An Inoffensive Rearmament (31 page)

The purge disbanded these organizations, but many thoughtful Japanese wonder whether the roots have been torn out. The threat of external communist attack and internal subversion, political strikes of the labor unions, riots, and excesses of leftist students have all stirred violent emotions in the breasts of former senior officers, many of whom belonged to the Cherry Blossom Society (Sakurakai) or the East Asia League (Tōa Renmei), or were the proud and unresurrected veterans of the Kwantung Army (Kantōgun). Some of these nationalist organizations have surfaces with new foliage, but like the bamboo, they get their sap from a common root.

In 1950, as the Korean War grew in ferocity and the United States and the Japanese government shifted their programs and policies into a “reverse course,” the former military officers banded together throughout the country, generating a plethora of organizations. Initially, army and navy academy graduates formed classmates associations for social and informative purposes. These were followed by various service groups to promote mutual benefit interests, such as pension rights. Gradually, groups were organized that were concerned with fighting communism, providing security for the country, advocating rearmament, establishing foreign policy, and promoting nationalism. Like soap bubbles, some burst and others expanded or grew by combining and absorbing smaller groups. In time all
these associations became involved in the rearmament program of Japan and the new forces that were being organized.

Pulled by a common emotional magnet, these organizations of former Imperial officers all pointed to the right. Despite this general orientation, there were important differences between them, which inhibited effective cooperation.

Many of the splits and rivalries that existed in the prewar Imperial forces persisted into the 1950s. The hardened military views on the conflicting missions, capabilities, and comparative importance of the army and navy continued to divide the former officers of those services. Programs initially developed by Kanji Ishiwara projected one group of his followers into commitments to international peace while a second group of followers supported a program of “armed neutrality” for Japan.

Interestingly, a significant split developed between senior Imperial officers and the younger officers. After an interlude of six or seven years as citizens of a democratic Japan, the young group entertained a decidedly different view of their country and the future than did their former superiors. Whereas in the prewar Imperial forces the young officers of the army and navy general staff were the extremists, pushing their seniors, evolving bold national strategy, and projecting their generals and admirals upon the national stage, it was the senior officers now who pushed for political action, attacked the government, and were the extremists. The younger former Imperial officers did not find democracy odious; they became acclimated to American innovations and found no difficulty in integrating into civilian society. While the former generals, admirals, and colonels pressed furiously to the right, the younger officers looked cautiously about their surroundings.

Attitudes on rearmament, and specifically concerning the new forces, differed drastically. Men like former general Sadamu Shimomura and former lieutenant generals Eiichi Tatsumi, Shuichi Miyazaki, and Yoshio Kotsuki joined Prime Minister Yoshida to advise him regarding the release of former officers from the purge and to assist in screening officers for acceptance into the NPR. Former navy admirals Yoshio Yamamoto and Sadatoshi Tomioka cooperated with the government in organizing the coast guard. These men, however, had little influence with the mass of the Imperial officers who for a long time regarded the NPR with hostility. After 1951, when former officers were inducted into the NPR and professional military leaders were assigned important posts, most Imperial military
officers began to accept the new defense forces as something better than nothing. They continued, however, to differ on the broader aspects of rearmament.

Attitudes on the United States, our military capabilities in the Far East, the impact of the occupation of Japan, and the effect of American training methods on the discipline and the spirit of the new establishment divided the former military officers into a variety of camps. Except for their common slogans against communists, they were pro-American as well as anti-American, favored the new democracy, argued for the liquidation of the NPR, and urged the return of the emperor system. Their views of democracy and Americans influenced their thinking on basic military concepts, polarizing their attitudes on the question of supreme command (
saikō shireikan
). While the arguments against democratic control of the future military forces by the prime minister were subdued, many nevertheless advocated return of the supreme command to the emperor. These groups contended that neither the power of the law nor institutions alone were sufficient to build a dedicated military force or to inspire the troops. Some were willing to compromise, urging the establishment of a National Defense Council (Kokubō Kaigi) headed by an appropriate member of the Imperial family.

While these differences in views and attitudes generated rivalries and divisions among the various military groups that surfaced during the “reverse course” environment, their fundamental rightist orientation encouraged wide agreement on many issues. Uniformly, as in the prewar days, they argued that the crisis in Japan was spiritual and the people had to be aroused to the dangers confronting the nation. American tutelage had lulled the Japanese into a false sense of security, and the new liberal concepts of democracy were destroying the traditions of the country. An apathetic Japan was exposing its borders and the soul of its people to alien ideological subversion, from the West to American democracy and from the Soviets to communism. Of the two evils, the more immediate danger to the nation and the people was communism. Duty therefore demanded that the former Imperial officers in this crisis act to save Japan.

This patriotic anticommunism fit nicely with our own views of the world situation. Though the former Imperialists grossly exaggerated the strength of the Communist Party, they gained a warm reception in many American quarters. Arguing that rearmament was the only hope for resisting communist aggression, the new militarists were applauded by Americans. As so often happens in human endeavors, views that coincided were motivated by completely different objectives.
On the one hand, the Americans were urging swift and extensive rearmament primarily to build up a strong military force in Japan in the hope that in an emergency we would have massive Japanese ground forces to throw in against the communists in Korea. Most of the nationalists, however, considered such an adventure totally inimical to Japan's interests.

