Doctoral Thesis Cultural Understanding and Heritage Protection in War and Occupation: A Study of the United States’ Occupation of Japan (1945-1952) -- With a Comparative Reflection on the Occupations of Afghanistan (2001-) and Iraq (2003-) NASSRINE AZIMI Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences Hiroshima University September 2016 Doctoral Thesis Cultural Understanding and Heritage Protection in War and Occupation: A Study of the United States’ Occupation of Japan (1945-1952) -- With a Comparative Reflection on the Occupations of Afghanistan (2001-) and Iraq (2003-) NASSRINE AZIMI Division of Integrated Arts and Sciences Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences Hiroshima University September 2016 ‘A nation stays alive, when its culture stays alive’ Plaque at the entrance of the National Museum of Afghanistan ‘These are the memories of mankind, and they are lost forever’ Donny George Youkhanna, former Director General of Iraq Museums ‘They say the cup in Shōsō-in was brought to Japan from Persia by way of China and Korea.’ Inoue Yasushi, from The Opaline Cup, Translation by James T. Araki ‘By the way, I shall see the Oxus, where they fought....’ Langdon Warner, writing from Central Asia ‘I was simply in love with history, culture and literature...’ Ehsan Yarshater, Founder and Chief Editor, Encyclopedia Iranica, on his 95th birthday Acknowledgements My life, my work and my previous studies may have prepared the groundwork for this research but when I finally decided to embark on the doctoral journey in 2013, hardly did I anticipate it would be this difficult. Without the people listed below it may well have been impossible. My gratitude first to my supervisor and committee chair at Hiroshima University, Professor Nunokawa Hiroshi. A historian of contemporary Japan and a specialist of Hiroshima’s reconstruction, for more than three years Professor Nunokawa guided and inspired with his ideas and insights, with his generous and constant availablity, and when I was despondant, which was often, with his humour and encouragements. I have learned much from him that has made me, I hope, a better researcher. My thanks to my doctoral committee members Professor Kanameda Keiji and Professor Kuwajima Hideki, for their constance throughout, always willing to listen, and at three oral defenses helping me refine my thinking with their perceptive comments and questions. Four international readers were my pillars these past years, and it is with admiration and affection that I thank them for their solidarity: Dr. Frederiek de Vlaming, from the University of Amsterdam. Not once but twice she set aside her own many and demanding responsibilities, to read my entire manuscript. Whenever and wherever the research seemed to stall, or when ideas needed to be aired, refined and debated, she was there. No friend, sister, colleague or advisor could have done more. Professor Fukui Haruhiro, emeritus professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara, like me a political scientist but unlike me a scholar of great precision and perspective, gave much needed advice on the research inception, methodology and general sources. For all this I am in his debt (for his impressive editing skills, I am mostly envious). Dr. Marcel Boisard, former executive director of UNITAR, ICRC delegate and an Islam scholar, ‘MB’ as his many devoted staff still call him, guided me on the comparative historical context, the Islamic world, and Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the most erudite UN officials I have known, it has been a privilege working with an intellectual and a humanist of his calibre. Professor Miyagawa Shigeru, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose academic excellence, vision and generosity are only matched by his modesty, has been a rock these past three years. Rightly tough on my confused first draft, the clarity of his commentary quickly shocked me, I hope, back onto the right track. Dr. Carol Rinnert, emeritus professor of Hiroshima City University and an expert in linguistics, proved to be that blessing—a patient and precise editor. I do not know how I would have moved 1 ahead these past months without her constant reviewing, correcting, and tweaking of my various drafts, and with her constant encouragements, of myself. Professor David Eaton of the University of Texas at Austin has been listening to my ‘doctoral’ ideas for the past 20 years, answering endless questions on approach and methodology, only to have to start again, at our following meeting! For his friendship and perseverance I am grateful. It was my good fortune to read quite early on the 2003 article by Professor Geoffrey R. Scott of Pennsylvania State University, on the role of cultural experts at SCAP. I am indebted for his prompt response to my requests for advice and interviews, and his welcoming support when I visited in August 2014. The friendship and support of Dr. Dohy Kiyohiko, Sakoda Kumiko, Okahata Michiko, Tashiro Akira and