Advice, Please!

U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes last week announced at a press conference that he had asked nine nations for advice on Japan. He had invited them to appoint delegates to a Far Eastern Advisory Commission which will convene in Washington on Oct. 23. The nine: Britain, China, Russia, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, the Philippines. Others, notably India, may be invited later.

The permanent Commission headquarters would be Washington, but it might move temporarily to Tokyo.

As the U.S. delegate, Jimmy Byrnes appointed Major General Frank McCoy, 70, U.S.A. (retired), who in his 41 years of active duty in many countries was sometimes referred to as "the Army's ablest diplomat." McCoy was on the Lytton Commission which tried to do something about the Japs in Manchuria in 1932. He was on the Roberts Commission which made the first investigation of Pearl Harbor, is now president of the Foreign Policy Association.

Smack on the Chops. The Russians had proposed an Allied control council--with emphasis on control. The invitations announced last week were in effect a smack right on the Kremlin's chops. The Far Eastern Advisory Commission will not even advise, much less control, Douglas Mac Arthur. Its U.S. liaisons will be with the White House, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Soon British, Chinese and Russian troops--possibly a division of each--will land in Japan to share the burdens, the discomforts, and the geisha girls. But MacArthur's directives will continue to come from the U.S., and the U.S. will continue to make overall Jap occupation policy.

Secretary Byrnes displayed staunch faith in MacArthur. According to obviously inspired dispatches from his headquarters, MacArthur was ready to step out if a really controlling control council should move in on Tokyo. No such thing being yet in sight, he calmly continued the ordeal which Japan must undergo before she can re-enter the comity of nations.

This week, celebrating the complete demobilization of Japan's armed forces and General Staff, General MacArthur broadcast an accounting to the U.S.:

"I know of no demobilization in history either in war or peace by our own or by any other country that has been accomplished so rapidly or so frictionlessly. Everything military, naval or air is forbidden to Japan. This ends its military might and its military influence in international affairs. It no longer reckons as a world power either large or small. Its path in the future, if it is to survive, must be confined to the ways of peace."

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