Japanese soldiers and civilians still to be accounted for out of the seven hundred thousand they took off to their prison camps during the one week of their participation in the war against Japan. What the Japanese wanted to know was: When are you going to send the others back?
It was around this time that the Press Club lost one of its leading members. On January 30, Miles Vaughn, United Press vice-president and Far East manager, went duck hunting in Tokyo Bay with Teizo Ueda, former president of Dentsu, the predecessor of the Domei News Agency. Ian Mutsu had been scheduled to accompany them as he often did, but by a quirk of chance, a staffer turned up sick at the UP bureau, and Ian was called in to take his place on the Sunday shift. On January 31, the bodies of the two men were found drowned.
In memory of "Peg" Vaughn, who was highly respected in the Japanese newspaper world as well as among foreign correspondents everywhere, the Vaughn Award for International Reporting was established to be awarded every year to the outstanding Japanese newsman in the field of international reporting.
A graduate of Kansas University, Peg joined UP in 1916 and started its bureaus in Tokyo, Manila, Shanghai, and Calcutta. During the Pacific War, he was in charge of the agency's combat correspondents in the Pacific/Asia theater. When the war ended, he became vice-president and general manager of the Far East based in Tokyo.
The first Vaughn Award was split on October 1, 1950, between Goro Teranishi, deputy managing editor of the Kyodo News Service, and Ichitaro Takata, foreign news editor of the Mainichi Shimbun and former chief of the Mainichi's New York bureau.
Subsequently, the theme was changed every year. But the award itself continued to be presented in October during the annual Japan Newspaper Week. It was regarded as the Japanese equivalent of the American Pulitzer Prize, and many Japanese members of the FCCJ were award winners. Recipients of the Vaughn Award included Sadao (Roy) Otake and Ichiro (Dick) Iwatate of Kyodo News Service, Kiyoaki Murata of the Nippon Times, and Minoru Omori of the Mainichi Shimbun. In 1978, the name of the award was changed to the Vaughn/Ueda Memorial Award for International Reporting. Among its winners were Hisanori Isomura, ace television anchorman for NHK, and Masaru Ogawa, Nippon Times executive and Press Club director.
On March 1, MacArthur referred to Japan as "The Switzerland of the Pacific," a clear hint to Japan that it should be prepared to defend itself from external aggression. Even during the brief years since Japan's surrender, the change in the Allied stance toward Japan had become apparent.
Shigeru Yoshida, the outstanding Japanese statesman of the postwar period, regarded the Occupation policy as divided into three stages. In The Yoshida Memoirs, translated into English by his son Kenichi, Yoshida saw the United States looking upon Japan at the end of the war as ultranationalistic, fanatically aggressive, and warlike. As a result, SCAP emphasized Japan's democratization, in the process leaning toward leniency for the Communists and labor leaders, who had been suppressed by Japan's military clique during the war. The focus of SCAP policy at this time was teaching Japan to protect the rights of the people through the purge of wartime leaders, extending suffrage to women, and carrying out land reforms to help the downtrodden farmers own their own land.
The second stage was marked by realization that the Japanese were sorely in need of food, clothing, and help in restoring their industries. This was the period of vast U.S. financial aid, and cancellation of plans to dismantle factories for war reparations. The third stage came in 1950 with the Korean War, when the United States started arming Japan as a defense bulwark against expanding Communist power in Asia.
Inflation? Logically, one would think that foreign correspondents, being paid in dollars, would find life easier. But that wasn't necessarily true. Not all correspondents were paid in dollars. Meanwhile, the cost of food and beverages, maintenance expenses, and other costs kept spiraling. One headache afflicting the Keyes Beech administration was keeping up with the rise in salaries, while at the same time paying off accumulated debts for rent and utilities.
Because of the shift in emphasis from combat reportage to covering the Occupation, the interest of newspaper editors had switched to other news areas, with a resultant decline in the number of foreign correspondents based in Tokyo, and a dip as well in demand for billets at the Tokyo Correspondents Club.
Some news organizations moved their entire bureau operation into homes that were spacious by comparison with the Press Club billets. Among them were Norman Soong and Eddie Tseng, who moved their Hong Kong-based Pan-Asia News Agency into what they dubbed the Press Nest in the Roppongi area. In 1948, there were sixteen residents, including two Japanese staff members, in the twenty-six rooms of the Club's billets. Among the residents at that time were Bob Frew, Ray Falk, Ian Mutsu, Hugh Deane, Lee Chia, and Nora Wain. In order to meet finances, some were allocated two rooms.
The Executive Committee, which included Allen Raymond as first vice-president, John Rich of INS as second vice, Hugh Deane of Telepress as treasurer, and Earnest Hoberecht of UP as secretary, had its hands full wrestling with the same problems at meeting after meeting. They were faced with amending the constitution and the bylaws, meeting the wage-raise demands of the staff, chasing down delinquent members, negotiating with the Japanese landowners and lessees, and staging money-making parties and other events.
The change in the role of the newsmen from combat correspondent to political and economic writers also required an adjustment in their outlook. Inevitably, correspondents reporting these events often differed from their earlier brethren in the tone of their reports, with approaches varying according to the backgrounds and perspectives of the writers and their sources.
In a step of major importance to the broadcasting media, NHK on March 20 began test TV broadcasts at Yurakucho, in downtown Tokyo.
The Press Club, meanwhile, named a committee to meet representatives of the Overseas Press Club in New York to cooperate in entertaining VIPs who visited each other's cities.
Inflation and monetary problems caused a constant turnover in the Japanese staff. It was in March of this year that "Jimmy" Horikawa, still a high school student at the age of seventeen, joined the staff as a night elevator boy to help pay for his tuition. Later, he became a bartender, where his friendly personality made him a favorite with the members. Jimmy stayed with the club for almost forty years, ending as Japanese manager when Kotaro Washida retired in 1988.
The Club also authorized a study of the long-term gains of remaining at No. 1 Shimbun Alley premises, against the benefits of moving to another location without the billets. Meanwhile, the Club reached an agreement with Marunouchi Kaikan to settle its accumulated rental debt, and voted to raise dues, guest fees, and rents to cover the running expenses.
In
