Political Purge

From General Douglas MacArthur came an order: henceforth all "who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest" and all "influential" members of nationalist (or terrorist) societies are to be barred from public office.

Premier Kijuro Shidehara was abed with a cold, but he was not as sick as his Government. MacArthur's order covered a majority of Shidehara's colleagues, and sent them scurrying to the Premier's bedside for counsel. Foreign Minister Shigeru Yoshida was assigned to ask the Allied Commander for clarification. Should the Cabinet resign en masse, merely eliminate its undesirables, or stay on as exempt?

MacArthur's purge of officialdom stirred most Japanese more than Hirohito's scuttling of his divinity. The new parties and the press, consistently more liberal than the Government, gleefully belabored Shidehara's "do-nothing" administration. Cried Tokyo's influential Yomiuri Hochi: "The pursuit of those responsible for the war will soon be made by the people themselves ... up to the Emperor himself if they continue to cling to their positions without any thought of repentance."

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