Hirohito Quotes
The trusted men around me would have been killed, I myself might have been killed or kidnapped. Actually I was virtually a prisoner and powerless…. My opposition would never have been known outside the Palace. It might have gone to most barbaric war, and it would have been impossible to stop the war at all, no matter what I did
It was never submitted as evidence in any proceeding or made a part of the U. S. investigatory record of war crimes of World War II. Nor was it ever found in Japan in the official records. The only copy was found in 2003 at the home of Bonner F. Fellers one of MacArthur’s top aids in the Japanese Occupation. Fellers and McArthur advocated not further investigating or trying the Japanese Emperor either because they, believed he was not guilty or because they thought his trial would be too disruptive to the occupation. The authenticity of this monologue has not been verified. Apologists for the Emperor argue that it shows that he was a virtual prisoner of the militarists and unable to stop the war or any of the war crimes; others argue that the Japanese military would never have gone against the will of the Emperor and that this document was probably prepared with the coaching of General Fellers as ex post facto “evidence” of the Emperor’s innocence. See {643148} and {601309} for examples of Fellers manipulating the “evidence.”
Hirohito, 1901-1990, Emperor of Japan, Monologue dictated in March or April, 1946
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Allied calls for indictment of Emperor Hirohito. war crimes trials of Tojo and other Japanese leaders Senior officer responsible for investigating Japanese WWII war criminals. Fellers was the officer who had previously done the “research and investigation for his boss General Douglas MacArthur who had recommended no prosecution for the Emperor. See {605727}. Yonai was to get word to General Tojo and Admiral Shimada, already indicted as war criminals to minimize the role of the Emperor who had personally approved of Pearl Harbor and every major subsequent act of Japanese aggression. Shimada was “on board” but there were doubts about whether Tojo would go along with the deceptive exoneration of the Emperor.
Emperor Shōwa, better known in English by his personal name Hirohito (裕仁), was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, ruling over the Empire of Japan from 25 December 1926 until 2 May 1947, after which he was Emperor of the state of Japan until his death. He was succeeded by his fifth child and eldest son, Akihito. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had seven children, two sons and five daughters. By 1979, Hirohito was the only monarch in the world with the title "emperor." Hirohito was the longest-lived and longest-reigning historical Japanese emperor and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world.
