This is John Batcher, conversation with Professor Gary Bass, his book, Judgment at

Tokyo, World War II on Trial in the Making of Modern Asia. To deal with a war crimes

tribunal is to deal with how the charges are levied.

Who is charged with what?

What is a Class A war crime?

The professor explains here, this isn't straightforward.

You can't see something out of line like Pearl Harbor and immediately jump to Class A

War Crime. How do you do it? How do you translate it?

This will be useful for the balance of the 21st century given the conflict zones.

Gary Bass, Class A war crime.

What is that?

And who?

Many of whom are to be executed.

So generally when people think of class A you just think major war criminal but what it actually means is those accused of aggressive war.

So because the decision to launch aggressive war. So because the decision to launch aggressive war to invade China, to grab Indochina, to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor, those are top-level decisions.

The decision, Class A war criminals are the most senior people and that include

Tojo.

They go after everyone who is in his cabinet at the time of Pearl Harbor, including a man named Togo Chiganori, who was actually the foremost voice within the Japanese government arguing against attacking Pearl Harbor, but he is nevertheless sort of rounded in with the cabinet.

And the focus is on that the military, especially the army, the Japanese army even more so than the Navy is extremely bellicose.

There are also civilian ideologues, prime ministers, foreign ministers in there.

And it's a, as well as a bunch of generals including General Matsui Awane who was

commanding troops at the time of the Nanjing massacre in 1937, 1938.

...