Memo points to Hirohito’s role in WWII

A newly released memo by a wartime Japanese official provides what a historian says is the first look at the thinking of Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that thrust the U.S. into World War II.

While far from conclusive, the fivepage document lends credence to the view that Hirohito bears at least some responsibility for starting the war.

At 8:30 p.m. in Tokyo, hours before the attack, Tojo summoned two aides for a countdown to war briefing. One of them, Vice Interior Minister Michio Yuzawa, wrote an account three hours after the meeting.

“The emperor seemed at ease and unshakable once he had made a decision,” he quoted Tojo as saying.

To what extent Hirohito was responsible for the war is a sensitive topic in Japan, and the bookseller who discovered the memo kept it under wraps for nearly a decade before releasing it to Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper, which published it this past week.

Hirohito was protected from indictment in the Tokyo war crimes trials during a U.S. occupation that wanted to use him as a symbol to rebuild Japan as a democratic nation. Hirohito died in 1989 at age 87 after 62 years on the throne.

“It took me nine years to come forward, as I was afraid of a backlash,” said bookshop owner Takeo Hatano.

Takahisa Furukawa, a Nihon University expert on wartime history, called the memo the first detailed portrayal of Tojo and Hirohito before the attack.

The memo supports the view that Hirohito was not as concerned about waging war on the U.S. as was once portrayed, Furukawa said.

Hideki Tojo