The most famous image of the Allied Occupation of Japan, which ran from August 1945 to April 1952, shows General Douglas MacArthur looming over a diminutive Emperor Hirohito. The Japanese government at the time regarded the photo as a fiasco. In the past, only Imperial Household photographers had been allowed anywhere near the emperor with a camera, and even they had to stay at least 20 metres back and use telephoto lenses. Hirohito had a slight stoop, which meant that only his upper body was permitted to be photographed. Shots from sideways on were forbidden. Not only is MacArthur far more physically imposing in the photograph, but the emperor’s suit appears not to fit him very well; as a manifest kami (god), the emperor could not be touched by his tailor.
The Japanese government quickly tried to ban the media from publishing the photograph. But the Occupation authorities overturned the ban, knowing full well the message that it would send: the Allies, and more specifically the Americans, were in charge now – with MacArthur leading proceedings, as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). Held in awe both by Japan’s leaders and by many within the Occupation itself – who joked that he could be found, early in the morning, walking on the water around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo – MacArthur acquired the nickname ‘the Blue-Eyed Shogun’.
That nickname, combined with the infamous photograph, captures the Occupation’s momentous place in Japanese history. As Hirohito would have known all too well, his family had not held real authority in Japan for the best part of a thousand years. Military men had ruled in their stead: shoguns, warlords, and, most recently, senior figures in the Imperial Japanese Army. There had been only a relatively brief interlude, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Japan was run by civilian politicians. And here they now were again: a military man intent on using the emperor as his puppet.