Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars

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The Security Treaty System and the Japanese

Military-Industrial Complex

Herbert P. Bix

To cite this article: Herbert P. Bix (1970) The Security Treaty System and the Japanese
Military-Industrial Complex, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 2:2, 30-53, DOI:
10.1080/14672715.1970.10405745

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.1970.10405745

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 30
The Security Treat-y System andthe
Japanese Military-Industrial Complex
HERBERT P. BlX
INTRODUCTION
Recently much discussion has focused
on the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, first
signed in September, 1951, renewed in a
more equitable form in 1960, and up for
renewal again in 1970. Much less
attention has been paid the U.S.-Japan
military-economic relationship shaped
largely by adminstrative agreements that
followed in the wake of the first Secu-
rity Treaty. This article deals with
that military-economic relationship and
other aspects of recent U.S.-Japanese
relations relevant to the discussion of
contemporary American imperialism in
Asia.
I will try to show that arguments in
support of the U.S.-Japan military
alliance fail to recognize that Japan
has already rearmed on a scale sufficfenL
to pose a threat to her neighbors.
Far from deterring this development,
the U.S.-Japan alliance system has
actually facilitated it. Japan's re-
armament, moreover, has been accompa-
nied by the re-emergence of a military-
industrial nexus which is becoming
increasingly interrelated with the
American military-industrial complex.
The attempt by Japan's conservative
rulers to legitimize and promote that
complex and define a new foreign policy
role for the Seventies poses the greatest
danger that postwar Japanese democracy
has yet had to face.
Apologists for the Security Treaty
have downplayed the long-standing
American policy of pressuring Japan to
rearm and assume a subo.rdina te policeman's
role in Asia, and its political and
economic consequences for Japanese
society. They have been equally un-
critical of American "cultural" activities
in behalf of conservative Japanese union-
ists and anti-Marxist intellectuals. Yet
ever since Occupation authorities defined
a "stable" Japan as one in which Japanese
labor was politically neutralized, policy-
makers in both countries have tended to
regard the Socialist and Communist-led
labor movement and the Marxist intellectual$
who support it as common internal enemies,
despite the fact that they have been the
staunchest defenders of democratic liber-
ties in Japan.
In the last part of the article I
question the realism of this policy stance.
I suggest that the American policy of
weakening and discrediting the forces
on the left in Japan has simply been the
reverse side of the policy of spurring on
Japanese rearmament.
Part I Japan's Present Military Posture
Japan has rearmed and already possesses
formidable military strength. A bare
listing of facts about her Self-Defense
Forces indicates why Japan is now rated
6th or 7th in the world in terms of actual
military power.
The Ground Self-Defense Force (G.S.D.F.)
is expected to have 180,000 men by 1971
with a volunteer reserve of over 30,000. 1
While small, this army has a high propor-
tion of officers and non-coms and could
easily be expanded to millions if the
Constitution-were revised and a Conscrip-
tion law enacted. 2 Under the present
Third Five Year Plan the G.S.D.F. has
been equipped with Japanese-made small
arms, anti-tank rockets, and heavy tanks.
For anti-aircraft defenses it has auto-
rna tic , radar~uided, 35 mm. Swiss-designed
 31
guns and several battalions of HAWK mis-
siles. Its air support component is
also being augmented with 60 Hughes
reconnaissance and command helicopters
and 106 Japanese-manufactured Be1l-
Iroquis troop-carrying helicopters.
Japan's Maritime Self-Defense
Force (M.S.D.F.) is the thirdmost
powerful navy in the Pacific after
those of the U.S. and the Soviet
Union. According to the latest Jane's
figures, it has 9 diesel-powered sub-
marines, 26 destroyers' including one
guided missile type, 16 frigates, 20
fast patrol vessels and ISS assorted
support ships, motor torpedo boats,
landing ships, and service craft. It
also has an air component of 190 fighter
aircraft and SO helicopters. 3 This
naval arsenal will soon be beefed up
and a naval reserve force started.
M.S.D~F. contingency planning for the
1970's is said to call for the deployment
of ships and aircraft to Singapore "to
protect Japanese shipping in the event of
serious trouble in Hong Kong. "4 The
cruise of a Japanese flotilla squadron
through the strategic Malacca Straits,
between Malaysia and Sumatra, and its
participation in naval maneuvers with
Australian and Malaysian warships during
the summer of 1969, was probably correctly billion by the end of the Seventies.
judged as the "prelude to a future~ ••
Japanese naval presence in Southeast
Asia."5
The Air Self-Defense Force (A.S.D.F.). hypothetical adversaries--North Korea
with 1,530 aircraft. was recently rated
by ~ ~ magazine as the most
POwerful in Asia after the U.S. and
Russia. 6 It has 200 FI04J's. 300 F86D
and F86F fighters. Nike-Ajax(surface-
to-air) missiles. 400 jet trainers. and
30 large Sikorsky helicopters. The
Nike-Hercules missiles which she is now
manufacturing provide Japan with an opti~n presence there.
for a missile-type nuclear delivery
system. 7 "This however. will not be
the first or only nuclear d~livery
sYstem tha~ Japan possesses. The
Japanese-manufactured EIKO (F104J)
presently in service, can carry a
nuclear bomb anywhere within a 700-mi1e
radius .... "8 In the 1970's Japan will
