The answer, as so often in these months, was to be found in considerations pertaining to the throne. MacArthur was galvanized into action because he believed such an initiative had become essential to protect the emperor. That is, he was motivated in great part by the same basic concern as the ultraconservatives against whom he took action. It was not mere happenstance that the status of the emperor appeared as the first of the supreme commander’s principles. This was his foremost consideration; the renunciation of war and the abolition of feudalism were secondary, being conditions that
...more