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Emperor Hirohito
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the Pacific War

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Emperor Hirohito in the uniform of army commander in chief, ca. 192829

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N o r i k o K awa mu r a

U n i v e r sit y of
Wa sh i ngton Pr e ss
Seattle and London

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2015 by the University of Washington Press

Printed and bound in the United State of America
Composed in Warnock, a typeface designed by Robert Slimbach
1918171615 54321

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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U niv ersity of Washington Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Kawamura, Noriko, 1955

Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific war / Noriko Kawamura.
pagescm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-295-99517-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Hirohito,
Emperor of Japan, 19011989. 2. World War, 19391945Japan.
I. Title.
DS889.8.K3959 2015
940.54'26dc23

2015020141
The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information
SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.481984.

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Contents

Acknowledgments/vii

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Introduction/3

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Chapter 1 The Aftermath of the

Paris Peace Conference, 19191933 / 18

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Chapter 2 Crises at Home and Abroad: From the

February 26 Incident to the Sino-Japanese War / 49

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Chapter 3 The Road to Pearl Harbor / 88

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Chapter 4 An Uneasy Commander in Chief / 111

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Chapter 5 Imbroglio: Moves to End the War / 135

Chapter 6 The Sacred Decision to Surrender / 151

Epilogue/185

Notes/193
Bibliography/215
Index/227

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Acknowledgments

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rom inception to completion, this study of Emperor

Hirohito and the Pacific War has covered many years of my career as a
historian. Robert J.C. Butow first encouraged me to pursue the topic and
warmly supported me throughout the process. Without his encouragement
and advice, I would not have been able to bring this project to a successful conclusion. Wilton B. Fowler offered me the foundational training that
shaped me as a diplomatic historian with keen interests in historical issues
of war and peace. Kenneth B. Pyle guided me in the study of modern Japanese history in the English-speaking world. In the early stage of my research
in Japan, Akira Yamada and Hisashi Takahashi showed me divergent ways
to approach the project and helped me with archival research. I also want
to thank numerous people who assisted me at the National Diet Library of
Japan, the National Institute for Defense Studies (Boeikenkyujo), and the
Imperial Household Agency (Kunaicho). As this project progressed, many
scholars gave me helpful suggestions and comments. I want to especially
thank E. Bruce Reynolds, Michael A. Barnhart, Barton J. Bernstein, and Fredrick Dickenson. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to Richard H.
Minear for reading the entire manuscript and giving me useful suggestions.
In addition, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Lorri Hagman of the
University of Washington Press for her kind support and to Alice Davenport,
Ernst Schwintzer, and my husband, Roger Chan, for editorial assistance.

dviid

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Emperor Hirohito
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the Pacific War

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Introduction

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orld War II created m a n y heroes a nd villains.

Emperor Showa, better known in the United States as Emperor Hirohito, has been one of the most controversial figures in the history of the war
that Japan waged in Asia and the Pacific.1 Unlike US president Franklin D.
Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill, both of whom were
elected by their own peoples and held a democratic mandate to defend their
countries during wartime, and unlike Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who
emerged from political obscurity to seize dictatorial powers and to wage war,
Emperor Hirohito was born to the throne and was trained from childhood
to reign as monarch and to preserve the unbroken imperial line. Under the
prewar Meiji Constitution of Japan, the emperor was both sovereign of the
state and commander in chief of the Japanese imperial forcesbut above all,
he was the manifestation of divinity and a symbol of the national and cultural
identity of Japan.2
Japan fought the Pacific War to the bitter end in order to preserve its
kokutai (national polity), for which the myth of imperial rule served as core.
Nevertheless, upon Japans surrender to the Allied Powers, Hirohito, who
renounced his divinity in his public declaration of humanity, was altogether spared the postwar Tokyo war crimes trial. He continued to reign in
postwar Japan until his death in January 1989, serving as the symbol of the
state and of the unity of the people under the new democratic constitution,
which was essentially written by the Americans who occupied Japan from
1945 to 1952. This dramatic shiftfrom a divine absolute monarch under
the prewar constitution to a humanized symbolic emperor under the postwar democratic constitutioncreated numerous historical narratives of two
diametrically opposed images of Hirohito, before and after Japans war in
Asia and the Pacific. These two contrasting images of Emperor Hirohito
have fueled debates over his wartime responsibility, which remains a potentially explosive issue between Japan and former victims of Japanese military
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aggressions abroad, as well as a troublesome issue within domestic Japanese