Tashiro Kanako with everything, including translations of Japanese documents has been precious. I vow that my next journey will be, with their encouragement and to their relief, improving my Kanji reading skills! My partners at Green Legacy Hiroshima kept the flame (and the seeds) of the survivor trees alive at those times I was drowning in my research: a special thanks to Watanabe Tomoko, Horiguchi Chikara, Nishikiori Akio and the wonderful teams at UNITAR and ANT. To many friends who listened patiently over the years as I rambled on about the importance of culture and cultural heritage protection in war or occupation, shared their ideas or simply prodded me on...in no particular order I express unbounded gratitude for their inputs to Edgar Porter, Faezeh Mahichi, Mahjoub Zirak, Tommy Koh, Chang Li Lin, Kurokawa Kiyoshi, Carlos Lopes, Marina Vasilescu, Otsuka Bannai Masako, Kristin Newton, Unezaki Masako, Gisele Collomb, Francois LeBlanc, Akieda Naito Yumi, Uye Shin-ichi, Hotta Taiji, Humaira Kamal, Michael Fors, Sharapiya Kakimova, Susan Dewhirst, Heidi Hiebert, Roger Buckley, Mark Selden, Michel Wasserman, Nicole Gordon, Kat Georges, Peter Carlaftes and Otake Eiko. Working on the life and legacy of Beate Sirota Gordon was a precious preparation for this research—she embodied so much of what I have written about. I thank my friends and former colleagues in Afghanistan, and all who love that ancient, beautiful, long-suffering land, notably Tawab Saljuki, Sabahuddin Sokout, Amir Foladi, Nagaoko Masanori, Noguchi Noboru, Sara Noshadi and the many alumni of the UNITAR Hiroshima Fellowship for Afghanistan. Maeda Kosaku’s eloquent description of the treasures lying in the soil of Afghanistan and across the ancient Silk Road has the power to make me weep, every time. Jonathan Moore, who was part of our mission to Afghanistan in 2002, educated me then and since, through his unique experiences as former US coordinator for refugees. At the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) I thank the Terasaki Center for its travel grant of January 2015 and the Center’s competent staff, notably Deputy Director Noel Shimizu, for their support during that productive week spent with the Prange Collection. 2 At the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Hiroshima University, administrative staff Yamashita Hiromi, Masuda Naoko and the rest of the team deserve praise, for keeping us (and the paperwork) sane and manageable. To Professor Lawrence Rothfield, whom I do not have the privilege to know, my gratitude for his passionate plea on behalf of the lost treasures of Mesopotamia. Librarians and archivists have always held a special place in my life, and now more so than ever: I thank Hayashi Rie and all the patient, committed librarians at the International House of Japan in Tokyo, the librarians at Hiroshima University’s Chuo Library (notably Hino Miho and Tsumura Mitsuhiro) and the Higashi Senda Library, the librarians of the Hiroshima International Conference Center and the Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of Art, as well as the able staff at the National Diet Library, in Tokyo. Special thanks to Professor Nishimura Kouji at Hiroshima University Media Center, for doing his best to soften the pains of keeping up with IT requirements. In the United States the marvelously knowledgeable archivists at the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) at College Park, Maryland; Tomoko Bialock at UCLA’s East Asian Library; Tatsumi Yukako, curator at the Gordon W. Prange Collection of the University of Maryland; and the staff of the Houghton Library at Harvard University were invaluable. I thank the librarians at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art for their assistance to my proxy researcher. Many thanks to the ever-smiling baristas of the NHK building’s Starbucks Coffee, in Hiroshima. They will be relieved, I think, to no longer see my crouched form on the laptop—early morning or late night, weekend or weekday...thank you for keeping me awake, and thank you Mr. Shultz. Words cannot describe my debt to my family. A PhD is a test of character, a marathon, an obstacle course—at times marked by exciting discoveries but mostly filled with tedious, outwardly opaque and seemingly endless chores. It is especially rough on one’s closest. My love and gratitude to my gentle mother Azar, who patiently nourished me in Hiroshima and Carlsbad; to my sweet sister Sherri, who since she was born has managed to cheer me; to my brothers Babak and Farhad, for being pillars of advice and technical support; to Malak, Mashi, Robab, Molouk, Fati, Kourosh, Nazli, Mitra and Vanessa for their loving prayers; to Shahriar, the best proxy researcher ever; to my uncles Lotfali, Asgar and Ezzat who rejoiced with and for me throughout; and to my teachers Arianna and Ryan, for being the inspiration of it all. I dedicate this work to the memory of my father, whose deep feelings for beauty kept alive our cultural heritage, even in exile.