proffer advice on finances, and introduced to them a Chinese accountant, Yu Hsi Ling, who, because of his Chinese nationality, was permitted by SCAP to handle both dollar and yen accounts. "Mister Ling," as he came to be known, worked for the Club as its accountant for close to four decades until he retired on June 30, 1984.
The minutes mention a series of spirited discussions of a proposal to extend special privileges to "charter members" even after they left newspaper work, and a list of them was drawn up at the time. Other measures discussed included special guest cards, the problem of Club property "borrowed" by members, and furniture in need of refurbishing.
These problems were placed in the hands of a new Executive Committee elected for the one-year period from July 1947 to June 1948. George Folster of NBC took over as president. He was backed by Chang Jen-Chung of the Central Daily News, Taipei, as first vice-president, and Ralph Chapman, of the New York Herald Tribune as second vice-president. Hessell Tiltman and Burton Crane remained in their respective posts as treasurer and secretary.
From the members' standpoint, however, the major event of Lambert's six-month term was the surprise appearance of General MacArthur at the Club. SCAP had been invited to lunch at the Tokyo Correspondents Club twice before, including the Club's opening, but he had refused, pleading that he could not refuse other invitations if he accepted.
William Manchester reported in his book American Caesar, "At noon on March 17, 1947, he entered unannounced, took a chair, and said he was prepared to talk for the record." Reports by Press Club members indicate that they had advance information he was coming, but were totally unprepared for an on-the-record statement. Most of the newsmen did not even have paper and pens.
MacArthur, Ambassador William Sebald reported in his book With MacArthur in Japan, said the time had come for an end to the Occupation and for a peace treaty. He said the military task had been completed. The political phase is "approaching such completion as is possible under the Occupation." As for economics, he said if the Occupation continued on its current course, it could only enforce economic strangulation. Finally, he suggested that the U.S. exercise control over Japan, a condition that Japan would be willing to accept and would desire. MacArthur said the peace treaty should be negotiated "as soon as possible."
By May of that same year, both Dean Acheson and Herbert Hoover were advocating the immediate conclusion of a separate peace with Japan. Sebald, a seasoned observer with experience in Japan dating from 1925, said, however, that before a peace treaty the Japanese economy had to be allowed to rehabilitate itself and some of the excesses of Occupation control, "particularly the extensive purges," had to be corrected. On this point, Sebald said MacArthur was bucking the military. Among those who speculated about an early peace treaty were Tom Lambert, Howard Handle-man, John Rich, Keyes Beech, and Norman Soong of the Central News Agency.
Russ Brines, however, interpreted Mac-Arthur's remarks as a trial balloon. In his book MacArthur's Japan, Russ wrote: "Mac's insistence upon an early peace treaty did not mean the imminent end of the Occupation, as generally interpreted. He expected military forces to remain in Japan for at least two years after the peace conference began. He had argued consistently that the effective period of a military occupation was between three and five years, after which it ran the risk of losing its influence. He advocated 'supervision' of Japan for at least a generation. But by the third Occupation year, when the Japanese had hoped for sovereignty, economic problems and Japanese incompetence forced SCAP to extend, not diminish, its activities."
If the guessing was rife about the timing of a peace treaty, Joseph B. Keenan, chief of the international prosecution section, silenced any speculation about the Emperor when he later, on October 10, said emphatically that neither Emperor Hirohito nor Japanese industrialists or businessmen would be tried as war criminals.
On May 3, the new, democratic constitution came into force. A poll conducted by the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun the previous year found 85% of its readers supporting the constitution, and 13% opposed. The same 85% approved retaining the Emperor. A preview of popular reaction was the introduction of coeducational classrooms in public schools with the start of the new school term on April 1. Approval was overwhelming.
The trend away from wartime and prewar leaders led to a split among voters in the general elections for the House of Representatives held on April 25, giving the Socialists a paper-thin plurality over the Liberals. Tetsu Katayama, president of the Japan Socialist Party, formed a three-party coalition cabinet when the Liberals opted to stay in the Opposition.
Meanwhile, the easing of restrictions encouraged some elements in Japan to test their new freedom. Leading the way, the Federation of Labor Unions called for a general strike on February 1 to support the wage demands of the government workers' union. Seven hours before the general walkout was scheduled to start, General MacArthur stepped in and ordered it canceled. During this period, the militant labor unions were supported by leftist elements in SCAP and by the Japanese press, which was suddenly taken over by left-wing elements.
In an article written for the twentieth-anniversary issue of the Club paper, No. 1 Shimbun, Mas Ogawa explained the leftist swing among newspapers. At the end of the war, Mas pointed out, the Japanese press was "ill-prepared" to cover Japan's surrender and occupation. It had been "reduced in the years before and during the war to a mere reproducer of the official propaganda line laid down by the Government." SCAP set out to remedy this with its press code, placing the newspapers under the "sometimes capricious censorship" of the Occupation forces.
Certain officials endeavored to get some vitality into the press and to let the newsmen realize that they were indeed free to write within the limits, naturally, of the Occupation's censors. "When the press threw off the bewilderment and lethargy of war defeat, some of its members went on a real binge to the extreme left."
The trouble began when the publisher of a national daily, the Yomiuri Shimbun, was purged. "The managing editor who followed the Communist line closely and his editorial assistants capitalized on the situation to take over virtual control of the newspaper. They were backed by the company-wide labor union." This labor-management clash within the newspaper was matched by a similar battle within SCAP itself.
Some SCAP officials looked upon the labor uprising as a healthy sign of democratic ideas taking hold in the newspaper world. SCAP finally came out on the side of the management, however, ruling that newspapers as public instruments must never be subject to any pressure whatsoever, government, rightist, or labor unionist. "But before the incident was ended, the newspaper was involved in demonstrations and riots which threatened to spread to other papers. It was a wild and woolly period of great disturbances before order was finally restored."
Some sanity was brought to the frenetic pace of life in the Club with the arrival of wives and families. A number of correspondents rented rooms close to their offices with Japanese families. GHQ frowned on the practice, but the Japanese homeowners were happy to take them in as roomers, on the logic that the correspondents would provide a defense against the risk of having their homes taken over by the military. Besides, the roomers often brought presents in the form of Stateside food, candy, liquor, and other articles which delighted children and adults alike. Though they were inexpensive at the PX, most Japanese
