1. MacArthur, Reminiscences , 30-32. [BACK]

2. Ziegler, Mountbatten , 296-297. [BACK]

3. MacArthur, Reminiscences , 282-284; Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins , 819. [BACK]

4. Records of MacArthur, MMA, RG 5, Box 2. This is an office file of requests for appointments with the supreme commander. It is not a complete or fully accurate list of the meetings that actually took place, but it does provide useful reference material. James, The Years of MacArthur , vol. 3, 693-694, lists those who had frequent contact with MacArthur in 1945-1951; Yoshida is the only Japanese listed. James briefly described the contacts MacArthur had with Japanese prime ministers and the emperor (vol. 3, 309-325). [BACK]

5. Sebald, Oral History Regarding Occupation Period, 528, NL, Special Collection; Bowers, "The Late General MacArthur," 168; Inumaru, "Ma Gen-sui," 209-211. [BACK]

6. Willoughby, Shirarezaru Nihon senryo, 59 . This book by MacArthur's intelligence chief is of interest not only as a sharp attack on many of the Americans who worked in GHQ SCAP, but also because it appeared only in Japan and in Japanese. See also Manchester, American Caesar , 633. [BACK]

7. Eto (ed.), Senryo shiroku , vol. 1, 263-269; Williams, Japan's Political Revolution , 5; Bouterse, Taylor, and Maas, "American Military Government Experience," 330. [BACK]

8. Eto (ed.), Senryo shiroku , vol. 1,270-275; Inoki, Hyoden Yosbida , vol. 3, 219-220; Shigemitsu, Japan and Her Destiny , 375-377; Amakawa, "Senryo seisaku," 218-220; Maki, "The Role of the Bureaucracy," 391. [BACK]

9. FRUS, 1945 , vol. 6, 677, 712. The statement of September 20, 1945, was the closest the United States came to making an issue of "unconditional surrender." See FRUS, 1944 , vol. 5, 1275-1285; Iokibe, "American Policy."

     The only case of what might be called determined resistance to the orders of the occupation grew out of this SCAP order for the turnover of Japan's diplomatic records ( FRUS, 1945 , vol. 6, 473). The Japanese consul general in Dublin, Beppu Setsuya, rejected the orders of the Foreign Office and Allied representatives and remained at his post for three years after the surrender, with the tacit support of the government of Ireland, and finally came back to Japan in 1948. At the insistence of SCAP he was tried for violation of occupation orders and lightly penalized. He was later reinstated and had a successful diplomatic career (int. with Beppu). (See Eto [ed.], Senryo shiroku , vol. 2, 347-365.)

     Regarding the knotty issue of who was sovereign during the occupation, Yoshida Shigeru told the Diet in 1946 that "Japan was a sovereign state but was limited by SCAP in the exercise of its sovereignty" ( SCAP Monthly Summation , para. 37, July 1946). The Japanese also put it another way: the supreme commander had supreme authority, but Japan retained its sovereignty. [BACK]

10. Masumi, Postwar Politics , 42; Morley, "The First Seven Weeks." [BACK]

11. Masumi, Postwar Politics , 41-42; Eto (ed.), Senryo shiroku , vol. 3, 97-104; Morley, "The First Seven Weeks," 160-162; Inoki, Hyoden Yosbida , vol. 3, 89-90; Koseki, Shinkempo no tanjo , 8-13. See also Atcheson's comments in FRUS, 1945 , vol. 6, 827, 841. Atcheson asserted the word constitution was used in error by the interpreter, but regardless of how it came up the record is clear that MacArthur did suggest Konoe might play a useful role in revising the constitution ( PRJ , 91, fn.). [BACK]

12. FRUS, 1945 , vol. 6, 750, 757-758. [BACK]

13. Suzuki, Suzuki Tadakatsu-shi , 106. [BACK]

14. YM , 62-63; this is a frank and personal account based on Yoshida's four-volume Kaiso junen and elegantly rendered in English by his son. Yoshida kept the portfolio of foreign minister until 1952, except for one year in 1947-1948. [BACK]

15. Two excellent biographies have been written about Yoshida. Dower, Empire , is a painstaking and in many respects brilliant study of Yoshida. Inoki's three-volume biography, Hyoden Yoshida , contains many important details but is less given to critical commentary. [BACK]

16. Dower, Empire , 74; Yoshida, Oiso zuiso , 86. [BACK]

17. YM , 13; Shiroyama, War Criminal , 134-138. [BACK]

18. Kosaka, Saisho Yoshida , 17-21; Dower, Empire , contains a graphic description of the Konoe "memorial to the emperor" and the Yoshida antiwar movement (227-272). See also FRUS, 1945 , vol. 6, 700-708. [BACK]

