An Inoffensive Rearmament (24 page)

A few days later, I paid a visit to General Hayashi. As we sat around his low table sipping tea in his office, I asked him what he meant when he reported that the soldiers of the NPR did not have spirit in their eyes. He smiled in his sincere manner, then, talking to his interpreter, he answered with a faraway look in his eyes. “You have often told me, Colonel, that you admired the Japanese soldier in the last war for his will to fight and his readiness to die. In the Imperial Japanese Army, the most important training that a soldier received was spiritual training. We called it ‘
seishin kyōiku.
' It was a kind of warrior religion of the army. The
yobitai
has no
seishin kyōiku.
I have looked into the eyes of my men but it is not there. All Japan is worried because the
yobitai
has no spirit. Our people ask, ‘How can the NPR fight with no
seishin kyōiku
? Who will the
yobitai
fight for? Who is the supreme commander?'”

“To the Japanese,” continued General Hayashi, “these are serious questions. I am full of deep concern for our
yobitai.
I have tried to find a satisfactory substitute to take the place of the spirit of the Imperial Army, but there is nothing in Japan that can substitute for
seishin kyōiku.
There is a great void in our hearts. Before the war, the emperor was our supreme commander. Who is our supreme commander now? The soldier of the Japanese Imperial Army was ready and eager to die for his emperor. But now, Colonel, tell me, do I ask my
yobitai
to die for a politician? How can I ask them to die for Yoshida or Ōhashi?”

How does one bridge the centuries of thinking and communicate from one mind to another what one means by fighting and dying for one's country, our way of life, our democracy, and that we fought and many died so these things would endure. I explained that we had no emperor to inspire patriotism, but we were patriotic nonetheless. Our Army was not only a great technological war machine; it was composed of ordinary men and women, who sacrificed, suffered, and died, whose blood flowed just as red and courageously as did the blood of the kamikaze and the dedicated soldiers of the
tennō,
son of heaven.

“Your soldiers fought well and you won the war, but we do not understand democracy like you do. Our soldiers need something more to fight for,” answered General Hayashi.

I wondered, could there be something greater than democracy to inspire a people? I was puzzled. Nevertheless, I left General Hayashi with a sense of good feeling. It was apparent that the Japanese leaders of the NPR were as deeply concerned as we were with the development of the moral fiber of their fighting force.

There were others, too, who were thinking about
seishin kyōiku.
Newsman Frank Robertson, writing about the new security force, had also recognized the uncertain spiritual vacuum. “But something is missing,” he wrote one time,

and if it escapes the attention of the American instructors, it is noted with some foreboding by thoughtful Japanese, who ask what is to replace Emperor worship as a source of discipline. Far from being impassive Orientals, the Japanese are highly emotional people, the men particularly. This emotion channeled by Emperor worship made them fight as frantically as they did in World War II. Emperor Hirohito still holds tremendous sway over the Japanese people, but for the time being at least the NPR is not the Emperor's Army.

No, the NPR was not yet the emperor's army. We hoped it would never become his army. But we wanted a viable fighting force, a force that could take its place on the firing line, among American units, if the Korean War ever came to Japan. One thing was certain, if the Japanese needed
seishin kyōiku
to become good soldiers, then we all wanted to know more about it.

My interpreter, Mr. Kitamura, was a veritable encyclopedia on Japanese history, religion, and mores, so I began to question him about
seishin kyōiku
. “
Seishin kyōiku
was very important to Japanese soldier,” he began. “Americans say it is ‘emperor worship.' True, but it's more. Did you ever hear about
bushidō,
Colonel?” he asked. “
Bushidō
,” Kitamura began to explain,

