FINALLY, A REAL APOLOGY

AFTER YEARS OF OFFICIAL HEDGING, A PRIME MINISTER ACKNOWLEDGES THE COUNTRY'S GUILT IN WORLD WAR II

When Emperor Hirohi to announced over the radio Japan's surrender in World War II, Tomiichi Murayama, Japan's current Prime Minister, was a 21-year-old soldier on the southern island of Kyushu. At that time, he would have fought to the death for the Emperor. But when Murayama, the son of a simple fisherman, attended university after the war, his view of traditional authority changed. He read Marx and became a socialist. He joined a club devoted to the study of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who put him on guard against the foolish consistencies that are the hobgoblins of little minds. Last week the...

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