TOJO LIVING IN LUXURIOUS HOME

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 215, 11 September 1945, Page 5

TOJO LIVING IN LUXURIOUS HOME

PRESS INTERVIEW

Former Prime Minister

Laughs Heartily N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. TOKYO, Sept. 10. General Hideki Tojo, the former Prime Minister of Japan, in an interview, declared that the American victors could fix the responsibility for the start of the war, but history might disagree.

Tojo, who is still living in his luxurious gendarme-guarded home on the outskirts of Tokyo, refused flatly to discuss whether he expected to be tried as a war criminal or what would be his defence, but spoke many times in moods ranging from steel-eyed impassivity to hearty laughter.

A Japanese politician earlier stated that Tojo expected to be tried as a war criminal, whereupon he would accuse President Roosevelt of being the world's top war criminal and then commit harakiri.

Tojo sharply refused to discuss this. His whole attitude was expressed in this statement: "A real soldier's fight is to the finish on the field. The war ends when peace is declared. Each side respects an enemy who fights hard and cleanly, so General Mac Arthur has the respect of myself, as well as the Japanese people."

Tojo said that he himself and his family narrowly escaped death on May 25 when Super Fortresses ringed his house with flames. "You burned my three best pine trees," said the man whose armies destroyed most of Asia. Amassed a Fortune It is said that Tojo, while he was Prime Minister, amassed a fortune, mostly from-the illicit opium trade in China, where high generals carried the drug from North China to Shanghai.

A former highly-placed politician who visited Tojo ten days ago said the place was surrounded by police and gendarmes. The informant asked that his name be withheld, because if the people knew he had visited Tojo they would kill him. This aptly exemplifies the attitude towards the general, whom most Japanese frankly name as No. 1 war criminal: Tojo, though disgraced, made a final gesture to prevent Japan from surrendering. The informant confirmed that one of the two conspirators who killed General Mori in the attempt to destroy the Emperor's surrender rescript was Major Koga, Tojo's son-in-law. Both the assassins committed suicide at Imperial Headquarters. The informant said that when he mentioned the suicide Tojo's wife said: "Yes, he did a brave and honourable thing."