acquire a third nuclear delivery option
as the F4E Phantom, a long-range fighter-
bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons,
becomes the mainstay of the A.S.D.F. It
is interesting to note that the Japanese
government in 1960
..• held that the A.S.D.F. could
not be equipped with any kind
of bomber aircraft; later it said
that Japan could not possess
fighter bombers with long flying
range but could have such an air-
craft whose cruising range was
short; now the A.S.D.F. is in the
process of acquiring a fighter
bomber with a radius of 3.700
kilometres .•.. 9
On the assumption that "offense is the
best defense." her officers speak of
building a 5.000 planeoairforce, such
as Japan had during World War II.
Needless to say. this military capa-
bility does not even begin to suggest Ja-
pan's economic potential for waging conve n-
tional war. That is to be seen in the
fact that Japan has the third largest
GNP in the worl~: 145 billion in 1968
and expected to reach from 500 to 80£0
Moreover. it is the second largest steel
producer in the world. Economically
and militarily Japan is a giant among
nations. Compared with two of her
and China--she is not only a giant but
an increasingly ominous threat in her
own right. In the late Forties and Fifties
China and North Korea viewed the American
domination of Japan as a serious threat
to their own security; today they have
good reason to place increasing stress
on Japan itself and not just the U.S.
In sea power, Japan has a striking
advantage. North Korea's navy consists
of 2 submarines, 10 fleet minesweepers,
and 109 assorted types of coastal patrol
boats. The Chinese, although possessing
a large number of ships dating from World
 32
War II, have no surface fleet worthy
of the name. They do have an underseas
fleet of 33 diesel-powered submarines
including one Soviet "G" class sub
with ballistic missile tubes. So far
as is kno~n the latter has never been
ocean-tested.
On paper ~orth Korea and China
appear to have adequate air forces.
North Korea has 590 airc=aft. Chi~a,
responsible for defendiug vast stretches
of land and sea borders, is estimated
to have 2,500 combat aircraft. But
most of these are "early model MIG-15s
and MIG-17s, with a lesser number of
MIG-19s and !-l1G-2Is." China 1s present
bomber capability consists of 12 copies
of our old B29 and about 150 11-28
light bombers. "Its missile program is
lagging. There are no signs of prepa-
rations 'for deploying medium range
missiles' nor of preparations for the
oceanic testing ICBMs require."ll
These facts show that neither China
nor North Korea is capable, let alone
shows intention, of threatening Japan or
its Pacific shipping lanes. On the other
hand, from their point of view there is
an objective basis for viewing Ja~~n's
military build-up with horror. To the
Chinese and North Koreans Japan's defense
plans are an unsettling factor, not a
stabilizing one, in the Asian balance of
power. More disturbing to them is the
fact that at least sihce 1965, Japan's
naval and air self-defense forces have
been conducting joint maneuvers with
South Korean, Nationalist Chinese, and
Seventh Fleet forces, all of which are
coordinated with overall U.S. strategic
planning for Asia.
Chinese and North Korean fears of Ja-
pan have been reinforced by the growth of
Japanese nationalism in the Sixties and
by periodic glimpses of the thinking of
the new Japanese military establishment.
On Oc~eber 1. 1962, for example the Tokyo
Shimbuil reported an alleged U. S. -Japan
plan for Japanese-South Korean military
cooperation. The plan called for 1) the
permanent stationing in Seoul of a
Japanese Self-Defense Force official
and "short term exchanges of military
personnel"; 2) repairing and out-
fitting of South Korean military
aircraft and ships in Japan; 3) linking
of the Japanese air defense system with
the Taiwanese and South Korean air
defense systems "so that combined air
action tdll be possible", and 4) Japanese..
and South Korean naval cooperation in
blockading the Tsushima Straits in the
event of an emergency.12 Three years
later, on June 22, 1965, a Japan-South
Korea "normalization" treaty was signed,
marking significant Japanese LnvoLvement,
in the anti-communist military set-up
in South Korea. During the last stages.
of negotiations for this treaty. oppo- '.
5ition members of the South Korean
national assembly charged the Japanese
with conducting the talks on the basis
of a secret U.S.-Japan understanding
that called for, among other things,
equipping South Korean forces with
Japanese, rather than American-manufac-
tured weapons and munitions. Since
that treaty was signed, South Korean
military pilots have been receiving
flight training in Japan, and Japanese
soldiers are being taught Korean at
various Self-Defense Force schools such
as the one at Maizuru. 13
An equally ominous disclosure of the
thinking of the Japanese military estab~
lishment was the celebrated Three Arrows
Incident. The "Three Arrows Study"
(Mitsuya Kenkyu) consisted of top-secret
operations plans drawn up by the Japan .
Defense Agency between February and Ju~ N
1963, upon prodding from the Pentagon.- .
That was the year Ngo Dinh Diem was ovel'
thrown (in November), and it is likely
that the Pentagon had made preparations
prior to the overthrow for a major
escalation of the fighting in Vietnam,
which took into account the possibility
of the Chinese or North Koreans opening
a second front in the Far East to relie~
pressure on the. Vietnamese. Thus the
Japanese Defense Agency formulated plan
to meet the contingency of a renewed war
in Korea. This study was the largest .
project of its kind the Defense Agency
 33
had ever undertaken.
The existence of the Three Arrows was
revealed on February 10, 1965 (three
days after the U.S. began its three year
