The Evening Star (August 16, 1946)
Pu-yi, Manchu puppet, assails Allies’ inaction against Japs
TOKYO (AP) – Henry Pu-yi today defended his acceptance of the puppet throne of Manchuria by attacking Allied inaction in the face of Japanese conquest.
Pu-yi, a nervous little man in a blue serge suit, was testifying at the trial of Japan’s war leaders – some of whom gave him orders when he was the puppet emperor.
Recounting the 14-year-old intrigue that led him to the false throne of his forefathers’ country, the last of the Manchu emperors interjected:
“At that time (1932 and 1933) the democratic nations were not trying to resist Japanese militarists. I alone as an individual would hardly be able to resist them.”
Animatedly, in contrast to his earlier calm, he said he accepted the Manchurian crown through fear for his life.
He snapped upright from his habitual slump to address his remarks directly to the 11 justices. Speaking brusquely, he emphasized his statement by waving a thin ivory fan and gesturing with long, graceful fingers.
Then abruptly, he returned to his impassive verbal shuffling through the dead years to tell how one of the defendants, Seishiro Itagaki, then an army colonel, first offered him the clay throne in his Japanese controlled refuge in Port Arthur. He said he first refused, then accepted it in the face of threats against his life.
Pu-yi said Itagaki presented himself as an aide to the late Field Marshal Shigeru Honjo, then command er in chief of Japan’s Kwantung Army. Honjo killed himself shortly after the American occupation of Japan.
Itagaki sat upright in the prisoners’ box and took copious notes. A sardonic smile played across thin lips beneath his mustache.
At the end of the day’s session, Pu-yi left the courtroom as he had arrived – in Russian custody.
As Chief Prosecutor Joseph B. Keenan conducted direct examination, Pu-yi sketched a picture of himself and a court limited to his family and four advisers “held in the palm of Japanese hands.”
MPs stand beside box
There was no sign of royal background as Pu-yi slipped into the witness box. He was addressed as “witness” and he gave his name simply as “Henry Pu-yi.”
Two American military police stood beside the witness box as he testified in a low, hoarse voice. The courtroom was jammed.
Pu-yi kept glancing downward at notes. This brought an admonition from Sir William Webb, president of the International Tribunal. “Witness,” he said, “you cannot refresh your memory from notes without permission of the tribunal.”
“I have only with me simple dates and months – no details,” replied Pu-yi, abashed.
Former Premier Hideki Tojo and the 26 other defendants showed interest in Pu-yi’s testimony. Tojo took notes, and Naoki Hoshino, one of the key civilian Manchuria plotters, gazed intently at the witness. A number reached for their earphones, through which they receive translations of testimony.
The former puppet avoided the eyes of the defendants. Twisting nervously, he related that he was born in 1906 and was enthroned at the age of three on the death of his aunt, the Empress Dowager of China.
Lays overthrow to corruption
The corruption of Chinese officials was the reason for his overthrow by revolution three years later, Pu-yi said. But he added that Sun Yat-sen, leader of the revolution, was “a great man.”
Pu-yi said he first lived at the Japanese Embassy in Peiping after his flight from the palace because the British minister said the British Embassy was “too small.”
The witness told of living in Tientsin between the ages of 20 and 27. Then he was taken to Manchuria to become regent and then puppet emperor of that Japanese-dominated area.
The witness was taken to the office of the tribunal secretariat shortly after the tribunal convened this morning. Court officials and a Russian guard would not permit American correspondents to interview him.
He walked quickly into the courtroom when he was called. The two American MPs walked with him.