740.00116 PW/11–2448: Telegram
The Acting Political Adviser in Japan (Sebald) to the Secretary of State
273. The following is the text of General MacArthur’s review of the war crimes sentences:
“No duty I have ever been called upon to perform in a long public service replete with many bitter, lonely and forlorn assignments and responsibilities is so utterly repugnant to me as that of reviewing the sentences of the Japanese war criminal defendants adjudged by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. It is not my purpose, nor indeed would I have that transcendent wisdom which would be necessary, to assay the universal fundamentals involved in these epochal proceedings designed to formulate and codify standards of international morality by those charged with a nation’s conduct. The problem indeed is basically one which man has struggled to solve since the beginning of time and which may well wait complete solution till the end of time. In so far as my own immediate obligation and limited authority extend in this case, suffice it that under the principles and procedures prescribed in full detail by the Allied Powers concerned, I can find nothing of technical commission or omission in the incidents of the trial itself of sufficient import to warrant my intervention in the judgements which have been rendered. No human decision is infallible but I can conceive of no judicial process where greater safeguard was made to evolve justice. It is inevitable that many will disagree with the verdict, even the learned justices who composed the tribunal were not in complete unanimity, but no mortal agency in the present imperfect evolution of civilized society seems more entitled to confidence in the integrity of its solemn pronouncements. If we cannot trust such processes and such men we can trust nothing. I therefore, direct the Commanding General of the Eighth Army to execute the sentences as pronounced by the tribunal. In doing so I pray that an omnipotent providence may use this tragic expiation as a symbol to summon all persons of good will to a realization of the utter futility of war—that most malignant scourge and greatest sin of mankind—and eventually to its renunciation by all nations. To this end on the day of execution I request the members of all congregations throughout Japan of whatever creed or faith in the privacy of their homes or at their altars of public worship to seek divine help and guidance that the world keep the peace lest the human race perish.”
Sent Department 273; Shanghai 100, Nanking 68, Manila 59.