A Japanese version of this article has been published in the March issue, 1977, of Shokun (pp. 118–43); a rejoinder from Professor Inoue may be found in the April issue, and a surrejoinder from me in the May issue. The controversy was published in five issues of Shokun, and was concluded with some remarks by me in the July issue.

¹ In a poll taken in spring, 1973, 77 per cent said the Emperor should be kept as a symbol as at present, 7 per cent said the Emperor should be made the head of the state, 9 per cent favored the abolition of the Emperor system, and 7 per cent expressed either no opinion or other opinions. Reported in Japan Echo III, 1 (1976), 50.Google Scholar

² Harada, Kumao, Saionjikō to Seikyoku (Tokyo, 1950–1956), IV, 238.Google Scholar

³ Ben-Ami, Shillony, Revolt in Japan, the Young Officers and the February 26, 1936 Incident (Princeton, 1973), pp. 142–3.Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid., pp. 125–8.

⁵ Ibid., p. 149.

⁶ The most important studies are: Maruyama, Masao, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics (Oxford, 1963);Google ScholarMayer-Oakes, T. F., Fragile Victory: Prince Saionji and the 1930 London Treaty Issue, from the Memoirs of Baron Harada Kumao (Wayne State University, 1968);Google ScholarDavid, Titus, Palace and Politics in Prewar Japan (Columbia, 1974);Google ScholarYale, Maxon, Control of Japanese Foreign Policy: a Study of Civil–Military Rivalry, 1930–1945 (California, 1957);Google ScholarRobert, J. C. Butow, Tojo and the Coming of the War (Princeton, 1961);Google ScholarButow, , Japan's Decision to Surrender (Stanford, 1954);Google ScholarSadako, N. Ogata, Defiance in Manchuria, the Making of Japanese Foreign Policy, 1931–1932 (California, 1964);Google ScholarDavid, Lu, From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to Pearl Harbor (Washington, D. C., 1961);Google ScholarJames, Crowley, Japan's Quest for Autonomy, National Security and Foreign Policy, 1930–1938 (Princeton, 1966);Google ScholarIke, Nobutaka, Japan's Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences (Stanford, 1967).Google Scholar

⁷ For a short summary, and a listing of these reviews, see my Modern Asian Studies article, cited, p. 1.Google Scholar

⁸ Tennō no Sensō Sekinin (Tokyo, Gendai Hyōronsha, 1975).Google Scholar

⁹ The first printing was in August 1975, and the book has been widely advertised. The publishers have not replied to my requests for information regarding numbers published and/or sold, but already by the end of 1976 the book had had ten printings.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 1 and, in large letters, on the advertising band around the cover. The demonstration described took place in Bonn on 12 October 1971. It is not quite clear how a ‘defense’ published in a language they cannot read is supposed to help those German students four years after their arrest.

¹¹ The statement is as follows: ‘(1) We believe that the Greater East Asia war was unavoidable in view of the situation surrounding the Empire; (2) His Majesty the Emperor desired more than anything else a peaceful compromise in the negotiations with the United States; (3) In regard to the decisions for war and the carrying out of strategic plans, according to customs firmly established in the operation of the Court, the Emperor could not reject decisions agreed upon by Imperial Headquarters and the government.’ The weak statement here is, of course, the first. War would have been avoidable if Japan had not insisted on pursuing, especially since 1931, an aggressive policy on the continent, putting itself into a position where it was probably impossible both to preserve Japanese pride and honor and make some real concessions to the United States.

¹² One could object that the lack of an Emperor has never prevented other countries from waging war, even aggressive wars. It could be argued that if it had been left to public opinion in Japan, Japanese behavior overseas would have been far more aggressive than it was. But Inoue here (p. 8) is evidently speaking of the legal situation under the Meiji Constitution only, and not more generally, as one might think.