19. Eto (ed.), Senryo shiroku , vol. 1, 290-292; "Yoshida genshusho no kaiso rokuon yoyaku" (Summary of recording containing recollections of former prime minister Yoshida), made in 1955, Asahi shimbun , Apr. 18, 1977. See also "Yoshida genshusho danwa yoshi" (Outline of talk with former prime minister Yoshida), Oct. 5, 1955, Shidehara Peace Collection, NDLT; Yoshida, KJ , vol: 1, 97. [BACK]

20. The Japanese press at that time was carrying somewhat sensational reports of incidents such as thefts, rapes, and assaults by U.S. soldiers in Japan. SCAP quickly prohibited such reporting. Nevertheless, the Japanese press continued to report incidents without attributing them to Americans but in such a way that readers would readily understand—for example a theft by "a big man who did not speak Japanese." [BACK]

21. KJ , vol. 1, 96; Aso Kazuko, "Kodomo no yo ni mujaki datta chichi" (My childlike father), Shukan Yomiuri , Oct. 1, 1978, 42-43. See Harry Kern, "Yoshida's Special Credentials," Yomiuri (English ed.), Sept. 9, 1979, 7. Yoshida spoke some years later of MacArthur's habit of talking as he strode up and down his office and said, "I could understand him well when he was facing towards me, but when he turned his back I did not understand a single word of what he was saying. It used to make me so angry but there was nothing I could do" (Sebald oral history, 1053). [BACK]

22. Kojima, "Tenno to Amerika," 115-119. Kojima, an expert chronicler of modern Japanese history, advised the author that he obtained this record from official Japanese sources. MacArthur said he offered the emperor a cigarette. The Tenno, who did not smoke, took it. His hand shook as the general lit it for him ( Reminiscences , 287-288). [BACK]

23. Asahi shimbun , Sept. 29, 1945, 1. [BACK]

24. MacArthur, Reminiscences , 287; Diary of Iriye Sukemasa, at that time a chamberlain of the imperial household, entry of Sept. 27, 1945, Asahi shimbun , Jan. 26, 1989, 4. [BACK]

25. NYT , Oct. 2, 1945, 5 . MacArthur did not pay a call on the emperor at any time. [BACK]

26. MacArthur, Reminiscences , 287-288. MacArthur told his political adviser on October 27, one month after meeting with the emperor, that the Tenno had said he did not seek "to escape responsibility" for the attack on Pearl Harbor because "he was the leader of the Japanese people and he was responsible for the actions of the Japanese people." Memo of conversation, Oct. 27, 1945, DOS diplomatic file 800, NRAW. [BACK]

27. U.K. Public Records Office, F 1849/15/23, FO 371/63690, ltr. from Gascoigne to Dening, Jan. 22, 1947; Hirohito-Krisher int., Newsweek , Sept. 29, 1975, 7. Saionji Kimmochi, the last survivor of Japan's genro , died in 1940. Regarding Hirohito's knowledge and support of plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor, see Bergamini, Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , 830; Sugiyama, Sugiyama memo , vol. 1, 370; Kido, Kido Koichi nikki , vol. 2, 928. Titus, Palace and Politics , offers a persuasive explanation of the way in which imperial will was used to make basic national decisions in prewar Japan (316-321). [BACK]

28. One Japanese authority has described the modern emperor institution as dualist in nature—absolutist/authoritarian versus liberal/democratic—and has argued that Showa was liberal in his outlook and hopeful of somehow merging the two strands. Takeda Kiyoko, "Showa no gekidoki to Hirohito tenno" (Emperor Hirohito and the Showa upheaval), Asahi shimbun , Jan. 8, 1989, 11. [BACK]

29. Titus, Palace and Politics , 328; Ike (ed.), Japan's Decision for War , 151, fn. 36, 283; ltr. of Dec. 24, 1990, to author from N. Kojima. [BACK]

30. K. Sansom, Sir George Sansom , 166. [BACK]

31. MacArthur, Reminiscences , 288; K. Sansom, Sir George Sansom , 166. Of the eleven meetings between MacArthur and the emperor, only the first and the third have been reported in some detail. A partial report of the fourth meeting on May 6, 1947, quotes MacArthur as saying "the basic idea of the United States is to ensure the security of Japan" but not to "defend Japan as it would California," as has sometimes been attributed to MacArthur. Kojima, Nihon senryo , vol. 3, 25-30; PRJ , 769. (See Hata, Hirohito , 190-193.) [BACK]

32. Inoki, Hyoden Yoshida , vol. 3, 78; Fearey memo to Atcheson, Oct. 13, 1945, POLAD Tokyo, DS 800 01, NRAS, RG 84, Box 2275. [BACK]