Professor Yuma Totani Explores Hoover's Newly Acquired Tokyo Trial Sketchbooks

On May 8, Hoover Library & Archives welcomed Yuma Totani, professor of history at the University of Hawaii and a Hoover visiting fellow, who discussed her work on the recently acquired sketchbooks of Shigemitsu Mamoru, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Japan during World War II. Shigemitsu, as a civilian delegate, along with General Yoshijiro Umezu, signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, on the USS Missouri. Shigemitsu was tried and sentenced to seven years in prison for waging an aggressive war at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. His sketchbooks are an important testimony and intimate eyewitness account of the trial. The Library & Archives has partnered with the Shigemitsu family to digitize and make available 145 pages of the sketchbooks, which can now be viewed on our digital portal.