popular enthusiasm grew, aided by loyalist officials acting as shills, and by GHQ and the censored Japanese press, which repeatedly magnified the significance of his travels. At one level the Imperial Household Ministry sought to reach out to the people during 1946 by distributing (with MacArthur’s permission) money, land, buildings, and lumber for public purposes. At an entirely different level a new monarchy was in the process of being born in a country that had also changed its name from the very masculine “Great Imperial Japan” (Dai Nippon teikoku) to the more feminine “Japan” (Nihon koku).4

  The court officials who planned the tour—gane Masujir and Kat Susumu—stressed that it was “his majesty’s idea,” and cited the precedent of Meiji’s grand progresses of the period from 1872 to 1885. This analogy was misleading. Emperor Meiji had toured in a time of crisis marked by violent disturbances and political agitation that posed a danger to the emerging monarchy. His tours were part of the larger process of making his presence known among the people and establishing his authority as a wielder of real power—setting up, in short, the hard and impersonal relationship between emperor and subject that marked his reign.

  In contrast Hirohito himself described his intention as therapeutic. He wanted to “comfort the people in their suffering” and to “encourage their efforts at reconstruction.” He believed (as Kinoshita’s diary entry of March 31, 1946, reveals) that he could go around the entire country quickly and complete his task in a single year. He wanted to forestall possible republican sentiment by reversing and softening the harshness of the earlier emperor-people relationship, and thus make the monarchy more popular and “democratic.” Of course, in comparing Hirohito’s travels with Meiji’s, it should not be forgotten that there would not have been any tours without MacArthur’s strong support.

  The early tours took place when GHQ had ended national rituals in honor of the war dead by ordering the emperor, on April 30, 1946, to stop visiting or sending envoys to Yasukuni Shrine. As the tours gradually caught the public imagination, Hirohito and his staff grasped the possibilities they offered not only for demonstrating his popularity, and thus his usefulness to General Headquarters and the Far Eastern Commission, but also for regaining some of his lost authority. Indifference to the emperor had become common in urban areas where people were caught up in the everyday struggle for food and shelter. But among many segments of the public the old sense of awe and trust in the emperor remained, complicated by feelings of pity and sympathy for him as a person who, having lost the war, now needed the protection of MacArthur.5 Also, having disavowed myths about his divinity and exposed himself to the glare of democracy under conditions of relative freedom of expression, neither he nor his entourage could easily control his growing audiences.

  In early October 1946 Hirohito had his third, carefully rehearsed meeting with MacArthur. He began by thanking the general for his generous food assistance during May, after which he brought up the “bad feeling” toward Japan in the United States compared to the friendly feelings that existed within GHQ. MacArthur answered that, with “reeducation,” American public opinion would improve. Smiling, he added, “I always tell American visitors that the emperor is the most democratic person [here], but none of them believe me.” MacArthur mentioned the new peace constitution; Hirohito cited the troubled international situation and expressed fear that Japan might be endanged. MacArthur predicted that someday the world would praise the new constitution and in a century Japan would be “the moral leader of the world.” Hirohito then expressed his worries about labor unrest. The Japanese as a people, he claimed, had a low level of education and “lack a sense of religion.” MacArthur told him not to worry: “[T]he healthy nature of the Japanese is manifested in their love and respect for you, [now] just as in the past.” At the end of the meeting MacArthur encouraged him to continue his tours.6

  On this and other occasions during 1946, Hirohito confided to MacArthur that the Japanese people were like children. They “lacked calmness” and were “blind followers,” always ready to imitate examples from abroad. He said the same thing to Inada and Kinoshita, who took down his secret account of the war. Privately he added that because of the revised constitution, “defeat was better for the nation than if we had become extremely militaristic as a result of victory.”7 Eager to cast defeat in a hopeful light, Hirohito repeatedly told the nation’s highest leaders what they already knew: defeat in war could have a positive outcome provided they cooperate with the enemy and facilitate moderate reform. Remember, he cautioned them at his summer residence in Hayama on the first anniversary of the surrender, “This is not the first time Japan has lost a war. Long ago [in the seventh century A.D.] we dispatched troops to Korea and withdrew them after having been defeated in the battle at Hakusukinoe. Thereafter we made many reforms and they became a turning point for developing Japanese culture.”8

  I

  The year 1947 constituted a crucial second stage in the development of Hirohito’s new image as a “human,” “democratic” emperor who had suffered together with his people. At this time, the Ministry of Education edited and published an immensely influential textbook, Atarashii kenp no hanashi (The Story of the new constitution), that emphasized the ideals of democracy, internationalism, popular sovereignty, and the abandonment of war, while using the highest honorifics in referring to the emperor.9 The Japanese mass media also reached agreement with the government on the rules for use of the highest honorifics in news stories concerning him, while the imperial court renewed the prewar practice of bestowing imperial accolades. The emperor wrote to President Truman, sending the letter via Chief Prosecutor Joseph B. Keenan. He inaugurated the practice of receiving New Year’s felicitations on January 2 at the Niju Bridge of the imperial palace.

  When Hirohito resumed his tours in 1947, they turned overnight into wildly emotional mass events that far surpassed the expectations of their planners. The tours moved from prefecture to prefecture and city to city against a news background of daily reports on the war crimes trial and on steadily worsening relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Truman Doctrine of March 12, 1947, marked the formal start of the Cold War in Europe. As the Cold War intensified, U.S.–Japan policy became increasingly conservative, shifting emphasis from reformation and top down democratization to reconstruction and economic development—and the restoration of management’s prerogatives in the work place. 10

  Signs of a softening appeared in American reparations policy: By March 17, MacArthur told foreign journalists that the United States had no intention of destroying Japan’s industrial capability. His letter to Prime Minister Yoshida ordered a comprehensive plan prepared to restart the economy. By the second postwar general election on April 25, 1947, GHQ had given the Japanese government a new priority: Japan must become economically self-sufficient, able to take its place in a reconstructed world order under United States leadership.

  From Hirohito’s viewpoint these developments seemed to indicate that GHQ was relaxing its control, and suggested possibilities for him to maneuver independently that had not existed before. On May 6, 1947, three days after the promulgation of the new constitution, Hirohito again met with MacArthur. He was more concerned about security matters than of deepening democracy. According to former diplomat Matsui Akira, the emperor asked the supreme commander, “After the United States leaves, who is going to protect Japan?” With magnanimous disregard for Japan’s national independence, MacArthur answered, “Just as we protect California, so shall we protect Japan,” and went on to underscore the ideal of the United Nations.11 Hirohito was hardly reassured. But the next month in a meeting with a group of American journalists, MacArthur declared that “[t]he Japanese will not be opposed to America keeping Okinawa because the
Okinawans are not Japanese.”12 Already the general was thinking that a Japan that had constitutionally “forever renounce[d] war as a sovereign right of the nation” could be protected by the transformation of Okinawa into a vast and permanent American military base.

  In the summer of 1947 Hirohito resumed touring. The imperial trains and motorcades grew larger; each trip was more elaborate, more costly, and more popular. Conservative Diet members and local politicians, judging that their standing with the public would benefit from close association with the emperor, rushed to get aboard the imperial tour wagon. When the emperor reached Osaka in early June, the tours, which had started as inspections of damaged areas, had become vast victory parades. The banned sun flag flew from rooftops and was waved by thousands of cheering welcomers. A disinterested observer would have had the impression that the whole nation was celebrating its emperor, who now appeared to be a victor after all.