long bombing of North Vietnam), when a
Socialist representative in the Diet
charged "that the Japanese military were
planning a coup d'etat and re-establish-
ment of an authoritarian type of govern-
ment." As reported in the Japanese
press and summarized in an article by
T. Matsueda and G.E. More, the plans
containe~ the following points:
1. Japan will be an integral part of
the United States Far Eastern
strategy and as such will 'serve as
the bade for U.S. operations.
2. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces
(S.D.F.) will train jointly with U.S.,
South Korean, and Formosan troops.
3. In case of another Korean crisis, the
S.D.F. will fulfill defensive assign-
ments which include helping to block-
ade the eastern coast of China and
supporting U.S. offensive action by
serving as a reserve force in • • •
Korea and Manchuria.
4. During the emergency period, all
activity will be conducted on a basis
of total mobilization. Necessary
agencies to control and regulate
industry, communicaions, transporta-
tion, information media and all eco-
nomic activity, including the allo-
cation of civilian and military
material, and prices, banks and
financial institutions will be
established. IS
All attempts by the Socialists to
investigate the question of weakened
Civilian control over the military raised
~ the Three Arrows Study were rebuffed.
e Sato govertlJllent not only appointed
: former chief of the Defense Agency to
ead a subcommittee to investigate the
::fair, but also sanctioned the Defense
'"6 ency ' S refusal to turn over key d ocu-
~nt8 to the subcommittee.
Most American commentators on U.S.-
Japanese relations minimize Japan's
military strength by emphasizing, usually
with disapproval, the low (less than one
per cent) ratio of her defense appro-
priations to her Gross National Product
as compared with other countries. Japan's
enormous GNP, its rapid increase over
the past decade, and the "special pro-
curements" of the U.S. military in Japan,
however, make such comparisons in terms
of percentage of GNP misleading. A
glance at the trend of Japan's defense
budget reveals just how serious her
leaders have been about defense. The
rate of increase of Japan's defense
expenditure went from 453 billion yen
during the First Defense Plan (1957-
1960) to 1,180 billion yen during the
Second. Since 1960, in fact, Japan has
increased her defense spending faster
than any other country in the world
the possible exception of the U~S.l6with
Part II The Japanese Military-
Industrial Complex
Japan's modern defense industry was
revived on a small scale as a repair
industry for the Occupation Forces within
a few years after the end of World War II.
But for practical purposes the origins of
the Japanese military-industrial complex
can be dated from the start of the Korean
War. when General MacArthur reluctantly
ordered the illegal rearmament of Japan
in the guise of an expansion of the
National Police Reserve. At the same
time, the American government initiated
a "special procurements" program to meet
the needs of its Japan-based Eighth
Army and Fifth Air Force. Within one
year, special procurements income from
the construction of bases and the purchase
of war materials had started Japan on
the road to economic recovery and a more
favorable balance of payments.
Two facts about the spe¢ial procure-
ments program need to be emphasized.
One is that it did not end with the
Korean War. Between 1951 and 1960,
special procurements amounted to over
 34
six billion dollars, an average
of 600 million dollars annually.
Even as late as 1958-59 they
were "sufficient to pay for
about 14 per cent of [Japanese]
imports," an important boon
for a country with a chronic
balance of payments problem. 1 7
Just as special procurements
played a crucial role in Japan's
economic recovery in the Fifties,
war procurements connected with
the Vietnam War have contributed
to Japan's fantastically high
growth rate in the late Sixties.
In 1965-66, Japan's GNP "rose
2.7 per cent; in 1966-67,
in comparison. it rose by 7 .5
per cent •.•. "18 In that year,
direct U.S. military contracts
alone wi th Japanese firms came
to approximately 505 million
dollars, "which equaled nearly
half that year's budget alloca-
tion for defense," while other
indirect Vietnam War-related
contracts for the delivery
of goods to the U.S., South
Korea, Thailand, Taiwan. and
the Philippines were worth
1.2 billion dollars to Japanese
industry. 19 American war spend-
ing. in short. has been an
important factor in revitaliz-
ing Japanese capitalism just
as it has been in sustaining
a prosperous American capital-
ism.
The second fact to ~e noted
about special procurements is
that they started Japanese
industry towards a ml1itary-
industrial complex. According
tc a recent study of Japanese
government-business relations
by Yale University's Chitoshi
Yanaga. by January, 1951,
eight months prior to the end
of the Occupation and the
signing of the first Security
Treaty. "72 per cent of [Japan's]
production capacity was directly
engaged 1n the manufacture 0 f
weapons."20 A survey by the
Ministry of International Trade
and Industry in the autumn of
1952. disclosed over 160 companies
making weapons and munitions
and over 30 aircraft manufac-
turing concerns. Not surpris-
ingly. SCAP's General Order
Number One. prohibiting the
manufacture of weapons, was
abolished in March of 1952. 21
As Japan's involvement in
defense production deepened
during 1952. conservative forces
began to differ over how to
meet the economic crisis that
was anticipated with the ending
of the Korean War. Represen-
tatives of the shipbuilding,
fishing, and textile industries
wanted to re-establish economic
and political relations with
the Soviet Union and the People's
Republic of China. The more
