ABSTRACT
AT FIRST SIGHT these two statements may seem little more than extreme examples of hyperbolic political rhetoric. Both, in their own ways, however, are equally astonishing. Did General MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, really believe that the Occupation of Japan had the momentous significance that he suggested? And did Utsunomiya, the long-serving maverick Diet Member, who for much of his career had been affiliated with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), really mean that the leaders of his own party were just as bad as those Japanese leaders who had brought war and destruction to Japan up to 1945? No doubt both these men believed their rhetoric at the time they uttered it, though whether either would have given vent to quite these sentiments after a period of mature and sober reflection is another matter.
