Readers familiar with my research will know that its focus has been on the wartime actions and statements of Japan's institutional Buddhist leaders, most especially those affiliated with the Zen school. Nearly to a man, their actions and statements were strongly supportive of Japanese aggression and imperialist actions. In the postwar era many of these same Zen leaders played a seminal role in the introduction of Zen to the West. Thus, it came as a shock to their Western adherents to learn that their beloved Zen masters had once been fervent advocates of aggressive war. They believed, or wanted to believe, that “enlightened” Zen masters were unlike those priests, rabbis, chaplains of other faiths who, with but few exceptions, have always expressed their unstinting support for the wars fought by their nations.