The Emperor and I
Former Newsweek Bureau Chief Bernard Krisher recalls how he got the scoop of a lifetime
Metropolis
Tokyo
March 24, 2006
"EPOCHAL" IS HOW NEWSWEEK JAPAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KEIGO Takeda describes Bernard Krisher's 1975 interview with Emperor Showa, known during his lifetime as Emperor Hirohito.
Members of the imperial family do not normally grant interviews. They give prepared responses to an ''audience'' of journalists on special occasions, but oneon-one interviews are incredibly rare. Thirty years ago they were unheard of.''It was a historic scoop, the first exclusive print interview with an emperor,' says Takeda, who retold the story in Newsweek Japan's 20th anniversary issue last month. This is how Krisher did it:
From the moment I landed in Japan in 1962 as a Newsweek correspondent my goal was to obtain an interview with Emperor Hirohito.
In the years that followed I succeeded in interviewing scores of other notable personalities, including all Japanese prime ministers, but the opportunity to meet Emperor Hirohito escaped me year after year. So in 1974 I decided I would try to use everything I ever learned about Japan and build my strategy to attain ''the impossible."
I learned that nemawashi, or the art of reaching a favorable consensus, would be the most important factor.
When I read the emperor would visit the United States in October 1975, I saw the path to getting this interview. There was now an occasion for it along with the national concern that the visit should be a success. In his previous trip to Europe, the emperor met with some hostile demonstrations. To gain a favorable consensus.
I met with dozens of bureaucrats and politicians over the next six months, aiming to persuade them that such an interview published in Newsweek, read around the globe, influencing opinion makers as well as the public; would contribute to humanizing the emperor and gain him popularity and esteem.
I asked everyone that they keep our meeting confidential (so as to avoid other journalists from making a competitive request-and remarkably none did), that they support my proposal or at least not oppose it. Most everyone thought it was a good idea but said they were not in a position to push it. I replied that I just did not want them to oppose it if asked.
Then I met with key ministers. Finance Minister Takeo Fukuda suggested that The New York Times and Time conduct a joint interview with me. I replied that The New York Times, a daily would beat us and we wouldn't be able to run it. (I also said that newspapers circulate only in one city, and people wrap fish in them.) As for Time, a new correspondent had just arrived.
Foreign Minister Kiichi Miyazawa asked me if there was anyone in the bureaucracy who opposed my request, and I told him only Mizuo Kuroda, the
Foreign Ministry's director-general for public information, who said my idea was presumptuous. Miyazawa said he "could take care of it." He removed Kuroda from the entourage that was planning the trip, as well as from the trip itself, replacing him with the previous director-general, Naraichi Fujiyama, now ambassador to Italy.
A consensus in my favor was almost reached in June, but I was asked to wait over the summer until September for the final word. The trip was scheduled for September 30 to October 13, 1975.
But then a hurdle appeared. Miyazawa informed me the grand steward of the Imperial Household, Kokukinsyo Usami, had agreed to Newsweek but suggested the editor conduct the interview instead of me. This objection appeared to be based on an article I wrote a few years earlier, "Who is Really Who in Japan;' which focused on a number of little-known people who were powerful figures behind the scenes. Among them I profiled Usami as the shadow emperor.'' This apparently upset him.
I countered that I had spent 15 years in Japan and provided the world with a sound interpretation of the country. If Japan preferred to choose someone else, then I would ask to be moved to another country.Miyazawa relented but suggested I find a way to pacify Usami. I then came up with two people I lrnew who were close to Usami and. approached them for their support. One was former Foreign Minister Toshio Kimura, a relative of Usami, whom I had featured in a Newsweek interview that he liked and that he had used in a political campaign; Kimura had even invited me to his daughter's wedding. I also knew former Ambassador to Britain.
MorioYukawa, who was now the Imperial Household's master of ceremonies. Yukawa's son was a public relations director of Nissan whom I met frequently. My wife and I once tried to arrange an omiai (prospective marriage introduction) between him and the daughter of a prominent politician we knew, but it didn't succeed. Both parties agreed to put in a good word with Usami. It worked. He removed his objection to me. So, in early September I was notified the interview was on.
I had kept the project secret from everyone except my wife, my assistant and Newsweek's foreign editor, Edward Klein. As we shared an office with The Washington Post, correspondent Don Oberdorfer could see my telexes, so I camouflaged it as ''the agricultural project' in internal messages with Ed. The emperor was "the farmer.''
The interview was set for Saturday, September 20, at I 1 am, ten days before the emperor's departure for the States. A group meeting was scheduled for Monday with two dozen US journalists and the emperor. Someone in the Foreign Ministry had carefully calculated that if I met the emperor on Saturday morning it would be too late to scoop the other group as Newsweek appears on Tuesday in Japan and the deadline is Friday night. By alerting Newsweek to this, Ed was able to hold one page open for my interview to appear in the US before the group interview.
