Back to the Kimono

The old imperial emblem of the Rising Sun was run up the flagpole of a graceful, lagoon-fronted building in Tokyo one day last week. Japanese workmen briskly removed "Off Limits" signs from the grounds. For six years, the famed Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1922, had been a symbol of Japan's defeat and the opulent haven of U.S. VIPs, generals and colonels, who luxuriated rent-free in its fine rooms, savored sumptuous meals for 40-c- and dispensed tips of two or three cigarettes with the grand gesture of selfless philanthropists. Last week, returned to its Japanese owners, the Imperial became a symbol of Japan's trip back to sovereignty.

Reappearing Silver. The Imperial's rooms were opened to all comers, at rates ranging from $7 to $30 a day for a room, and almost immediately were booked until late summer. (Among the early reservations: John D. Rockefeller III, Opera Star Helen Traubel.) Its famed Peacock Room, hung with the season's first cherry blossoms and paper lanterns, overflowed with bowing Japanese--including Emperor Hirohito's daughter--who ate from new silverware and fine china that has been brought from hiding.

All over Japan, the defeated were slipping off the straitjacket of occupation and sliding into the comfortable kimono of freedom. Almost daily, another hotel, office building, golf course, dockyard or apartment house was reclaimed from the occupiers. The special ticket windows and the white-striped railroad cars (for occupation forces only) were on their way out. Japanese merchant vessels were allowed to fly the Japanese flag once more in foreign waters. Last week Pakistan became the seventh nation to ratify the Japanese Peace Treaty, which makes it official as soon as all seven signatures are deposited in Washington (this will probably take several weeks).

Reluctantly, but with a brave show of willingness, U.S. occupiers gave back, chunk by chunk, pieces of the privilege, pomp and plenty which, through history, have been always the rewards and often the corrupters of conquerors. They are not relinquishing it all, by any means. Under the separate Japanese-American agreement allowing U.S. forces to remain in Japan, they will enjoy--but pay for--many extraterritorial privileges.

Ten-Cent Cigarettes. In well-built suburbs with names like Washington Heights, and Grant Heights, U.S. occupiers and their families will live only slightly less luxuriously than they do now. Top brass will no longer have two to six free Japanese servants, but good house help will be available cheap ($20 to $30 a month). They will still get duty-free whisky, 10^ American cigarettes, 25-c-U.S. movies, cheap food from Army commissaries and free or subsidized medical service.

Soon the military will abandon the No. 1 symbol of occupation, the big Dai Ichi insurance building across from the Imperial Palace, and move to the suburb of Ichigaya, renamed Pershing Heights. SCAP General Matthew Ridgway will have to move out of the U.S. Embassy to make room for new Ambassador Robert Murphy--but he will go to even more elaborate quarters, set aside by the Japanese government for the general, his pretty wife and three-year-old son. It is the baronial eight-acre estate of the late Marquis Toshitatsu Maeda, which boasts a baroque, three-story mansion, 14 smaller buildings and a private golf course. The estate is being remodeled under Mrs. Ridgway's supervision at a cost of from $50,000 to $100,000.

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