is what made
seishin kyōiku
work in the Imperial Japanese Army. You have heard about the samurai—the warriors of old Japan? Well you know the samurai were like your knights of King Arthur.
Bushidō
was their way of life. It was a code of ethics, a set of moral principles which guided the
life and behavior of the samurai. It was a mixture of chivalry, Buddhism, ancient Chinese philosophy, and Shintōism. Like your chivalry, it flourished in the soil of feudalism. As a code of behavior for life and battle, it was passed on by word of mouth from father to son. Little boys learned about
bushidō
on their mother's knees listening to stories about the samurai.
Bushidō
was born with the samurai and lived on to inspire the Imperial soldier of Japan. The samurai offered his life to the sun goddess Amaterasu. Our “
heitai,
” the simple soldier of the last war, dedicated his life to the emperor whom he worshipped as “the son of heaven.”
¹

“Do you think, Kitamura-san,” I interrupted, “that our
yobitai
have
seishin kyōiku
?”

“I don't know,” he answered with some confusion. “But all Japanese have
bushidō
in them and the
yobitai
are Japanese.”

I had the same feeling about our
yobitai.
Kitamura went on to explain that from Buddhism,
bushidō
passed on to the Japanese serenity, calmness, peaceful contemplation, indifference to pain, a disdain of life, and hopeful anticipation of death.
Bushidō
cooled the hot brow of the warrior and gave him poise and dignity, harmonizing his life with the Universal Being.

From the ancient Chinese philosophies,
bushidō
distilled the politico-ethics of Confucius. It helped to cement the relationship between master and servant and sovereign and subject. It argued the infallibility of conscience and emphasized cleavage between right and wrong.

The native religion of Shintō, or Way of the Gods, gave
bushidō
its special Japanese twist, a filial piety and reverence for ancestors that has no equal in any other creed in the world. It glorified man who indeed was believed to be part god. It taught that the soil of Japan was sacred, the abode of gods where the spirits of the ancestors continued to live and watch over the living. Shintō gave
bushidō
a uniquely Japanese love of race and country. It anchored the warrior to the twin pillars of patriotism and loyalty.

With the flow of generations, these simple precepts became a way of life for the common folk. There was stamped upon the people and the whole nation a deep sense of moral goodness and rigid conformance to strict ethical principles. Japan became a nation of stoics who placed high moral value on endurance, fortitude, and perseverance. It glorified suffering and enshrined those who sacrificed.
There is, for example, a story of a little prince who bravely proclaims, “For a samurai, when his stomach is empty, it is a disgrace to be hungry.” And a young mother in a nursery tale reproaches her first born with, “What a coward to cry for a trifling pain! What will you do when an arm is cut off?” This was the
bushidō
of the samurai and of the common man. It helps us understand the banzai charge, the kamikaze, and the Japanese soldier fighting onto death. “All Japanese have
bushidō
in them.”

Unfortunately for Japan and also for the rest of the world,
bushidō
was susceptible to easy perversion. In the hands of superpatriots, it became a powerful tool of the militarists. While it could inspire a simple peasant soldier to a hero's death,
bushidō
could also be used indoctrinate a people into believing that they were the chosen of the gods.

Playing on the emotional strings of patriotism, loyalty, and racial superiority, militarists seized the imagination of the Japanese people. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), they kindled in the breasts of the humble farmer and the factory worker a fiery zeal not unlike that which burned in the hearts of the Crusaders. Whereas the Crusaders banded together in the name of Christianity, the people of Japan bowed as one to the
tennō.
A nation of little gods became convinced its number one god, the emperor, would lead the Japanese to world domination.

Probably the question that puzzled Americans during the occupation more than any other was, “How could the nips ever believe that they could whip the United States? Why did they ever get sucked into the war?” I used to ponder this question because during my four and a half years' stay in Japan, I grew to like the people very much. I found them extremely intelligent, practical, and hardworking. I could not understand why these sensible people permitted themselves to get into the war.

