ABSTRACT
On the morning of 27 September 1945 Emperor Hirohito, attired in formal morning dress, visited the American embassy in Tokyo for his first meeting with General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in occupation of Japan. MacArthur, dressed casually in an opennecked uniform without tie or medals, received him in an audience that lasted almost 40 minutes. No official record of the conversation was kept, but a hugely symbolic photograph was published to sensational effect soon after in the Japanese press. It depicted the two men standing together staring straight into the camera, the bespectacled Hirohito in a stiff pose with his hands by his sides whilst MacArthur loomed over him, with hands placed on his hips behind his back, eminently assured and imposing. For the Japanese public this image drove home the reality of their nation’s plight, at the mercy of a United States that had recently mounted an awesome display of its economic, technological and military superiority in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ‘The emperor they saw there was not a living god but a mortal human beside a much older human to whom he now was subservient. Hirohito perfectly exemplified the defeated nation; MacArthur stood completely relaxed and projected the confidence that comes from victory’.2
