International Military Tribunal for the Far East General Douglas MacArthur
After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, there was a large amount of pressure that came from both Allied countries and Japanese leftists that demanded the emperor step down and be indicted as a war criminal. The Australian government listed Hirohito as a war criminal, and intended to put him on trial. General Douglas MacArthur did not like the idea, as he thought that an ostensibly cooperating emperor would help establish a peaceful allied occupation regime in Japan. As a result, any possible evidence that would incriminate the emperor and his family were excluded from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. MacArthur created a plan that separated the emperor from the militarists, retained the emperor as a constitutional monarch but only as a figurehead, and used the emperor to retain control over Japan and help achieve American postwar objectives in Japan.
