Occupational Hazards

Six days before last week's Japanese elections, the Communist Party held a rally in Tokyo's Imperial Plaza. In the crowd were U.S. soldiers, some of them Counter Intelligence Corps agents sent as observers. While a Communist speaker ranted against U.S. occupation, inflamed Communists in the audience noticed a Japanese policeman taking notes on the speech. A Communist snatched the notes away. A uniformed Nisei member of CIC, Corporal Henry Yamashita, tried to grab the notes back. Members of the crowd began to push Yamashita around and other U.S. soldiers went to his aid. One of them was knocked down, kicked in the belly and the mouth. When the melee was over five soldiers had been kicked, punched and stoned by the mob in the first serious assault on U.S. troops in the five years of occupation.

Eight Japanese accused of participating in the attacks were arrested, got a quick trial before a U.S. military court. All eight were convicted, sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to ten years.

A Strip Tease. The Communist Party immediately called for a nationwide general strike and a monster rally in Tokyo to protest the trial of the eight rioters. The Japanese government forbade any Communist open-air meetings until after the elections. On the day set for the protest rally Tokyo ran blue with police. The Communists had announced that they expected 30,000 to come to the rally, but it ended up as a subdued meeting of only 5,000. The general strike, too, was a fizzle. Communists had predicted that 400,000 workers would leave their jobs; actually about 25,000 did.

The Communist show of violence was one of the few deadly serious events of the two weeks' campaigning which preceded last week's elections to the upper chamber of the Diet, the House of Councilors. At stake in the elections were the seats of 125 Councilors whose terms ended this year, as well as seven more seats which had fallen vacant through death or resignation. A major shift in the distribution of these 132 seats could change significantly the complexion of the 250-man House.

Candidates of most parties, however, had done little more than cudgel their brains for spectacular schemes to attract attention. A woman candidate had persuaded one of her pretty girl campaign workers to do a strip for the cause. In a Chiba Prefecture town another candidate had stationed henchmen in all the local firehouses. Whenever an alarm came in, the watchmen tipped off campaign headquarters and the candidate's loudspeaker truck sped off to the scene of the fire to harangue the crowd.

A Smart Bid. Communists concentrated their campaign on a demand for withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces, a popular issue with most Japanese.

On June 1, however, Premier Shigeru Yoshida's Democratic Liberal Party government made a strong bid to steal the Communists' thunder. In a twelve-page note, the government gave a friendly history of the U.S. occupation, then announced that Japan was anxious to make a separate peace with any one or more of the powers with which it was still technically at war. The clear implication was that if the Western Allies and Russia could not agree on treaty terms, Japan would make peace with the West alone.

As election returns began to come in, it was quickly clear that support of a separate peace treaty with the U.S. had paid off for Premier Yoshida's Liberals. With eight seats still unaccounted for, the Liberal Party had already increased its membership in the House of Councilors from 60 to 73. At week's end the Communists had elected only three candidates.

To add to the Communists' discomfort, the government announced on the day following the election that it planned to adopt soon "a fundamental policy of outlawing" the Communist Party.

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