politics. Historians, in todays politically and ideologically partisan environment, continue to debate the power the emperor possessed and the role he
played during the war.
As told from the United States point of view, when Japan attacked Pearl
Harbor and pulled the United States into what Americans call the Pacific
War on December 7, 1941, Emperor Hirohito became the countrys public
enemy number one. Polls taken between 1943 and 1945 indicated that a third
of the US public thought Hirohito should be executed, and even after Japans
surrender, the US Congress passed a joint resolution demanding that he
be tried for war crimes.3 However, General Douglas MacArthurSupreme
Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP)and his staff wanted to spare the
emperor from the war trials and use him for their own political and military
expediency.4 Thus, the American occupiers were interested in finding the
answers to one particular question: If the emperor possessed the power to
stop the war on August 15, 1945 (as he did through his seidan [sacred imperial decision] to end the war), why did he permit the war to start in the first
place?5 Finding the answer to this particular question was vitally important
to MacArthur and his staff and reflected their own assumptions and preoccupations.
In the end, the emperor was excluded from the entire process of the Tokyo
war crimes trial and became the most useful ally of SCAPs reform efforts
in occupied Japan. The Tokyo tribunal placed the blame for a reckless and
aggressive war on the military, the ultranationalists, and the zaibatsu (financial cliques). The verdicts of the war crimes tribunal provided the basis for
the postwar orthodoxy that portrayed Emperor Hirohito as a peace-loving
constitutional monarch, who could not prevent the military from starting
aggressive wars in Asia and the Pacific but who was nevertheless able to
preserve his defeated nation from annihilation through his decision to end
the war in August 1945. But the basic questionwhy did the emperor permit
the war to begin in the first place?was never fully answered at the time and
haunted him thereafter.
Over the past seventy years, numerous analyses by Japanese scholars and
journalists have kept within the bounds of the generally accepted postwar
interpretation of the emperor, although their arguments reflect various shadings and show the authors sensibilities to the complexity and nuances of the
issue. Such Japanese studies explicitly or implicitly reinforce the orthodox
view of Emperor Hirohito as a peace-minded constitutional monarch, and

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this view dominated the general publics perception of his role in the Pacific
War. However, some conservative scholars, politicians, and news mediain
an effort to revitalize Japanese nationalismhave taken this interpretation
to the extreme, trying to perpetuate the myth of the emperor as a sacred
monarch who saved the nation of Japan.6
More recently, leftist historians in Japan have challenged what they call
the Tokyo Trial view of history advocated by so-called palace group historians and have criticized the emperors failure to take responsibility for starting
the war. This leftist interpretation of Emperor Hirohito gained momentum
after his death in January 1989. Utilizing primary sources that became available in the 1990sincluding diaries, letters, memoirs by persons close to the
emperor, and records of the emperors own wordsthe postwar generation
of leftist historians has been trying to bring the emperor to trial in the court
of history. By focusing on his role as daigensui (commander in chief ) and on
his relationship with the military, these historians have been partially successful in portraying Hirohito as a more active military commander than the
postwar Japanese public has traditionally been led to believe.7
Meanwhile, studies by Western scholars (that is, studies published in English but based on Japanese primary sources) tend to support a Tokyo Trial
view of Emperor Hirohitos role in war decisions. These scholars have generally been more sympathetic to the dilemmas faced by the emperor than have
been Japanese leftist historians. For example, Robert J.C. Butow, David A.
Titus, Stephen S. Large, and Peter Wetzler all have aptly demonstrated that
Japans prewar decision-making process under the Meiji Constitution was a
pluralistic and consensus-oriented system that involved the participation of
ruling elite groups. These scholars all reflect Maruyama Masaos argument
that under the pluralistic consensus-oriented system, each participants individual responsibility was ambiguous throughout the process of negotiation
and compromise that led to a final national-level decision.8
Butows impressive works on Japan and the Pacific War have given us
foundational arguments regarding Emperor Hirohitos role in Japans war
decisions. In Tojo and the Coming of the War, Butow showed that Emperor
Hirohito was personally against going to war with the United States; but
the same study also showed that the emperors influence was limited and
he could not reverse the unanimous decision for war by the military and
the Tojo cabinet.9 Butows classic 1954 work, Japans Decision to Surrender,
offered a masterful narrative of the extraordinary circumstances in the summer of 1945 that allowed the emperors decision to end the war to become

