An Inoffensive Rearmament

by Frank Kowalski

  Mr. Masuhara had not the slightest doubt. “Japan,” he said, “can build an army, navy, and an air force without any need to change the constitution.” Then more cautiously he added, “But, politically it would be more desirable to revise the constitution so that we could have the Japanese people behind our program.”

  General Hayashi smiled his approval, adding optimistically, “We will change the constitution in the summer.” He didn’t say what summer.

  I then posed the question that motivated my visit. “Mr. Masuhara,” I asked, “if we were to give artillery, right now, to the NPR, would you anticipate any unfavorable reaction?”

  The director general made no attempt to conceal his pleasure, and General Hayashi beamed. Both answered together that there would be no unfavorable reaction. Mr. Masuhara waxed enthusiastically, “We are waiting anxiously for your 105 and 155 artillery.” Then he asked excitedly, “Do you think the NPR can have tanks soon?”

  I said yes, and the staff applauded. But I wanted to make sure the government had no objections. “What about your government?” I asked. “What will Mr. Yoshida say about artillery and tanks?”

  Mr. Masuhara’s response was immediate: “I talked with the prime minister only a few days ago and advised him that the Americans might equip the NPR with artillery and tanks in the near future. He answered, ‘Then that’s good.”’

  Then, with everyone laughing, the director general asked, “When are we going to get some jets?” It was quite obvious that the NPR was ready for rearmament.

  By the spring of 1952, everyone in Japan was talking about rearmament. All over the country, roundtable discussions and open panel forums were being held on the radio and in public assemblies. The opinions of former army and navy officers were given wide coverage. The views expressed ranged from hope and peace and order through an international police force to traditional dependence upon national arms and salvation through the emperor. The discussions and debates were cleverly reinforced by rumors circulated to support the views of the contending groups.

  The specter of international communism played its customary frightening role. In the days of monolithic communism, Russia was the enemy of Japan, as it had been in the eyes of the Japanese people for several generations. Now reports were heard on the debating platforms that Russia was bolstering its forces in Far East Asia. There were rumors that Russian air force and airborne units were being deployed on Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and the Kurile Islands. According to those who said they knew, the Russians were preparing for the invasion of Japan. With the United States committed in Korea, immediate, massive rearmament was the only hope for Japan.

  Those who opposed rearmament argued, on the other hand, that Japanese military forces would become the mercenaries and tools of the United States. The Socialists and other leftists contended that after the peace treaty, the NPR would be rapidly equipped with heavy weapons of war and would be dispatched to help the American forces in Korea. An unfortunate comment by Mr. ōhashi, state minister in charge of the NPR, suggesting the possibility of extending the term of service of soldiers completing their tours of duty unleashed furious attacks in the press. Despite repeated denials by the government, the opposition charged that the Liberal Party planned to re-establish the reserve system so that NPR members could be bound for life service and for eventual duty overseas.

  While the public listened to the arguments and debated the rearmament issue, Prime Minister Yoshida steadfastly refused to acknowledge in his statements to the press and in the Diet that the NPR was an army. “Our present policy,” he insisted, “remains unchanged—not to rearm ourselves.”

  As the weeks went by and the newspapers continued to feature stories of the proposed expansion of the NPR and speculated on the plan of the government to convert the present organization into a National Safety Force with a Defense Agency, or Bōeichō, in July 1954, the prime minister’s insistence that Japan was not rearming seemed meaningless. When leaks began to appear in the press that the NPR was being equipped with artillery, tanks, and aircraft, the opposition in the Diet could no longer be contained. The constitutional question plagued the prime minister wherever he appeared. Finally, finding his position politically intolerable, Yoshida apparently decided to make a clean breast of the whole matter. On March 6, 1952, while testifying for the proposed expansion of the NPR before the Upper House Budget Committee, the prime minister declared that the constitution did not outlaw “war potential for self-defense.” He insisted that “Article 9 of the constitution bans war potential for settling international disputes but not war potential for self-defense. We must do our utmost towards preparing to defend our country against those threatening our independence.”

  His statement was greeted with a howl of protests in the Diet and in the press. The loudest and sharpest criticism, as could be expected, came from the left-wing Socialists, who charged, “Up to now the government has hoodwinked the people on rearmament by using the expression, ‘gradual increase of self-defense power.’ It has now quit falsifying the issue with words and disclosed its true intention to rearm. This certainly violates the war-renouncing provision of the Constitution.”

  The new justice minister, Tokutarō Kimura, in an effort to soften the criticism, complicated the problem by insisting that when Yoshida talked about “war potential (senryoku),” he did not mean “war potential” as used in Article 9 of the constitution. This explanation convinced no one, and the prime minister did not help his case any by declaring, “Since the government holds that rearmament will not be undertaken, I do not think it necessary to amend the constitution.”

  As a result of this exchange of sophisticated views in the Diet, the newspapers enjoyed a field day interpreting and explaining what Yoshida said and what he meant. The opposition was merciless. Having painted himself into an impossible political corner, Yoshida asked for permission to amend his statement before the committee. This only infuriated the opposition, which insisted on restudying the stenographic notes of the committee hearing before listening to an explanation from the prime minister.

