The Reischauer memo - Mr. Moto, Hirohito, and Japanese American soldiers

This article offers a critical reading of a recently discovered memorandum authored by Edwin O. Reischauer in September 1942. Already at this early da te in the war, Reischauer proposed retention of the Japanese emperor as hea d of a Postwar "puppet regime" that would serve U.S. interests in East Asia . He also argued that Japanese Americans had until then been a "sheer liabi lity" and that the United States could turn them into an "asset" by enlisti ng them in the U.S. military. He reasoned that Japanese American soldiers w ould be useful for propaganda purposes - that is, to demonstrate to the wor ld and particularly the "yellow and brown peoples" that the United States w as not a racist nation, The article interrogates the racial thinking behind such utilitarian proposals for the Japanese emperor and Japanese Americans and considers the memorandum within the broader context of the wartime fou ndations of the postwar U.S.-Japan relationship, the characteristics of pos twar Japanese studies, the decision to mobilize Japanese Americans as soldi ers, and the shifting place of Japanese Americans in the management of U.S. race relations during and after the war.