JAPAN: Weakest Yet

Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the fire raids on Tokyo and Nagoya rang in Jap ears like an overture to defeat. Moscow’s denunciation of the Russo-Japanese neutrality pact sounded like the very crack of doom.

In the face of it, neither the tiger tough ness nor the political agility of Premier General Kuniaki Koiso were of any avail. Four times in eight months of office he had staved off the inevitable by reshuffling his cabinet. Now he shuffled across the ancient moat to the Imperial Palace. Be hind the unmortared walls he bowed before Emperor Hirohito, confessed his failures, offered his apologies and the collective resignation of his cabinet.

Burden of Shame. Before the day was out, the plump, myopic Son of Heaven called a trusted Court attendant and Elder Statesman, aging (77) Admiral Baron Kantaro Suzuki, President of the Privy Council, to form a new Government. On the stooped shoulders of this wrinkled old courtier might well rest the shameful bur den of leading Japan to surrender.

Baron Suzuki belongs to a bygone generation of Jap empire-builders. He was an up-&-coming naval officer during Japan’s war against China’s decadent Manchu Empire (1894-5) and against Russia’s hapless Tsarist Navy (1904-5). Before his retirement in 1927, he rose to the Navy’s supreme command. Then he joined the inner circle of the Court. As Grand Chamberlain he walked a few respectful paces behind Hirohito at public functions (see cut), helped name the Emperor’s first born son. Most important, he served as the door through which the warlords had access to the throne.

The “young officers” of the hotheaded Kwantung Army clique thought of him as an old dodderer, a “moderate,” an obstacle to the quick construction of Dai Nippon (Great Japan). One February night in 1936 they called at his house. The Grand Chamberlain had just come through Tokyo’s snowy streets from dinner and movies at the U.S. Embassy—a “happy evening,” Ambassador Joseph Grew noted in his diary. The young officers had just come from their barracks, with swords and submachine guns.

They had already called on Premier Admiral Keisuke Okada, who escaped by hiding in a servant’s closet. Having no such presence of mind, the Grand Chamberlain, confronted by 100 wild-eyed soldiers, argued with them for ten minutes. When words failed, he straightened up, commanded: “Then shoot me!” They did, and he crumpled in a pool of blood. The rebels burned incense over his body, saluted and hurried off. The incense and the salute were premature. The Grand Chamberlain somehow survived.

Round of Wails. Now it was Baron Suzuki’s turn to call on the Army extremists. As custom dictated, before naming his new cabinet, he chatted with ex-Premier Koiso and with fanatical ex-War Minister Field Marshal Gen Sugiyama. While making his round of visits, the sirens wailed, and he spent an hour or so in a shelter as U.S. bombers raked the capital.

Forty-eight hours after receiving the imperial commission, Premier Baron Suzuki announced his Government. By militarist standards, it was the weakest of Japan’s wartime cabinets. Of 14 cabinet posts, the Army held one, the Navy four, civil service and big business nine. Several of the new Ministers were violently anti-American.

Perhaps, as some Allied observers hoped, the senescent figure of Baron Suzuki was a front for a negotiated peace. “The Jap Cabinet shake-up,” cracked one, “is really a plea for mercy.”

No plea for mercy came from Premier Suzuki. Shaking his vanishing mane, the ancient mariner broadcast to his countrymen: “Developments do not warrant optimism … in the present momentous crisis. . . . But I am ready to die in leading the nation in carrying on the war and crushing the enemy.”