An Inoffensive Rearmament (32 page)

A man who sometimes collaborated with Colonel Hattori—but who had his own wide following among Japanese nationalists—was former army colonel Masanobu Tsuji. Colonel Tsuji belonged to many organizations and formed several of his own, but he was never a member of the Hattori clique. An aggressive propagandist, he inspired a movement not unlike those of the prewar extremists. After the purge restrictions were lifted, Colonel Tsuji became a successful politician and was repeatedly re-elected to the Diet.

A dynamic young officer, Colonel Tsuji, beginning as an instructor at the military academy, served in many important assignments in the Imperial Army. At the outbreak of the Pacific War, he was chief of the Operations Section of the First Division of the General Staff (Rikugun Sanbō Honbu Daiichibu Sakusenka). He has been credited with being one of the most ardent protagonists of war with the United States. He gained fame as a shrewd strategist, planning the Japanese campaign that resulted in the conquest of Singapore. On the cessation of hostilities, the British listed Colonel Tsuji as a war criminal, but Tsuji would not permit himself to be shot or to rot in an Allied prison. Disguising himself as a Buddhist monk, Colonel Tsuji remained hidden in Southeast Asia and China for three years—until the war crimes trials were over in Japan.

On his return home, Colonel Tsuji avoided the occupation forces. He became active in numerous military nationalist organizations. One of the early organizations he joined was a group headed by the notorious former major general Takeo Imai. This group advocated disbanding the NPR and urged former military officers not to cooperate with the civilian-dominated organization. Colonel Tsuji and General Imai evolved a fantastic program designed to give Japan an independent military force. They pressed the government to demand weapons from the United States, and if the United States would not cooperate, then the group urged the government to appeal for military aid to the Russians. They considered the situation in Japan so critical that martial law should be declared and a crash rearmament program launched. As a clincher, they wanted the commander of the new military forces to assume control of the economy, administration, and judiciary of the nation. In 1951, despite his efforts to stay away from the occupation forces, Colonel Tsuji was indicted for violating the purge directive.

Basically, Colonel Tsuji was a follower of Kanji Ishiwara and his East Asia League philosophy. With Ishiwara, Tsuji believed that Japan's future was in East
Asia, in a federation or at least a coprosperity sphere with mainland Asians. After the war, he contended that it would be impossible for Japan to enjoy prosperity as a satellite of the United States. Abhorring the Russians, he advocated armed neutrality, proposing a Japan strong enough to stand independently between the Soviet Union and the United States. He stressed the need for cooperation among Asian people and contended that Japan's destiny lay with neither the Russians nor the Americans. This view, especially during the Korean War, had a strong appeal to both extreme Right and extreme Left.

Unlike Hattori, Colonel Tsuji consolidated his support throughout the country. He waged an aggressive political campaign. Pleading for an independent, neutral, armed Japan, he built strong support among neutralists and nationalists as well as among the extremists on both the left and the right. It is difficult to estimate the extent of his following. As the elections developed, his main support centered in Tōhoku and KyÅ«shÅ«. He was elected to the Diet time and again by a large vote. Although he was initially very hostile to the NPR, he mellowed as more and more of his followers joined the organization and were given important posts. He nevertheless persisted in demanding an independent, self-sufficient, neutral military force free of “interference” from the United States.

By the time I departed Japan in May 1952, I was informed that in addition to approximately sixty fairly well-known nationalist groups centering on former generals, admirals, and colonels, there were upward of four hundred others in various stages of formation and existence. “They are growing like mushrooms after a rain,” said my informant.

The far-reaching inspirational teachings of Ishiwara created a movement that deserves our attention because it motivated not only former military officers, but farmers, religious leaders, educators, and the general public. Disillusioned with Japan's aggressive program in Manchukuo (Japan's name for Manchuria), which at the time was alienating Asians from Japan, Lieutenant General Ishiwara proposed a cooperative approach for building an Asian federation that would include Japan, China, and Manchukuo. Organizing his East Asia League in 1939, General Ishiwara developed his theories for a coprosperity sphere in Asia. General Tōjō, having little sympathy for cooperative forces, bypassed Ishiwara during the war, but the “Ishiwara thesis” had many supporters in the nation. After his death in 1949, his broad concepts became increasingly popular with various groups of former military officers. In addition to his views on a coprosperity sphere, Ishiwara predicted what he called a “Final War” between Asian forces and the
Western world. Motivated by strong religious convictions, Ishiwara also preached a form of Buddhist pacifism. As Korea polarized the world into two power camps, Ishiwara's predictions seemed to be fulfilled and followers seemed to move in two directions. One group urged Japan to prepare for the Final War, while another organized the Harmony (Peace) Party (Chōwa [Heiwa] Tō). Though the Harmony Party opposed rearmament, it was also antigovernment, distrustful of Americans, and advocated Ishiwara's program of Asia for Asians. As the party became increasingly pacifist, an aggressive minority that included Colonel Tsuji broke away to form the East Asia League Comrades Association (Tōa Renmei Dōshikai). Subsequently, Colonel Tsuji and some followers split away from that association to form their own self-defense league. The Harmony Party and the splinter groups evolving from it included many influential officers who worked with the public, and some pushed impatiently at the highest level of government for a massive ground force, while others opposed rearmament completely, putting their hope of security in international authority—both views inspired by Ishiwara.

