Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarization of Japan

by Meirion Harries and Susie Harries

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0025483404
• ISBN13: 9780025483408
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Great Readable Treasure of Modern History

This has great many untold aspects of history.For example:"[General Douglas] MacArthur, however, believed the Tanaka Memorial to be a reality (as did Hollywood, in Blood of the Sun, James Cagney was sent to Japan to retrieve it). When Joseph Ballantine visited Tokyo in May 1946 he found the staff of the IPS feverishly ransacking the Japanese Foreign Office and General Staff archieves for the original of the infamous document. Their desperation was no doubt fuelled by the fact that by then the Indictment had already been lodged in court, served on the accused, and broadcast to the world. Soon after Ballantine's visit, however, it seems to have dawned on the IPS that vital piece of evidence might be a chimera. The New York Times of May 5, 1946 [Just after the open of the Court of Tokyo Trial!!] reported Ichiro Hatoyama as challenging MacArthur's view of Japan's past and explaining that the Memorial was a Chinese forgery. This was supported by Ballantine, who told the IPS quite simply that the Memorial was a hoax and had never existed. According to him, the lawyers then stopped looking."This fact is known by a few scholars even in Japan.Please think what does it mean.