An Inoffensive Rearmament (34 page)

“The emperor will stay,” volunteered the director general. “But the prime minister will remain as the head of our defense forces. Japan must have an army responsible to all the people.”

The opposition parties had entirely different views about revision of the constitution and rearmament. The left Socialist Party, holding a meeting in Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture, on April 3 and 4, 1952, had announced a “struggle policy” of steadfast adherence to Article 9 and irrevocable opposition to rearmament. The party pledged its opposition to rearmament. The party pledged its opposition to “militarization” of the NPR and promised to wage a struggle against American military bases in Japan. Opposing any consideration of the conscription system, the Socialists announced their determination to uphold Article 18, against involuntary servitude, and Article 22, the freedom to select one's own occupation and change of residence. More significant, the Socialists were girding for an all-out struggle against Prime Minister Yoshida's legislative program designed to accelerate the “reverse course.” The program of the conservatives to force through the Diet the controversial Subversive Acts Prevention Bill to revise the trade union law, the labor standards law, and the labor relations adjustment law was headed for a rough fight.

While the press debated the propriety in a democracy of politically motivated strikes, and some of the labor leaders urged legislative action in the Diet rather than demonstrations in the streets, most of the labor movement fermented violently. Yoshida's “reverse course” threatened their newly born political power. The extremists hardened their position against the government, and the ranks of the unions closed. Focusing their opposition on the Subversive Acts Prevention Bill, they called for massive demonstrations on April 12. The effort, however, fizzled when at the eleventh hour, Tanrō, the nickname for the Nihon Tankō Rōdō Kumiai, or the National Federation of Coal Miners Unions, gave lukewarm support. When the conservative leadership of Tanrō was replaced by leftist leaders, it became evident that sparks would fly on May Day, the fourth day of Japan's new independence.

With the ratification of the peace treaty, the Japan Communist Party, which at the time had twenty-two elected representatives in the Diet, made a determined effort to seize the nation in the streets. I lived only a few blocks from the national headquarters of the party. Every day on my way to work, I could see their tattered flag flying over their headquarters building. On April 29, the first day of independence, I was amused to see not one but a flock of red flags, all flying at half-staff, symbolizing a day of humiliation. On May Day, however, the flags had all been pushed to the tops of their poles. I drove to my office apprehensive of coming events.

Early in the afternoon on May Day, NPR Headquarters advised me that more than 400,000 working men and women and students had gathered in a massive rally in the Meiji Outer Gardens. There had been violent scuffles throughout the rally, and now there were reports of serious trouble expected at the Imperial Palace Plaza. Requests had been made to use the NPR to keep the peace. Headquarters had dispatched a reconnaissance unit to keep the director general informed. I was disturbed, not so much by the May Day gathering, which was expected to be troublesome, or even the clash that might result in Tōkyō, but by the eagerness with which the employment of the NPR against the workers was sought. Counseling caution, I urged the NPR to leave the situation to the Tōkyō Metropolitan Police and the National Rural Police. I reminded the officials that the NPR was an army, not a police force, and that its premature commitment against the Japanese people would give the organization a black eye and would aggravate the opposition. Determining to take a personal look at the situation, I jumped into a jeep and took off for the Imperial Palace Plaza.

Pushing through a mass of humanity, I worked my way into the Dai Ichi Building and climbed to its roof. From there, I could see thousands milling around, some trying to force their way onto the Imperial Palace Plaza and other groups pushing their way along Hibiya Park. The people were swarming. There was a profusion of signs and banners, with many in the crowd carrying bamboo sticks. Small, detached groups were throwing rocks and smashing windows in American cars parked near the Dai Ichi Building. In a sudden rush, the rioters seized American cars parked near the curb and turned them over. An enterprising rioter struck a match, and the cars burst into flames. The pattern was repeated over and over until the police, arriving in force, finally stopped the destruction. The situation was terrible, and one could be critical of the police for permitting the action to get out of hand, but the police were reinforced rapidly and the rioters were brought under control. I ran down from the roof to make my report to headquarters; again, I urged caution. I saw no reason to commit the NPR.

Later, I learned that ten thousand May Day demonstrators led by Japanese and Korean communists broke from the main rally and, defying the police, engaged in citywide rioting. The major attack was launched on and near the Imperial Palace Plaza. Early estimates reported more than four hundred persons injured, including several Americans. About twenty American automobiles had been overturned and set afire. Many more American and Western automobiles had been stoned. Several American soldiers had been mauled.

The Japanese press uniformly deplored the violence and apologized for what appeared to be an anti-American complexion in the riots. I personally considered the attack on the American automobiles to be a matter of chance. The mob, milling near the Dai Ichi Building and Hibiya Park, attacked the cars as targets of opportunity. It is true that some Americans were mauled, but hundreds of Americans who found themselves in the melee were unmolested. I was especially unhappy about a Scripps-Howard report that was critical of the government for not using the NPR. The reporter urged that the next time the force should “move more effectively to smash future attempts to undermine Japan's internal security.”

