Though the plotters did not succeed in killing Chaplin, they successfully murdered liberal Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai, paving the way for a future military government.

Nearly everyone in the United States knows that Imperial Japan’s surprise early-morning airstrike on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, brought the United States into World War II. The strike devastated the harbor and decimated America’s battleship fleet. The damage, and the images of it, enraged the American public, silencing American anti-war isolationists and guaranteeing that Japan would pay a heavy price for its treachery.

One can debate the causes of, and the blame for, Pearl Harbor, and many historians have. What is less well-known is that the Imperial Navy’s attempted decapitation strike on the US fleet wasn’t the first time that Japanese militarists tried to provoke a war with the United States. In May 1932, a group of 11 fanatical ultranationalists attempted to murder Charlie Chaplin, at the time Hollywood’s biggest star, during a visit to the country—hoping that his assassination would lead to war between the two countries.

Japan’s Ultranationalist Takeover Took Place in Stages

Japan’s move toward democracy in the early 20th century had sparked an ultraconservative reactionary backlash—in which many Japanese military officers, often from samurai caste backgrounds, sought to restore ultimate power to the Emperor.

These officers believed that a war with the United States would be essential to domination of the Pacific, and saw their victory as inevitable, viewing the perceived iron discipline of the Japanese as superior to the decadence of the United States. More importantly, they believed that such a war would silence domestic critics, much as Pearl Harbor ultimately would in the United States. And to the ultranationalist officers, extreme violence in pursuit of these goals—both against foreigners and domestic opponents—was not merely a feature of the campaign, but an essential element.

The escalating violence resulted from a combination of factors. A Japanese financial crisis in 1927 brought down a liberal Japanese government and weakened confidence in the banking system. The US stock market crash in 1929 and ensuing global financial crisis hit a recovering Japan hard, plunging the nation once again into depression. The Japanese liberals who had tied their credibility to capitalism and to international markets were badly hurt by this development. A second factor was the 1930 Washington Naval Treaty, which limited the size of Japan’s navy to three-fifths the size of the US Navy and the Royal Navy. The uneven restrictions were insulting, and threatened Japan’s ability to protect its trade and economic sphere of influence.

Japanese ultranationalists had pushed for a program of economic independence (autarky) since 1919, and felt vindicated by these developments. Japan had watched while the British naval blockade slowly strangled Germany during World War I, leading to unprecedented economic hardship and playing a major role in Germany’s ultimate defeat. They feared that the US and Britain could ultimately do the same to them should East and West clash over resources in areas that Japan believed lay within its sphere of influence. (This fear later returned with the July 1941 American oil embargo on Japan, regarded as a major factor behind Japan’s decision to attack Pearl Harbor. And indeed, during World War II, American submarines were able to isolate Japan, crippling its war economy.)

For obvious reasons, Japanese militarists had a strong presence within the Army officer corps, and by the early 1930s, they essentially operated outside the command of civilian authorities. One of the most extreme units in the Japanese armed forces was the Kwantung Army, created to police Japan’s Kwantung Leased Territory in modern-day Dalian, China. In 1931, without permission from Tokyo, the Kwantung Army staged an attack on a Japanese-owned railway at Mukden, then used it as a pretext to invade and conquer the Chinese province of Manchuria. Japanese liberals were outraged by the incident, and liberal foreign minister Shijuro Kidehara condemned it, but the successful conquest led to pro-nationalist fervor in Japan and the army’s actions went unpunished.

Smelling blood in the water, the ultranationalists continued. During the “League of Blood” incident in February–March 1932, a group of revolutionaries, led by self-styled Buddhist leader Nissho Inoue, attempted to kill 20 Japanese political and business leaders who were thought to be too pro-Western in their outlook. Inoue and his followers hoped the assassinations would spark an uprising that would rally around the Emperor. In the end, two people were murdered, but no uprising occurred. The murders, however, served to legitimize political violence in some quarters of Japanese society.

The Japanese Plot to Kill Charlie Chaplin

In May 1932, a group of 11 young Japanese naval officers launched a bold plan. Charlie Chaplin, at the time Hollywood’s biggest star, was visiting Japan as part of a world tour. Chaplin’s top assistant was Japanese, as was much of his staff. Chaplin reportedly admired Japanese culture immensely.

Chaplin’s celebrity had earned him an invitation to a reception at Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai’s residence. The plotters planned to crash the reception and murder Inukai and Chaplin. They believed Inukai’s death would spark an uprising against political and business elites, again with the goal of restoring power to the Imperial Palace. They also calculated that assassinating Chaplin would spark a war with the United States, who they believed would not stand by as its biggest star was brazenly murdered. Such a war, combined with the hoped-for uprising, would rally the people around the Emperor, who would have no choice but to lead them.

On the night of May 15, 1932, the plotters indeed stormed Prime Minister Inukai’s residence and brutally murdered him when he attempted to speak with them. But Chaplin was nowhere to be found. He had left early, accepting Inukai’s son’s invitation to attend a sumo wrestling match. The plotters also unsuccessfully attacked the home of the Keeper of the Privy Seal, a key government official.

Upon hearing of the murder and the plot, Chaplin’s people rushed him out of the country. The plot bewildered Chaplin himself—who was after all a British subject, not an American one, and therefore not America’s to avenge. Chaplin did, however, admit that going to the sumo match likely saved his and his host’s lives. The planned uprising never took place, and the conspirators quickly found themselves on trial.

The Assassination Plot Was Ominously Popular in Japan

The plot’s aftermath, however, indicated that it was not as much a failure as it had initially appeared. After Inukai’s death, political power moved to a “national unity” cabinet led by Admiral Makato Saito—seen as a compromise to prevent an overt military takeover of the country, but showing the writing on the wall as to where Japan was heading.

The 11 plotters were court-martialed and tried before a military tribunal. The tribunal received over 110,000 appeals for leniency, many hailing the defendants as patriots. Most were reportedly signed or written entirely in blood. Thousands of men requested that they be tried and sentenced in place of the actual plotters. These appeals may or may not have influenced the tribunal, but the defendants received remarkably light sentences—ranging from 1 to 15 years’ imprisonment, at a time when death sentences were still the norm.

Japan’s slide toward militant nationalism continued, with the military eventually seizing control of the government. Another step along that road was the February 1936 incident in which 1,400 Army officers attempted a violent coup. It failed, but killed several liberal cabinet ministers, and ironically led to even tighter control by the military authorities. That militarism eventually led to Pearl Harbor, and Japan’s ultimate defeat in 1945.

About the Author: William Lawson

William Lawson is a military historian focusing on World War II and 20^th century conflicts and the American Civil War. His specialty is operational level warfare, especially American amphibious doctrine. He writes on history, politics, and firearms for multiple publications and historical journals. He serves on the editorial advisory board for the Saber & Scroll Journal and Military History Chronicles and is a member of the Society for Military History and the American Historical Association. Lawson is based in Virginia.

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