Like some other imperial visitors before them, including Ethiopia's late Emperor Haile Selassie and the Shah of Iran, Japan's Emperor Hirohito and his wife Empress Nagako last week paid a call at that West Coast U.S. shrine, Disneyland. During their 90-minute visit at the vast fantasy park outside Los Angeles, the imperial couple chatted with a king-sized Mickey Mouse and watched a Bicentennial parade. What interested the Emperor most? Disneyland's diorama of primeval life in the Grand Canyon, depicting a variety of prehistoric animals—all of which seemed far more familiar to Hirohito, an avid natural scientist, than Disney's creations.
Disneyland was only...
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