During the postwar occupation, many of MacArthur’s policies reinforced and abetted the collective amnesia of the Japanese. By order of the supreme commander, there was no concerted public effort to preserve the history or memory of the war—no monuments, no references in school textbooks, no national museum. The decision to leave Hirohito on his throne, as a national symbol and object of reverence (if no longer worship), created a sense of continuity. Exonerating the emperor seemed a small price to pay to ease the occupation and to erect a bulwark against communism in Asia.
