Desperate Activity

Japan's aged (77) Premier Kantaro Suzuki shuffled through a round of desperate political activity. One day he sat through a five-hour emergency session of his Cabinet. The same day he talked long and earnestly with flinty General Jiro Minami, boss of the ultra-totalitarian Political Association of Great Japan. Then he doddered on across the moat of the partly burned Palace to bow low before Emperor Hirohito and make a respectful report. At the Meiji and Yasakuni shrines he prayed for the destruction of his country's enemies. Finally, with the Emperor looking on, he stood before an extraordinary session of the Diet and declared:

"We will smash the enemy in a decisive battle on our homeland, which will be quite different from battles on islands.. . . The enemy is now clamoring for unconditional surrender of Japan, which is intended for the complete destruction of Japanese policy and the Japanese race. . . . There is no alternative for the Japanese but to fight ... to the very last."

Guns & Grass. Was this an irrevocable decision or tactical bluster? Apparently the reported unofficial Japanese drive for a negotiated peace, launched about two months ago, had stalled against U.S. insistence on unconditional surrender. Apparently the militarist rulers of Japan, though they might be willing to part with most of their conquests in Asia, would not accept a surrender that meant their end. Apparently Premier Suzuki's words spelled out their determination to gird the nation for a hara-kiri resistance.

There was corroboration in broadcasts from Radio Tokyo:

P: Veteran diplomat and courtier Tsuneo Matsudaira, 68, resigned as Imperial Household Minister. Ex-Ambassador to Washington and London, father-in-law of the Emperor's brother Prince Chichibu, the suave, gin-drinking, golf-playing elder statesman was regarded as one of the last "moderate" influences around the throne. He was succeeded by ex-Finance Minister Sotaro Ishiwata, good friend of the militarists.

P: The Government decreed new economic controls designed to bolster the country's sagging aircraft and munitions production. It asked the Diet for unprecedented power to rule by emergency decree.

P: The press admitted grave "regional" rice shortages, exhorted the people to match the endurance of their "forefathers who often suffered but overcame acute famine," urged them to eat potatoes and "wild vegetation."

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