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Edward Behr: Journalist and historian dies at 81

Edward Behr, who died on Saturday aged 81, enjoyed a long career covering wars from Algeria to Angola and Vietnam for American magazines before turning to writing books and television documentaries.

Notable among his books were The Algeria Problem; Hirohito: Behind the Myth; The Last Emperor, a study of the boy emperor Pu Yi; and Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, an account of the rise and fall of the Ceausescus in Romania.

In Hirohito, published in 1989, Behr concluded that, far from being the innocent tool of the Japanese military in their rampages through Asia and the South Seas, as he came to be portrayed in postwar mythology, the emperor had actually been aware since the early 1930s of exactly what was going on. One of the most hated men in history, Behr said, became the ultimate survivor.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)