Introduction: This program highlights the profound corporate
connections between American financial and industrial
institutions and the Zaibatsu—the giant family trusts that
controlled Japanese industry since the country was opened in
1850s. To recoup their investments in Japan made before the war,
American commercial giants and their allies in government, the
media and the MacArthur group within the military deliberately
frustrated attempts at reforming Japan. The Zaibatsu were
returned to power. By whitewashing the Emperor’s pivotal role in
Japan’s war of aggression and the attendant atrocities,
MacArthur and his mentors preserved the Imperial household. In
addition to the economic motives for undermining Japanese
reformation, MacArthur and his allies in the State Department
and the Morgan financial and industrial group sought to
establish Japan as an anti-Communist bulwark. Ultimately, they
were entirely successful, and the political figures who had
prosecuted Japan’s slaughter in the Pacific were returned