Switch Day

Black-marketeers covet it, taxi drivers, dance-hall hostesses and restaurants accept it, and even Communist agents collect it for their own devious purposes. In Japan and Korea, the next best thing to U.S. greenbacks is U.S. military scrip. Although in theory MFC (military payment certificates) can be used only in post exchanges, commissaries and other military establishments, and only by the military or civilian employees of the military, "G.I. money" is considered more valuable than the wobbly Japanese yen or the even wobblier Korean hwan.

Last week, with all the security preparations of a landing invasion, the U.S. abruptly declared the existing blue-tinted scrip invalid all over the world. G.I.s were given just seven hours to exchange their blue scrip for the new multicolored issue. The changeover was the first since 1951 but the fourth since scrip was first issued in 1946. It was ordered because counterfeiters were doing so well with the old scrip.

Fiat-Footed Marketeers. In the Far East alone, some $110 million worth was called in. The secret was well kept. To reduce last-minute deals, troops were confined to bases before the news was broadcast, sailors confined to their ships (some thought they were about to be sent to Indo-China). Black-marketeers everywhere were caught flat-footed with thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars worth of MPCs, which turned to worthless paper in their hands.

On switch day, swarms of almond-eyed hostesses at Tokyo's splashy Kinbasha nightclub were offering their hard-earned MPCs for 10-c- on the dollar. One geisha house announced bitterly that henceforth it would do business "for the Japanese yen or the green American dollar only." An Army captain who had been trying for two months to sell his second-hand car for $2,100 was besieged by frantic Japanese car dealers offering him up to $5,000 in MPCs. In Korea the black-market price for $10 MPC dropped from 3,500 to 100 hwan by nightfall. Koreans pursued G.I.s for blocks offering as much as $700 MFC for their cameras.

G.I. Revenge. At Army bases, hundreds pressed against the barbed-wire fences, waving MPCs and begging soldiers to sell them anything from bedsheets to underwear. Outside of Seoul's white-bricked PX, runny-nosed Korean shoeshine boys wailed far into the night: "Hey, G.I., no momma, no poppa, you catch my G.I. money okay? Don't be a sonavabitch, G.I."

For one glorious day, G.I.s had revenge. But black-marketeers had the last word. Three days after the switch, they were doing a brisk business in the new scrip, at the old price: 3,500 hwan for $10 MPC (new issue).

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