I am deeply saddened.
Posted on 06/09/2003 11:34:50 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
Tuesday, June 10, 2003 at 09:00 JST TOKYO — A draft of an apology speech thought to have been in preparation for Emperor Hirohito to give after World War II has been found among the papers of a late former chief of the imperial household office, a former Sophia University lecturer said Monday.
Kyoko Kato said she was going through documents of Michiji Tajima, who headed what is now the Imperial Household Agency from 1948, when she found the draft of the speech, handwritten by Tajima using a fountain pen on two sheets of paper.
The draft speech, estimated to have been written around autumn of 1948, shows Emperor Hirohito, known posthumously as Emperor Showa, may have been planning to admit his responsibility for the war and apologize to the Japanese people.
Concerning the responsibility for the war, the draft document mentions "deep shame" due to "my fault" and refers to feeling concerns and doubts in hindsight over the afflictions of war.
But the planned speech also shows the emperor wanted to express his intention not to abdicate, pointing to the confusion following the end of the war in August 1945 and indicating he would contribute toward rebuilding Japan.
"Give the form which begins with 'chin' (the emperor's first person pronoun), it appears it was written based on the intention of Emperor Showa and his honest feelings are incorporated in it," Kato said.
Yutaka Yoshida, a professor of modern and contemporary history at Hitotsubashi University, said he believes the draft was prepared as a way to counter ideas that the emperor should step down which popped up around the time of the 1946-1948 Tokyo war crimes tribunal.
"It is unthinkable that this kind of document would be prepared out of relation to the emperor's intentions, so I think it is safe to say it reflects the emperor's thoughts to some extent," Yoshida said.
"It is very interesting because there has not been any document until now indicating so much of the emperor's feeling of responsibility toward the citizens," he said.
The full text of the draft speech, which has 506 characters in 19 lines, will appear in the monthly magazine Bungeishunju, which will hit the stand Tuesday. (Kyodo News)
It will be very interesting to see this.
I am deeply saddened.
I've heard even worse. One Japanese told me the other day that America drew Japan into the war, and attacking Pearl Harbor was actually a defensive gesture! After all, the blockade was really America's first attack on Japan.I'll bet you dollars for donuts that the evil United States was behind putting the kibosh on the apology. They have manipulated Japan to their advantage so often since the end of the war; this is probably just another sad example of their attempt at world domination.
Toot-toot!
Nevermind the rape of Nanking. Nevermind the will to use Manchurian natural resources to further expand Japan's empire. Nevermind Japan's signature on the Tripartite agreement with Italy and Germany, which assured the entire free world which side Japan had taken.
So soon the history of Japan's terror is being rewritten. The soldiers who liberated Korea and China are mostly dead; but their memory lives on. My uncle, a former Marine, was kept in a slave labor camp after being captured on Wake island.
And what do we have now? Japan is our strongest economic competitor. Have we "manipulated" Japan into that situation in order to "dominate" the world? This cheeky little reply is nothing short of fascist propaganda.
Folks, the Nazis just went into hiding -- they're not dead.
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