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Hirohito helped
plan Dec. 7 attack,
book says

The emperor also issued his army's
'burn all, kill all, steal all' orders
for Asia, the historian-
author claims

---

By J.L. Hazelton
Associated Press

TOKYO -- Japan's wartime emperor, no puppet of his military, was closely involved in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor and issued his army's "burn all, kill all, steal all" orders in Asia, an American historian says in a new book that challenges half a century of assumptions about Hirohito.

The myth of the passive emperor was an unholy creation of Hirohito himself and the U.S. occupation authorities, Herbert P. Bix says in "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan," just published by HarperCollins.

While Bix's conclusions about the emperor's role in World War II and Japan's aggression in Asia in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as about the U.S. government's efforts to protect him afterward, are not all new, he documents his argument meticulously, including excerpts from diaries and memoirs of those close to Hirohito, and synthesizes decades of work by Japanese scholars and journalists.

He has yet to find a Japanese publisher. The Japanese still find it difficult to discuss responsibility for the war, often thinking of themselves as victims rather than aggressors. And criticism of Hirohito is rare.

A spokesman for the Imperial Household Agency declined to comment on Bix's book yesterday, saying he did not think anyone there had read it or was aware of its contents.

Japan scholars in the West have praised the work, calling it a "work of impeccable scholarship," "riveting," and "definitive."

Hirohito was a shy, retiring man, but he "matured into a controlling war leader," Bix said yesterday in an address at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

"Stubborn. Complex. Conflicted. A man forced almost from birth to assume burdens that no human being could possibly measure up to," Bix said. Japan's emperor, considered a living god, knew that "his decisions were final."

"After the war, he proved himself an extraordinary survivor ... determined to do whatever was necessary to ensure the continuity of his imperial dynasty," Bix said.

The Americans, meanwhile, began portraying Hirohito and the Japanese people as pawns of their brutal military even before the end of the war, hoping to drive a wedge that would bring the nation to surrender and then use the emperor to help them govern and ultimately reshape Japan.

The U.S. Occupation forces took care to keep any taint of guilt far from Hirohito at the Tokyo war crimes trials, creating more problems than they solved, Bix said.

Not only did this policy allow the Japanese people to avoid coming to terms with their nation's role in the war, Bix argues that it helped set the principle of impunity for heads of state.

That principle is being tested today, he said, with attempts, for example, to try Gen. Augusto Pinochet for human rights abuses committed during his dictatorship in Chile.

Japan's role in Asia is still hobbled by its reluctance to take responsibility for atrocities committed under Hirohito, including enslaving women to provide sex for its soldiers, massacring civilians and looting cities.

For Americans, the burning memory is of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, of death marches and prisoners of war who never came home from the Pacific Theater.

While Hirohito often found it necessary to exert his influence indirectly, Bix examined both the formal and informal chains of command and found Hirohito was without question the commander in chief of Japan's military.

In the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, "Emperor Hirohito met repeatedly with his chiefs of staff, questioned his aides about the country's air defenses, reviewed the organization of the fleet, examined war plans and maps, and received reports on the status of all the units moving into position on the various invasion fronts," writes Bix, a professor at Japan's Hitotsubashi University.

When "X Day" came, with attacks on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Asia, '"The emperor wore his naval uniform and seemed to be in a splendid mood,"' Bix quotes his naval aide as writing.

Bix portrays a very human emperor-god.

Long after he told his people that he was no divinity and that he had surrendered, long after the U.S.-written constitution stripped him of all authority, Hirohito missed what he had lost.

He continued to receive briefings from government officials, hoping to retain influence, if nothing more.

"He was a man educated to play a very particular role ... and he wanted to be a benevolent monarch," Bix said. "He was not an evil man."

But how to account for the atrocities? Hirohito knew that his soldiers were taking no prisoners, and he issued the "burn all-kill all-steal all" orders in Asia, Bix said.

"His errors are errors of pride," Bix said of his tragically flawed protagonist, "and of course he was influenced by the men around him and by the spirit of the times."

"In imperial Japan there was only one free man and that was Hirohito," Bix said. "Until the very end he was never lacking in options, choices, and his will was never subjected to that of another human being."