The Flag Is Up

The U.S. had Japan but not the answers. Correspondents in Washington and Tokyo last week had a hard time finding out from the U.S. Army how occupation policies were shaping up. Typical interview in Tokyo:

"What factors enter into the exchange rate?"

"It will be fixed as soon as possible." "How about Military Government?" "I don't think there will be a separate one."

"Is there a list of war criminals?" "Somebody else is handling that." Confusion or Discretion? The leftist U.S. press hollered that MacArthur's occupation decisions indicated confusion, lack of planning and softness toward the Japs. He was charged with preserving the hated Kempeitai (thought-control police), permitting provocative statements in the Tokyo press. It boiled down to: "The wily Japanese are making monkeys of us."

What evidence there was favored another explanation: for the moment Japanese and U.S. policy toward the occupation happened to run side by side; the Japanese Government wanted the people to roll with the punches, MacArthur was not set for a haymaker. Each wanted to spar around, learn more about the other. As political adviser to MacArthur. Washington named plump, 48-year-old George Atcheson Jr., career diplomat and counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Chungking during much of the war. Able, experienced in Far Eastern affairs, Atcheson was a flexible man who could not be branded with any political label.

MacArthur's occupation force (including General Joseph Stilwell's southern Korea force) would number only about 300,000 combat troops. The Japs had ten times as many armed forces in the home islands, even more coming home.

One Down? While Japanese were obligingly suggesting names for war criminals--among them Shigemitsu, Konoye and Umezu -- the No. 1 Japanese war criminal of them all, billiard-bald, razor-tongued Hideki Tojo, who as Premier led his people to war on December 7, 1941, took matters into his own hands. The day after two Associated Press correspondents forced their way into his house for an interview, U.S. Army intelligence officers turned up to take Tojo away for questioning. The irate warmonger made faces at them througlf a window, retired to an inner room where he had already made hara-kiri preparations, ignominiously and hastily shot himself below the heart with a 32-calibre pistol. Given a 50-50 chance to live, he cried: "I want to die." His death would be only a beginning. In Manila Colonel Alva Carpenter was preparing a war-criminals list running into thousands of names. Prison-camp atrocities (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) spurred preparations for punishing the guilty. What ever the shortcomings of the U.S. Regular Army brass might be, lack of esprit de corps was not among them. The war-crimes provisions of the surrender would be enforced by men raging mad at what the Japs did to fellow U.S. soldiers.

"Take Care!" Mindful of the fiasco in Germany, the Army had not yet laid down a hard & fast rule on fraternization. Many Japanese brothels had not yet been declared out of bounds, might not be unless the Army rate of V.D. infection increased sharply. (Said a new Jap roadside sign: "Take care. The infectious diseases prevail in this village.") MacArthur held only the Tokyo area and four or five coastal bases. It would be Oct. 5 before his troops would land on the northern island of Hokkaido. A skin-deep occupation required a skin-deep interim policy.

Even after the bulk of his troops landed, MacArthur intended no direct rule of the Japanese. He announced that U.S. troops would only be used to see that MacArthur's orders, transmitted to the Japanese Government, were carried out. Japanese business would not be molested except (and it might be a large exception) to insure that Japan would not again menace peace.

Gumbatsu & Zaibatsu. The gumbatsu (militarists) had not lost all their power. On the eve of surrender, military men had killed an Imperial palace guard, thrown a cordon around the palace itself, and attempted to capture the Emperor's recorded rescript announcing the war's end. The coup failed, but it was an uncomfortable omen.

Japan was not being remade overnight, but the occupation was going well, if slowly. MacArthur had neither met nor sought real tests. He had raised the U.S. flag over Tokyo, warned the Japs that it would not come down until they were a harmless, peaceful nation. While waiting for Japanese reactions to help determine his future policy, MacArthur considered a trip to the U.S., his first since 1937.

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