Book Review - Japan's Imperial Conspiracy by David Bergamini

Japan's Imperial Conspiracy by David Bergamini, with an introduction by Sir William Flood Webb

London: Heinemann, 1971                               ISBN 0434066907

What a piece of work this book is. The subtitle on the cover; "how Emperor Hirohito led Japan into war against the West", is what Bergamini sets out to show us in over a thousand closely argued and densely woven pages. Bergamini (who was interned by the Japanese in the Philippines during the war) sets out to show the reader that Hirohito, far from being the puppet ruler of common historical thought, was actually a driven empire-builder, who spent decades preparing his "Strike South" into Asia, attempt to rid Asia of American and British influence and assert Japanese overlordship of the globe. There is no doubt that Bergamini had a fire in his blood to prove his thesis.

Whether he does, even after a thousand pages, is unclear. Even though there are almost one hundred pages of notes, Bergamini often puts his own interpretation on what his sources are saying, sometimes to the point of stating that the sources mean the opposite of what they say. He makes much of the allusive style of the Japanese, and the horror of losing face, to perhaps twist motivations and actions of people to fit his ideas.

So what is his thesis? Basically that Hirohito was fulfilling his grandfather's pledge to rid Japan of Westerners and become a great empire. The two options to do that were to "Strike North", attack Russia and slice off Siberia for a Japanese enclave, or "Strike South", and move into South-East Asia and gain the raw materials there. Bergamini sets up the two factions, and shows that Hirohito early on decided on a "Strike South" strategy, and spent years discrediting the "Strike North" faction by engineering all the coups and assassinations that occurred during Japan in the 1930s. Hirohito then prosecuted the War, not as a puppet-like figurehead, but as a vigorous war leader.

Unfortunately for Bergamini, when he gets to the crucial parts of his thesis, the evidence lets him down. During the various coups in the 1930s, Hirohito did not play the part Bergamini wants him to play, and the general absurdity of his idea that Hirohito would countenance a coup against his government and assassination of his Prime Minister to discredit one faction or another is a bit too much to take.

However, there is a lot of information in this book, and it is a fascinating insight into recent Japanese history. The quick technical advancement of the Japanese nation, which combined with a kind of naivety about world opinion and affairs, is something that characterises the period of which Bergamini is writing.

When it gets to the War (to give an idea of how much space Bergamini commits to the intrigues of Japanese history before the War, the Pearl Harbour attack doesn't appear until page 800), Bergamini is perhaps on surer ground, but still draws some strange conclusions; for instance, he claims that Japanese brutality toward prisoners was a deliberate ploy to try and get the West to sue for peace - now the Japanese may have been naive as to the ways of the West to a certain extent, but it's hard to see how Bergamini can come to the conclusion he does on the evidence he presents.

So what was Hirohito's role in the planning and execution of the War? Bergamini is probably right when he (briefly, given the size of his book), explains how Hirohito escaped charge at the end of the War, and that the 28 "Class A" war criminals sent to trial were carefully picked to ensure that Hirohito's name was not sullied. There is no doubt that Hirohito should have faced court as did other leaders of Japan, he was not a constitutional monarch like George VI, and had much more control over events than has been generally explained. Certainly the Australian Government wanted Hirohito to be tried. The Americans - led by MacArthur - who had to run occupied Japan, knew that they needed a compliant Hirohito to enable that occupation to take place, and to help Japan rebuild herself after the devastation. To a Western outlook, Hirohito cannot have escaped the moral guilt of waging aggressive war, even though he escaped the arms of justice.

I'm not sure if I recommend this book or not. There is certainly a lot of information in here for the student of recent Japanese history, but it needs to be leavened with much other reading.



Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell