Eric Jaffe - A Curious Madness: An American Combat Psychiatrist, a Japanese War Crimes Suspect, and an Unsolved Mystery from World War II

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ALSO BY ERIC JAFFE

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Copyright 2014 by Eric Jaffe

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First Scribner hardcover edition January 2014

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Jacket Design By Evan Gaffney

Jacket photographs: top Associated Press; middle courtesy of the Jaffe family; bottom Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Photograph Credits: 1, 2, 4, 6 courtesy of the Jaffe family; 5 courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-25122; 8 courtesy of the U.S. Army; 9 Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; 10 courtesy of the Okawa family; 13 courtesy of the National Archives, RG-342-FH-289973; 15 Associated Press; 16 British Pathe.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013040208

ISBN 978-1-4516-1205-9

ISBN 978-1-4516-1212-7 (ebook)

For Harry Jaffe

(18761936)

B ECAUSE THIS BOOK is intended for a general English readership, I have not applied diacritical marks to Japanese words. However, I have followed the Japanese custom of placing surnames before first names. Taking Okawa Shumei as an example: Okawa is the family name, and Shumei the given name. Any exceptions are noted.

Class-A war criminalAdjudged insaneSuspected insanity was feigned.

Personality file on Okawa Shumei, Records of the CIA, July 25, 1958

O KAWA S HUMEI ARRIVED at the arraignment looking every bit the madman. It was May 3, 1946. The bus from Sugamo Prison dropped off the defendants at half past eight in the morning. Okawa entered the courtroom wearing traditional Japanese geta, or wooden clogs, and a wrinkled light blue shirt that looked like a pajama top. He took his place at the center-back of the two-row prisoner dock that faced the international panel of judges. In front of him was Tojo Hideki, the former general recognized the world over for his flat bald head and round spectacles, who wore a bush jacket and the sober expression of a man resigned to his execution. Of all the defendants, only Okawa lacked the sharp formality the occasion demanded. The goofy sight of him in that loose pajama top gave the impression of a sleepwalker having wandered into a funeral, or a clown into a church.

Most people knew the International Military Tribunal for the Far East as the Tokyo trial. Some called it Japans Nuremberg. By any name, its purpose was to draw a legal and moral curtain on Imperial Japan the way Nuremberg was, at that very moment, drawing one on Nazi Germany. To that end, the Allies had indicted twenty-eight Japanese considered most responsible for their countrys aggression during World War II. Tojo, whod been prime minister when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, was the star defendant. Joining him was a collection of leaders that included three more former premiers, a number of generals and admirals and war and navy ministers, an assortment of other cabinet members, a pair of ambassadors, and a chief advisor to the emperor. The indictment for the Tokyo trial referred to this alleged crowd of agitators as a criminal militaristic clique.

Pajamas aside, Okawa Shumei seemed a bit out of place inside this circle of influence. (His name is pronounced Oh-ka-wa Shoe-meh, with meh taking a small verbal step toward may .) He was the lone civilian on trial; hed neither held political office nor been in the military. At the same time, certain members of the Allied prosecution team considered him the stitching that held together the entire pattern of Japanese imperialism they were trying to prove. One attorney for the prosecution described Okawa as the sparkplug that kept the whole conspiracy alive and going over the whole period covered in the indictment. Shortly before the Tokyo trial began, an intelligence officer whod been stationed in Japan said hed rather see Okawa indicted than even Tojo himself. He was really the heart of it, the officer said. Okawa was viewed as the brain trust of Japanese militarismthe mind that directed the countrys might.

The courthouse was in the neighborhood of Ichigaya, a high point overlooking the bombed-out ruins of Tokyo. During the war the three-story building had been a headquarters for the Japanese Army; it even had the slight look of a pillbox. Workers had toiled for months to prepare the venue for the trial. Theyd lined the main hall with wood paneling and installed bright lighting. Theyd built a booth for interpreters, perched on a balcony, and enclosed it in glass. Theyd set down a thousand seats and wired each one into a three-channel translation system so the audience could follow in English, Japanese, or Russian as their ears preferred. At about a quarter past eleven on May 3, 1946, the wooden doors closed and a gentle bell announced the start of the proceedings. Perhaps to nudge the Tokyo trial out of the shadows of Nuremberg and into the klieg lights, Chief Justice William Webb opened by saying thered been no more important criminal trial in all history.

The morning session adjourned to await the late arrival of two defendants. At half past two, the court reconvened for a full reading of the indictment. A small unit of police in white helmets were positioned around the courtroom perimeter; their helmetless commander, Colonel Aubrey Kenworthy, stood directly behind the prisoner dock. As the clerk recited every word of the fifty-five charges, Okawa Shumei grew restless. He squirmed in his chair and released occasional chirps of gibberish. He bothered the defendant to his right, Matsui Iwane, commander of the Japanese troops whod committed grave atrocities in Nanking, and the one to his left, Hiranuma Kiichiro, a former prime minister. He unbuttoned his pajama shirt, exposing his thin chest, and flapped a loose piece of garment that had slipped off his shoulder. He clasped his hands together, as if in prayer, then split them apart.

Around 3:30, as the clerk reached count 22 of the indictment, Okawa rose halfway in his seat. Wearing what some reporters later called a cunning grin, he extended his long arm forward with an open palm and slapped the top of Tojo Hidekis bald head. The startled general looked up from his copy of the indictment and turned back to see Colonel Kenworthy restraining Okawa by his gangly shoulder. When Justice Webb announced a fifteen-minute recess, a newsreel man approached Tojo for a photograph. Just then Okawa freed himself from Kenworthys grasp, rose up under the newsreel cameras eye, and slapped the head of Tojo again.