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a state decision. Butow provided an enduring definition of the nature of the

emperors power: Although the trend of the decision should be ascribed to
the personal preference of the man himself, the real significance of the role
of the Emperor lies in the influence of the Throne and not in the authority
or personality of its occupant. Despite the wording of the Constitution, the
Emperor had never possessed the actual power to decide on war or peace.
Even under the pressing circumstances of August 1945, the Emperor was only
the instrument, and not the prime mover, of Japans momentous decision.10
Another scholar, David A. Titus, has persuasively demonstrated several
important points: first, that in 1941, with the lord keeper of the privy seal,
Kido Koichi,11 as a negotiator between the court and the government, the
court provided the all-important negotiation and ratification mechanism
at the apex of the political process; and second, that the emperor did play
a role as the ultimate ratifier and unifier of national policies after his
officials reached consensus. In Tituss argument, before the emperor ratified
any policy, he made sure that the policy had been thoroughly discussed
and represented a genuine consensus among the policy makers. The palace, where the holder of the transcendental and immutable imperial will
resided, was to serve as an inviolable sanctuary for the resolution of political conflict. At the same time, Titus pointed out that the emperor was kept
from active and direct participation in the consensus-making process by
formalities and precedents governing his relations with government leaders,
individually and collectively. Therefore, Titus argued, the palace acted as a
brake on extremism throughout its prewar existence. However, Tituss study
focused mostly on political decisions and did not offer a detailed examination
of the emperors role as daigensui (commander in chief ) or of the emperors
relationship with the military. Although Peter Wetzler illuminated Emperor
Hirohitos active involvement in the military decision-making process (as the
commander in chief ), Wetzler did not deny the interpretation of pluralistic
and consensus-oriented decision making in prewar Japan.12
However, scholars and journalists critical of SCAPs decision to spare
the emperor from the Tokyo Trial argue that the emperor, as the absolute
monarch, was responsible for authorizing the war and that his hesitation to
authorize war on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor was not because of his
commitment to peace, but because of his fear of defeat by the United States.
Reflecting this point of view, Herbert Bixs Pulitzer Prizewinning Hirohito
and the Making of Modern Japan (2000) suggests that the emperor was a real
war leader who was actively involved in the decision-making process prior to

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and throughout the war. Bix criticized the emperor for possessing a stubborn
personality and argued that the emperors obsession with the preservation
of the imperial house and his own survival, in the end, prolonged Japans
hopeless war and caused more misery and suffering for the Japanese people.13
The contrast between these opposing interpretations of the role of
Emperor Hirohitoboth in Japan and the United Statesis remarkable.
This suggests that historical accuracy may have been compromised in the
midst of a long-running and highly politicized partisan controversy. Because
the prewar Meiji Constitution designated the emperor as sovereign head of
state and commander in chief of the Japanese imperial forces, there is no
doubt that the emperoreven as a ruler in name onlymust share some
responsibility for the war, on moral if not legal grounds. If his authority was
derived primarily from his symbolic position, one could even argue that,
precisely because of his symbolic value, the emperor should have taken a
symbolic action to accept his responsibility for warnot as an individual,
but as the head of the state. In other words, even if the power of the throne
was symbolic, not actual, the emperor could have taken symbolic responsibility for the war, although there would still be a need to clarify what would
constitute symbolic war responsibility. In fact, available sources suggest that
the emperor himself was prepared to take responsibility and to abdicate if
necessary but that the circumstances under the American occupation did not
allow him to make his own choice.14 The recent discovery of the emperors
unpublished apology to his people (drafted by Tajima Michiji, head of the
Imperial Household Agency from 1948 to 1953) reveals that the emperor
personally felt a deep responsibility for the tragic outcome of the war and
felt sorry for his lack of virtue.15 Hirohitos lifelong public silence about his
own war responsibility does not necessarily mean that he felt nothing about
the subject, but his silence created unfortunate negative impressions among
the Japanese people and among the victims of the war.
The purpose of this book is neither to examine Emperor Hirohitos war
responsibility as it might be examined in a court of law nor to ask why he
failed to take public responsibility for the war. Rather, its main objective
is to reexamine and reevaluate Emperor Hirohitos role in the Pacific War
and to offer a realistic reappraisal of two highly politicized and exaggerated
interpretations of history: on the one hand, that the emperor was a pacifist
constitutional monarch; and on the other hand, that he was an absolute
monarch and commander in chief, who actively participated in Japans war
venture in Asia and the Pacific. It is also important for postwar genera-