  On June 1, 1947, after the Diet had chosen him under the new constitution, Katayama Tetsu formed a coalition cabinet. Hirohito, displeased that now he was shut out of the process of choosing the next prime minister, could only express his dissatisfaction by saying “Katayama is not strong enough.”13 Afterward he insisted that the new prime minister make a formal report to him at his Kyoto Palace. On July 24 he asked Katayama’s foreign minister, Ashida Hitoshi, to continue giving him informal reports on matters of foreign policy.14 Even Ashida, a very loyal subject, felt that the emperor’s requests violated the letter as well as the spirit of the new constitution. Reluctantly he complied, and thereafter briefed Hirohito regularly, particularly on preparations for an eventual peace treaty and the problem of Japan’s future security.

  Hirohito now made a second return to an activist role in state affairs, in violation of the new constitution. On June 5, 1947, Foreign Minister Ashida remarked to the foreign press corps that the Japanese people wished to have Okinawa returned to Japan. General MacArthur’s response came some three weeks later, on the twenty-seventh, when in widely noted remarks to a group of American editors and publishers, he declared that “The Ryukyus are our natural frontier;” there was no Japanese opposition to the United States retaining Okinawa, for “the Okinawans are not Japanese.” And moreover, American air bases on Okinawa were important for Japan’s own security. At this point—after both Ashida and MacArthur had spoken publicly on Okinawa, but before the State Department and the Pentagon had come together and firmed up American policy concerning the strategic island—Hirohito intervened with an unconstitutional political statement asserting Japanese sovereignty while endorsing the views of MacArthur, protector of the Japanese monarchy.15

  On September 20, 1947, Hirohito conveyed to MacArthur’s political adviser, William J. Sebald, his position on the future of Okinawa. Acting through Terasaki, his interpreter and frequent liaison with high GHQ officials, the emperor requested that, in view of the worsening confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, the American military occupation of Okinawa and other islands in the Ryukyu chain continue for ninety-nine years. Hirohito knew MacArthur’s latest views on the status of Okinawa when he made this offer. The emperor’s thinking on Okinawa was also fully in tune with the colonial mentality of Japan’s mainstream conservative political elites, who, like the nation in general, had never undergone decolonization. Back in December 1945, the Eighty-ninth Imperial Diet had abolished the voting rights of the people of Okinawa along with those of the former Japanese colonies of Taiwan and Korea. Thus, when the Ninetieth Imperial Diet had met in 1946 to accept the new “peace” constitution, not a single representative from Okinawa was present.

  Hirohito’s “Okinawa message” proved that he was continuing to play a secret role in both foreign and domestic policy affairs that had nothing to do with the ceremonial role to which the constitution confined him.16 But it also suggested the great weight he placed on “the growth of [Japanese] rightist and leftist groups” who could provoke an incident which the Soviet Union might exploit.17 Hirohito, like the Foreign Ministry, wanted to retain an American military presence in and around Japan after the signing of a peace treaty. At the same time, he may also have felt the need to draw closer to the United States for protection while the Tokyo Trials continued. But above all, his message shows the connection between the new symbol monarchy, Article 9 of the new postwar constitution, and the American militarization of Okinawa.

  On October 10, 1947, while Hirohito was touring Nagaoka City, Niigata prefecture, Chief Prosecutor Joseph B. Keenan announced that neither the emperor nor the business community bore responsibility for the war.18 In the United States the previous year, Keenan had disclosed that “high political circles” had decided against trying the emperor for war crimes.19 Keenan’s public reiteration of this decision in Japan was welcome news for Hirohito, who months earlier, in March 1946, had already learned informally that he would not be indicted. For the leaders of the Japanese business world, who would soon become the main financial supporters of the new monarchy, Keenan’s announcement was welcome, but partially offset by MacArthur’s continued enthusiasm for the dissolution of Japan’s great industrial conglomerates and for limited economic democratization.20

  Meanwhile, pressure continued for the emperor’s abdication and for further court reform. On October 14, 1947, GHQ again reduced the number of royal family members who could possess imperial status. More unwelcome news for Hirohito and his supporters followed. Foreign Minister Ashida recorded in his diary a meeting with former general Tanaka Rykichi, a man on “close terms” with Chief Prosecutor Keenan. Tanaka told Ashida that Keenan refused to entrust the cross-examinations of Kido, Tj, and Tg to anyone but himself, but feared that his and others’ efforts might be wasted if the empress and crown prince acted “too conspicuously” in traveling about the country. Keenan (according to General Tanaka, via Ashida) intended to visit the emperor after the trials to discuss the “problem of abdication and other matters.” Tanaka also said that “MacArthur is convinced that monarchical rule is needed in order to stabilize Japan and suppress the Communist Party.”21 One month later, on November 14, 1947, Hirohito met General MacArthur for the fifth time. Nothing they discussed in their ninety-minute meeting is known, though it is likely that as in previous meetings concrete political matters were aired. On the twenty-sixth he departed for the Chgoku region of southwestern Honshu on his final trip of the year.

  On December 7, 1947—six years after the Pearl Harbor attack and twenty-six months after the end of the war—Hirohito and his party arrived at atom-bombed Hiroshima. The streets had been specially cleaned and dusted for the occasion. Wearing a dark gray Homburg and clothes that in the opinion of an Australian observer might “have been deliberately chosen so as not to be too much on the smart side,” he seemed to “symbolize the down at the heels but determined look characteristic of present-day Japan.” Thousands of adults and children lined the long, meticulously planned route of his motorcade into the city. At the first stop, war orphans in black robes were on their knees waiting for him:

  and standing beside them were a few mothers, their faces scarred with keloids, who held children in more or less serious stages of disfigurement. While the cameras clicked and turned and the crowd pushed in more and more excitedly, the emperor listened, hat in hand, to a short explanation of what had happened to this group. He murmured a few “Is that so’s” and made as though to speak into a microphone that was being held out toward him. Then his lip trembled and with a short bow, he turned back to his car. At this point, the crowd went berserk. Shouting banzais at the top of their voices, the people rushed forward, their eyes shining and all their mask of unemotionalism wiped off their faces. [Imperial] Household officials and police were jostled and trampled on before he got back to his car. None of the crowd touched the emperor, but many of them seemed happy just to touch the body of his car.

  Our party went ahead at the next stop, on to the improvised plaza where the mayor, the city officials and a crowd of 50,000—a quarte
r of the city’s present population, were waiting to welcome him…. Here again you could see people weeping with emotion…. The Emperor mounted a rostrum…and once again was photographed from every angle. [Pulling a slip of paper from his pocket] he read a short simple speech…. At the city hall he climbed up to the roof where the mayor was waiting with a map showing the city as it was, as it is, and as it is planned that it will be…. A pair of field glasses rested on a purple handkerchief for the Emperor’s use, but he did not touch them. For the first time that day he was obviously overcome with nervousness and seemed anxious to get away.22

  By this time GHQ had begun to reevaluate the imperial tours in response to growing foreign and domestic criticism as well as criticism within headquarters itself. Paul J. Kent of the Political Affairs Division was assigned to accompany the emperor to the Chgoku region. Kent’s initial report, dated December 16, 1947, noted the huge size of the imperial party: almost a hundred officials and attendants, plus countless Japanese newspaper and magazine reporters and photographers who “followed the Imperial Party at every stage of the journey…[and] were provided with space on the train, and with buses, or automobiles, for local travel.” Kent blamed “this multitude of votaries, satellites, dog robbers, and seneschals” for “the monstrous expenditure of funds by Local governments and private corporations.” He went on to note that:

  virtually every street over which the Imperial party travelled had been newly repaired…[and] spots of ground on which he stood to see rice fields and farms were covered with floorings and canopies. Pillars, columns, and arches, usually covered with flowers and branches, were erected at the entrances to squares and street corners and on the approaches to bridges. Railings upon which he laid his hand were covered with cloth, paths upon which he walked were not infrequently covered with matting. If one considers the total effort…one is forced to conclude that a staggering sum was devoted to enterprises which serve no useful purpose and which are…completely unjustified in a nation standing upon the verge of financial collapse.