male member's lower anatomy and agreeing that "he's not even a member of the club."
"Members returning from a drunken evening and losing their way upstairs often evoked gossip. Greg McGregor (New York Times) fell over the swinging half-door beside the receptionist's counter and remained draped across the door in a drunken stupor. As other members arrived, they gave Greg a push and kept him swinging there for much of the evening." Always the problem of the Club's perennial problems was finances. The state of the Club's treasury soared and dipped with the wars. Armed conflicts brought an influx of newsmen, and funds. But when wars end, the correspondents leave, creating a financial problem.
In general, the Club displayed a rather light-hearted attitude toward its financial condition. The minutes for a general meeting held on April 30 said: "The Treasurer reported, with admirable insouciance, that the Club lost money in April, that the Club never has paid any rent, and that the Club may have to raise its rates on meals and rooms one of these days. Amid light-hearted laughter, Mr. Hennessey moved and Mr. Bickow seconded that the report be approved. It was."
In any case, members had no lack of humor. The minutes for April 30 noted: "The secretary, in a high nasal voice, read a letter which the Executive Committee proposed sending to General MacArthur to acquaint the Supreme Commander with the curious concatenation of circumstances under which the correspondents seemed to be getting the dirty end of whatever stick was available. After some discussion, Mr. Teatsorth moved and Mr. Berrigan seconded a motion that the letter be dry-cleaned by the Rules Committee before presentation. This was approved and the meeting adjourned."
On May 7, President Cochrane had some good news for a change. The Executive Committee, he said, called on General MacArthur who promised to: (1) Make dependent housing available to them on the same basis as officers, and on a system of ratings made out by the Club; (2) Give correspondents the right to buy articles at the officers' PX; (3) See to it, even though it may require Congressional approval, that the correspondents do not lose food, clothing, and medical care privileges; (4) And provide jeeps to correspondents when they need them, with the right to buy fuel at military prices.
But then there was still a bit of bad news that hot summer. A bar had been set up on the roof because of the lack of air conditioning inside the Club. The location was somewhat precarious because the surrounding wall was not too high. One of our more prominent members, after drinking a considerable amount of beer, nonchalantly relieved himself over the side, which unfortunately happened to be over the front entrance just as a high-ranking guest was entering. The member was temporarily suspended for this indiscretion.
A second source of trouble in the Club was membership. Hal Drake complained in an article written in later years: Newsmen working for the Pacific Stars and Stripes were barred, outlawed because they worked for the U.S. military, whereas correspondents for government news media like TASS and Pravda were members. The bars were lowered a number of years later, Hal was admitted to the FCCJ, and, as he says, "the lively and intelligent company of Max Desfor, Jim Colligan, Richard Pyle, Jack Russell, Bruce Dunning, Pat Killen, so many others."
The rules also said that Japanese newsmen couldn't become members. They were Occupied enemy nationals who could not be accredited to SCAP, and SCAP had a strict rule against Allied personnel "fraternizing" with Japanese nationals. But that rule was a nonrule in the Press Club almost from day one. Correspondents had to have some place to entertain Japanese news sources, and the Club was the place. Besides, compared with the ordinary Japanese fare, the Club provided "a lavish lunch and a stimulating intellectual encounter amidst the grimness of life in Tokyo."
Though the rule itself remained on the books until the Occupation ended, a number of Japanese newsmen and photographers attached to U.N. news organizations did go to Korea and contributed to the war coverage. Since then, the Club has had a large and active Japanese membership, although a Japanese candidate for regular correspondent membership is required to have served three years overseas as a correspondent.
Some Japanese became FCCJ members and rendered distinguished services to the Club. Among them, two became life members: Masaru Ogawa-who studied at UCLA and Columbia University's graduate school and Tokyo University, worked at the Domei news agency, and eventually became the executive news editor of the Japan Times-served five years as the Club's second vice-president and on various committees, and Peter "Shin" Higashi of AP, who solved many personnel problems as a member of the Executive Committee. Ken Ishii, of Reuters, AP, and the International Herald Tribune, served as president, as did Naoaki Usui of McGraw-Hill World News. John Fujii of AP and Fairchild was a barrel of fun in the skits he helped put on with the Club's Hamsters. And there was Bob Horiguchi of INS, who until his death also wrote a popular weekly column in the Japan Times. Kay Tateishi, who graduated from Domei to double as writer and photographer for Time-Life and AP, and most recently has served as photo editor for this book, is another.
Preceding them all were Ian Mutsu, who became a charter member in 1946, and Les Nakashima. Some members tried to disqualify Ian on the argument that he was Japanese. Earnie Hoberecht beat back this objection by pointing out that Ian was accredited to SCAP on certification from the British Embassy that his birth in the U.K. gave him U.K. citizenship.
The members elected a new Executive Committee to guide the affairs of the Club during the six-month period beginning July 1. Chosen to head the new Board as president was Walter Simmons (Chicago Tribune); assisted by John Luter (Time), first vice-president; Tom Lambert (AP), second vice-president; Ralph Teatsorth (UP), treasurer, and Burton Crane (New York Times), secretary.
During the Cochrane-Simmons regime, a ruckus arose over the question of relations with General Mac Arthur's headquarters. A vociferous attack against the press policy of General MacArthur and those around him was carried in The Star-Spangled Mikado. The authors, Kelley and Ryan, said the job of Brigadier General Diller had been "to sell MacArthur to the rest of the world." In their book, Kelley and Ryan said, "The General didn't need any selling. . . . He was a leader, a brilliant military man in many ways, colorful, and a personality in his own right. But, with the help of sycophantic correspondents who scrambled for small favors, and aided by a ruthless system of censorship which was political as well as military, the Public Relations Office of MacArthur's headquarters built MacArthur into a demigod."
In wartime, divergent views often develop between the military command's commitment, on the one hand, as to what information can and should be made public, and what information held back, and the dedication of newsmen, on the other hand, to the creed that the public has a right to know. But, this was the Occupation and military censorship was supposedly ended. William J. Sebald, who wrote With MacArthur in Japan with the collaboration of Russ Brines, brings some balance to this picture. Ambassador Sebald became Chairman of the Allied Council for Japan. Examining the failures which led to MacArthur's quarrel with President Truman, he said that the opinions of the Far Eastern Commission, the Departments of State and Army, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congress, the Allied nations, and SCAP often varied widely, a situation made more difficult by public and private comments of individuals attached to various of these organizations.
Not only did the press report these views, but this sometimes encouraged a situation in which a correspondent who couldn't get near those around SCAP