As the nationalists grew stronger, they began to favor with increasing conviction a military force for Japan independent of all foreign powers. They wanted neither domination by the United States nor commitments to the West. They admitted that Japan would need American weapons and equipment for the initial rearmament, but they argued for early restoration of Japanese armament factories and facilities. Firm in their determination that professionals should make decisions on the buildup of Japanese forces in Japan's interest, they resented bitterly American supervision of the rearmament program. Most of the nationalists demanded that the NPR be disbanded and that a fresh start be made under professional supervision. Critical of the civilian leadership in the NPR, they urged wholesale firings of the amateurs.

Refraining from a direct attack against the parliamentary system, the nationalists did not spare the whip against the new democratic ideas. Deploring the emphasis on the rights of the individual, they contended that the family structure was being undermined and the hearts of fighting soldiers weakened. They urged a massive Japanese revival of traditional virtues. Soft civilian concern for the rights of the people had no place in the military forces of Japan. They advocated revision of the constitution, restriction of the civilian bureaucracy, and rededication to ancient Japanese virtues of discipline, obedience, and self-sacrifice.

Within CASA, the ideas of the nationalists were supported mainly for the reasons previously mentioned, to accelerate rearmament for immediate American military purposes. Personally, I considered these objectives too shallow and lacking an appreciation of long-term human and American interests. Because I was concerned with the impact the nationalist groups might exert, I kept myself carefully informed of their activities.

Colonel Takushirō Hattori and his associates, who in time became known as the “Hattori Agency” (Hattori Kikan), were a unique group that played an important role in those crucial days. As I have mentioned in a previous chapter, Colonel Hattori and his colleagues, with access to the records of the Demobilization Bureau, controlled the main depository of Japanese resources and knowledge. For
years after the surrender, Hattori and his fellow officers from the Imperial Army and Navy served as the main point of contact between the occupation forces and the Japanese professional military leaders. Major General Willoughby, General MacArthur's intelligence officer, who had been the supervisor and sponsor of this clique of former Imperial elite, had promised and did his utmost to deliver to Colonel Hattori the command of the NPR. When this did not materialize and the American Advisory Group refused to incorporate the Hattori element into the CASA organization, Colonel Hattori switched his approach, moving the Hattori Agency into the political environment of Japan.

The core of the group at the time consisted of ten or so former Imperial colonels and lieutenant colonels, most of whom had served in the Demobilization Bureau. They were supported by some three hundred members in the prefectures. The announced purpose of the agency was to collect and disseminate information on the rearmament of Japan. The group's slogan was freedom, independence, and self-defense. In their hidden agenda, the members continue to visualize themselves eventually filling the command structure of the new army. Joining other groups of former military officers, they found the NPR wanting in many categories.

Steeped in the emotional traditions of the Imperial past, these groups viewed the NPR and American supervision and training methods with skepticism and aversion. They were critical of American discipline and fighting spirit. Ignorant of modern military concepts, they deplored the use of massive equipment and heavy consumption of ammunition. They accused the NPR of being paid mercenaries who, like the American soldiers they tried to imitate, would not fight unless they were served ice cream daily. They argued that Japan could not afford to pay for the great volume of ammunition that the Americans were requiring the Japanese to expend in training. Suspicious of heavy equipment, they pointed out that bridges in Japan would collapse under the weight of our tanks, artillery, and engineering equipment. They urged the government to disband the NPR and start anew, building ground, sea, and air forces designed for the special defense of Japan. Though they grudgingly acknowledged that under the circumstances then prevailing in the world, American weapons, aircraft, and naval vessels would initially be required, they wanted to be free of any American controls.

Some Americans were surprised to find that Colonel Hattori and his group not only criticized the adequacy of the NPR but questioned overall American military capability in the Far East. Hattori contended that in Asia, which was
important to Japan, the Russians were militarily far superior to the United States. The war in Korea, he pointed out, was demonstrating that although the Americans were equipped with superior weapons, they were hardly holding their own against the Chinese, who were fighting with second-grade equipment. His point was that he feared that Japan would find itself as unprotected and unprepared as the Philippine Islands had been against Japanese assaults in the Pacific War.

I was told that in 1951 Colonel Hattori had submitted a fantastic recommendation to GHQ SCAP suggesting that Japan immediately organize twenty infantry divisions, with former company grade officers as the nucleus. He is said to have estimated that such a force could be formed in one month and that given two or three months' training, these units would become as effective as any American troops. If he really made such a recommendation, he certainly knew nothing about the logistics of equipping, housing, deploying, and training a force of this magnitude. Yet he went on to suggest that in the event of an emergency Japan could field fifty divisions.

These ideas were so far out of line with the modest four-division force that Prime Minister Yoshida was trying to nurse along that they were rejected firmly and inalterably. When in the autumn of 1951, after many of the former military officers were depurged, the government refused to call Colonel Hattori and his associates to the command of the NPR, the agency turned bitterly against the new organization. Attacking the civilian bureaucrats in the NPR, the Hattori group sent a circular to prospective candidates among the former officers advising them not to join the NPR. I am informed that later, when the depurged cadres became integrated into the military forces, Colonel Hattori became reconciled to the new organization.

In 1956, following the formation of the National Defense Council, Colonel Hattori was suggested for the important post of councillor, in which he would have been responsible for coordinating defense planning. By this time, however, he had made many powerful enemies. His opposition to civilian control of the military had been so uncompromising that it became a major issue in considering him for the council. The civilian officials in the Defense Agency were irrevocably against his candidacy. Moreover, he had also become unpopular in navy circles for advocating a unified command structure for the ground, sea, and air forces. Ironically, his close association with the occupation forces in the end militated against his appointment. Colonel Hattori came very close to the top in his many
efforts to project himself into the rearmament of Japan, but somehow fate, each time, acted to shut him out of the establishment.