The key was lost and the safe remained locked for 22 years after the 1989 death of its owner, former Lt. Gen. Teiichi Suzuki of the Imperial Japanese Army, who had been the last surviving Class-A war criminal of World War II.
Suzuki, who died at the age of 100 in Shibayama, Chiba Prefecture, was among key Cabinet members when Japan started the Pacific War with the Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Two years ago, Suzuki’s relatives had NHK open the safe. Inside were diaries, notebooks and other documents, including a 16-page typed manuscript that the general had read out in front of Emperor Hirohito and national leaders at an Imperial Conference on Nov. 5, 1941, to detail Japan’s logistical strengths.
Suzuki, who headed the Planning Board, a government body in charge of allocating resources for the army, navy and civilians, concluded that Japan, which was already at war in China, would be able to still wage war against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands.
This conclusion may have helped seal the fate of Japan as well as that of millions of victims of the Pacific War.
Some key numbers described in the manuscript were apparently padded. Using those cooked-up figures, Suzuki was able to convince undecided leaders that Japan could secure the logistical supplies needed to wage war against the U.S., said Atsushi Moriyama, associate professor at the University of Shizuoka, noting this argument helped persuade Japan to embark on a hopeless fight.
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Suzuki was well aware of the huge gap between the industrial strength of the U.S. and that of Japan, and was among a few members who initially openly argued against a war with the United States.
In 1941, the gross national product of the U.S. was 12 times greater than that of Japan and the U.S. produced 12 times more crude steel and five times more aircraft and ships than Japan.
But after being pressured by a senior army officer, Suzuki made an about-face on Oct. 30, 1941, and started siding with those national leaders who advocated war, Moriyama said.
“Suzuki’s about-face was a big factor” in pushing participants in the Imperial Conference to opt for war, he said.
If Suzuki had maintained his earlier stance against the war, the Tojo Cabinet may not have started the war against the U.S., Moriyama said.
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At the end of the article a typical Japanese phenomenon is described.
According to studies by experts, many top leaders — including those from the army and navy, were, like Suzuki, reluctant to wage war with the U.S., as they were well aware of how strong it was compared with Japan.
But key government officials, including top brass in the army and navy, both feared losing face and had sectional interests to protect, thus they never expressed their “honne” (true feelings) during top decision-making meetings, Moriyama said.
Top naval leaders could not openly argue against war because the navy had earlier kept winning huge budgets by emphasizing it had to prepare to take on America. Army leaders meanwhile refused to withdraw their troops from occupied China as demanded by Washington as a precondition for the U.S. lifting its oil embargo and improving relations with Japan.
Pressure from the army and navy, which put their interests above those of the nation, eventually pushed indecisive national leaders to gamble on war with the Allies. And Suzuki’s paper helped provide a reason for those leaders to launch the Pacific War.
Moriyama is well-known for his studies on this “indecisive” political process and the sectionalism that eventually led Japan to doom in the Pacific War. Many Japanese who read his book on this theme say the organizations they belong to have very similar problems with indecisive, irresponsible leaders, Moriyama said.
“Many of my readers interpreted (the book) as that of contemporary history. A book like this should be read as a story of the past, but it’s not,” he said. “That means (Japanese) society has serious problems. That’s scary.”
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