After the confusion of the riots cleared, I had a long talk with General Hayashi. On a visit to my office, he informed me that he was deeply worried about the attitude of the government. Prime Minister Yoshida was very short-tempered, he said, and it required all the force of argument that Mr. Masuhara and he could muster to prevent the commitment of the NPR during the riot.

I showed General Hayashi a newspaper article in which State Minister Ōhashi, who at the time had cabinet responsibility of the NPR, was quoted as saying, “But in the future, NPR will go into action in case of such riots or in case of danger of outbreak of such riots, after receiving the Prime Minister's permission, even if no demand for NPR action is made by those in charge of the Metropolitan or the Rural Police.”

“That's what I mean,” answered General Hayashi. “That's our problem.”

He went on to say that the prime minister wanted to alert the NPR for the emperor's appearance in public on May 3. I could see that the chief of the General Group was deeply disturbed.

General Hayashi said he thoroughly agreed with me and asked me to explain in detail under what circumstances federal troops were employed to quell civil disturbances in the United States. I outlined for him our statutes, procedures, and restrictions on the use of the National Guard and the regular army. We spent several hours discussing American relations with local police, state responsibility, and federal authority and obligations. Then we explored how these concepts could be applied in the Japanese environment.

I was delighted with General Hayashi's attitude and thinking. He was sincerely concerned about the rights of the people and was determined to seek procedures and statutes that would ensure those rights without jeopardizing law and order. He assured me that the view we discussed would become Japanese law.

In the ordinance that changed the NPR into the National Safety Agency (in October 1952) and the statute that later converted the NSA into the Japan Defense Agency, the views of General Hayashi prevailed, for the rules, which were adopted for the employment of the Self-Defense Forces of Japan, incorporated the essential elements we discussed during the days that followed the May Day riots. I often wondered what those rules might have become had the chief of the Central Group been someone other than the intelligent, thoughtful, and sensitive General Hayashi.

The immediate impact of the May Day riots was political. The Japanese, traditionally a disciplined, law-abiding people, were shocked at the senseless violence and bloodshed. The newspapers, crying for law and order, fanned the fires, attacking not only the radicals and communists, but the labor unions and students for permitting themselves to be used by the lawless. The primary beneficiaries of the riots were the conservative groups, which accused the Socialists and trade union leadership of irresponsibility and cited the riots as precisely the kind of disorders and lawlessness their legislation was designed to prevent. As a result, the Subversive Acts Prevention Bill and other “reverse course” legislation became law. In the fall elections that year, the Communist Party, which went into the elections with twenty-two members in the lower house of the Diet, was unable to elect a single member. The left Socialists and the right Socialists, running on anti-American platforms, opposing rearmament, and urging independence and neutrality, gained a total of sixty-five members in the Diet and became a solid core of opposition to the conservative bloc, which was formed essentially of liberals and progressives.

The historic first week of Japan's independence, packed so full of tragic and dramatic events, closed on Saturday, May 3, in quiet ceremonies commemorating throughout the land the fifth Constitution Day. The emperor and empress led the national celebration in a ceremony attended by 30,000 people assembled on the Imperial Palace Plaza, where the police two days previously had met communist-led rioters in a bloody clash. I was in the crowd because the NPR was there in formation to add color to the ceremony and to prevent any disorders that might break out.

When the emperor and empress stepped upon the temporary platform, the people in the assembly grew deadly quiet. This was the emperor's first appearance at a public gathering since the war. More significant, the day marked a unique
and historic change in Japan. The people standing in the warm sun, for the first time in the nation's history, could actually see and look upon His Majesty. Up until this day, the Japanese had not dared to look directly at the descendant of the longest unbroken line of rulers in the world. Even when the emperor passed in a train, the Japanese people bowed and averted their eyes from his august presence. Now, some in the silent assemblage cautiously looked up, then directly, at the emperor and empress. I sensed the people liked the unassuming couple that stood so quietly and solemnly on the platform.

Prime Minister Yoshida spoke, as did the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the president of the House of Councillors, and the governor of Tōkyō, but the eyes of the people were on the emperor.

Finally, His Majesty stepped forward and began to read in a quiet, subdued voice, unrolling the scroll to pace his address. I wanted to know what he was saying, but I never would have dared to talk or listen to my interpreter on that occasion. When the emperor finished his address, there was some muffled applause. Then the emperor and empress raised their arms, leading the people in the traditional banzai cheers. Still the audience seemed politely unresponsive.

As the emperor stepped back to leave the platform, the crowd stood quiet, unmoving. Then as he took another step backward, the emperor in a very human gesture twirled his hat lightly over his head. The crowd burst into a cheer. The emperor, seeing that he had struck a chord of empathy with his people, gave his hat a second and a third twirl. The gathering went wild. Surging forward, an excited mass of humanity crowded round the emperor's automobile. I was afraid for a moment he would be mobbed from sheer enthusiasm, but the automobile moved on, with the people not only looking at His and Her Majesty but enjoying them.

The NPR, having turned out with carbines by order of the prime minister to protect the emperor and empress on this day, looked sheepish in their ranks, watching the people joyfully running after the emperor's automobile. A new day and a new era had dawned in democratic Japan.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN