How to Use a Wooden Leg

Premier Hideki Tojo shuffled his Cabinet last week and gave Japan a new Foreign Minister: wooden-legged Mamoru Shigemitsu.

In 1932, in Shanghai's Hongkew Park, a Korean patriot threw a bomb at a review stand filled with Japanese officials. Shigemitsu (then Minister to China) lost a leg; Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, later Ambassador to Washington, lost an eye.

Shigemitsu aged, became sallow and bitter. He met one-legged U.S. Author Ellery Walter, who had mastered the use of his artificial leg so perfectly that casual observers never suspected he had it. Shigemitsu took an envious liking to Walter, learned from him how to use a wooden leg.

"Shiggy," as U.S. newsmen dubbed him, clattered rapidly up the diplomatic ladder. He established himself as an authority on Chinese affairs, furthered Japan's encroachment upon China. Later he became Ambassador to Moscow, where he negotiated a settlement of a famous Russo-Japanese border clash at Changkufeng Hill in 1938. As Ambassador to London he made many acquaintances, managed to convey the useful impression that he was opposed to Japan's militarists. In 1941 he became Ambassador to Nanking, where he inaugurated Japan's recent policy of buttering up the puppet government (TIME, April 12).

The appointment could be construed as: 1) an effort to consolidate Japan's position in Occupied China before the Allies can open an offensive in Asia; 2) a move toward still closer relations with Moscow. But one fact was clear: neither Shiggy nor five other "moderate" appointees to the Cabinet had ever seriously opposed the military group long dominant in Tokyo. They could be counted on to carry out Tojo's war policy at home and in the field with continued, ruthless vigor.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.