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tions to recognize that their views of Emperor Hirohito are still affected
by the historical myths and propaganda that were promoted on both sides
of the Pacific during the war years. For example, some may still be subtly
influenced by photographs of Hirohito as divine commander in chief on
a white horse inspecting his troops; and some may be influenced by seeing
Hollywood war propaganda films, in which the emperors image is lined up
next to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, as three evils of the Axis Powers.
And others may be influenced by images of a humanized emperor in modest civilian attire personally greeting individual Japanese in his tours of the
defeated Japan.
Many scholars have pointed out that the emperors dichotomous images
the divine and the humanizedstemmed from the ambiguous nature of the
power he possessed under the prewar political system in Japan. In her book
The Dual-Image of the Japanese Emperor, Kiyoko Takeda suggests that the
reason for these diametrically opposing images lies in the contradictory
nature of the modern Japanese emperor system itself.16 Before the war, Japanese political and military leaders were themselves divided between ultranationalists, who believed the emperor to be a living deity as well as the core of
national polity (kokutai), and liberal intellectuals, who promoted constitutional monarchism under the so-called emperor organ theory: The historical development of modern Japan demonstrates in some areas the harmony
of the two approaches, sometimes in tension, sometimes in balance, under
the leadership of a capable charioteer, and in other areas we find disunity of
disruption between the two, each viewpoint seeking, often violently, its own
way according to its own logic.17
During the turbulent decades of the 1930s and 1940s, when capable
charioteers disappeared from Japanese politics, it may be argued that the
emperor himself was forced to act as the national charioteer. Although it is
well known that Hirohito admired the British model of constitutional monarchy, historian Peter Wetzler observes that the emperor advocated British
constitutional norms not only as a model for governing but, more important,
to preserve, protect, and legitimize in modern terms the imperial line and
the supreme position of his house in Japanese society. Wetzler argues that
Hirohito participated in consensus decisions as a traditional leader in Japan
often does: as an important member of a group of prewar power brokers
who made political and military decisions. However, Wetzler adds, at the
same time the decision-making process precluded him [the emperor] from
unilaterally determining policies as a president or dictator in the West would