My request to use a tape recorder was rejected as being too large and cumbersome but when I came up with a very small prototype Sony unit used in the space shuttle I was allowed to bring it and place it unobtrusively under my and the emperor's chair. I was not able to keep the tapes after transcribing the text but a year later Grand Chamberlain Sukemasa Irie returned one to me because the trip ''had been such a success."
I requested that a photograph be taken but was informed photos are only permitted with heads of state. I persuaded the Foreign Ministry's chief of protocol, Hiroshi Uchida, however, that without a photo, the public might not believe that I had actually interviewed the emperor but that I had instead received written answers to written questions (as was the case of a UPI interview right after the war). The Imperial Household Agency then agreed the palace photographer would take a photo and give me the film, which I arranged to be developed at a studio I booked so we could wire a print to RCA in New York for pickup by Newsweek. When the clerk saw the photo, he rose and bowed.
Two days before the interview, Uchida visited my office to relay some very good news. The Imperial Household also invited my wife to join me, and Empress Nagako would attend too. I came home to inform my wife, Akiko, of this invitation Akiko said she smelled a trick: if she went, with all the platitudes, it would become an audience and not an interview. She wanted me to make the most of the scheduled 30 minutes and have a genuine interview. ''Tell them I have a cold,' she said.
The day before, I asked our driver to come in on Saturday. He refused, saying it was his day off. Then I told him the reason: I needed him to drive me to the palace to meet the emperor. He was astounded. He went out, bought himself a new suit, got a haircut and polished our car all afternoon.
The night before, I told our pre-teen children, Debbie and Joseph, that I would be interviewing the emperor the next day. They put me down to size. Debbie replied, "Oh you think you're so great So what?'' Joseph nodded in agreement.
Before 11 the next morning, our car drove up to the Imperial Household Agency building through Babasakimon, and Ambassador Fujiyama then walked me through the corridors housing the emperor's audience chamber. I walked into the pink-carpeted Shakkyo-no-ma room and greeted the grand chamberlain, Iris, as well as Yukawa and the interpreter, former Ambassador to Afghanistan Hideki Masaki. I was shown where I would sit, placed the two tape recorders under the chairs, and then walked out again to wait until the emperor entered from his quarters.
When I re-entered, the emperor walked to greet me, and I instinctively shook his hand saying, ''This is the most exciting day of my life. He grinned broadly. We sat down and the interview began. I asked questions in a different order than I submitted them and asked a few follow-ups. The emperor had no notes, he did not ask to be briefed with answers. He spent most of the previous day reading my questions responses. They were his own answers, succinct. The most significant was that he had always acted as a constitutional monarch. I was asked to keep the interview to 30 minutes, but no one signaled me to stop when I went over the limit. After 32 minutes I decided to stop asking questions. I transcribed the text in a nearby room over a cup of noodles with Fujiyama, who agreed it was a perfect and most memorable historic interview.
The emperor left a lasting impression of being a very humble, modest person. I cannot believe, as some foreign historians claim, that he was the strategist behind the war. He remains in my mind the first gentleman of Japan.
Krisher's morning with the emperor infuriated rivals at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan, which overlooks the palace, when the interview was published a day before their audience. "I was really ticked off, to put it mildly,'' recalls Richard Halloran, then bureau chief of The New York Times, who had once shared an office with Krisher. ''But on the other hand, I had to congratulate Bernie. I mean, it never even occurred to me to request an interview. Bernie did his job, and he did it a whole lot better than the rest of us."
A TALK WITH THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN
Before World War II, Emperor Hirohito of Japan was regarded by his subjects as a god, Even in the postwar era. The Emperor, now 74, remained an aloof figure, cloistered in the Imperial Palace and certainly not available to the press. When it became known seven months ago that the Emperor would make his first visit to the United States in October of this year, NEWSWEEK's Tokyo bureau chief Bernard Krisher began a campaign to penetrate the Chrysanthemum Curtain for an interview with Hirohito. Krisher pressed his case with numerous officials, Cabinet ministers and members of the powerful imperial household. Finally last week, his persistence paid off and he was summoned to the palace for an audience.
Newsweek
September 29, 1975
Page 7
"Meeting Hirohito was the highlight of my thirteen years in Japan," cabled Krisher. "I was ushered into a large reception room, and the Emperor and I shook hands. I told him that I could not sleep the night before out of excitement. That broke the ice, He grinned broadly and we began to talk," Below, excerpts from their conversation -- the first exclusive interview with Hirohito ever to appear in print:
KRISHER: Why does Your Majesty wish to visit the United States? Do you have any particular feeling about America and Americans?
