Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (146 page)

During the first dictation session on March 18, Hirohito called
attention to racial tensions in the background to the Pacific War. He began by noting that the Great Powers had rejected “Japan's call for racial equality, advocated by our representatives at the peace conference following World War I. Everywhere in the world discrimination between yellow and white remained, as in the rejection of immigration to California and the whites-only policy in Australia. These were sufficient grounds for the indignation of the Japanese people.” Hirohito seemed to be criticizing the principle of white supremacy that he believed underlay U.S. Asian policy. He ignored, of course, what Japan's delegates had really advocated at Versailles: racial equality for Japanese only, not people of color all over the world.

He then expounded on seven questions that his aides knew were going to be dealt with by the tribunal. He started with an incident about which he and his government had, before the defeat, deliberately misinformed the Japanese people: Chang Tso-lin's assassination by staff officers of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria and the resignation of the Tanaka Giichi cabinet (1927–29). He spoke next about the London Naval Conference of 1930, the Manchurian Incident of 1931, and the Shanghai Incident of 1932. He continued with the February 26, 1936, incident, the decision to “limit the army and navy ministers to active-duty officers,” and “Peace Negotiations with China and the Tripartite Pact.”
¹⁸

At the second session Terasaki informed everyone in the room that General MacArthur had sent a secret telegram to Washington in January exonerating the emperor of war crimes. He probably would not be indicted but could still be called as a witness. The work of preparing to counteract the Tokyo tribunal must continue. That day, March 20, Hirohito answered seven questions addressed to him by his aides concerning the causes of the collapse of the cabinets of Abe and Yonai, the Tripartite Pact, the Imperial Conferences of July 16 and September 6, questions about T
j
, and the Pearl Harbor attack plan.
¹⁹

During his third session two days later, Hirohito continued expounding on the T
j
cabinet, T
j
's efforts to prevent war, the imperial rescript declaring war, and disunity between the army and navy.
²⁰
He heaped lavish praise on T
j
, calling him “a man of understanding” who “became notorious as a sort of despot because he held too many posts, was too busy to communicate his feelings to subordinates, and made excessive use of the military police.” Hirohito also admitted that he had resisted removing T
j
because T
j
“had been in contact with people all over Greater East Asia and without him [we] would have lost our ability to control their hearts.”
²¹
The next two dictation sessions were held on April 8, at which time the five aides again listened to Hirohito's recollections from afternoon to evening. There was also a sixth dictation session, on April 9, that was not included in the “Monologue.”