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do. Therefore, Hirohito could simultaneously explain himself and justify his
actions, or lack of action, in terms of Western constitutional monarchy.18
This study shares a general research perspective used by some other
scholars, in that it places Emperor Hirohito within the unique, pluralistic
decision-making process of the leadership of prewar Japan while acknowledging the contradictory and ambiguous powers he possessed. In order to
understand the nature and extent of the power he could actually exercise to
make war decisions in the political system of prewar Japan, it will be important to reexamine the reality of the power relations and negotiations between
the emperor and the high-level political power centers that surrounded him
and influenced his actions.
Japanese political historian Masumi Junnosuke, who tries to take a judicious middle approach, suggests that the prewar Japanese emperor was a
robot neither of the government nor of the military. Masumi argues that
Emperor Hirohito possessed far more power than a purely ceremonial constitutional monarch and that the emperor was, in fact, at the center of Japans
decision-making process. Masumi explains that during the final stages of
governmental decision making, the emperor could draw on his own great
authority, knowledge, and experience to influence the decisions by asking
questions (gokamon) or by conveying his personal wishes during his audiences with government officials and military leaders.19
Although this study generally agrees with Masumis interpretation, it
modifies his argument on one important point. Compared to the almost
unlimited power held by the throne under the Meiji Constitution, Emperor
Hirohito, in reality, occupied a precarious and ambiguous position that
existed above the highly complicated relations of a powerful political triangle
composed of three sometimes competing power centers: court advisers and
senior statesmen (jushin); government ministers and bureaucrats; and military leaders. Unlike his grandfather (Emperor Meiji) and his father (Emperor
Taisho), Hirohito could not draw on guidance and support from the powerful
Meiji oligarchs known as genro (senior statesmen), who had been the architects of the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and had continued to control all three
power centers during the reigns of the Meiji and Taisho emperors. The triangular power struggle was further complicated by divisions within each group
between the moderates and the hardline ultranationalists and militarists.
To make the situation even more complicated, the militarys decisions were
constrained by a twofold division within the military organizationnamely,
a division stemming from interservice rivalry between the army and the navy,

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and another division between moderate senior officers and younger militant
groups within each military branch.20 Moreover, the power of each faction
within the triangular relationship was influenced, not only by domestic conditions within Japan, but also by the situation on the war fronts of Asia and
the Pacific islands and by an international environment over which Japan
had little control.
Although some positions of the key individuals in these three groups
overlapped (for example, Okada Keisuke, Konoe Fumimaro, Tojo Hideki, and
Suzuki Kantaro), Hirohito, who was placed in the middle of these competing forces, many of which were trying to take Japan in divergent directions,
served as the only formal link and convergent point of all these power centers, which could be simultaneously split from one another or intertwined,
while they were divided within themselves. The emperors effectiveness at
any particular time depended upon which of the three power centers had
the strongest pull in a three-way political tug-of-war. For the turbulent war
years of the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s, it is especially important to
reexamine the relationship between the emperor and the military, as many
Japanese leftist historians have done, in order to understand the emperors
relations with the aforementioned three power centers. During this period,
as Japans military operations expanded in Asia, it was the emperor alone
who received official reports from both government officials and the military.
Although the imperial army and navy did not require the central governments approval to carry out military operations, the armed forces did have
to obtain a formal imperial sanction from Emperor Hirohito as commander
in chief for every major strategic decision. As this study will show, between
the emperor and the military (especially the army) lay complex networks of
ambivalent loyalties, both personal and organizational. Although military
officers had internalized the virtue of unquestioned loyalty to the emperor,
they also had the audacity to believe that their expert knowledge made their
judgment superior to that of the emperor when he disagreed with their recommendations. The military officers circumvented the emperors opposition
on the grounds that he had been misled by his court advisers and by politicians. By the mid-1930s the emperor became fully cognizant of the armys
habitual failure to comply with his wishes: in fact, on a number of occasions
the military did not follow the emperors orders that were formally supported
by the supreme command in Tokyo.
It is also important to reexamine the influence of the court advisers who
surrounded the emperor in the palace. After the government, military, and

