The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the Tokyo War Trials

For those of us who marveled at the manner in which the combined Allies created and conducted the trials of the German hierarchy at Nuremberg, successfully demonstrating to the world the fashion in which the British, French, American and Russian allies could cooperate and compromise sufficiently to prosecute some of the most murderous of the motley crew comprising the Nazi regime, the stunning failures of our similar attempts to settle the issues surrounding the disposition of the Japanese war criminals was a bitterly disappointing revelation. Indeed, by the time the collected Allies gathered to consider the fate of the Japanese offenders, the world had changed, and the welter of economic, social, and geo-political concerns that had united the Allies now served to separate them. As a result, the efforts to render anything approaching objective justice to the often barbaric behavior of high ranking Japanese officials were doomed from the inception. Moreover, the relative lag in time between the war's cessation and the first beginnings of serious efforts to enact a tribunal served to work against justice by making it more difficult to locate and secure evidence, much of which had been destroyed in the final stages of the war. As mentioned above, the lack of international cooperation and a variety of differences in terms of perceived national interests also contributed to a seeming inability to move forward on any but a few of the defendants in the first two years following the end of hostilities in August 1945. As the author reveals, the Japanese war crimes trials were troubled from beginning to end in terms of relative respect, loss of critical evidence, insufficient staff and resources available, and an inhospitable cultural atmosphere which tended to stifle and limit the range of punishments unnecessarily. Still the author, who had participated as a news correspondent at the trials, skillfully mines both his own recollections and the range of materials he had at his disposal, including memoirs, transcripts, and interviews to meaningfully reconstruct a sometimes riveting account of this historic event. This is an interesting book, and one I would not hesitate to recommend. Enjoy!