From Gangbuster to War Crimes Prosecutor: Joseph Berry Keenan and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946-48

Abstract

Of the many efforts to reform Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East has been praised as "one of the bes t examples of international cooperation displayed during the occupation of Japan." [2] The New York Times asserted that the IMTFE was "fully as important to the future history of the Orient as were the Nuremberg trials to the future history of Germany, perhaps more so." [3] Yet, unlike its sister trial, the IMTFE has been the subject of only a few secondary works in English, and the complete transcripts have only recently become widely available. [4] The author of a recent study of the trial, Arnold C. Brackman, has noted: "In truth, the IMTFE has simply been swallowed up by the biggest black hole in the history of the twentieth century." [5] A former British prosecutor at the IMT, Brigadier G. I. A. D. Draper, generally concurred with Brackman's assessment in a letter to the Publications Committee at the London School of Economics, which was responsible for editing the IMTFE transcripts. He described the IMTFE as "one of the great international events of this century, and unique in international history; in the history of international law and in the history of war criminality . . ." Explaining that the Western world has focused almost exclusively on Nuremberg, he decried the "sad gap in interest and in scholarship which ought to be remedied." [6] This i s an attempt to fill part of the "black hole" in the historical record through a study of the man who served as Chief of Counsel. Also a victim of historical oversight, he, was perhaps the crucial figure at the IMTFE . His name was Joseph Berry Keenan. [From Introduction]