¹³ Yamamoto, Shichihei, ‘The Living God and His War Responsibility,’ Japan Echo, III, 1 (1976), 66.Google ScholarItō, Hirobumi, the chief framer of the Meiji Constitution, includes in his commentary on Article III the statement that the Emperor ‘has indeed to pay due respect to the law, but the law has no power to hold Him accountable to it.’ Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan (Tokyo: 1889), p. 6.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Yamamoto, , ‘The Living God and His War Responsibility,’ p. 71. Regarding the Emperor as ‘infallible moralizer,’ Yamamoto writes: ‘It is amazing to note that this tradition still remains alive today, for instance, in the manner in which some people argue the incumbent Tenno's “war responsibility”… those people contend that the Tenno should assume the total moral responsibility for the war. This…is exactly the prewar conception of the throne, based on the moralism of the Rescript on Education, only turned inside out. It is another way of institutionalizing the concept of the Tenno's “godhead.” One wonders if Inoue's ideas run in more traditional channels than in Marxist ones.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The rescript is given, for instance, in the Harada memoirs (Harada, Kumao, III, 396–7). In view of the fact that the military had preempted the government's decision making role in the Manchurian ‘Incident,’ the Emperor wanted a definite provision that military and civil officers should ‘not encroach arbitrarily on each other's jurisdicitions (midari ni ai-shimpan suru koto nakiyō).’ The rescript has only a much blander and weaker ‘military and civil officers shall pursue their respective spheres (bunbu tagai ni sono shokubun ni kakujun shi…).‘Google ScholarAlso, a closely-related point concerning military discipline, enjoining the lower ranks to follow the orders of their superiors, was bitterly opposed by Army Minister Araki and was dropped (Harada, III, 47;Google ScholarKido Nikki I, 228, 24 03 1933).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Kido Kōichi Nikki (Tokyo, 1966), I, 101, 22 09 1931.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Titus, , Palace and Politics, pp. 163–4, for comments on Honjō as Aide-de-Camp, and his clashes with the Emperor.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Harada, V, 7, 14 March 1936;Google ScholarShillony, , Revolt in Japan, p. 149. This statement followed those quoted above and cited in footnote 5.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, p. 54. In fact, Admiral Yonai moved the First Fleet into Tokyo Bay and Marines into Tokyo.Google ScholarSee Shillony, , Revolt in Japan, p. 170.Google Scholar

²⁰ Harada, VII, 50–2Google Scholar, cited in Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, pp. 60–1Google Scholar, and Sheldon, , ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor,’ pp. 12––13.Google Scholar

²¹ Harada VII, 50–2. Inoue cites Gendaishi Shiryō, X, and Kaisetsu of the same work, but does not give page numbers.

²² Inoue writes (p. 63): ‘The Changkufeng incident shows that even if middle-rank Army officers lit the fires of war on their own arbitrary initiative, the Emperor could quickly put out the flames.’ He then pursues this to a converse conclusion (p. 65): ‘Only when the Emperor clearly did not oppose war and made no attempt to prevent it, could the Kwantung Army and the officers in other parts of the Army who favored war begin, or expand, wars as they wished.’ These statements are clearly erroneous, and ignore the fact that the Emperor as a person, if not as an institution, actually opposed every aggressive move of the military. He failed not for lack of trying, as Inoue says, but for lack of support. A larger defeat than Changkufeng was administered by the Soviet Army in the Nomonhan border incident in 1939. Before the Japanese attack, the Emperor voiced his anxiety to his Chief Aide-de-Camp, who gave him assurances from the General Staff, but this did not prevent the Japanese attack.Google Scholar See Sheldon, , ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor,’ p. 13.Google Scholar For an excellent summary of these two border incidents, see Butow, , Tojo and the Coming of the War, pp. 126–8.Google Scholar

²³ See Crowley, , Japan's Quest for Autonomy, pp. 370–2.Google Scholar

²⁴ Harada, VI, 204, 19 January 1938.Google Scholar

²⁵ For four examples, see Sheldon, , ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor,’ pp. 9–12.Google Scholar

²⁶ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, pp. 93–4. The original source proved to be Harada VI, 206–7, 19 January 1938.Google Scholar

²⁷ For an example, see Sheldon, , ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor,’ p. 27, citing Harada II, 420–1, 15 January 1933.Google Scholar

²⁸ Okada Keisuke Kaikoroku (Tokyo, 1950), p. 114;Google ScholarHonjō, Shigeru, Honjō Nikki, 203–31;Google ScholarTitus, , Palace and Politics, p. 163.Google Scholar

²⁹ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, p. 114Google Scholar, citing Kido Nikki II, 824, 21 09 1940.Google Scholar

