Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (135 page)

Frank L. Kluckhohn of the
New York Times
had earlier interviewed Prince Konoe, the vice prime minister in the Higashikuni cabinet. He had suggested to Konoe, quite probably at the request of GHQ, that the emperor send a four-point message to the American public via, naturally, Kluckhohn's own newspaper. So on September 25, two days before the emperor called on MacArthur, he granted brief, separate audiences to Kluckhohn and Hugh Baillie, president of the United Press and a former acquaintance of Konoe. The journalists submitted written questions. They received written replies, in English, drafted by Shidehara Kijur
. Two basic points were revealed: (
a
) democracy and pacifism (in the sense of Japan's temporary nonpossession of weapons) were the main ingredients in the postwar imperial image for overseas consumption; and (
b
) the emperor wished to avoid questions about Pearl Harbor.

Kluckhohn asked “whether [Hirohito] had intended for his war rescript [of December 1941] to be used as General T
j
had used it—to launch the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the United States into the war.” The emperor, answered “in effect, no, that had not been his intention.”
²⁷
So T
j
, not the emperor, bore responsibility for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which was precisely the message MacArthur wanted the American people to hear prior to his own meeting with Hirohito. It was also the line of defense for the emperor that Princes Konoe and Higashikuni and many of the other “moderates around the throne” had been advocating since 1944.
²⁸

Although Hirohito read and sanctioned Shidehara's reply, he could not possibly have believed it, because the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred eight hours before he had signed the imperial rescript declaring war, and he had personally taken great pains to ensure that the attack would be a surprise.
²⁹
The Japanese government subsequently issued a statement, reported by the
New York Times
on September 29, that altered the emperor's words to avoid criticism of
T
j
. Too much may not be made of this partial retraction, other than that it indicated poor communications between SCAP and the Higashikuni government, and that the latter had not yet fully worked out its
kokutai
preservation policy. The latter required that the emperor be protected by designating to stand in his place not only his chiefs of staff but T
j
in particular.

Shortly after the audience granted to Kluckhohn and Baillie, the emperor visited MacArthur, hoping to learn what policies MacArthur would pursue toward the imperial house. Hirohito needed MacArthur's personal support if he was to preserve the
kokutai
and avoid taking legal and moral responsibility for his earlier actions as supreme commander and primary energizer of the political system. If MacArthur, for his part, was to use the emperor to legitimize occupation reforms, then he needed Hirohito to totally disown his “evil militarist” advisers.

Certain personal characteristics furnished additional bases for mutual support. MacArthur was older but dedicated to projecting himself as youthful and vigorous. Hirohito was just reaching middle age but accustomed to working with much older advisers. Both men had received prolonged and intense military educations, and had been set apart from their peers all their lives. MacArthur, the son of a Civil War hero who had won the Medal of Honor and later served as second-in-command during the American conquest of the Philippines, was a professional army officer. He had climbed to the highest command possible, becoming the youngest general and the youngest chief of staff in U.S. Army history.
³⁰
During his rise, he had become a master at making efficient use of talented staff officers. MacArthur always felt he had been born to lead, but believed that all credit and acclaim for his accomplishments in command should accrue to himself alone. Similarly, when he failed the failure must never be his but the consequence of inadequate support or machination from above. Extremely egotistical, sometimes pompous and arrogant, MacArthur was driven by his family her
itage to excel in everything he did. But nowhere is it recorded that any adult close to the supreme-commander-to-be ever sought to raise him to be unselfish and respectful of the views of others.

Both Hirohito and MacArthur valued loyalty and cultivated remoteness. They regarded themselves as their nation's leading asset and knew how to practice deception—MacArthur of his superiors at every single stage of his career; Hirohito of the entire Japanese nation. Both men combined in their persons multiple forms of authority and knew how to use it effectively. Despite these similarities, personalities more different than those of the emperor and the general could hardly be imagined. Hirohito did not share MacArthur's “dark side”—his eccentricity, extreme egoism, and pomposity. He was truly self-effacing, accustomed to ruling through others, by consensus rather than by dictate; and he was anything but physically imposing.

An American staff photographer was ready when the emperor arrived at the American embassy. He took three pictures of Hirohito standing with MacArthur in the embassy's main living room, and the two then retired to a specially prepared room. There they talked privately, through interpreter Okumura Katsuz
, for nearly forty minutes. MacArthur did most of the talking, and because they were both very concerned to protect the images they projected, they insisted that their conversation be kept off the record.