influential segments of the
ruling class, however, regarded
the defense sector even at this
early date as crucial to Japan's
continued economic growth.
They argued that Japan could
best weather the decline in
Korean War spending by strength-
ening economic ties with the
U.S. and deve1gping defense
production after regaining
independence. In response to
pressure 0 f this sort. the
Japanese government adopted
its first postwar rearmament
policy on November 10. 1952.
Two days later. "as the first
formal step toward underwriting
Japanese rearmament." the U.S.
signed a lend-lease agreement
with Japan. 22
The key agreement of the
period of the first American
military alliance with Japan
was the U.S.-Japan Mutual
Defense Assistance Agreement
(MDA), signed by the Yoshida
government on March 8. 1954,.
after a year of lengthy nego-
tiating. Yoshida himself,
 35
it should be noted, had desired the
rearmament of Japan to follow rather
than accompany the completion of
economic reconstruction, and therefore
disagreed with Dulles over the speed
at which rearm~ent should proceed.
On the basis of the MOA, Japan's
modern armed forces were organized:
laws were enacted setting up the
Japan Defense Agency (JDA) , equivalent
to a ministry of war in all but name,
and the Self-Defense Forces; the police
system was recentralized to bolster
internal security; a Defense Secrets
Protection Law was enacted; and other
laws were passed to consolidate the
defense industry.23 Underlying the
MDA. however, was a U.S.-Japanese
understanding on matters that were
other than military in nature.
The MDA was negotiated during a
time of profound crisis and conf~sion
in American policy toward As La , 2
The French were on the verge of defeat
in Indo-China and the American objective
was to prevent that region from falling
into the hands of the communists,
i.e., genuinely nationalist forces
who would not be subservient to the
interests of American capitalism.
Such an eventuality, by cutting South-
east Asia off from the world capitalist
market, would not only deprive the
American empire of vast raw material
resources, but also force newly inde-
pendent Japan to normalize relations
With her natural trading partners.
her communist neighbors. The American-
sponsored rearmament of Japan was
thus paralleled by the economic objec-
tive of fitting Japanese exports into
the agricultural economies of South-
east Asia. 25 Consequently, while the
Self-Defense Forces were being reor-
ganized and eq~ipped with American
weapons. the "Society for Asian Eco-
nOmic Cooperation (Asia Society)
Was launched under the aegis of the
Foreign Office" to facilitate Japan's
'6
eco no c penetration of Southeast
Asia.
The significance of the stepped-
up American efforts after 1954 to aid
Japanese trade expansion in Southeast
Asia becomes still clearer when it is
remembered that since the end of 1947
the U.S. had been seeking to control
the worldw~de flow of trade in accordance
with its own political criteria of
anti-communism. 27 This American-initiated
economic warfare against the communist
bloc developed from the export licensing
regulations of December 31, 1947 and
January 15, 1948, through the Marshall
Aid Law. to the February 28, 1949
Export Control Act which is still in
force. It was strengthened in 1950--
both before and immediately after the
outbreak of the Korean War--and rational-
ized the next year in the form of the
"Cannon Amendment" and the Battle
Act. Internationally. it was administered
through a highly secret organization
based in Paris known as"CG-Cocom"
or simply Cocom. "The original members
of both CG (the Consultative Group)
and Cocom (the Coordinating Committee)
were England. France, Italy, the Nether-
lands, Belgium. Luxembourg, and the
U.S. In early 1950 Norway, Denmark,
Canada and West Germany joined.,,28
In October, 1950, when MacArthur launched
a counter-invasion of North Korea,
SCAP embargoed all Japanese trade with
China. then at a postwar peak of
$35.760.000, or 3.3 per cent of Ocaupied
Japan's total foreign trade. 29 Two
years later, in September, 1952, Japan
became a member of both Cocom and a
special China Committee ("Chincom")
which was appointed that month to
administer the embargo against Chinese
trade.
Although it has not yet been confirmed.
there may have been, as a British
diplomat has charged. a secret agreement
attached to the U.S.-Japan peace ~reaty
which actually stipulated that Japan
would continue to adhere to the
occupation-jmposed~bargoregula-
tions against China. 0 Assuming this
is true~ Japan's conservative leaders
probably were motivated less by "giri"
 36
(sense of debt) to their American
conquerors than by promises of substan-
tial compensations in Southeast Asia
for not trading with China on any mean-
ingful scale. It is unlikely that
they wanted to "punish" the Chinese
leaders, or cause economic pain and
suffering to the Chinese people, or
force internal policy changes in China
--the three reasons originally cited
by American leaders for their actions
against China.
Yet Japan always applied the trade
controls more strictly than the West
European Cocom partners. In
mid-1954, when the Cocom embargo lists
were first revised, precipitating a
rapid rise in East-West trade the fol-
lowing year,31 Japan backed the U.S.
refusal to include China in the revi-
sion. In 1957, when Britain attempted
to force a relaxation of the embargo
against China, again the U.S. refused
to c~2sider it and again Japan supported
her. Why?
One explanation lies in t he fact that
after 1954 the U.S. pressured other
nations in its alliance network to
open up markets for Japan "in return
for increased opportunities in the
American market." "At a closed regional
meeting of American ambassadors in
Asia in early March [1955], Secretary
of State Dulles outlined American
