This article introduces the career of former International University of Japan professor Takehiko Aoyagi and an excerpt from his award-winning essay for the Seventh “True Interpretations of Modern History” Essay Contest. It examines his arguments concerning the covert implementation of the WGIP, censorship under the GHQ, and the relationship between the Tokyo Trial view of history, postwar academia, and history education in Japan.

August 30, 2020
The other day, while searching for something, I discovered an essay.
Both this essay and its author were entirely new to me.
I was impressed not only by the excellence of the essay, but also relieved to learn that its author had graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo and had built a distinguished career at Itochu Corporation.
After entering society, I met two lifelong friends.
Both of them were employees of Itochu Corporation.
Both were exceptionally capable businessmen and consequently held important positions within the company.
In recent years, the name of the company has appeared in public discourse together with Mr. Uichiro Niwa’s pro-China statements, and this had inwardly caused me considerable distress.
Through my association with these two friends, I had come to feel that the strength of a trading company lies in the fact that each of its employees is, so to speak, the manager of a small or medium-sized enterprise.
Their ability to look at the balance sheet of a business partner and instantly grasp the condition of the company was truly remarkable.
There was also their ability to examine a voluminous construction estimate, instantly check every detail, and judge whether the price was appropriate—an ability that would surely make even Japan’s leading general contractors tremble.
I also felt that their strength, in which intellect, physical strength, and strength of spirit formed an inseparable whole, was itself the strength of Japan.
Behind the backstop at Jingu Stadium, the home ground of the Yakult Swallows, Itochu Corporation’s corporate message, “One Merchant, Infinite Missions,” is displayed.
Every time I saw it, I thought that those words were exactly right.
The biographical profile of the aforementioned author, Takehiko Aoyagi, is as follows:
Former professor at the International University of Japan; Doctor of Philosophy.
Born in Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture, in 1934.
Graduated from Gunma Prefectural Kiryu High School.
Graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo in 1958 and joined Itochu Corporation.
He successively served as manager of the Food Department at the company’s Sydney branch, manager of the Agricultural and Food Products Department at its head office, and director of Itochu Systems Development Corporation.
From 1985 to 1997, he served as president and chairman of Nippon Telematique Co., Ltd., a joint venture established through joint investment by Itochu and NTT.
From 1995 to 2006, he served as deputy director and professor at GLOCOM, the Center for Global Communications of the International University of Japan, and from 2006 to 2016 as a visiting professor there.
His research fields range widely across economics, business administration, public finance, information sociology, law, international politics, and security studies, and he regards himself as a generalist in the social sciences.
His many books include Videotex Strategy, The Cyber-Surveillance Society, The “Overprotection” of Personal Information Will Destroy Japan, Privacy Studies in the Information Age, Roosevelt Betrayed the American People and Dragged Japan into War, and The History of Japan Distorted by America in Order to Psychologically Disarm the Japanese People.
I happened to discover the essay for which Mr. Aoyagi received an Award for Excellence in the APA Group’s Seventh “True Interpretations of Modern History” Essay Contest.
It is an essay that should be read not only by the Japanese people but by people throughout the world.
There are countless passages that perfectly describe the mental structure of Arima, who dominates NHK’s Watch 9, and of the NHK employees whom I found truly unforgivable the other night.
■ Why Did the Japanese People So Easily Fall Victim to the WGIP?
First, because the WGIP was cleverly concealed and carried out in the strictest secrecy, the Japanese people did not even know that such a brainwashing program existed.
The United States introduced the principles of democracy on a grand scale, and they consequently assumed a central position in the ideology and educational principles of postwar Japan.
The Japanese people never dreamed that the GHQ, the very authority behind this promotion, was denying “freedom of speech” and advancing a program of brainwashing.
Second, much of what the GHQ propagated concerned matters that had been classified during the war, and because all manner of military histories had been destroyed, the Japanese people had no means of determining what was true and what was false.
As a result, the Japanese people accepted without question the narrative that the militarists had done nothing but lie and deceive the public.
Third, almost the entirety of the academic establishment trusted by the Japanese people uncritically and obediently accepted the Tokyo Trial view of history.
Moreover, academics actively published papers and books supporting it, thereby intensifying the confusion.
Leading historians in particular unanimously supported the Tokyo Trial view of history and successively published research that interpreted the whole of Japan’s past in negative terms.
Many students taught by those scholars later became teachers and instilled a self-denigrating view of history in children.
In this way, the Tokyo Trial view of history was imprinted upon one young generation after another through history education.
Keiji Nagahara, chairman of the Historical Science Society of Japan and professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, went so far as to write in one of his books that “Japanese historical scholarship was taught the correct way of viewing history by the Tokyo Trial.”
With a few exceptions, the historical academic establishment remains firmly committed to supporting the Tokyo Trial view of history.
Those who advocate a sound understanding of history are mostly scholars with no connection to the academic historical establishment.
They include Shoichi Watanabe, a critic and scholar of English; Huang Wenxiong, a scholar of Western economic history; Kanji Nishio, a scholar of German literature; Michiko Hasegawa, a philosopher; Akira Nakamura, a scholar of English literature; Yoshiko Sakurai, a journalist; Masato Ushio, a former officer of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force; Keiichiro Kobori, a scholar of German and comparative literature; Terumasa Nakanishi, a scholar of European diplomatic history and international politics; and Masahiko Fujiwara, a mathematician and essayist.
The examples are too numerous to enumerate.
All of them engage in broad and outstanding intellectual activities that extend far beyond the boundaries of their formal titles.
The legal academic establishment is the same.
The actual nature of the Tokyo Trial was that of an unlawful lynching carried out by the victorious nations, and even the Allied powers themselves lacked confidence in its legitimacy.
Nevertheless, Professor Kisaburo Yokota, who was regarded as a world authority on international law at the Faculty of Law of Tokyo Imperial University, astonishingly argued that the Tokyo Trial was legitimate.
In his book The Theory of War Crimes, he uncritically accepted the Tokyo Trial view of history and stated, “There can be no doubt that, among almost all nations, there is a strong intention to regard wars of aggression as international crimes.”
At that time, many other legal scholars followed him like an avalanche.
Such, indeed, was the tremendous power of the WGIP.
To be continued.