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court advisers had reached a consensus, the emperors personal opinion carried little weight, and imperial audiences and conferences would often result
in something that was all show, mere eyewash for the public, as the emperor
recalled in his 1946 Monologue.21 However, in some circumstances, as when
the government and the military disagreed over important national issues
such as war and peace, the emperor and his court advisers could collectively
tip the power balance one way or the other. In such cases, Emperor Hirohito sought advice from court advisers, such as the genro, lord keeper of
the privy seal, imperial household minister, grand chamberlain, jushin, and
senior members of the imperial family.
Because of the important role that court advisers played in the complicated power dynamics, it will be necessary to reexamine the significance of
the declining influence of court advisers during the 1930s. The last surviving
genro, Saionji Kinmochi, became more feeble and less engaged; and a series of
assassinations, as well as failed attempts at military coups dtat (notably the
February 26 Incident of 1936), eliminated or silenced the moderating influence of the leading court advisers. Leftist historian Fujiwara Akiras seminal
study of the court (kyuchu) group suggests that the new generation of court
advisers with aristocratic backgrounds, who had formed a leadership circle
known as the Juichi-kai, began to occupy important political positions and
exercise considerable political influence at court. This group included Kido
Koichi, Konoe Fumimaro, Harada Kumao, and Matsudaira Yasumasa, among
others.22
A fresh examination of Emperor Hirohitos fluid place in the middle of the
Japanese power triangle partially confirms Robert Butows enduring conclusions that the real significance of the role of the Emperor lies in the influence of the Throne and not in the authority or personality of its occupant.
However, this study modifies Butows conclusion that the Emperor was only
the instrument, and not the prime mover, of Japans momentous decision.23
The question that remains is whether the emperors personal opinions and
actions made any difference in Japans critical decisions on war and peace.
Although the young emperors personal views and actions are considered
here, from the aftermath of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to the SinoJapanese War, the main focus of this book is the role that the emperor played
during the period from Japans decision to go to war with the United States
in 1941 through its decision to surrender in August 1945. By examining newly
available historical records, as well as reevaluating the well-known sources
often cited in existing literature on Emperor Hirohito, we will see that during

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the war years Hirohito was neither an active absolute monarch who initiated
aggressive policies in pursuit of his own interests nor a ceremonial monarch
and passive observer who, like a sponge, absorbed what he was told but never
did anything about it.
This book provides a realistic reappraisal of Emperor Hirohito as an individual who was, by the accident of his birth, placed in Japans highest position and who was charged with protecting Japans national polity (kokutai).
In carrying out his almost superhuman responsibilities, the emperor had to
coordinate his multiple roles as a constitutional monarch, commander in
chief, and spiritual leader of Japan. The person who emerges from this study
is a more complex historical figure than found in other works on the subject.
Hirohito was a politically astute man who possessed the ability to make his
own judgments with considerable objectivity. Viewed in a positive light, he
was an intelligent, rational, and moderate monarch who had good intentions
to fulfill his patriotic duty to preserve Japans national polity; but viewed in a
negative light, the emperor was rigid, conformist, conservative, and reserved
and tended to be overly cautious and even timid because he feared the possible
negative consequences of his actions. We need to remember that he was a
person, not a machine with perfectly consistent behavior. He may have exhibited certain behavioral patterns, but it is difficult to find a clear-cut model
to explain the role the emperor played. Throughout the war years, Hirohito
struggled to deal with the heavy burden of undefined and ambiguous powers bestowed upon him as a monarch, often juggling contradictory positions
and irreconcilable differences among government and military leaders. The
biggest question Emperor Showa faced was the fundamental choice between
war and peace. He was by no means a pacifist, but he was opposed to the
reckless wars that the military leaders advocated. The portrait that emerges
from this critical reappraisal of Emperor Hirohito during the most turbulent
years in modern Japanese history is that of a lonely monarch who struggled
to maintain balance and moderation in an environment marked by feuds
between battling factions within the ruling elites and within the military.
In spite of the difficult political environment in which he found himself and the limits to his own authority, available sources suggest that the
emperor did occasionally express his personal opinions, through both formal
and informal channels. This was especially true during periods of national
crisisfor example, after 1928, during the unauthorized activities of the
Japanese army in China; after the armys February 1936 coup dtat attempt
in Tokyo; throughout the long tortuous period during which Japans leader-

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ship discussed the decision to go to war with the United States; and finally,
when Japans leadership decided to end the war. This book reexamines the
emperors willingness to express himself and asks how and to what extent
his personal opinions influenced major state decisions on war and peace in
the Pacific. If the emperor was against war with the United States and Great
Britain, as numerous sources suggest, did his personal opposition to war
make any difference in the course of events in the fall of 1941? If the emperor
favored an early end to the war in the Pacific, as evidence shows, how was
his personal voice transformed into a state decision? The ultimate question,
therefore, concerns the reversal of the American question asked by General
Douglas MacArthur and his team at the close of the war: if, as we will see, the
emperor could not stop Japan from going to war in the first place, how and
why was he able to play a critical role in ending the war through his seidan?

