This article introduces an essay by former International University professor Takehiko Aoyagi concerning the WGIP. It presents his arguments that the program was conducted covertly, that the GHQ promoted democracy while denying freedom of speech, and that the Tokyo Trial view of history spread through Japanese academia and education.

August 30, 2020
How the WGIP Was Carried Out in Secrecy: Takehiko Aoyagi’s Examination of GHQ Censorship, the Tokyo Trial View of History, and the Psychological Disarmament of Postwar Japan
The other day, while searching for something, I discovered an essay.
Both this essay and its author were completely new to me.
I was relieved to learn not only of the excellence of the essay, but also that its author had graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo and had distinguished himself at Itochu Corporation.
After entering society, I met two lifelong best friends.
Both were employees of Itochu Corporation.
Both were exceptionally capable businessmen and therefore held important positions in the company.
In recent years, the company’s name has appeared in public discourse together with Mr. Uichiro Niwa’s pro-China statements, and this had privately left me with feelings of shame and regret.
Through my association with these men, I had come to feel that the strength of a trading company lies in the fact that each individual employee is, so to speak, the manager of a small or medium-sized enterprise.
Their ability to look at a business partner’s balance sheet and instantly grasp the condition of the company was truly remarkable.
Or their ability to look through a voluminous construction estimate, examine every detail in an instant, and determine whether its prices were appropriate—an ability that would probably make even Japan’s leading general contractors tremble.
I also felt that the strength produced by the union of their intelligence, physical endurance, and force of will was the strength of Japan itself.
Behind home plate at Jingu Stadium, the home ground of the Yakult baseball team, Itochu Corporation’s corporate message, “One Merchant, Infinite Missions,” is displayed, and whenever I see it, I think that it is exactly right.
The biographical outline of the aforementioned author, Mr. Takehiko Aoyagi, is as follows:
Former professor at the International University of Japan and 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 subsequently served in positions including General Manager of the Food Department at the company’s Sydney office, General 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 Nihon Telematique Co., Ltd., a joint venture jointly funded 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 extend across economics, business administration, public finance, information sociology, law, international politics, and security studies, and he describes himself as a generalist in the social sciences.
His numerous books include Videotex Strategy, Cyber Surveillance Society, Excessive Protection 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 That America Distorted 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 Competition.
It is an essay that must be read not only by the Japanese people, but by people throughout the world.
There are countless passages that perfectly express the mental structure of Arima, who dominates NHK’s Watch 9, and of the NHK employees whom I found truly unforgivable the other night.
The following is quoted from Takehiko Aoyagi’s essay.
■ Why Did the Japanese People So Easily Fall Prey to the WGIP?
First, because the WGIP was cleverly concealed and carried out in utmost secrecy, the Japanese people were not even aware that the indoctrination program existed.
The United States introduced the ideals of democracy on a grand scale, and those ideals consequently came to occupy the central position in the ideology and educational principles of postwar Japan.
The Japanese people never dreamed that the GHQ, the very authority behind those ideals, was denying “freedom of speech” and promoting indoctrination.
Second, much of what the GHQ publicized had been classified information during the war, and materials concerning the history of the war had all been destroyed, leaving the Japanese people with no means of determining what was true and what was false.
The Japanese people therefore accepted without question the narrative that the militarists had told nothing but lies and deceived the nation.
Third, almost the entirety of academia, which the Japanese people trusted, obediently accepted the Tokyo Trial view of history without criticism.
Moreover, academics actively published essays and books supporting that view, thereby increasing the confusion.
Leading historians, in particular, collectively supported the Tokyo Trial view of history and successively published research presenting all of Japan’s past history in a negative light.
Many students taught by those scholars became teachers and instilled a self-denigrating view of history in children.
In this way, the Tokyo Trial view of history was implanted, one generation after another, in young people through history education.
Keiji Nagahara, Chairman of the Historical Science Society of Japan and Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, went so far as to state in one of his books that “Japanese historical scholarship was taught the correct way to view history by the Tokyo Trial.”
With some exceptions, the reality is that the academic establishment of historical studies remains rigidly committed to supporting the Tokyo Trial view of history.
Those who advocate a sound understanding of history are, for the most part, scholars who have no connection with the academic world of historical studies.
They include Shoichi Watanabe, a critic and scholar of English; Wung Wen-Hsiung, 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—to name only a few.
All of them engage in outstanding intellectual activities extending far beyond the boundaries of their formal titles.
The academic world of law is the same.
Because the true nature of the Tokyo Trial was an unlawful lynching carried out by the victorious nations, even the Allied nations lacked confidence in its validity.
Nevertheless, Kisaburo Yokota, a professor at the Faculty of Law of Tokyo Imperial University who was regarded as a world authority on international law, astonishingly argued that the Tokyo Trial was legitimate.
He wrote The Theory of War Crimes, uncritically accepted the Tokyo Trial view of history, and stated: “There can be no doubt that, among almost all nations, there is a strong inclination to regard wars of aggression as international crimes.”
At that time, many other legal scholars followed him like an avalanche.
The power of the WGIP was indeed tremendous.
To be continued.