diplomatic strategy, a major goal of
which was to develop markets for Japan
in Southeast Asia in order to counter-
act Communist trade efforts and to pro-
mote trade between Japan and Southeast
Asian countries.")) Dulles must also
have been aware of the pressure at
that time from within Japan for in-
creased trade with the People's Repub-
lic of China.
Yet at the very time Dulles was
pushing U.S.-Japanesa economic coopera-
tion in Southeast Asia there appeared
rivalry between the two nations.
An early U.S. proposa~ in 1955 brought
the ambiguities of the trade relation-
ship to the surfacE. According to
Robert A. Scalapiao. the United States
offered Japan an arrangement
for triangular trade whereby
America would have sold surplus
farm products in Japan, for
yen, the proceeds would have
been used to buy Japanese machin-
ery and equipment to be given
by us to Southeast Asia. Japan
rejected the proposal, at least
temporarily, because she feared
its effects upon her own trade
with Southeast Asia and also
because the proposal required
that ninety per cent of the
purchase price of each shipment
would have to be deposited at
the time of authorization and at
least fifty per cent of the car-
goes would have to be carried
in American ships.34
Although this proposal was rejected
for the reasons Scalapino cited, by
the late Sixties large-scale trade
between Japan, the United States,
and Southeast Asia had become a reality.
But rather than working cooperatively
to exploit Southeast Asia, the two
military allies today find themselves
in competition there.
In contrast to these economic devel-
opments, the tempo of Japanese rearma-
ment has never proceeded as fast as
American policy-makers anticipated or
desired. One reason for this has been
the effectiveness of the left-led
opposition, based on commitment to the
principles of the Constitution and
reflecting the genuine sentiments of
a large minority of the Japanese people.
Perhaps an even more important reason
has been the split within conservative
ruling circles over the speed with
which rearmament should proceed.
The exit of the cantankerous Yoshida
at the end of 1954, the bribery scandal
involVing the Liberal Party's Secretary-
General, Sato Eisaku. and the growing
strength of the socialist opposition,35
all testified to the conservatives'
difficulty with the rearmament question
 37
(as well as the problem of creating
a stable political climate for business
expans ion) •
Neither Yoshida nor his successor.
Hatoyama Ichiro, responded satisfac-
torily to American pressure for rapid
rearmament or were wholeheartedly de-
voted to American anti-communist plan-
ning for Asia. While Hatoyama sought
to revise the Constition to expedite
a "well-balanced" rearmament program,
he also pushed ahead with plans to im-
prove relations with the Soviet Union
and the People's Republic of China.
On the rearmament question, moreover,
"the Hatoyama government insisted that
it had to hold .its defense budget for
fiscal 1956 to $388 million, or only
$20 million more than in fiscal 1955. II
According to Scalapino, the United
States "considered this far too low
and sought to use various forms of
persuasion to get it raised •••• " When
Hatoyama refused to budge, the American
government increased its contribution of
weapons and materials to the JDA to $150
million for 1957, or "thirteen times the
previous amount •.• in an effort to spur
on Japan." 36
Hatoyama's diplomacy, consequently,
Was no more acceptable to the men
behind rearmament and "defense pro-
duction~pressure --which first emerged
during the Korean War--than his overall
policies were to American policy planners.
The former saw the solution to their
diffiCulties in a merger of the two
conservative parties. By the end of
1955 the leaders of Japan's monopoly
~Orporations, working through powerful
uSiness organizations such a s the
Federation of Economic Organizations
(Keidanren), had succeeded in creating
the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
This event marked the clear ascendancy
~f organized monopoly capitalism over
apanese political life, as well as a
~rend towards ever closer American-
apanese military and economic
COOperation.
Not until the advent of Kishi Nobu-
suke, "former economic czar of Manchu-
kuo, architect of prewar Japan's New
Economic Order, Minister of Trade and
Industry and Vice Munitions Minister
in the Toja Cabinet, 1t37 did the U. S.
at last find its man in Tokyo. Kishi,
an uncompromising anti-communist, was
Japan's prime minister from 1957 until
after the second military alliance was
concluded with the U.S. in September,
1960. During his tenure, foundations
were laid for the growth of a military-
industrial complex tightly bound to
American defense industry, closer ties
with Taiwan, and the Japanese economic
advance into Southeast Asia. We will
now examine the first of these develop-
ments. Several features of the military-
industrial nexus that emerged in the
Sixties under Kishi's successors, Ikeda
and Sato, deserve particular attention.
1. There is a very tight relation-
ship between American and Japanese
defense industries. The following is a
list of Japanese companies which are
leading defense contractors, as well
as leaders in such fast-growing indus-
tries as heavy machinery, electronics,
and petro-chemicals:
Table 1: 1969 JDA Defense Contractors
Ranking Company
(by size of
contract)
1 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
2 Mitsubishi Electric
3 Tokyo Shibaura Electric
4 Japan Aircraft Manufactur-
ing
5 Japan Steel
6 Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy
Industries
7 Kawasaki Aircraft
8 Nippon Electric
9 Shlnmeiwa Kogyo
10 Komatsu Manufacturing
11 Fuji Heavy Industries
12 Daikin Kogyo
13 Hitachi Ltd.
14 lsuzu Motor
15 Fujitsu
 38

