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n each read the manuscript carefully and I am
grateful for their comments.
1 Kunai Ch6, KunaiC ho~rr an (I965), p. 33.
2 The Japanese had every reason to fear for the continuation of the imperial
institution. Just prior to Potsdam, 'I [Dean Acheson] was soon engaged in a sharp
difference of opinion with Joe Grew regarding the future of the Emperor of Japan.
Grew argued for his retention as the main stabilizing factor in Japan; I argued that
he should be removed because he was a weak leader who had yielded to the military
demand for war and who could not be relied upon. Grew's view fortunately prevailed.
I very shortly came to see that I was quite wrong.' Dean Acheson, Present at the
oo26-749X/8o/o309-o207$o2.oo ? I980 Cambridge University Press
529
collapse, even though, as we shall see, it no longer enjoys the kind of
centrality that it had in the Japanese polity from 1889 to 1945.
For the purpose of analyzing the role of the imperial institution in
today's Japan it might prove useful to focus on two basic 'sides' of that
role: external conditions and internal resources. By external conditions
is meant the environment outside the palace gates that defines-and has
always defined in historical times-the place of the imperial institution
in the Japanese polity. By internal resources is meant the structure and
personnel of the palace, including the imperial family-what, in other
words, the imperial institution 'has to offer' Japanese society.
External Conditions
My emphasis on the importance of the external conditions is made in
the light of the essential passivity of the imperial institution, especially
since the twelfth century. In the Meiji Settlement of I868-89 the
political centrality of the imperial institution was createdfor, not by, the
emperor and imperial family, and the emperor's role from 1889 to 1945
was managed for him, not by him. In this respect there is a profound
similarity between the prewar political centrality of the throne and its
postwar absence: both the emperor's prewar and postwar roles were
created and managed for him. Both roles represent the imperial
institution's responsiveness to the 'trends of the times'-the external
conditions to which the palace responds, or, more properly, is made to
respond.
Two key elements appear to have constituted the 'trends of the times'
in postwar Japan. First is the I947 Constitution ofJapan. Not only did
that fundamental law fundamentally alter the legal relation between
palace and politics, between Court and Government; but the enabling
laws of the Constitution and the actual operations of the political
system have also brought legal formality in close conformity with
political reality.
The second element is the emergence of a free and open public
opinion, which manifests itself in an autonomous and omnipresent
Japanese news industry and is tested by a multiplicity of polling institutions,
public and private. Postwar public opinion is a far different
CreationM: y rearsi n theS tateD epartme(nNt ewY ork:W . W. Norton,1 969),p p. 12-I 3.
Robert Butow's analysis of Japan's surrender also shows how precarious was the
position of the emperor, and the imperial institution, as far as U.S. leaders were
concerned.R obert J. C. Butow, Japan'sD ecisiont o Surrende(rS tanford:S tanford
University Press, I954), pp. I89-92.
530 DAVID A. TITU