I'm John Batser. Peter Moke is the author. Tojo's the book, The Rise and Fall of Japan's most

controversial World War II. Peter's book is extremely comprehensive about the negotiations

in the Japanese cabinet before the war during the war, concentrating, of course, on Tojo

because everything comes through his desk. However, the emperor is also watching, and we come to a point

where the emperor knows that the Allied advance, the American advance, is collapsing the co-prosperity,

co-defense, national defense sphere that Japan had created around itself. And once that sphere collapses and the Americans have air bases inside the sphere, that

means Tokyo will be bombed.

Early in the war, April of 42, the Doolittle Raid shocked the emperor, shocked all of

Tokyo that the Americans could bomb because they'd been promised they

would never reach us with their B-25s or B-17s.

That was a raid.

It wasn't a follow-up, but once the B-29, the most elaborate and cranky machine ever

invented, once the B-29 reached Saipan and Tinian Islands, that means Japan was under the gun,

and America would burn it, and it did burn it. It burned every city they could reach under

Curtis LeMay in the Air Force, using the B-29 and firebombing. That was in 45.

The emperor knew this was coming.

I make all this point, Peter, because the emperor was clearly also a details man, clearly also in conversation with his family and with Tojo and with others that the war was not

going to be anything but a defeat and that it's time for us to think about an exit.

He was very involved day to day, so much so that the presentation of the emperor that I first learned in the 20th century said he was removed from daily affairs because he was the spiritual center of Japan.

It was necessary to maintain him after the war so that Japan as a society could reorganize itself.

All that is good logic. I agree.

But the emperor was very detailed, and I believe he never – I'll put it this way. Did he approve of Tojo?

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