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From the end of the Pacific War until his death in 1989, Emperor Hirohito
remained publicly silent about his personal feelings and his responsibility
for his countrys devastating war ventures. To study his thoughts and actions
with regard to the war, historians need to be aware of the limitations of available sources. First of all, one must be mindful that the historical narratives
of the role Emperor Hirohito played in the Pacific War were influenced by
the Tokyo war crimes trial and by the special postwar domestic and international circumstances surrounding the Japanese imperial houseespecially
in the context of US-Japanese relations throughout the Cold War. Indeed,
SCAPs question on the eve of the Tokyo Trialif the emperor possessed
the power to stop the war on August 15, 1945, why did he permit the war to
start in the first place? itself created a distorted lens through which many
historians have been led to examine the beginnings and the conclusion of
the Pacific War.
This scholarly bias has, in turn, helped shape the popular memory and
image of Hirohito. For instance, today the Japanese public mostly remembers
the emperor for his unprecedented radio announcement of August 15, 1945, in
which he himself announced his seidan that Japan must end the war to save
the nationand all of humanityfrom total extinction by the atomic bomb.
This continuing myththat the American atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki forced the emperor to issue the seidan to surrenderis imprinted
on the collective memory of the Japanese people. And in the United States

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(despite numerous studies that show the contrary), the majority of the American people still accept the official US explanation that the atomic bombs
were the means for ending the war swiftly. Thus, Emperor Hirohitos radio
announcement became the convergent point for two mythsthat is, that
the US atomic bomb, as well as Emperor Hirohito, served as peacemakers.24
Certainly, many historians are astute enough to guard themselves against
myths and scholarly bias. However, when it comes to the use of sources,
especially the testimonies and memoirs of the emperors contemporaries, it
is not always easy to distinguish between historical records (which show what
actually happened) from individuals retrospective recollections (which show
how these individuals want later generations to remember what happened).
Therefore, besides avoiding the dangerous trap of taking sides in todays
highly politicized controversy over the extent of Emperor Hirohitos war
responsibility, historians must also deal with the difficulty of interpreting the
available historical sources. That is, the emperor himself left very few available primary sources, and a stigma is attached to the reliability of the formal
testimonies and memoirs of the people who surrounded Emperor Hirohito.
It is well known that the Japanese government and military destroyed many
sensitive war-related documents before the Allied occupation began in September 1945. Some Japanese historians and journalists have speculated that
prewar and wartime reports submitted to the emperor by government and
military leaders, as well as the emperors own writings, may still be stored
somewhere in the palace or in the Imperial Household Agencys archives
if any of these documents survived at all. However, the public has limited
access to the archival material held by the Imperial Household Agency and
thus has no way of ascertaining exactly what kind of materials pertaining to
the emperors involvement in the war may be held in the agencys archives.
The only written record of Emperor Hirohitos own recollections available
to the public, the document in which he addressed himself in the first person, is what came to be known as The Showa Emperor Monologue (Showa
tenno dokuhakuroku). On the eve of the Tokyo Trial, five times between
March 18 and April 8, 1946, the emperor summoned and spoke to his trusted
aides about his recollections of the events prior to and during the Pacific
War. It is unknown what happened to the official record of the emperors
dictation, entitled Records of the Emperors Conversations (Seidan haichoroku), which was produced by Inada Shuichi, the director of the Imperial
Palace Records Bureau. The official annals of Emperor Showa (Showa tenno
jitsuroku), edited by the Imperial Household Agency and released to the

