Emperor Hirohito

In the months following Hirohito's meeting with MacArthur, stateside newspapers printed stories that confirmed the emperor's abasement. To a surprising degree, the status of Hirohito's infamous white horse was a subject of considerable interest. During the war, the horse served for U.S. commentators as a symbol of Hirohito's power and role in Japanese expansionism. Prelude to War, an OWI-produced film about Japan's road to Pearl Harbor, depicted Hirohito (as one review of the movie described him) "in solemn seriousness on his white charger at a review of Japanese military might." Admiral William Halsey had capitalized on this image, famously pledging to ride the horse through the streets of Tokyo after the war. In postsurrender accounts full of symbolic undertones, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times covered the fate of this animal that was seen as part of Hirohito's connection to military life. An American Army lieutenant appropriated the horse and ostentatiously paraded it during a staged rodeo in November 1945. "Hirohito's white horse ... has been ridden by an American," exclaimed one newspaper. Over the next weeks, the New York Times reported the lieutenant had taken full possession of the horse, and in early January covered transportation of the animal to the United States.