  Four days after his initial testimony on “war potential,” Yoshida appeared again before the Upper House Budget Committee. In correcting his previous statement, the prime minister now admitted that even “war potential for self-defense” amounted to rearmament and so requires a constitutional amendment. Clarifying his views, he reasoned cautiously: “When Japan gains strength, acquires enough economic assets and foreign powers acknowledge Japan’s right to self-defense we may then resort to a referendum for constitutional revision in order to possess fighting potentiality.”

  The explanation left the nation precisely where it had been before the hassle in the Diet began. Japan remained in a kind of twilight zone of rearmament. The prime minister had acknowledged that the constitution would have to be revised before the nation could acquire “fighting potentiality,” but the NPR, in the meantime, continued to be equipped with artillery, tanks, and aircraft.

  Justice Minister Kimura, in the course of his reply to the Diet, gave a new twist to the constitutional argument by defining “war potential” as something much more powerful than rifles, machine guns, mortars, and artillery. He contended that in a modern world, a nation could not be considered to possess “war potential” if it did not have the A-bomb and jet airplanes. Kimura proposed that since the NPR did not possess these weapons of mass destruction, it could not be construed to be in violation of the constitution, which, according to the justice minister, denounces war as a means of settling international disputes.

  Hitoshi Ashida, former prime minister of Japan, leader of the Progressive Party (Kaishintō), and a strong proponent of rearmament, supported the attorney general’s view, arguing, “Although Article 9 of the Constitution renounces war, recourse to armed threats and maintenances of an army, this refers strictly to means of settling international differences. When this is interpreted in everyday language, it means war of aggression. Therefore, war and recourse to arms for the s
ake of self-defense is not denied by this article in the constitution. Likewise war as a punishment against aggression is exempted from application of this article.”

  Ashida and the Progressive Party thus faced the rearmament issue squarely, and the Progressive Party was the first political party to make a forthright declaration for rearmament of the nation. Though Ashida’s interpretation of the constitution seemed to permit Japan to establish military forces, the Progressive Party urged that the constitution be revised.

  The right Socialists found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. The party platform was pledged to support the constitution, upholding Article 9, but many of the party members believed that in order to have a meaningful defense establishment, the constitution had to be amended.

  The hard core of the opposition to rearmament was concentrated in the left-wing Socialists, the Labor-Farmer Party (Rōnōtō), and the Communist Party. This bloc argued that the NPR was an army and as such was in violation of the constitution. The Socialist Party raised the legality of the NPR in the Supreme Court in 1951, but the court avoided the constitutional question. Under these political circumstances, the government proceeded with its gradual rearmament of the country while the parties of the Left, possessing more than the required one-third of the members in the Diet, managed to block all efforts to revise the constitution.

  One of the major fears of the people, especially students, teachers, and trade unionists, was that the NPR and whatever military organization eventually evolved in the country would become a political tool of those in power. These groups had suffered too recently at the hands of the militarists to forget what the military was capable of doing to a nation. In their view, rearmament was being supported by the same fascists and rightists who had stifled democracy in the past.

  But all government institutions tend to try to stifle democracy, and the struggle for freedom is endless. I thought the responsibility for maintaining democracy and freedom was placed in proper perspective by a prophetic answer given in reply to a question from a newspaper reporter by Colonel Kiyohara Chihara, commander of Camp Himeji in Hyōgo Prefecture. Colonel Chihara was asked, “Don’t you fear that the NPR will be utilized as a tool for political strife in the future?” Chihara pondered the question for a long time, and then he quietly responded, “It is the responsibility of the people to guard against such an eventuality.”

  The answer demonstrated that at least one formal Imperial officer had acquired a deep understanding of democracy. As the time for the 1952 election campaign approached, the people were to discover that Japan was to experience still another new exercise in democracy. This came in the form of instructions from General Group Headquarters to camp commanders advising them that all qualified NPR personnel would be authorized under the new law to cast absentee ballots. The personnel in the Imperial forces did not vote in prewar Japan. On learning of these instructions, newspaper reporters flooded the camps to record the views of the soldiers on rearmament. One view became immediately clear: they knew they were in the army. A Sergeant Senda gave a typical answer: “We know where we stand. Two years ago when we joined the NPR, we didn’t know whether we were going to be policemen or soldiers. Now we know we are in the NPR to defend our country.”

  Many concurred with the views of a young captain who declared emotionally, “I don’t care what the government calls us. As long as we have arms we are troops. Even a three-year-old kid has the instinct to defend himself. If there is a chance that Japan may be attacked by a foreign power, we better have troops.”

  While the newspapers featured the comments of various soldiers and officers serving in the NPR, there were many, especially among the Imperial officers who had recently joined the NPR, who were reluctant to become involved in political controversies. These people were uncomfortable with the press. They generally agreed with the view of a former lieutenant colonel who declared forcefully, “It may be all right for some to be interested in politics, but it would be better for the NPR and the country if we did not have the right to vote as was the case in the old army.”

  A vocal minority, on the other hand, opposed rearmament in strong and sometimes embarrassing outbursts. Many of the NPR personnel came from the industrial centers where the trade unions and leftist political parties exerted strong influences. These people followed the Socialist line and their replies to queries left no doubt of their feelings. A comment of a senior sergeant of the force summarized their views: “If there is money for rearmament, let us make it available for social welfare programs. We are rearming,” he argued, “because the Americans demand that our government rearm.”

  Both the Left and extreme Right found common ground in Japan in criticizing American motives on rearmament and the way it was being carried out. The Left objected to the pressure the U.S. government was reported to be exerting on the Japanese to escalate the military forces, while the extreme Right, mostly former militarists, was critical of American dominance in organizing, training, and equipping these forces. The mass of the Japanese people, whether they supported or opposed rearmament, were deeply concerned and often embarrassed by the obvious presence of American officers in the NPR Headquarters in Tōkyō and more particularly in the camps throughout Japan. In the light of these political evasions, contradictions, and endless bickering, it is understandable that the Japanese people were hopelessly confused regarding the nature of the NPR and the government’s intentions on rearmament. Almost two years after the establishment of the NPR, it is astonishing how many of the Japanese believed that the organization was actually a police force.

  During this formative period, I made it my responsibility to watch carefully Japanese opinion polls reflecting national attitudes toward the NPR, the constitutional prohibition on military forces, the rearmament program, and the presence of Americans in Japan. I was advised that some of the early polls, left much to be desired scientifically, but most were acceptable as indicators of public opinion and national trends. In reading and analyzing these polls, I found that reality in public matters was not always easily discernible. For example, I knew that we were rearming Japan, the Japanese officials knew we were building a Japanese army, and the NPR and its armament were obvious to anyone except a blind person. But the national opinion polls showed that the people were senselessly befuddled. Though a sizable segment of the population was able to cut through the fog of political nonsense, a large percentage of the people believed their national leaders. Japanese, however, are not unique in this regard. Millions of Americans have shown similar disposition, especially during the Vietnam War, to accept their leaders’ announcements as gospel truths. This tendency to believe without questioning must be a kind of dependence on authority, probably an extension of our childhood faith in parental omnipotence.

  There was nevertheless considerable independent thinking. A surprisingly heavy percentage of the people seemed committed to the Japanese constitution. These people were indicating their support of the provision against war and military potential. Many professed a strong commitment to peace through international law and order. The polls significantly demonstrated a deep suspicion of any movement back to prewar aspirations. Logic in the difficult international environment called for defensive measures and some kind of military machinery, but the majority of the Japanese people were not going to follow any harebrained militarists down a road anything like the one that took them into the Pacific War.

  In the latter part of August 1950, as our four-division force was being assembled in NPR camps throughout the country, the Mainichi Shimbun asked a sampling of 3,552 people (of which 3,220 responded) the question: “Do you think the police reserve force (Keisatsu Yobitai) can protect Japanese security?” The respondents split almost evenly; 36.4 percent answered yes and 35.2 percent no. Disturbed by the communist invasion of Korea, Japanese had little enthusiasm for the new force being organized in Japan.

  A year and a half later, in February 1952, when the Asahi Shimbun asked a sampling of 3,000 people (of whom
2,614 responded) the question, “For what purpose do you think Japan has its police reserve?” one-third of those answering believed the organization was established as a police force to maintain law and order. Only 3 percent thought the NPR was an army, and another 16 percent suggested that it was a substitute for an army or a preparation for rearmament. When this question was asked, the yobitai were armed with M-1 rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, and mortars, and there was talk in the newspaper that the troopers were receiving training in artillery and tanks.

  It was not surprising then when the Asahi asked the same people, “Premier Yoshida said, ‘I will never rearm Japan.’ Do you believe this?” 48 percent, or about half, said they did not believe the prime minister. Most of the respondents did not feel they could answer the question or said they believed him. Men were more skeptical than women. Only about a third of the women said they did not believe Yoshida, whereas about two-thirds of the men who answered doubted the prime minister’s veracity.

  During the latter part of 1950, 1951, and early 1952, there were numerous public opinion polls conducted by the Mainichi, Asahi, Yomiuri, Yoron Kagaku, Yoron Chōsa Renmei, and other agencies on the question of rearmament of Japan. There were variations in the questions asked, so a simple summary of the answers cannot be presented here. In most of the polls, about half of those answering favored some kind of rearmament for Japan after the peace treaty. A strong third opposed any rearmament. A Mainichi public opinion poll published April 14, 1952, or two weeks before Japan regained its sovereignty, showed that only 38.3 percent wanted Japan to have a military force, while 41.4 percent of the women opposed the formation of such a force.

  In a February 1952 poll, the Asahi posed the proposition, “The government has a plan of strengthening the NPR. Do you think this is necessary?” Only 45 percent answered that it should be strengthened. The women again were more afraid of rearmament; only 32 percent supported a strengthening of the force. When the Asahi in a later poll asked whether the NPR should become a foundation for a new Japanese army, the respondents were not enthusiastic, with 38 percent supporting the view.