Assassins & Premiers

Tokyo was tense last week with citizens in ignorance of behind-the-scenes doings in the grim Oriental tug-of-war be tween Army and Party leaders which upset the Hirota Cabinet (TIME, Feb.1).

Efforts to form a new Cabinet by more or less mild General Kazushige Ugaki, retired, were abandoned after bodyguards of the Premier-Designate had been obliged to fight off last week an especially resolute group of would-be assassins, assumed by the panicky populace to be "regular Army assassins." Only hasty decision at midnight by the Emperor's advisers to have the Son-of-Heaven ask a onetime War Minister and stanch Army man, General Senjuro Hayashi, to take over the job of Cabinetmaking somewhat slackened tension, by no means ended the crisis.

In Washington at latest reports Japanese Ambassador Hirosi Saito was uncertain whether or not he was being called home to become Foreign Minister, as correspondents were cabling from Tokyo. The Army and Navy, besides supplying Cabinet timber for their departments, were reported to want a general as Foreign Minister, at least temporarily, and the High Command was believed to be sitting with Premier-Designate Hayashi, dictating which Japanese politicians would be permitted to be Ministers.

Japanese politeness when one is winning or has won seemed to account for a silky statement by that fiery militarist whose rambunctiousness in Parliament provoked the crisis, General Count Juichi Terauchi. "There is talk in the streets," softly ad mitted the Count, "but the Army has no intention of carrying out a Dictatorship or a Fascist regime."

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