WAR CRIMES: Unkindest Cut

At the war crimes trial in Tokyo, War Criminal Henry Pu-yi continued his testimony about his trials as No. 1 Japanese puppet (TIME, Aug. 19). In 1940, he reported, Emperor Hirohito had invited him to Tokyo, feted him, presented him with two gifts—a mirror and a sword (both sacred Shinto symbols),* and then sent him home to Shinto-ize Manchukuo. Said Pu-yi, who previously testified that the Japanese had murdered his wife: “It was my greatest humiliation.”

* According to legend, the mirror represents the sun-goddess Amaterasu Omikami, ancestress of all Japanese emperors and the sword Japan’s national strength.