Ranking Company contractor and its largest manufactur-

(by size of ing concern, for example, devotes
contract) 10 per cent of its output to arms and
almost 30 per cent to motor vehicles.
16 Mitsubishi Shipbuilding This giant and other leading defense
and Engineering contractors are tending to move into
17 Oki Electric defense production. As competition
18 Itochu increases in consumer goods markets
19 Sumitomo Shoji with the influx of foreign goods and
20 Mitsubishi Shoji the liberalization of investment oppor-
21 Nippon Oil tunities for foreign firms, many Japan-
22 Showa Koseihin ese industrialists are being tempted
23 Howa Kogyo into the military hardware market
24 Nissan Motors where the state is the only buyer and
25 Nippon Aviotronics (joint foreign competition is less keen.
venture of Nippon Elec- After its recent tie-up with Chrysler
tric and Hughes Aircraft) Motors, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Kawasaki Dockyard separated out its automotive operations
Maizuru Heavy Industries and announced its intention to plunge
Nissho-Iwai more heavily into defense production. 39
Sumitomo Seimitsu The president of the number two defense
Marubeni-lida contractor. Mitsubishi Electric Company,
Nippon Kokan at the time of his appointment as
Japan Radio chairman of the Japan Weapons Industry
Association in May.1969, stated that
(from the Oriental Economist, June, he wanted to see Japan's defense expend-
1969; Mainichi Shimbunshahen, Ampo itures raised to 4 per cent of GNP.
to ~ei Seisan--Nihon no Heiwa to The direction these leaders have taken
Anzen [Tokyo, 1969]) - - - - - is sure to be followed by the entire
defense industry. One can see here
how American business and government
Most of these top Japanese defense pressure on Japan for liberalization
contractors are tied to the top 100 of investment terms is being met in
American defense contractors (see Japan by increased investment in defense
note 38) by licensing agreements and production.
joint ventures. General Electric,
for example. America's fourth largest 3. In the process of nurturing
manufacturer and its number two defense the Japanese military-industrial complex.
contractor, has licensing agreements with the U.S. government has frequently acted
about 65 Japanese companies as well as a as broker for "private" American defense
10 per cent position in Tokyo Shibaura contractors. Thus in 1967 the American
Electric. Japan's number three defense ambassador to Japan, U. Alexis Johnson,
contractor. G.E., interestingly enough. is alleged to have personally called
is a frequent sponsor of academic on the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs,
gatherings and "scholarly" publications Ushiba, to ask for the use of G.E.
on Asia which support the Security Treaty engines in building the TX ~O.e., the
system. F4E Phantom fighter) plane. But
the more common means of facilitating
2. The major Japanese defense firms link-ups between the two military-
presently have a low ratio of defense industrial complexes are governmental
output to total manufacturing output. bilateral agreements and memoranda,
But there are indications that this is such as the November 1962 Data Ex-
now changing. Mitsubishi Heavy Indus- change Agreement and the June,1968
tries, Japan's number one defense '~emorandum on Military Research and
 39

Table 2: U.s. planes, helicopters, and engines manufactured in Japan from

1954 to 1966

Aircraft &
Japanese companies Engine system u.s. companies

Beech

Cessna

Bell

Kawasaki Aircraft Boeing

T- 33A., P;;"V -7 Lockheed
'f~~Oell'~\"\~Il~'"....,~~--.M-;-D-;-n-~-e-l1---D-;;--u-g-l-a-~....J,I
.. ~'" _ l-. ....J
!.-~~ .--

- S; $-(., S:-7-::----
, -~.;1, &/01-3,.1\ - - I
Sikorsky
I----_.:..-_--~

IShin Meiwa Heavy Industry II--------~~-=-----'_

UF-XS Grumman _
T - 58 1 :r- 7<f
IIshikawajima-Harima I----------~-~-------lGeneral Electric

Sour~e: G.R. Hall and R.E.

Johnson, Transfers of u.s.
~erospace Technology to Japan,
the Rand Corporation(July, 1968)
P-3875, p.l3

