'Star Wars' Questions: Why wasn't the Emperor shown in 'Star Wars: A New Hope'?

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There are several explanations for Palpatine’s non-inclusion in Star Wars, aka Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope.
First, George Lucas hadn’t quite fleshed out the Original Trilogy that early in the history of the franchise. In 1976, when Lucas completed the fourth revised draft of Star Wars, he had already created the Emperor as a Nixon-like politician who was, to some extent, controlled by his henchmen. But since there was no logical way to include him in the film without putting him in mortal danger, Lucas decided to make Grand Moff Tarkin A New Hope’s main villain and saving the introduction of the Emperor for the sequel…assuming that Star Wars would at least be successful enough for Lucasfilm to produce one.
“There is a great disturbance in the Force……”
Second, by not introducing Palpatine in A New Hope, Lucas was hoping to create an aura of mystery around the one being who could truly command Darth Vader. While it is true that Tarkin runs the show aboard the Death Star (Lucas didn’t want audiences to think that the Dark Lord ran the Empire by himself, so he created Imperial bureaucrats that were co-equal to the Sith Lord in rank), Vader is the Emperor’s right hand man. He doesn’t have to bend his knee or bow to Tarkin….but he does have to genuflect in front of his dreaded Master. So by waiting till The Empire Strikes Back and introducing Palpatine in a brief scene as a hologram, Lucas astutely got viewers to wonder: “Who is that cowl-covered dude?”

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