Tojo and Robert Kennedy
After WWII, Ichiro Kiyose (1884 - 1967) joined the Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals as defense attorney for General Hideki Tojo, a former prime minister of the Empire of Japan who ordered the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941.
Despite Kiyose's efforts, General Tojo was sentenced to death in 1948 to be executed by the US forces occupying Japan in the same year.
But Kiyose, a notabler lawyer and lawmaker, did not fail always in handling Japanese war criminals after WWII.
There was a Japanese boy in Los Angeles born from Japanese parents before WWII. But as he was born in the US, he had US citizenship. As he grew up, he came to the Empire of Japan to learn in a Japanese university. And during his stay in the university, the Empire launched war against the US. So, the young man was drafted into the Imperial military.
He eventually became an interior guard of a prion camp where captive US soldiers were kept. Generally speaking, as the Empire of Japan had no rich agricultural and other resources such as the US has, US prisoners of war could not enjoy comfortable life in prison camps.
Anyway, when the war ended and the Empire of Japan fell, the young Japanese returned to Los Angeles, his home town. And one day when he was walking on the street, he met one man who identified the young Japanese American as one of interior guards of a prison camp where he had been detained until the end of WWII. So, the veteran started to hit at the Japanese American, an ex-Imperial soldier. The street became full of bystanders. Finally the police took the young man to a jail. He was brought to a trial. And a judge sentenced the Japanese American to death penalty for treason as he had become an Imperial soldier while he had American citizenship. So, his relatives desperately begged for his life. So, he came to serve life imprisonment.
But this case got a lot of attention from some Japanese. And, eventually, Kiyose came to know the case.
So, when Robert Kennedy visited Japan in 1962 and met Ichiro Kiyose who was then Chairman of the Lower House of the Japanese national parliament, Kiyose explained the case to Robert Kennedy.
It was a case that a man had dual citizenship and two countries where he was a legitimate citizen engaged in warfare with one another. So, how should he act? According to a theory, such a man with dual nationality should fight for a country where he actually lived. So, Kiyose explained to the then US Attorney General the situation and asked Kennedy to save the poor Japanese American.
Kiyose wrote on a sheet of paper the name of the ex-Imperial soldier and the name of the prison he was put in. And he slid the sheet into a pocket of Robert Kennedy's suit jacket.
Then time passed. And immediately before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Kiyose was informed that the young Japanese American would be released on condition that he should immediately leave for Japan. And, in several days, the ex-Imperial soldier left the US.
So, though lawyer Kiyose could not save General Tojo, he could save one ex-Imperial soldier who had US citizenship with help from the brother of a US president.
In addition, the reason why Ichiro Kiyose became a defense attorney for General Hideki Tojo in the Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals was that there were no other Japanese lawyers who would like to leave their names as a defense attorneys for General Tojo, the prime minister of the Empire of Japan who started war against the US. But as Kiyose was closely associated with the legal department of the Imperial Army at the end of WWII, he naturally took the position tentatively, though the position became permanent.
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Mar 8:1 In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith unto them,
Mar 8:2 I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat:
Mar 8:3 And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far.
Mar 8:4 And his disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?
Mar 8:5 And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven.