The Unpredictability of the Past: Memories of the Asia-Pacific War in U.S.-East Asian Relations
352
The Unpredictability of the Past: Memories of the Asia-Pacific War in U.S.-East Asian Relations
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Overview
The contributors interpret mass media sources, museum displays, monuments, film, and literature, as well as the archival sources traditionally used by historians. They explore how American ideas about Japanese history shaped U.S. occupation policy following Japan’s surrender in 1945, and how memories of the Asia-Pacific War influenced Washington and Tokyo policymakers’ reactions to the postwar rise of Soviet power. They investigate topics from the resurgence of Pearl Harbor images in the U.S. media in the decade before September 11, 2001, to the role of Chinese war museums both within China and in Chinese-Japanese relations, and from the controversy over the Smithsonian Institution’s Enola Gay exhibit to Japanese tourists’ reactions to the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. One contributor traces how a narrative commemorating African Americans’ military service during World War II eclipsed the history of their significant early-twentieth-century appreciation of Japan as an ally in the fight against white supremacy. Another looks at the growing recognition and acknowledgment in both the United States and Japan of the Chinese dimension of World War II. By focusing on how memories of the Asia-Pacific War have been contested, imposed, resisted, distorted, and revised, The Unpredictability of the Past demonstrates the crucial role that interpretations of the past play in the present.
Contributors. Marc Gallicchio, Waldo Heinrichs, Haruo Iguchi, Xiaohua Ma, Frank Ninkovich, Emily S. Rosenberg, Takuya Sasaki, Yujin Yaguchi, Daqing Yang
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780822390527 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Duke University Press |
| Publication date: | 08/21/2007 |
| Series: | American Encounters/Global Interactions |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 352 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Marc Gallicchio is Professor of History at Villanova University. He is the author of The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895–1945 and The Cold War Begins in Asia: American East Asian Policy and the Fall of the Japanese Empire.
Read an Excerpt
The Unpredictability of the Past
MEMORIES OF THE ASIA-PACIFIC WAR IN U.S.-EAST ASIAN RELATIONSDUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2007 Duke University PressAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-3945-8
Chapter One
Remembering Pearl Harbor before September 11, 2001EMILY S. ROSENBERG
"INFAMY!" headlined news stories across the country on September 11 and 12, 2001. Live on television and in repetitive images, Americans witnessed planes slamming into the World Trade Center and smoke billowing from the Pentagon. The surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor became the first frame of reference for the attack. No one needed to command the widespread use of Pearl Harbor imagery. Commentators around the country spontaneously invoked it, and many Americans seemed actually to "experience" the attacks through the collective memory of Pearl Harbor. "Infamy" provided a sign that was culturally legible to almost everyone: it invoked a familiar narrative about a sleeping nation, a treacherous attack, immense homeland casualties, the need to pull together to victory, and eventual triumph.
Why do people turn to the past for frameworks to understand their present? How do traditions embedded in a nation's collective memories interact with current experience to shape narratives of both? David Lowenthal has suggested that people turn to the past for "reaffirmation of belief and action; the guidance of example; and the awareness of personal and communal identity." In the midst of the completely unexpected, it may seem reassuring to discern some familiar pattern, to domesticate the strangeness of the present by invoking the familiarity of a past shared in memory. The Pearl Harbor story itself had taken shape within the conventions of earlier frontier legends of challenge and triumph. Now, Pearl Harbor could be to September 11 what Custer's Last Stand and the Alamo had been to Pearl Harbor: widely recognized, iconic tales of threat and harm that worked to rally patriotism, marshal manly virtues, and promise eventual and righteous triumph to a nervous nation.
There is, however, more to an analysis of the pervasiveness of Pearl Harbor imagery in the aftermath of September 11. This essay goes back more than a decade, to 1991, to explore the ways Pearl Harbor has gained increasing visibility as an icon in American culture. Although diverse narratives about Pearl Harbor had circulated among Americans since 1941, by the summer of 2001, American culture had become saturated as never before with books, videos, films, and recollections of the 1941 attack.
