Ben Bruce Blakeney (July 30, 1908,

Shawnee, Oklahoma Shawnee ( sac, Shânîheki) is a city in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 29,857 in 2010, a 4.9 percent increase from the figure of 28,692 in 2000. The city is part of the Oklahoma City-Shawnee Combined Statistical ...

– March 4, 1963) was an American lawyer who served with the rank of

major Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

in the Pacific theater. He is best known for his work for the defense at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

International Military Tribunal of the Far East

In 1946–1948, he served as a defense counsel at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, and defended Shigenori Tōgō. Tōgō's role at the trial was a significant one, since he was a member of the civilian government, not a military official. Tōgō was ultimately depicted as a reluctant participant in Hideki Tojo's war cabinet and in Japanese empire-building more generally, in spite of his having led the Greater East Asia Ministry after 1943. Tōgō was spared the death penalty and instead declared guilty of five of the nine counts against him and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Blakeney concurrently served as defense counsel for General Yoshijirō Umezu, who was sentenced to life imprisonment. Blakeney's arguments at the Tokyo Trials in May 1946 have attracted attention from some Japanese audiences. Some of his statements have been interpreted as critical of the trial's overall hypocrisy, particularly one statement which criticized censorship of discussion of the atomic bombings of Japan. Right-wing artist Kobayashi Yoshinori's 2006 manga "Class-A War Criminals" brought this speech into further notoriety. In the most heavily-quoted excerpt from his remarks, Blakeney noted that killing by a nation, wartime or peacetime, and even waging a

war of aggression A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation. Wars without international legality (i.e. not out of self-defense nor sanc ...

, could not be considered

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in C ...

under

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. The defense counsel for Togo briefly juxtaposed the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in relation to the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...

, saying:

Blakeney's speech was covered in the ''New York Times'', but was overshadowed the same day in the courtroom by an incident where Shumei Okuma slapped Tojo Hideki and made a scene later by crying and praying. In the months following, a number of defense counsel resigned, but Blakeney continued his work for the defense team, arguing that the court should not create a double standard where the Japanese were punished but others were allowed to go free for committing acts of war. In August 1947, Blakeney reviewed the history of US-Japan unsuccessful negotiations that led to war in December 1941, emphasizing that the Tojo cabinet had not predetermined to attack the United States, but that the US communication to Japan on November 26, 1941 was the final trigger on the decision to go to war with the United States. On November 19, 1948, one week after the sentences had been handed down, Blakeney produced a review of his defendant's case for General Douglas MacArthur. Blakeney, together with defense attorney George Furness, filed an appeal with the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

on behalf of the convicted Japanese officials, arguing that the ruling could not be upheld because

General Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was ...

had acted unconstitutionally in constituting the tribunal. The appeal was denied. After the International Military Tribunal for the Far East concluded, Blakeney defended Admiral Soemu Toyoda in one of the more significant postwar cases regarding the doctrine of command responsibility.

Later life

In 1949, he began work as a lecturer of law at Tokyo University. Blakeney later worked with Tōgō Fumihiko to translate and edit ''The Cause of Japan,'' a book which had been drafted by an ill Tōgō Shigenori. The book included an extensive introduction by Blakeney, but was criticised quickly after its publication in English in 1956. One reviewer called the book "pedantic and impersonal... tplaced an embarrassing amount of responsibility or warat the door of the United States." Bruce Blakeney was killed in a plane crash in 1963.

Works

* "The Japanese High Command", ''Military Affairs'', Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer, 1945), pp. 95–113 and No. 3 (Autumn, 1945), pp. 208–218 *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blakeney, Ben Bruce 1908 births 1963 deaths People from Shawnee, Oklahoma Harvard Law School alumni United States Army officers United States Army personnel of World War II 20th-century American lawyers Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Japan Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1963