JAPAN: The Shadow Before

A political earthquake shook Japan’s war structure. When the heavings subsided, Tokyo had a new, two-faced Cabinet, geared to continue fighting the war vigorously—or sue for a negotiated peace.

General Hideki Tojo bowed before the Emperor, confessed his many failures. As Premier, holding most of the strategic Cabinet posts, he had bet on the wrong team in-Europe, had led his country into war. As War Minister and lately Chief of the Army Staff, he had lost Saipan, was still bogged down in China. As Munitions Minister, he had failed to achieve sufficient war production at home. Tojo resigned with his whole Cabinet.

Singing Frog. Into his shoes, but as Premier only, stepped another two-fisted

Army man, General Kuniaki Koiso, 64. Koiso has two nicknames. He prefers to be known as the “Singing Frog”—a tribute to the way he sings old folk tunes when he has had enough sake. But he is better known as the “Korean Tiger” because of his brutalities while Governor of Korea.

Like Tojo, Koiso is a tough product of the same Kwantung Army which conquered Manchuria, a member of the same Young Officer group that started pulling the strings behind Japan’s aggressive policies a decade and a half ago. But unlike Tojo, he is running no one-man show. Koiso’s performers include:

¶ Field Marshal General Hajime Sugiyama, Minister of War. He held the same job in July 1937, was one of the prime movers in starting the China Incident.

¶ Ginjiro Fujiwara, Munitions Minister. Implacable enemy of labor and liberalism, he represents the Mitsui interests and big industry. He learned the job of supplying troops with munitions during the Russo-Japanese War.

¶ Mamoru Shigemitsu, who was Foreign Minister under Tojo. He now holds that job as well as the Ministry for Greater East Asia Affairs. Acceptable to the Army and big business, he is considered a moderate. In 1938, he settled a serious border dispute with the Soviet Union. Last spring he transferred Japan’s extraterritorial rights in China to Puppet Wang Ching-wei. His Greater East Asia responsibilities include the continent from Manchuria to Burma. When face-saving or gracious withdrawals become inescapable, Shigemitsu can do both with honorable grace.

¶ Sotaro Ishiwata, Finance Minister. He was beaver-busy piling up yen for war in the Cabinet of Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma (1939). It was then too that he established his record as a liberal. He opposed the Japanese alliance with Germany.

¶ Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, temporary deputy Premier and Minister of the Navy. Primarily a Big Navy man, Yonai is a popular mediocrity, awesomely known to his diminutive countrymen as “The White Elephant.” As Japanese go, he is a great strapping fellow—5 ft. 7 in. in his sandals.

Fewer Kicks. On the Emperor’s order, Yonai shared with Koiso the responsibility for organizing the new Cabinet. One result: the Navy may now hope to be kicked around less by the bossy Army. Yonai could always cite his record in the Hiranuma government. He resisted the formation of the Axis at that time, postponed it a year by insisting: “The Japanese Navy belongs to the Emperor; it is not for hire, by Hitler or anyone else.”

Not Peace but a Sword. The new Cabinet, strongest in 20 years, means not peace but a sharper sword. Its one objective is victory, Japanese style. Said Koiso: “I hope to attain our objective in close collaboration with our allies.”

Since Fascist Italy is a ruin and the walls of Hitler’s fortress are beginning to show cracks, skeptics wondered: “Who are Japan’s allies?”