Sociologists and historians have tried to understand the processes by which some things in the past become forgotten and others become vivid "secondary memories" for new generations who did not experience them. Building upon the insights of Maurice Halbwachs, the first sociologist to theorize the role of social institutions and groups in the formation and perpetuation of collective memories, much work on historical memory (including this essay) emphasizes the social construction of memory, the multiplicity and mutability of memory traditions, and the roles of governments, private institutions, pressure groups, and media in perpetuating narratives (often conflicting and contested ones) about the past.
This essay examines the various international, political, and cultural contexts that contributed to the reemergence and renewed prominence of Pearl Harbor images in U.S. media during the decade before September 11. Specifically, it examines the circulation of Pearl Harbor images in four contexts: the role of bilateral relations between the United States and Japan during the 1990s; the growing "memory boom" that honored the aged veterans of World War II as "the greatest generation"; the politics of the "history wars," including the often partisan crusade to restore rank, posthumously, to the commanders in charge at the Pearl Harbor base in 1941; and the extravagant hype associated with the blockbuster film Pearl Harbor during the spring and summer of 2001.
Bilateral Relations: Commemorating Pearl Harbor and the Apology Controversies
On the eve of the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1991, many irritants roiled the relationship between the United States and Japan. The strength of the yen and Japan's strong trade balance during most of 1991 fed charges, leveled in many American books and articles, of an "economic Pearl Harbor." Japanese ownership of the headquarters hotel at which the Pearl Harbor veterans would stay during the commemorative ceremony highlighted the perceived threat. On the other side, many in Japan angrily charged Americans with cultural imperialism and with scapegoating Japan to evade dealing with America's own economic weaknesses. The recent Persian Gulf War accentuated such disputes, as the United States urged Japan to play a more significant role in bankrolling this and other post-cold war "peacekeeping" efforts. Moreover, the planning for the fiftieth anniversary revealed different understandings of the history of World War II: dominant views on each side still saw the other as the principal aggressor leading up to the attack of 1941. Although most Americans assumed that Pearl Harbor commemorated clear aggression on the part of Japan, many Japanese leaders propounded the view that the attack had been a necessary strategic measure in a defensive war that had been pushed upon Japan.
In this contentious atmosphere, several proposals to use the 1991 ceremonies as a symbol of reconciliation proved unsuccessful. The superintendent of the Arizona Memorial had once broached such an idea, but the acting director of the National Park Service deemed the suggestion "inappropriate, possibly offensive." The president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association (PHSA) in Atlanta, Jack Westerman, also advanced a plan for reconciliation. With the support of his membership, he proposed a reunion in which old enemies could become friends. Some Japanese respondents established a Japan Friends of Pearl Harbor Association to become the counterpart group for a projected reunion to take place in October 1991. When the president of the national PHSA, Gerald A. Glaubitz, heard of the plan, however, he denounced the idea, stating that "99.99%" of the membership would not approve. "We did not invite the Japanese 50 years ago, and we don't want them now," said Glaubitz. The reunion was canceled. Attempting to steer clear of any criticism from veterans groups, President George H. W. Bush announced definitively that the commemoration would be a "national" ceremony, for Americans only. When Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi suggested inviting Japan if its government apologized for Pearl Harbor, officials in Tokyo suggested that the United States should apologize for its atomic bombing. This suggestion, along with other irritants, so infuriated President Bush that he canceled a trip to Asia and declared that "this president" would not issue an apology. This apology controversy boiled right up to the days of the commemorative ceremonies.
In light of Americans' use of Pearl Harbor metaphors in anti-Japanese rhetoric during the economic disputes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, many people in Japan apparently feared that the fiftieth anniversary of the attack would further feed American hostility. "Hatred toward Japan Is about to Explode!" headlined one of the many Japanese articles that predicted an outpouring of hostile sentiment. But despite the bilateral tensions, the commemoration took a somewhat different turn. A Japanese television crew that came to the United States to document surging Japan bashing found so little that it changed the focus of its report. In some places, images of reconciliation prevailed. The American Airpower Heritage Museum in Midland, Texas, held a seminar during the week of the anniversary, inviting both U.S. and Japanese veterans of the conflict. People magazine did a spread featuring photos and interviews of individuals from both groups, labeling them "survivors from both sides" and alternating the coverage to emphasize the commonalities in personal experiences rather than the national polarity of the conflict.