³⁰ Professor Butow, R. J. C., in his excellent study, Tojo and the Coming of the War, has shown persuasively that Tōjō was no dictator. Power was wielded collectively by means of complex private consultations which did not avoid internal clashes, in the course of achieving a kind of consensus. Butow has shown that Tōjō had to be a manipulator of a number of often opposed forces, and that his image as a dictator abroad was mostly based on errors and oversimplifications. Butow shows, however, that Tōjō’s ignorance of the world beyond Japan and Manchuria was monumental, and he had not the slightest ability, or perhaps desire, to see any viewpoint other than one based on an extremely narrow Japanese nationalism.Google Scholar More recently, Shillony has made an analysis of the problem of ‘dictatorship’ which strongly supports Butow, , in ‘Wartime Japan: a Military Dictatorship?’ (in Military and State in Modern Asia, Jerusalem, 1976), pp. 61–68.Google ScholarConcerning Tōjō, , see pp. 65–7. Shillony concludes the article as follows: ‘Tradition, including the Imperial Constitution of 1889, had obstructed the development of true democracy in Japan, but it had also prevented an absolute dictatorship. Government remained the art of compromise between different power groups and interests, as it had always been.’Google Scholar

³¹ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, pp. 142–3, citing biographies of Konoye by Tomita Kenji and Yabe Teiji.Google Scholar

³² Kido Nikki II, 905, 5 09 1941.Google Scholar See also Sheldon, , ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor,’ p. 30.Google Scholar For details, mostly from Konoye's memoirs, see Butow, , Tojo and the Coming of the War, pp. 255–7,Google Scholar and Maxon, , Control of Japanese Foreign Policy, pp. 170–1.Google Scholar

³³ There are many examples in the diaries. For some, see Sheldon, , ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor,’ pp. 10, 27, 28.Google Scholar

³⁴ Harada, V, 264, 19 February 1937. Examples of Saionji's failure to support the Emperor can be found in Sheldon, ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor’, p. 7, note 20, and pp. 26–7, 35–7.Google Scholar

³⁵ Thought and Behaviour, pp. 26–33, 65.Google ScholarCrowley, James, in ‘Japanese Army Factionalism in the 1930s’ (Journal of Asian Studies, 05 1962), has shown that the Kōdōha, through Araki, was connected with hostile feelings against the Chōshūūmonopoly of the highest Army posts. The Tōseiha was opposed to the emotionalism and archaic sentimentality of the Kōdōha, and favored avoiding war with the U.S.S.R. while the Army was being thoroughly modernized and mechanized. He has also shown that there were other important factions involved in the bitter infighting within the Army which culminated in the February 26th Incident and resulted in the defeat and elimination of the young officers and the removal of their sympathizers from key Army posts. These sympathizers were mostly Kōdōha men, but also removed were some of the Seigunha (purification faction) which was mostly based on historical regional loyalties to Chōshū and which was opposed to the Saga-Tosa hanbatsu loyalties of Araki, who had replaced the Chōshū generals in key posts with his own men when he became the first non-Chōshū Army Minister in 1931. Thus the Tōseiha (the control group), whose members were mostly graduates of the elite War College, represented both an efficiency-minded and modernizing trend and a reaction against cliques, especially regional ones. It was also opposed to ideological politics and indiscipline in the Army.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ For a discussion of the Kōdōha and the ideology of the ‘Shōwa restoration,’ see Shillony, , Revolt in Japan, pp. 37–9, 56–80.Google Scholar For a recent, and striking, example of a sentimental view of ‘sincerity,’ see the review by Nunokawa, Seiji in the Japan Interpreter, 8, 2 (Spring 1973), 271–2Google Scholar, of Okuzaki, Kenzō, Yamazaki, Tennō wo ute! [Yamazaki, Shoot the Emperor!] (Tokyo, 1972). The author, Okuzaki, explains in this book that it was only as a symbolic act that he shot, innocuously at the Emperor, some small metal balls from a pinball machine, using a slingshot. It was on behalf of his friend, Yamazaki and other soldiers who died in the war. Nunokawa describes the author's writing as ‘colored by a violent hatred toward the emperor… He is horrified that the question of the emperor’s responsibility for the war has gone unquestioned for so long by both the public and the emperor himself.’ Ignoring the question of whether Okuzaki was right or not in this action, Nunokawa concludes, ‘The reader may sometimes find the author's ideas and actions rash beyond reason. However, Okuzaki is a man of rare honesty and persistence, who acted in accordance with an unsubmitting spirit.’ Nunokawa endorses the statements of Ide Magoroku in his introduction to the book: ‘I believe that this story is “one of the great monuments of the efforts of the Japanese mind after the war” and is a “must” for every contemporary Japanese reader.’Google Scholar

³⁷ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, p. 142Google Scholar, citing Tomita's, Haisen Nihon no Uchigawa—Konoe-kō no Omoide, 196.Google Scholar