The best explanation for their involvement that I heard came from a senior officer of the Japanese Imperial Navy. “It was the stupid army,” he said, “that got us into the war. The navy had better sense. We were better informed. Between the First and Second World Wars our navy visited many countries. So did our diplomats and businessmen. We knew the world. We knew the United States. We were very much aware of the economic capabilities of your country and the potential of your people. We in the navy did not believe we had any business fighting you.” Continuing, he said, “But the army was stupid. Its senior officers were fooled by their own success in China and Manchuria. They knew only the
limited capabilities of the backward Chinese people. They were uneducated men and uninformed about the rest of the world. Because they were able to whip the Chinese, they thought they could whip the Americans. The army generals got us into the war because they were ignorant.”

Maybe so, but I often wondered the role of
tennō,
the divine emperor of Japan, and the appointed destiny of a mesmerized people. It is hard to believe today that just prior to World War II, General Senjurō Hayashi (no relative of my friend), then minister of war, could frantically declare to the effect that not only the Imperial Army but the entire nation regarded the emperor as a living god, and that for Japanese it was not a question of historical or scientific accuracy but an article of national faith.

This, mind you, was a public statement made by a minister of a modern nation in the twentieth century. How could anyone believe in a “living god”? I could not understand it, until one day I had an unusual opportunity to get a feeling of how deeply the Japanese felt about their emperor. We were on an inspection tour of camps on the northern island of Hokkaidō, traveling comfortably in a special railroad car. In the group were four Japanese officers of General Group Headquarters, General Hayashi, and myself. Before dinner, we sat down to have some traditional
saké.
I broke out a bottle of scotch and a bottle of bourbon. Before long we all deserted the
saké,
and my friends' faces began to glow with the warm relaxed flush that American whiskey always brought to Japanese faces.

General Hayashi, before his appointment as chief of the General Group, in his capacity as steward to the Imperial household, was very close to the Imperial family and especially Emperor Hirohito. As the evening wore on, I finally found the courage to ask him about his life and experiences at the Imperial Palace. The subject was not taboo, but I noted a reluctance in the Japanese to talk about the emperor. General Hayashi put his glass down and looked at me sternly. Then he began to talk in a low whisper. When he mentioned the emperor, he bowed his head in reverence and the four aides drew in their breaths audibly. They leaned forward as one, listening intently. “Colonel,” concluded Hayashi, his face aglow with a beautiful light that only complete faith can bring, “you cannot realize what it is for a Japanese to be in the presence of the emperor. It is like something out of this world. It is beautiful. In his presence, you are overcome with calm and serenity.”

The general's face was burning with fever, and his eyes were glazed. His aides sat in a trance, staring into the infinite. Time had stopped for them.

I didn't find out much that evening about life in the Imperial household, but I think I learned something about the Japanese people and their emotional attachment to their emperor. General Hayashi was no ignorant peasant, nor were his officers. They were all intelligent, highly sophisticated men. Nor can I believe that General Hayashi was taken in by any false concepts of race superiority. He was simply a Japanese person reared in the quasi-religious climate of
bushidō
who acquired a heavy dose of
seishin kyōiku
from his military father, and his conditioning was showing that evening. His devotion and that of his officers to the sacred emperor may be fantastic for the Western mind, but it is deeply rooted in the Japanese. It is beyond reason or scientific analysis.

We were indeed well-advised at the time of our victory over Japan in refraining from attacking the institution of the emperor. Our acceptance and retention of the emperor made the task of occupying and governing the country infinitely easier. For belief in the divinity of the emperor was so deeply ingrained in the people of Japan that even in the blackest days of national defeat the son of heaven was able to order his people to surrender to the Western barbarians, and his most fanatical subjects accepted his will without a murmur.

Even Sanzō Nosaka, the oracle of the Japan Communist Party, never once directly attacked the institution of the emperor. It makes one wonder whether Nosaka and the communist leadership could have visualized a communist Japan with an emperor behind the moat in the Imperial Palace at Tōkyō. Some believe that's the kind of communism Japan could accept.