In the end, the books, articles, TV programs, and speeches during the commemorative year of 1991 drew lessons to suit every persuasion. Barry Hillenbrand in Time used the commemoration to underscore current U.S.-Japanese tensions over economics, textbooks, and strategic interest. McGeorge Bundy in Newsweek, by contrast, lauded the long American-Japanese alliance, arguing that "in the end, the attack was good for both" because it led to the "victory that made lasting peace possible." Ralph Kinney Bennet in Reader's Digest used Pearl Harbor to advance a triumphalist version of the cold war: Pearl Harbor had taught the lesson of vigilance that, in turn, defeated the Soviet Union. Alexander Cockburn in The Nation suggested that memories of Pearl Harbor should not ignore U.S. diplomatic and trade "offensives" against Japan in the 1930s or eclipse the memory of U.S. "guilt" for dropping atomic bombs or demand Japanese apologies when the United States had not apologized to Vietnam for its suffering in the 1960s. Histories advancing the "backdoor-to-war" thesis (which blamed President Roosevelt for pushing Japan into striking first in order to justify the United States joining the war to help Britain in Europe) vied with pro-Roosevelt interpretations (which stressed poor coordination of intelligence and laxity on the part of the U.S. base commanders in Hawaii). Americans were exhorted to remember Pearl Harbor, but that memory was invoked to substantiate many different narratives and history lessons.
The commemoration ceremonies both at Pearl Harbor and around the country, while not free of anti-Japanese sentiment, generally accentuated themes that hardly related to foreign policy at all: patriotism, unity, and the singular virtues of the now elderly World War II generation. Reflection and personal memory, rather than vengeance and acrimonious relations with Japan, set the dominant tone. On Saturday, December 7, President Bush, himself a World War II navy pilot who had been shot down by the Japanese, delivered two speeches in Hawaii. At the Punchbowl, a memorial to war dead, he apologized for internment of Japanese Americans. Later, he presented a moving speech in front of Pearl Harbor survivors at the Arizona Memorial, prefaced by airplanes flying the "missing man" formation. Although Japan's parliament had failed to agree on any resolution of apology (the foreign minister, instead, expressed "deep remorse"), the president did not bring up the recent apology controversy. He commented that he had "no rancor in my heart" toward the Japanese, and then hardly mentioned Japan at all. In the formal speech, he honored the "heroes of the harbor" who instinctively rushed to their posts and "did not panic." Choking up on the second to last paragraph as he remarked that the harbor's water had carried the "finest sons any nation could ever have" to a "better world," he moved the audience to tears. It was a speech of shared memories, celebrating the achievements and sacrifices of the World War II generation. For the individuals in the audience and for the nation as a whole, the message looked inward, a testament to an American generation that now stood for old-fashioned virtues-a bulwark against the changing present.
After 1991, there were renewed attempts at reunion and reconciliation on the part of U.S. and Japanese veterans. Jack Westerman had canceled his plans for a joint ceremony in 1991, but interest on both sides of the Pacific prompted him to reschedule it. An October 1992 meeting at Pearl Harbor included a few Japanese veterans and over a dozen Pearl Harbor survivors from the mainland. Arriving at the Arizona Memorial by special ferry, the group joined hands as Westerman expressed the hope that their "act of friendship" would "ensure a spirit of peace for the world" and as Japanese former pilot Abe Zenji expressed "heartfelt condolences." Attendance at such reunions would build throughout the decade.