By the spring of 1952, as it became evident that the Yoshida government planned to expand the initial NPR force, the views of the former military officers received wide coverage in the press, especially the ideas of Colonels Tsuji and Hattori. Wondering what the senior Imperial leaders who were now helping the government with plans for the expansion thought of some of the loudly acclaimed programs, I asked a former Imperial general about Colonels Tsuji and Hattori.

“Ah so,” he responded. “Some say that it was the Hattori-Tsuji team that persuaded General Tōjō to start the Pacific War. All I can say is that those two flunked the test once. They should never again be allowed to jeopardize the nation.”

I think it is fair to say that the organizations created by the former Imperial officers had little influence on American thinking and moved “One Man” Yoshida not a mite. Their arguments were noisy, attracted attention in the press, and caused some trouble for those of us working with the NPR, but they had little impact on the speed or the nature of the rearmament program. Many of the proposals they advocated were acceptable to both the United States and Japan, but at the time they were made, neither the world situation nor the political environment in the country were favorable for their implementation. The Japanese people wanted security, but they were more concerned with their human wants. What may be important for the future, however, is that the Imperial officers in their public and private debates hammered out some very significant national positions.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DAWN OF A NEW ERA

The cycle of events was closing upon itself. Six years and eight months had passed since Emperor Hirohito, on September 2, 1945, sadly declared, “We command all our people forthwith to cease hostilities, to lay down their arms and faithfully to carry out the provisions of the instrument of surrender and the general orders issued by the Japanese government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters hereunder.”

Some, apologizing to their emperor for their real or imagined failure in the war, committed
seppuku
in the tradition of the samurai. The mass of the people, obeying their emperor's instructions, continued to work, suffer, and endure.

On April 28, 1952, Japan regained its sovereignty. Robert D. Murphy, the first American ambassador to Japan since December 8, 1941, correctly timed his arrival in Tōkyō with the official closing of the doors at the headquarters of the supreme commander of Allied powers. At 10:30 p.m., the occupation government was abolished. In a prepared statement made on debarking from the Pan-American clipper
Good Hope,
Ambassador Murphy said, “This is a day for rejoicing and I rejoice with the people of Japan on this happy occasion. Our two nations have joined hands in a new partnership dedicated to the preservation of peace.”

But there was no peace and there was no rejoicing. There were few signs of spontaneous jubilation. There was a strange uneasiness in the land.

As I drove through Tōkyō on my way to NPR Headquarters, I observed no outward display of any emotions. I expected and wanted to see joy on the faces
of the Japanese people, happiness on their first day of independence from foreign rule. But there was none. The little people who before and during the war dragged their overloaded, unbalanced carts through the streets of metropolitan Tōkyō continued on the day of liberation as they had during the occupation to strain their plodding way, harnessed to the same carts and the same loads. Though the automobile population, acquired with American dollars, had more than doubled since the war, workers in Tōkyō were undernourished and ill-clad. Rice was still rationed. On the historic day of independence, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (Nōrinshō) announced a rice production goal of 13.5 million bushels, an increase of half a million bushels above normal yield. The squeeze was on Japan. The announced quota would be met only through the sweat and toil of the farmers.

Prime Minister Yoshida called upon the people to “march joyfully, courageously, and resolutely on the broad highway of peace and democracy.” But there was no marching. Few bothered to hang out flags. The flag-waving spirit, so much in evidence in Japanese newsreels before the war, was nowhere to be seen. Yoshida himself, driving through Tōkyō, is quoted to have remarked, “Hinomaru flags are too few.” His cabinet hastened to reassure him that the situation would be remedied, not by compulsion as in the past but through “recommendation” to the people.

Only the little ones seemed moved by the occasion. The most enthusiastic was a group of primary school children, a beautiful post-hostilities crop. As I drove past them, they shouted greetings happily, skipping, jumping, playfully waving their little paper flags of Nippon. These were the fortunate ones who had been spared the horrors of the bombings.

I had removed my GHQ shoulder patch, which to the Japanese was a symbol of the occupation of Japan, but as I drove through the gate the Japanese guards saluted me as smartly as they had for the past two years. The old men and women who cleaned our offices and so conscientiously polished our desks seemed not at all moved by their new day of freedom.

I was later to learn dramatically one day that people who worked hard at routine tasks, day in and day out, find little to be joyous about in their drudgery. I was campaigning for Congress in 1958 in Connecticut one early morning at a factory gate, shaking hands and asking the workers to vote for me. Suddenly an old man stopped in front of me, looked me squarely in the eyes, and asked, “Why should I vote for you? What difference will it make to me whether you or your opponent
is elected? I have been walking through this gate every morning for forty years. Tomorrow it won't make a damn bit of difference to me whether you're elected or not.” I wanted it to make a difference, but I suppose the old fellow was right. One man has little impact on matters in Washington.