The Agitators

For years U.S. citizens have looked with detachment, if not with distaste, on the efforts of colonial powers to suppress local agitations led by fanatic students demanding independence. Last week just such a situation faced the U.S. itself on blood-bought Okinawa, 330 miles south of Japan.

Though the U.S. has often boasted that it had no territorial ambitions in World War II, it has in fact kept Okinawa and the Southern Ryukyus and intends to, "so long as conditions of threat and tension exist in the Far East." The U.S. has invested more than half a billion dollars in making Okinawa its military "nerve center" in the Western Pacific, and has told Japan that it has only "residual sovereignty" over the islands.

Trouble in the Teahouse. The new American conquerors, benevolent and paternalistic in the manner celebrated in The Teahouse of the August Moon, set up Okinawa's first university. The U.S. Government lavished funds on it and encouraged healthy contributions from private U.S. groups. Michigan State College supplied teachers and equipment. The university was soon flourishing, with 1,760 students and 125 faculty members. It flourished with trouble too. Students, probably encouraged by Japanese-educated faculty members, began to agitate for the return of the islands to Japan. Some students supported the Communist-front Okinawa People's Party, sent a party spokesman to Tokyo to complain of U.S. seizure of Okinawan farmlands. Anti-American articles sprouted forth in the university's literary magazine. Last month 250 students staged anti-American demonstrations, shouting "Yankees go home."

All this was disillusioning to the school's creator, Kansas-born Henry Earl Diffenderfer, 41, now Director of Education for the U.S. Civil Administration on Okinawa. Diffenderfer has toiled so hard to raise funds for the university that he is called Kojeki Ryu Dai Kagu Zeidan (begger for the University of the Ryukyus). Pressured by disenchanted donors (including a U.S. Marine outfit), Diffenderfer drafted an angry letter to University President Genshu Asato. The school's foundation is withholding all funds, said the letter, until "you can honestly assure us that anti-American and pro-Communist personnel of your student body and faculty have been removed."

"All the students complaining about oppression," lamented Diffenderfer, "were sleeping in beds provided by American money, using equipment bought by American money, and reading books bought with American money." Diffenderfer said one student had said to him: "I dislike the U.S. and propose to publish a newspaper attacking the U.S.," and had then asked: "Will the foundation lend me the money?" Diffenderfer replied: "If you're coming to shoot me, why should I give you a gun?" "To prove," answered the student, "that you really do believe in free speech, as you claim."

Six Expelled. Last week, aware that the university depends heavily on American good will and contributions, President Asato complied with Diffenderfer's demand, wrote him that the university "apologizes to the American people here and wherever they may be for the conduct of our students." Then he expelled six student leaders (including the president and vice president of the student body). Some of the expelled students were actually pro-American, said President Asato, "but they failed in their responsibilities to keep other students in line." Asato shrewdly acted while students were on vacation, to spare the U.S. another round of mass demonstrations by students, most of whom seemed to be in sympathy with those expelled.

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