[Ridwan]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

The web gets very tangled. However, here's the important parts

- Terasaki Hidenari ("Terry") was First Secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, was one of the staff who helped translate the Japanese declaration of war and delivered it (late) to the U.S. government. He held various posts in the Japanese Foreign Affairs department up to 1945 when he became an advisor to the Tenno, and was the official liaison between the Palace and General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander. Terasaki was married to an American, Gwen Harold, who came from a long line of Quakers. Bonner Fellers, her cousin, was friends with Japanese Quackers such as Watanade Yuri and Kawaii Michiko, who would have connections to the palace. Basically, Fellers was a cousin-in-law to the advisor to the Tenno.

- The Showa Tenno's mother, Empress Dowager Teimei, was herself a Quacker. She's the prime example of the Quacker wives that a number of Japanese leaders had, and she used that network for various means.

- Joseph Grew, who had ties to Herbert Hoover and Fellers. His wife was a descendent of Commodore Perry, attended school in Japan, and had many friends who went on to marry various powerful Japanese figures.

- Jane Norton Grew, a cousin of Joseph Grew, married J. P. Morgan, Jr., and was one reason for the massive loans the Morgan Back gave to Japan in the 20's and 30's, not to mention financing American investments there.

- Herbert Hoover, possibly the most influential Republican in the Quaker network. He was very active in foreign policy after his presidency (most likely he learned from his mistakes). He influenced the occupation of Japan by using anti-communist sentiments, accusing that various liberal policies of SCAP were basically "communist", and seems to have had a hand in keeping the Showa Tenno from trial. He also moved MacArthur with promises of support in a presidencial candidacy bid.

I showed this to a friend of mine, a banned member from "that other place". This is his reply :

There seems to be a link between Fellers, Hoover and MacArthur, and that might have proven influential in the decision to acquit Hirohito, but I'm skeptical still.

Since I'm limited to using Google Books, I can't neither confirm nor deny it, but most of the info I've found on the subject is linked to a writer called Sterling Seagrave (and his sister, Peggy) and his book "The Yamato dynasty: the secret history of Japan's Imperial family", which reads more as Dan Brown than actual history.

I don't know what source your guy was using, but the sources that point to the quaker cabal all lead back to the Seagraves and their weird little conspiracy theories (Quaker Cabals, Japan secretly keeping and using their WWII plunder to start their post-war economic miracle)

Also, the only source I can find on the Empress Sadako (Teimei) being a Quaker is also related to the Seagraves, and even then only claims that she was raised by Quaker farmers until age 4 and had Christian Teachers, but was still devoted to Shintoism. (The book does mention her being sympathetic to Christians and being surrounded by them at the palace, but then again, Seagraves)

Now, since I don't know what source your guy is using, I can't know whether he's right or wrong, I'm just telling you that, from what I could gather, while there was a Japanese Conservative Lobby and that MacArthur was surrounded by a personal clique, the Quaker Lobby just seems like a weird conspiracy theory.


The influence of Hoover and Fellers is one possibility. Books like this one, on the other hand (page 16) point to Shigeru Yoshida and others in Japan who worked closely with MacArthur and also influenced him.

It should also be noted that Emperor Hirohito wasn't the only one who elluded all responsability. Several War criminals (Imperial Princes, Unit 731) weren't tried or were pardoned. Some even played important roles in the rise of the Yakuza and the Liberal Democratic Party in the post-war! (see Yoshio Kodama)


Bottom line is: maybe the guy is right or maybe some random events were blown out of proportion into a massive Quaker-Republican-Japanese cabal of a conspiracy theory.

I'd check his sources, though.

http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=...rohito&f=false

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PS: I forgot to mention that Hoover was indeed a great influence on MacArthur and one of the architects of a potential MacArthur presidential run in 1948, which is why I didn't dismiss the whole Quaker thing out of hand, despite how preposterous it sounded.

http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=...201948&f=false

So it seems, this Quaker connection thing is seemingly not sufficiently covered by the circulating literatures. Or at least by the ones that are reachable by the netizens restricted only to english. As an Ottomanphile though, this is not the first time for me to encounter this kind of situation However, I don't know if I should assume the likelihood that the Japanese sources have dealt with this matter sufficiently. Have they ? So far I myself haven't find anything about the supposed-Quaker connections of Hirohito's mother in english language... I haven't even found anything satisfactory on the less noble figure like Terasaki....

Of course, for a certain reason, I'm prepared to consider the possibility that I will never be able to confirm them through "outside" sources...

At the very least, I want to be able to confirm the extent of marriage intermingling between American and Japanese elites, and to know as exactly as possible when it started, in order to ensure the lack of cruciality of communism issue to enable Japanese post-war resurgence. I do still wonder however, if MacArthur was the only candidate for his role back then, but by now I can see why indeed if he was...