³⁸ Tojo and the Coming of the War, pp. 426–8.Google Scholar

³⁹ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, pp. 201–15. The ‘plotters’ included Kido, Konoye, Prince Takamatsu, younger brother of the Emperor, and Prince Higashikuni, uncle of the Empress.Google Scholar The most careful and detailed account of the efforts to end the war is Butow's, Japan's Decision to Surrender, which gives a proper weight to the Emperor'sinfluence.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Quoting Kido, , Inoue does let us know that the ‘Emperor immediately agreed’ when, on 19 June 1945, Kido asked for a ‘brave Imperial decision’ to end the war (pp. 204–5). Kido knew the Emperor was consistently for peace, but the problem was how to carry along the military. In his peace plan written 8 06 1945 for the Emperor, Kido says, ‘To continue the war is impossible… I believe the correct course is for the military to advocate peace… But at the stage we have reached today, this would be almost impossible. Should we wait for an opportunity to present itself, we would lose the chance and finally fall into the same fate as Germany, and would be unable to reach our highest goal of the safety of the Imperial house and the kokutai.' Kido Nikki, 8 June 1945. Many examples of the Emperor's efforts to end the war can be found in Butow, Japan's Decision to Surrender (pp. 14, 44–5, 80, 112–13, 118–23, 124–5, 152–3). In February 1945, Kido, at the Emperor's request, arranged for the Jūshin (former Premiers) to see the Emperor, one by one, for fear of the military, and to permit them to speak freely. Inoue says (p. 199): ‘All except Tōjō, favoured ending the war; only Konoye said so. Wakatsuki confessed afterwards: “I could not say to the Emperor in his presence, please surrender.” In April, after the American landings on Okinawa, at the meeting of Jūshin, all agreed, even Konoye, that the war must be pursued to the end. Tōjō was present at the meeting, and they had to be careful [Only here (pp. 201–2) does Inoue even imply fear of the Army!]. The result of this play-acting was that both Suzuki and Konoye, who were actually for peace, thought the other was for the continuation of the war. After the fall of Okinawa on 21 June, even the Army divided into factions (p. 205) advocating continuing the war (shusenha) and ending the war (shūsenha).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, pp. 219–20Google Scholar, citing Sakomizu, Hisatsune, Suzuki Kantarō Den, p. 271.Google Scholar

⁴² For a translation of this statement, see Sheldon, ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor,’ p. 39. It was first published in Taihei in October 1955 and, slightly rewritten, in Fujita's, Jijūchō no Kaisō (Tokyo, 1961), pp. 202–5.Google Scholar Inoue reproduces a portion of this statement (223–4) and then launches an immoderate attack on it. The gist of the statement was repeated by the Emperor in an exclusive interview published in Newsweek, 29 September 1975, before the Emperor's American visit. In a press conference on 22 September, the Emperor had briefly explained these constitutional limitations to foreign newsmen. He did not on that occasion express his personal sorrow for what happened in the war as he had at his only previous press conference with foreign newsmen in 1971, before his visit to Europe, but in Washington on 2 October 1975, he thanked the United States for the ‘goodwill and assistance’ accorded Japan ‘immediately following that most unfortunate war which I deeply deplore.’ (New York Times, 3 October 1975.)Google Scholar

⁴³ Douglas, MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York, 1964), p. 288.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The 1945 polls, of students of politics and economics at Waseda University, are reported in Hasegawa, Masayasu, ‘Tennōsei no hōteki shomondai,’ in Hōritsu Jihō [Law Review], special issue on the Emperor system (April 1976), p. 11.Google Scholar Later polls are in Japan Echo (Spring 1976), p. 50.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Inoue, , Tennō no Sensō Sekinin, p. 4. Inoue says this editorial appeared on 13 January. It was, in fact, written after the announcement of sentencing, and is on p. 14 of the 13 November 1948 issue. The Japanese version was published by Asahi Shinbun on 14 November 1948.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ The translation in the Asahi of ‘lives’ as jinmei, human life (or human lives) is very clear, and the context in Japanese could not lead anyone to think that the writer meant only one life, that of the Emperor. One does wonder if Inoue would have persevered with his strange interpretation if he had checked the original editorial, as a historian should. But noticing that Inoue refers to two different Frenchmen as Mr Henri whose Christian name was Henri (p. 3, Henri Bernard, the French representative on the Tribunal who rivalled Justice Webb of Australia, the Tribunal President, in his formalistic legalism and ignorance of Japanese ways, and p. 117, the French Ambassador to Japan in 1940), one doubts if his linguistic abilities would be equal to the task.

