Essays of a Citizen: From National Security State to Democracy: From National Security State to Democracy by Marcus G. Raskin

Author:Marcus G. Raskin [Raskin, Marcus G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781315489155
Google: u8oYDQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 32207253
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1991-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

The immediate result was great consternation among the "old reactionary hierarchy," General Whitney, chief of the Government Section in Japan, described the directive (SCAPIN 550):

blasting from their entrenched positions in the command posts of the government all those who planned, started and directed the war, and those who enslaved and beat the Japanese people into abject submission and hoped to do the same with all the world.44

The American directive and SCAPIN 448, which ordered the closing of all ultranationalistic societies and forbade the establishment of new ones, produced a cabinet crisis in Japan. Since the military government's order was meant to provide removal by categories of individuals, the Japanese government proposed to appoint an "Executive Commission of Inquiry to determine upon prima facie evidence whether the careers and activities of the persons in question deserved their removal and exclusion from office" within the meaning of the directive. The Shidehara government asserted that it would move quickly in such cases:

As the examination of each case comes to an end, the government will at once notify the person charged of the findings of the committee and if they are satisfied of his guilt, they will proceed forthwith to his removal and exclusion from office as directed, if he has not by that time spontaneously resigned.45

The report of the Government Section of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers noted that the Japanese proposal sought to change the administrative process of removal and exclusion to a judicial one. The result would have been to require a legal case "against each individual and trying it before a quasi-judicial body."46 The response of the Government Section of the Allied Commander was that the directive itself was not

punitive (as the Japanese proposal implied) but, on the contrary, it is preventive. It is a necessary precaution against the resurgence of Japanese expansionist tendencies; therefore, until after the directive has been complied with, "individual guilt" (which requires inquiries into intent as distinguished from act) is irrelevant.47

The American government did not object to the establishment of a commission of inquiry that would make recommendations to the Japanese government, provided that the individual was first removed from public office. One case shows the extent to which the American government in Japan intended to hold to account leaders who were not viewed as war criminals. In April 1946, Hatoyama Ichiro won an election to the Diet and was thought to be the obvious choice for premier. The Americans objected, claiming he should be excluded from public office on the following grounds:

a. As Chief Secretary of the Tanaka Cabinet from 1927 to 1929, he necessarily shares responsibility for the formulation and promulgation without Diet approval of amendments to the so-called Peace Preservation Law which made that law the government's chief legal instrument for the suppression of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and made possible the denunciation, terrorization, seizure, and imprisonment of tens of thousands of adherents to minority doctrines advocating political, economic, and social reform, thereby preventing the development of effective opposition to the Japanese militaristic regime.

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