Note: I have added dotted lines to

indicate technical tie ups initiated
after 1966.
 40
Development" concluded between the
Japan Defense Agency and the Pentagon.
The July, 1969 U.S.-Japan Aerospace
Cooperation Agreement is another example
of this kind. Valued by Business Week
(Sept. 13, 1969) as being worth at least
$200 to $300 million to American defense
contractors, it paves the way for
American aerospace industry assistance
in the Seventies in the development
of Japanese Q and N series launch vehi-
cles--ICBM-type rockets which could be
armed with nuclear tips rather than
space research satellites.
4. Symptomatic of the growth of
the Japanese military-industrial com-
plex is a growing tendency for public life
to be corrupted by collusion between
private industry and the military.
This is due in large measure to the fact
that Japanese defense contractors,
like their U.S. counterparts, have to
operate in a market characterized by
a long (five to eight years) product
cycle. In such a situation, it
becomes imperative for them to insure
the effectiveness of their long-range
planning for weapons systems designs.
Consequently, despite legal barriers
against it, a familiar symbiosis be-
tween "private" industry and the mili,
tary re-emerged in the Sixties. The
trend was dramatically illustrated
during the Defense Secrets Scandal of
1967-1968 when it was learned that "265
Self-Defense Agency officials who had
retired between 1962 and 1967 joined
industries doing defense work." In
the first two months of 1969 no less
than 22 such officials left the Agency
to find employment in the defense in-
dustry.4l
5. Significant direct interconnec-
tions between the military establish-
ment and the universities have not yet
materialized in Japan. But indirect
university cooperation with the mili-
tary through research projects com-
missioned by private industry is on the
increase. On May 6 and 7, 1969~ the
results of a 1967 &card of Audit inves-
tigation into the research status of
twelve leading universities revealed
that they had failed to report to the
Ministry of Education 279 resear~h
project, many of them presumably military
related, having a total value of 103
million yen. Tokyo University headed
the list with 8l ga11y commissioned
research items. zi11e
As early as Sept-
ember, 1959, however, there were indi-
cations that military-related research
was being conducted in the universities.
At that time the "Nine Faculties Student
Self-Government Association" of Tokyo
University presented a report to the
university administration charging that
certain faculties were cooperating
with the Defense Agency's weapons develop-
ment research programs. With the
candor that has since come to charac-
terize most university administrations
similarly under fire from students, the
charges were later categorically denied. 4
An interesting sidelight on Japanese
university involvement in military
research and development, however in-
direct, is that its benefits have not be~
limited only to the Defense Agency.
In 1959 the U.S. Army established an
office in Tokyo to identify and, when
possible, place under contract Japanese
scientists whose work might contribute
to U.S. military objectives. 44 By1967,
when this sort of Pentagon "peace fare"
activity was first disclosed by Senator
Fulbright~ the Army Research Office
in Tokyo was monitoring contracts and
grants with nine Japanese universities
and a number of private research
institutes. The amount being funded
for such research was small, however,
totaling only $107,348. Since that
time, according to the Pentagon's
John H. Foster,Jr., "the actual number
[of contracts and grants] has decreased
by approximately 20% ••. " but the
"funding leveL .• has remained at a
fairly constant level." 45
6. As the Japanese military-indus-
trial complex enters the stage of
self-sustaining gr~wth during the 1970s,
it is safe to predict that retention
of the Security Treaty will not be nec-
 41
essary for either side. What is much
more dif ficul t to predict is wh ether a
revived Japanese imperialism can remain
integrated in the American imperial
system. For the present, we should
note that the strongest pressure for
revision of the anti-war constitution,
expanded defense production, 1 iberaliza-
tion of investment terms, overseas
deployment of the Defense Forces, and
strengthening of the Security Treaty
comes from the leaders of heavy industry,
finance, trade and commerce--the class
of monopoly capitalists. For reasons
of their own there are also a number
of Japanese "realist" intellectuals who
espouse these same goals. To para-
phrase Hobson one might say that imper-
ialism and militarism, while irrational
from the standpoint of the Japanese na-
tion as a whole, today seem increasingly
rational for certain classes and groups
within Japan. The views of such groups
present a way of examining the rationale
behind the current defense fever. What
do business groups perceive to be the
major benefits of defense spending and
how will the anticipated higher level
of defense spending in the Seventies
affect Japan's future relationship with
the U.S.?
Unlike American policy makers.
Japanese business groups are ambivalent
about future close collaboration with
the United States. This ambivalence is
reflected in a number of considerations
which point to a drive for increased
. arms spending. The first major consi-
deration is the propensity of K eidanren
and the other major business organiza-
tions to view economic success in terms
of maintaining Japan's share of world
markets. Building a bigger war economy
is thought to be a sure way of keeping
UP-to-date, the only way Japan can be
assured of retaining and expanding her
overseas markets against competition
from the U.S. and other advanced econo-
mies. Such an argument suggests future
conflicts of interest between Japan and
the U.S.
The second consideration accounting
for the current arms boom is the belief
of many Japanese monopolists that untold
fortunes are to be made from exporting
arms to Southeast Asia, South Korea,
and Taiwan. This vision of the profita-
bility of merchandising death makes the
Nixon administration's regional security
schemes tantalizing to these monopolists.
This line highlights the benefits to be
gained from Japanese-American political
collaboration.
Although they do not articulate it
in the defense boom rationale, Japanese
monopolists may also expect that the
enormous profits they are enjoying from
