Editor's Letter

Wild Chrysanthemum

It is hardly surprising that despite all the minibios that have appeared since the death of Emperor Hirohito, the new incumbents of the Chrysanthemum Throne remain shadows on a paper screen. Ever since Pearl Harbor, historians have pondered the ambiguities of Hirohito's role in making war and peace. Japan is ambiguity. The Empire of the Rising Sun may now be the technological wonder of the world, but the courtly gradations of a bow and the placing of a flower arrangement are precise mysteries that still baffle the Occidental tourist.

This is why Edward Klein's profile of Akihito and Michiko is so remarkable (page 146). Here for the first time they are recognizable people—a stubborn husband, a stylish high-strung wife, and a mother-in-law who made it clear she felt this upstart was not good enough to marry her son. Michiko is the first commoner to marry a future emperor, but behind this familiar fact lies the drama of court intrigues and silken hatreds so intense, Klein tells us, they led to Michiko's nervous breakdown and to a coup by Akihito against the palace Old Guard. Michiko's triumph over these difficulties, her gentle elegance, and her devotion to her husband and their three children have given "the Wild Chrysanthemum'' a following in Japan and made her an empress whose word—and gesture— will count for much as Japan lays claim to the twenty-first century.

Ed Klein's insights and special knowledge derive from a long association with Japanese culture and society. He first went to Japan in 1961 to work for The Japan Times and was later a U.P.I. correspondent. He learned the language. His first wife was Japanese. To write his twin profile he made a return trip to Japan and conducted sixty-three interviews with friends and associates of the imperial couple. Following our reports from Panama, Haiti, and the Middle East, "Empire of the Son'' continues Vanity Fair's distinctive coverage of foreign affairs.

Editor in chief