EMPEROR HIROHITO: I am going to the United States at the kind invitation of President Ford and am looking forward to meeting him again as well as to deepen the friendly relations between our two countries. As to my view of Americans, they seem to have very clear cut views; they are always straightforward, pragmatic and realistic; I believe they are a people who are very easy to be friends with.
Q. What arw the particular ingredients that Your Majesty feels have contributed to the 2,000-year survival of the imperial tradition?
A. Because, throughout history, the imperial family has always given first thought to the welfare of the people.
Q. What are Your Majesty's views toward those Japanese who feel the imperial tradition is no longer necessary in a modern Japan?
A. There are many different people in this country but I believe, generally speaking, the Japanese people have a respect for the imperial family.
Q. Could Your Majesty compare your prewar and postwar roles?
A. I don't think there has been any change, spiritually, in my- prewar and postwar roles. I feel I have always acted in strict observance of the constitution.
Q. Your Majesty, it is common knowledge that you played a significant role in ending the war. How do you answer those who contend that you were also in on the decision-malting process that caused Japan to enter the war?
A. At the time of the termination of the war, I made the decision on my own. That is because the Prime Minister failed to obtain agreement in the Cabinet and asked my opinion, So, I stated my opinion and then made the decision according to my opinion. Now, at the time of the outbreak of the war and also before the war, when the Cabinet made decisions; I could not override their decisions, I believe this was in accordance with the provisions of the Japanese constitution.
Q. Who have been among the major influences of your life?
A. Needless to say, I have met many people and have been influenced by them but it would be very difficult to pinpoint who had the greatest influence on me, Even if I were to choose some great figure from history, I would hesitate to do so because any comment from me might cause some repercussion on their descendants. But perhaps I could cite within my own family, my grandfather -- Emperor Meiji. I always have kept his deeds in my mind.
Q. As a scientist and marine biologist, could you give your opinion about the state of the environment and the growing pollution in Japan and the world?
A. There are various types of pollution. One I can cite particularly is contamination by oil. The countries of the world should cooperate to prevent the situation from getting wore, I believe that if people would treat nature carefully it would be possible to protect the environment and permit life and nature to flourish.
Q. What were the happiest and saddest days of your life?
A. My happiest memories are of my visit to Europe 50 years ago and again with the Empress there a few years ago. Now my happiest expectation is looking forward to our trip to the United States. The saddest time, without doubt, was the last war.
Q. What advice would you give the next Emperor, Crown Prince Akihito, so that he may carry out his duties as you have?
A. The Crown Prince may have his own ideas, but it has always been the tradition of the imperial family to act for the benefit of the people so I am also looking forward to such an attitude on his part as well.
Q. Will the imperial family be more open in the future?
A. That is my constant hope, but it may not always be so easy to achieve, owing to the circumstances of the times, At present this could inconvenience too many people,
Q. Has Your Majesty ever wished to become a common man for just one day, to leave the palace completely incognito and do as you please? If so, what would you do?
A. That has been my desire, deep in nay heart. Perhaps something like Mark Twain's "Prince and the Pauper." If I were to realize such a wish, however, perhaps the conclusion might turn out the same as in the story.
LOCAL HERO
Metropolis
Tokyo
March 24, 2006
CLINCHING AN INTERVIEW WITH THE EMPEROR of Japan is impressive. But it's not why Time magazine selected Bernard Krisher as one of its "Asian Heroes" last year. For the past 14 years, Krisher, who still lives in Tokyo, has channeled his attentions -- and his connections made during 45 years in Asia -- to Cambodia, where he has constructed 275 schools and publishes a newspaper, The Cambodia Daily. For more information about Krisher's Cambodian projects, visit one of the following websites:
Japan Relief for Cambodia/American Assistance for Cambodia
Building 295 web-enabled schools and counting
www.cambodiaschools.comRATANAKIRI
A marketplace for selling locally made coffee, clothes and hand-made paper goods.
www.ratanakiri.comRobib Village
A village exporting its silk scarves to meet orders placed online
www.villageleap.comFuture Light Orphanage
Children learning computer skills needed to lift them out of poverty
www.futurelight.netSave Three Lives
Offering malaria-fighting mosquito nets for five dollars
www.save3lives.comShihanouk Hospital Center of Hope
A hospital providing free treatment for the poor and training for medical professionals
www.sihosp.orgThe Camobida Daily
Establishing a free press and training journalists
www.cambodiadaily.comTravel With a Heart
Tourists get the chance to meet local people and help their economies directly
www.travelwithaheart.com
