Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (143 page)

Admiral Yonai responded that he certainly agreed. The best way to establish his majesty's innocence would be to have T
j
and Shimada take all responsibility. “However, as far as Shimada is concerned, I am already convinced he is prepared to take full responsibility.”
¹⁰

There was a reason for Yonai's confidence in Admiral Shimada. The Shidehara government had been implementing its own policy of immunizing the emperor from war responsibility and, through Suzuki Tadakatsu, head of the War Termination Liaison Bureau in Yokohama, had already secured Shimada's consent to take responsibility for the opening of the war. A similar assurance from T
j
had apparently not been forthcoming.

Two weeks later Mizota penned a memorandum concerning a second conversation with Fellers on March 22 in which Fellers said:

The explicit anti-Semitism of Fellers (like his and MacArthur's hatred of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Deal, and all liberals), and how he and MacArthur transmitted their bigotry to Japan's leaders, had not been reflected in the draft version of the new constituion and had no influence on the conversion of the monarchy to “symbol.”
¹²
But MacArthur's truly extraordinary measures to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a lasting and profoundly distorting impact on Japanese understanding of the lost war.

Months before the Tokyo tribunal commenced, MacArthur's highest subordinates were working to attribute ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor to Gen. T
j
Hideki. So too were T
j
's own army colleagues. Back in September, T
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, on receiving word that his arrest was imminent, had attempted suicide. While he was recovering, his former subordinates had again gotten word to him that he had to live in order to protect the emperor. T
j
understood, and wanted to own up to his disgrace by shouldering all responsibility for the defeat. Since his testimony would be vital, either absolving or implicating Hirohito, it could not be left to chance.