⁴⁷ A wholehearted Japanese commitment to pacifism is certainly to be welcomed, but Japanese intellectuals sometimes, ‘methinks, protest too much.’ Etō Jun has put it this way: ‘Before the war Japanese intellectuals wished to make Japan rank first among all nations by force of arms. These same intellectuals are still out to make Japan first among all nations, but this time by merely chanting, “Absolute peace!”’ Quoted in John, Hall, ‘A Monarch for Modern Japan,’ in Robert, Edward Ward (ed.), Political Development in Modern Japan (Princeton, 1968), p. 64.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Interestingly, the Asahi of 30 May 1973 points out that this was Masuhara's second resignation from this post. His first was owing to a mid-air collision of an Air Self Defense Force jet fighter and a large passenger plane in 1971. The Asahi goes on to say that his resignation of 29 May 1973 was also due to an incident ‘above the clouds’ (a traditional term for the Imperial palace). In his resignation statement, Masuhara apologized for having made ‘mistakes’ about what the Emperor had said. According to the Mainichi of 7 June 1973 and the Sunday Mainichi of 17 June, he also said that the Emperor had made absolutely no statements about national policy. Later, the then Premier Tanaka assured the Diet that the Emperor had not said the things attributed to him. The Asahi of 7 June quotes the government's explanation: ‘Even if the Emperor is asked a question [in such an interview], he cannot express his own opinion. Masuhara's statement confused his own explanations with what the Emperor said.’ The Asahi of 29 May reports the Imperial Household Agency as making the point that such reports are given privately to the Emperor, for his information, with no one else in attendance. Masuhara had violated the custom of not making public the content of such conversations which are, in accordance with the Constitution, private and therefore not political. Masuhara, after reading out to the press a short prepared statement of resignation, did not accept any questions, and we shall probably never know exactly what the Emperor told him.

⁴⁹ The Mainichi account of 7 June also quotes Masuhara's two preceding sentences in his initial statement to the press, as follows: ‘His Majesty… said that it cannot be thought that the strength of the Self Defense Forces, when compared to that of neighbouring countries, is very great, but what do you say about the fact that newspapers and the like are writing as if we are constructing huge forces? Furthermore, His Majesty said that the problems of defense are very difficult but it is very important to protect the country.’ The Asahi of 29 May quotes a government spokesman as saying that the complaint about the exaggerated concern in the mass media about the ‘huge’ size of the Self Defense Forces had actually been part of Masuhara's report to the Emperor, not something the Emperor had said. It may be of interest here to quote some comparative statistics for neighboring countries for the relevant year (1973)

⁵⁰ (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1953). The term tennōsei was coined by the Communists to avoid, no doubt, the emotion-laden term kokutai.Google Scholar

⁵¹ For Hall's judicious criticism of Inoue's Emperor System, see ‘A Monarch for Modern Japan,’ pp. 39, 61. Professor Hall comments: ‘Interpretations of this sort suffer from the all too common habit of historians to see what they want in history by looking back on past events from the vantage point of a particular age or a particular political belief’ (p. 39). Hall shows how important the monarch was in providing stability and patriotic commitment to the national effort in the modernization of Japan, and points to the success of the Japanese in adapting to the new postwar position of the Emperor. He asks how things went wrong in the 1930s: ‘The constitution… perpetuated that particular form of Japanese political decision-making which obscured the locus of responsibility behing an “irresponsible” sovereign who spoke for the consensus of his political advisors. (pp. 57–8)… once on the defensive, where were the Japanese to find comfort but in the dream world of the imperial myth and the warmth of a family-state togetherness? And certainly once the retreat to unreality was begun, the very sacredness of the emperor and self-deceptions embodied in the revived concepts of national uniqueness precluded the possibility of selfawakening’ (p. 59).Google Scholar

⁵² Although it is true that Inoue is making use of carefully selected bits of history for political purposes and therefore cannot truly be called a historian, it would be unfair to dismiss his work as of no use to historians or students of Japan. His books on the Emperor system, Japanese militarism, Meiji, ‘absolutism,’ the rice riots of 1918, the buraku [outcaste communities] problem, etc., are all useful in their way. If only in disagreeing with them, one can learn a great deal. Specialists, however, cannot avoid concern when considering the non-specialists who may read Inoue's books, and it was with some consternation that we learned that Inoue has authored a series of widely-read textbooks on modern Japanese history.Google Scholar