Warlord

An all but forgotten figure even in Japan, Hideki Tojo was second only to Adolf Hitler as a symbol of Axis villainy during WW II. Hoyt ( Japan's War ) describes Tojo's ascendancy to power in the Japanese army, and his roles as prime minister and minister of War, Armaments and Education, in which he led Japan into the war that devastated the country. As Hoyt points out, Tojo's fall in 1944 (immediately after the U.S. victory on Saipan and just before a failed attempt on his life) came about because he had assumed so many responsibilities that he was blamed for Japan's failures in the war. Hoyt concludes with a straightforward account of Tojo's arrest by U.S. military authorities, his trial in Japan for war crimes (which included the charge that he approved mistreatment of Allied prisoners of war) and his execution. Though Tojo emerges here as a colorless person, this account of his career increases our knowledge of the relationship between the Imperial Army, Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese government. Illustrations. (Apr.)