Foreign News: About-Face

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Japan was undergoing a great about-face. The compelling force was the U.S. occupation; the means was the Imperial institution. Although Japan had borrowed freely from the West in matters of technology, ideologically it had steadfastly faced the East. Now it must turn westward.

The process was slow. The Japanese seemed willing and obedient but bewildered. Said one U.S. officer: "It's like telling a stenographer to bring a pad for dictation and having her so literal that she won't bring a pencil."

The Reformation. To speed the process General MacArthur and his chief military deputy, Lieut. General Robert L. Eichelberger, began setting up special sections to oversee specific phases of Japan's reformation.

One of the first was an economic and scientific section, headed by a New York department-store executive. Colonel Raymond C. Kramer. Its ultimate function: to see to the demilitarization of Japan's industry and advise the supreme commander on reparations. Its immediate task: to activate a minimum economy for Japan, where everything stood stock still.

To re-educate the Japanese and promote the Four Freedoms, MacArthur created an information section headed by Brigadier General Bonner Fellers. Its first job: seeing to it that Japanese newspapers printed accounts of atrocities committed against the Allies. The section would soon spread to schools, radio and cinema.

The Catch. War criminals were slowly being rounded up and divided into three categories: those who had plotted and perpetrated the war, such as Hideki Tojo and his Cabinet; military leaders responsible for military outrages such as the rape of Nanking and the death march on Bataan; Japanese soldiers and civilians responsible for individual atrocities.

Prize criminal of the week: General Kenji Doihara, Japan's "Lawrence of Manchuria," a sinister intelligence operative and advance agent for Japan's Asiatic conquests. He drove into Yokohama in a limousine and surrendered.

Emperor Hirohito and his Government, headed by jut-jawed Premier Prince Naruhiko Higashi-Kuni, were serving the Allies but were understandably nervous. Neither American use of the Imperial institution, nor Japanese reverence for it, necessarily required the indefinite presence of Hirohito himself. Jap and U.S. thoughts alike were much upon Hirohito's son, eleven-year-old Prince Akihito, and the Emperor's frail younger brother, Prince Chichibu, the logical (but not inevitable) choice for regent.