After the fiftieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor, discourses of distrust and those of reconciliation continued to circulate simultaneously in American culture. During the 1990s, a large body of scholarship on the Holocaust against the Jews raised issues related to trauma, collective memory, history writing, and meaning. Scholars and others adapted such themes in examining the horrors of the Pacific War. Well-publicized investigations and compensation to Jewish victims and their families focused further attention on wartime victimization. Which groups of war victims, however, should have priority in the Pacific: Japanese victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or Asian and POW victims of Japan? With the World War II generation dying, Chinese and Koreans stepped up their demands for greater recognition for their suffering. A growing movement throughout Asia and among some Americans of Asian ancestry demanded that the Japanese government make a full disclosure of its World War II crimes, provide reparations to victims, and place this history in its official textbooks. Issues of respective victimization became highlighted during the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombing, in August 1995: those Americans emphasizing reconciliation asked their country to remember the horrors of the atomic attack; those demanding Japanese apologies cautioned Americans to "remember Pearl Harbor." Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor became symbols of larger historical narratives that placed the history of the Pacific War within frameworks either of bilateral reconciliation or of continued distrust.
In February 2001 the USS Greenville, a nuclear submarine, accidentally rammed and sank a Japanese fishing boat, the Ehime Maru, near Pearl Harbor. Nine people, some students, were lost at sea, and many in Japan demanded an official apology and compensation. For many Americans, the Pearl Harbor location (actually, the sinking was off Diamond Head) and Japan's response again highlighted the issue of apology. Although the U.S. government agreed to raise the vessel and pay compensation and the submarine commander Scott Waddle offered numerous personal apologies, many Americans bristled at Japanese suggestions that an official apology should be forthcoming. Japan, some pointed out, had never officially apologized for the 1941 attack. The Greenville dispute, again, showed how easily any irritant between the United States and Japan could quickly devolve into an apology controversy and revival of Pearl Harbor memories.
Public issues related to both discord and reconciliation in relations between the United States and Japan in the 1990s helped to keep Pearl Harbor in the spotlight as an icon of the bilateral relationship. It is perhaps surprising, however, how small a role representation of Japan played in most of the renewed attention and media circulation related to Pearl Harbor. The revival of Pearl Harbor as a site of historical memory in American culture, as the commemorative events of 1991 suggested, said much more about issues internal to America than about bilateral ties. Relations with Japan, while important, had less cultural visibility than several other concerns that boosted the iconic visibility of Pearl Harbor at the close of the twentieth century.
The Memory Boom and the Greatest Generation
In most American representations, the symbolism of Pearl Harbor became connected to nostalgia for the past and for a passing generation. From the 1970s on, a memory boom had saturated American life, proliferating and blurring forms of history and commemoration. Set amid this fascination with the past, the fifty-year anniversaries that began in 1991 riveted media attention on the meanings and experiences of World War II. After years of reticence, an older generation grew anxious to tell its wartime stories-to get them into the nation's memory and history-before passing from the scene. Their children, baby boomers of the Vietnam generation, seemed eager to honor and commemorate their parents and to rediscover a more glorious, less ambiguous time. The much remarked generation gap that had divided World War II parents from their Vietnam-era children rendered the sudden outpouring of memory and reconciliation more poignant.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ixIntroduction / Marc Gallicchio 1
I. Memory’s Many Forms
1. Remembering Pearl Harbor before September 11, 2001 / Emily S. Rosenberg 15
II. Policymakers and the Uses of Historical Memory
2. The First Revisionists: Bonner Fellers, Herbert Hoover, and Japan’s Decision to Surrender / Haruo Iguchi 51
3. History and Memory in Postwar U.S.-Japanese Relations / Frank Ninkovich 85
4. Cold War Diplomacy and Memories of the Pacific War: A Comparison of the American and Japanese Cases / Takuya Sasaki 121
III. Making Memory Concrete: Museums, Monuments, and Memorials
5. Constructing a National Memory of the War: War Museums in China, Japan, and the United States / Xiaohua Ma 155
6. The Enola Gay and the Contested Public Memory / Waldo Heinrichs 201
7. War Memories across the Pacific Japanese Visitors at the Arizona Memorial / Yujin Yaguchi 234
IV. Transpacific Memories
8. Memory and the Lost Found Relationship between Black Americans and Japan / Marc Gallicchio 255
9. Entangled Memories: China in American and Japanese Remembrances of World War II / Daqing Yang 287
Concluding Remarks / Marc Gallicchio 319
Contributors 329
Index 331