Word: hiranuma
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...emperor the spiritual center of Japan, and they fought hard against the possibility of an Empress: 170 Diet members signed a cross-party petition against the new law, and other opponents included the conservative Chief Cabinet Secretary - and likely future Prime Minister - Shinzo Abe. Former Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma's xenophobic comments were typical: "If Aiko becomes the reigning empress and gets involved with a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad and marries him, their child may become emperor," he said in February. "We should never let that happen...
More than two hours of argument over these alternatives only emphasized the hopeless abyss between the pacifists and the militarists. Then Kiichiro Hiranuma, president of the Privy Council, who had been specially invited to attend by Hirohito, proposed asking for the Emperor's opinion, shocking everyone into silence. Everyone, that is, but Prime Minister Suzuki, who quickly pointed out that it was the right move, given that the government was stymied and unable to act at the moment their people most needed action: "I propose, therefore, to seek the imperial guidance and substitute it for the decision of this conference...
Premier Kantaro Suzuki held another emergency meeting with his Cabinet, conferred with Japan's elder statesmen, ex-Premiers Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, Admiral Keisuke Okada, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, Koki Hirota, Generals Hideki Tojo and Kuniaki Koiso. He called on the Emperor Hirohito, bowed reverentially, and reported, according to Radio Tokyo, on a "general jurisdictional matter...
...from sanctifying the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the invasion of North China in 1937, the blow at Pearl Harbor in 1941. The totalitarian forces which had shaped his state shaped his place in it. The westernized elder statesmen and their successors-men like Prince Konoye and Baron Hiranuma-were pushed into the background by swashbuckling generals and admirals, like Kenji Doihara, Hideki Tojo, Isozoku Yamamoto. Hirohito's most intimate counselors in the Imperial Household, nobles like the Marquis Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and ex-Grand Chamberlain Kantaro Suzuki (now Premier), were denounced by chauvinistic young...
Washington has been less forthright. The last Tokyo Cabinet shake-up brought into office a group of conservatives influenced by such old friends of the Emperor as Prince Konoye and Baron Hiranuma. Is a split developing between the businessmen and nobles, on the one hand, and the Armyj chiefs, on the other? If so, the split is bound to weaken Japan's war effort. Washington does not want to heal the breach by an overt propaganda attack on the Emperor...