[retrac]

This is a constantly changing area of history, so we're on shaky ground. The diaries of the chamberlain to Hirohito were only published a couple years ago, for example. They implicate the emperor deeply in war-time decisions in a way that contradicts the post-war narrative of a hapless well-meaning buffoon misled by his underlings.

I suspect the real reason is close to the usually accepted story, though. Millions of Japanese thought the emperor was a living god. That's how many Americans viewed it then. It's a useful interpretive lens even now.

If the Emperor concedes and surrenders, all of his legitimacy transfers to whoever the Emperor says to listen to. MacArthur got the unofficial title gaijin shogun -- foreign Shogun, the shogun being the military dictator who ruled pre-Meiji Japan, in the name of the Emperor.

Dépose or kill the emperor and all bets are off. What would be institutionally legitimate in its place? How long to construct it? When you have an entire administration in place, it'd be awfully tempting to whitewash the imperial institution. Which is exactly what MacArthur did. Speaking of which, the personality of Douglas MacArthur dominates this whole topic. He had carte blanche. Complete unlimited authority. And he exercised it, often in ways not anticipated in Washington. He was an eccentric man and quite opaque as to his decision-making.

[wrp]

> ...the post-war narrative of a hapless well-meaning buffoon...

It was clear from the start that the Emperor's involvement was being whitewashed. The Australian judge at the Tokyo trials, William Webb, argued publicly that Hirohito should be prosecuted, but it seems he could gather no political support. Since the trial, several books have covered this ground. This article by one such author gives a bit more context on the politics of the trials. (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-12/tokyo-trial-70th-anni...)

[csense]

I wonder why we didn't try the same thing in the War on Terror?

Capture high-ranking Islamic clerics, give them a choice: "Go on TV and explain to everyone that Allah's will is for all good Muslims to throw down their weapons and surrender to the Americans. If you refuse, we'll put you on trial for war crimes."

[1] In this post I'm not taking a position on the morality or legality of the US taking such an action, either in WW2 or the War on Terror. I'm merely noting that:

- The US did this sort of thing with the Emporer in WW2, and it seemed to work.

- The US didn't do this sort of thing in Afghanistan / Iraq, and those wars were definitely same kind of overwhelming success story that WW2 was. (I don't dispute some key objectives were obtained: Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were eventually killed; and there has no been 9/11 level terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11 itself.)

[bluepizza]

> quite opaque as to his decision-making

Genuine question: I thought it was well understood that his decision making was guided by a fear of Russian expansion, and that conservative measures (such as keeping the Emperor in place and several important politicians) were aimed at quickly reestablishing the country to avoid communist impetus from arising. Is this not the case?

[retrac]

Yes, you have it right. Japan collapsing politically would invite Soviet "aid" in the occupation of Japan. A partition like Germany was to be avoided. I just meant that you won't find anything from MacArthur clearly explaining it that way, as his retconned history, which became the accepted history, had a largely blameless imperial institution, so no justificatiom for its retention was really necessary.

[kfrzcode]

Sorry, how does history change?

I think perhaps the narrative, the evidence on-hand, primary sources, etc. could all be considered and as a body of historical evidence we could say the understanding from our perspective continues to evolve; but there's no world in which the history changes. Events, causality, arrow of time, etc.

[simple-thoughts]

History is not the past - it’s the study of documents from the past. So history changes for two main reasons (1) the uncovering of documents that were not previously available for study and (2) new, more convincing synthesis of the existing body of documents.

[daemoens]

I think you are being too pedantic about the word “change”. No one assumed he meant someone went back with a time machine and literally changed history.

[xvilka]

We would never know if that happens though.

[twelve40]

they had to quickly repurpose it to be used in the next big thing with whatever tools did the trick, so makes sense

[WeylandYutani]

Same happened with Western Germany. The de-nazification campaign didn't go very deep. Hell just look at von Braun.