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public in 2014, acknowledge that nine volumes of Records of the Emperors Conversations were produced, but these volumes are never quoted in
the annals. The agency has not clarified whether Records of the Emperors
Conversations has survived to this day or where it is stored.25 However,
another record, written by Terasaki Hidenari, did survive and was published
by Terasakis daughter in 1990.26 The draft of the first page of the missing
Records of the Emperors Conversations, discovered along with Vice Grand
Chamberlain Kinoshita Michios diary, suggests that Terasakis version of the
emperors Monologue is considerably abridged but accurately conveys the
gist of what the emperor said.27
There is no doubt that the emperors Monologue was prepared in anticipation of the Tokyo war crimes trial, but this does not automatically diminish
the reliability of the emperors testimony, as some of his critics have suggested. Those who simply dismiss the Monologue as a defensive reaction
to the imminent war trials need to carefully review the emperors personal
attitude toward the issue of war responsibility and should look at the circumstances in which he came to dictate his Monologue. On August 29, 1945,
the day after the first of the Allied occupation forces landed on the Atsugi
airbase, Kido Koichi, the lord keeper of the privy seal, wrote in his diary that
the emperor had told Kido that he (Hirohito) was prepared to assume the
nations responsibility for the war and to abdicate if this could stop Japans
wartime leaders from being handed over to the Allies as war criminals.28 By
the time the emperor began dictating the Monologue in mid-March 1946,
he had received strong indications from General MacArthurs staff that he
would not himself be prosecuted for war crimes. According to the diary of
Kinoshita Michio, as early as January 1, 1946 (the day the emperor issued
his declaration of humanity), the emperor learned from Kinoshita that
the SCAP blueprint proposed the preservation of the imperial status of the
emperor and his three brothers without granting them real political power.29
Apparently, this information came as a great relief to the court, but in
early January the emperor was still anxious to know if SCAP wished him to
abdicate. On March 20, the second day of the emperors Monologue dictation session, Terasaki Hidenari, who had been working since late January as
liaison between the court and SCAPs military secretary, Brigadier General
Bonner F. Fellers, brought vital information to the emperor: SCAP had no
desire to put him on trial for his war responsibilities or any wish to ask
him to abdicate. With this information in hand, the emperor and his aides,
including Terasaki, resumed the second of the five dictations that comprised

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the Monologue, which began chronologically with the issues surrounding

the Abe cabinet and the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1940.30 Therefore,
it is possible to argue that Emperor Hirohito did not have to worry about
his own fate at the coming war trials while he was dictating the remainder
of the Monologue.
However, there still remained the possibility that the emperor might have
to testify at the trials, and he was deeply concerned about the fate of those
who had served him and were about to be prosecuted as war criminals. This
timing explains why moderate historians like Masumi regard the emperors Monologue positively, calling it quite candid, while leftist historians
argue that the emperor repeatedly made statements in the Monologue that
could incriminate him.31 The emperors harshest critics among Japanese leftist historians generally accept the accuracy of the emperors words in the
Monologue, because he did not hesitate to state his personal interventions
in governmental and military decision-making processes that might prove
his influence over the course Japan followed before and during the war.
Many chamberlains who served the emperor in the postwar period also
left accounts of the emperors desire to convey his true feelings about the war
to the public and his agony about not being able to do so. According to the
diary of Irie Sukemasa, who served as chamberlain beginning in 1934 and
became grand chamberlain in 1969, Emperor Hirohito resumed dictating his
recollections of the war to Irie in order to expand Records of the Emperors
Conversations, doing so until right before Irie passed away in 1985. Although
the existence of the emperors dictation to Irie is not officially acknowledged
and it is not available to the public, the fact that Emperor Hirohito continued
to record his recollections about the war indicates that he was conscious
of the historical significance of his role and that he wanted to provide an
enduring record.
Therefore, the Monologue can be a valuable primary source if one
carefully checks the accuracy of the emperors remarks by examining other
historical records. Some of the most useful primary sources consulted here
include diaries of Makino Nobuaki, Kido Koichi, Prince Takamatsu, Nara
Takeji, Honjo Shigeru, Harada Kumao, Takagi Sokichi, Kinoshita Michio, and
Sugiyama Gen; the confidential war diary by the armys war guidance section;
and the memoirs and personal notes by Shigemitsu Mamoru, Togo Shigenori,
Konoe Fumimaro, and several military officers. The sixty-one-volume official
annals of Emperor Showa (Showa tenno jitsuroku), released by the Imperial
Household Agency in the fall of 2014, also provided additional information

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to understand Emperor Hirohitos daily activities and the timeline and circumstances in which he acted during the turbulent years of Showa.

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