Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (129 page)

In this speech the emperor claims that his army minister told him that the capital could not be defended. Ever since June, how
ever, he had known full well that continuation of the war was increasingly problematic. Why had he waited so long before making a policy decision to surrender immediately? And why, if Suzuki had wanted only one condition, and a real majority existed rather than a deadlock, didn't they end the war by majority decision, with Hirohito ratifying their decision after the fact?

The emperor already knew before Hiroshima was bombed that his cabinet was divided on accepting the Potsdam terms. He also knew that only he could unify government affairs and military command. Why, then, had he waited until the evening of the ninth—that is, until after yet another act of tremendous outside pressure had been applied—to call the Supreme War Leadership Council into session?
⁸⁸

In justifying his decision to surrender, Hirohito counterposes Hiranuma to the military hard-liners but then criticizes him for influencing the wording of the telegram that the Foreign Ministry sent to the Allies conditionally accepting the Potsdam Declaration. Yet Hiranuma joined the council, and the cabinet meeting that followed, precisely to
ensure
expression of the Shintoist, right-wing view of the
kokutai
. At the meetings on August 9–10, it was Hiranuma, not T
g
, who voiced the sense of the majority on the fundamental need, which was to guarantee the theocratic view of the
kokutai
rather than T
g
's secular, cultural view. At the time Hirohito supported Hiranuma and made no objection to that majority sentiment because he believed himself to be a monarch by divine right.

No discussion of Hirohito's speech should overlook his omission of the questioning of his responsibility for the defeat. Gen. Ikeda Sumihisa and Adm. Hoshina Zenshir
attended the August 9–10 meeting, and both later claimed that Privy Council President Hiranuma raised the matter. In Ikeda's account Hiranuma turned to Hirohito in the early morning hours of August 10 and said quietly, “Your majesty, you also bear responsibility [
sekinin
] for this defeat.
What apology [
m
shiwake]
are you going to make to the heroic spirits of the imperial founder of your house and your other imperial ancestors?” Hoshina, Chief of the Naval Affairs Department of the Navy Ministry, has Hiranuma saying virtually the same thing: “His majesty bears responsibility for reporting to the founder of his house and his other imperial ancestors. If he is not clear about this [matter], then his responsibility is grave.”
⁸⁹
Thus, at the August 9–10 Imperial Conference, Hiranuma may have raised with Hirohito the question of his atonement for the lost war. One wonders whether they did not also discuss the question of his abdication.

Once the emperor had made his “sacred decision,” a cabinet conference deliberated on T
g
's one condition. At Hiranuma's suggestion they agreed to reformulate their acceptance to read: “with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of his majesty as a sovereign ruler [
tenn
no kokka t
ji no taiken
].” Thus the
kokutai
concept of the right-wing ideologue Hiranuma emerged as the consensus, while T
g
's more rational view that the imperial dynasty, not Hirohito, should be preserved, was ignored.