the Vietnam War and from new markets
the War opened up for them in the u.S.
and Southeast Asia will decline in the
Seventies, at the same time that compe-
tition at home and abroad from foreign
multinational corporations begins to
intensify. Expanding the domestic and
overseas defense markets is their way
of weathering the crisis while maintain-
ing high productivity and a rising GNP.
7. Many of these arguments may con-
verge on the issue of the nuclear non-
proliferation treaty which the Japanese
government has not yet signed and which
many leaders of defense industries
oppose. It has been estimated that
oy 1975 Japan, long a candidate for the
nuclear club. "will have generated
enough plutonium in her power reactors
to produce 600 to 700 atomic bombs of
the 20 kiloton variety.,,46 Yet i f
Japan did acquire nuclear weapons osten-
sibly to. deter China, it would result
in an irrevocable reduction of security
for ev~ry nation in Asia. China.
already threatened by the U.S. and
Soviet nuclear arsenal, would be squeezed
still further by Japan, while India,
which fought China in 1962 and has no
mutual defense treaty with a superpower,
would have all the more reason for
acquiring nuclear weapons. 47
* * *
The developments we have been consi-
dering have a number of implications
 42
for the Japanese people which ought
to be spelled out. Just as there
can be no question as to American
efforts over the years to sp ur on
Japanese rearmament, so today there
can be no question as to the result:
the existence in Japan of a locked-
in demand for an armaments economy.
This stems largely from the fact that
the highlv sophisticated technolo~v
of modern" space and weapons systems and
the job skills associated with such pro-
duction are not readily transferable to
civilian consumer production. The major
steps to creating that demand were the
Korean ~ar weapons production boom,
the 1951 military alliance with the
U.S., the 1954 Mutual Defense Agree-
ment, and the decision gf the Kishi
government to build a modern aerospace
industry under the co-production for-
mula (I.e., U.S.-JaPtgese joi ot arms
production) in 1957. The existence
in Japan of a military-industrial
complex raises but leaves unanswered
the question: will it go on expanding
until it is used?
Equally disquieting are the long-
term effects of these material develop-
ments on Japanese national conscious-
ness. Having embarked on a large-scale
defense build-up, the Japanese state
is increasingly forced to create a
political climate--meaning a complex
of public images, attitudes, and values
--supportive of its goals. while resist-
ing and deprecating, £; the same time,
efforts by the opposition to thwart
those goals. Because it feels the
need to legitimate its actions in the
military and foreign policy spheres,
the Japanese state has begun to move
in the direction of reviving some
of its pre-war ideological features:
history education in the public schools
has once again been tied to moral
education; the mythical date f or the
creation of the Japanese nation (Kigen-
setsu) was officialy reestablished in
1966; and a new university control
law which virtually destroys univer-
sity autonomy was passed in August,
1969. In the offing is legislation
~~ place Yasukunl Shrine, the Shinto
resting place of Japan's war dead,
under state management, an action which
is tantamount to restoring the connec-
tion between Shrine Shinto and the
sta t e . This is in direct cont ravenc Ics
of Article 20 of the Japanese Consti-
tution which stipulates that "No reli-
gious organization shall receive any
privilege from the State, nor exercise
any political authority ••. The State
and its organs shall refrain from reli-
gious eduction or any other religious
activity."
During the past fifteen years Japan-
ese educational policy has moved stead~'y
to the right. In 1956-57 the ~inistry,
of Education inaugurated a nationwide
teacher evaluation system, the effect
of which has since been to inhibit
freedom of expression for primary and.
secondary school teachers. In 1958
it made the use of its study-guide
outline mandatory in public school
teaching. The study-guide outline
together with the "offic ially approved
textbook" gives the state its two most
effective devices for molding new
generations of Japanese to be less
critical of war--the Ministry of Educ~
tion even advises teachers not to painl
too dark a picture of war--and more
imbued with a ~ense of obligation
to the state. 4 a
With these developments in mind
let us turn to examine briefly the
support role for U.S. foreign policy
that private American citizens and
institutions have played 1n postwar
Japan.
Part III The Labor and Cultural Fro~
Stimulating Japanese rearmament has
not been the only goal of U.S.-Japan
policy during the past two decades.
Another part of that policy has been
enlisting the support of American labol
leaders to strengthen the hand of
conservative Japanese unionists, with
the aIm of maintaining the internal
status quo in Japan.
 43
Viewed historically. the American
labor movement acquired a vested interest
in American capitalism long before it
was given the opportunity to act over-
seas as a "support ins t itu tion" for
American foreign policy. Th e AFL. for
example, quite early shied away from
a social justice orientation to union-
ism in favor 0 f a business union approach.
By the 1920s it was espousing a philo-
sophy Qf labor-management cooperation. 49
The CIO. despite the fact that initially
it grew out of a more radical "milieu.
pursued the same path and was even faster
in making its accommodation with manage-
ment. By the time World War II came
along both major labor federations had
been taken into the economy of the
large corporations as junior partners.
The American labor movement had
among its too generals during the pre-
war period men like George Meany.
David Dubinsky. and Matthew Wolle
Conservative on d~estic matters.
such labor representatives more often
than not supported chauvinistic policies
abroad as well. In the 1930's. for
instance. Woll, an AFL vice president.
"was prominent in pushing' lab or pan-
Americanism'--the cultivation of labor
leaders throughout the hemisphere who
would applaud u.s. incursions, including
the various dispatches of marines ••• "
"Dubinsky and Well", according to
Michael Myerson's recent study of the
International Ladies Garment Workers
Union, "formed a core of anti-communist
allitancy in the AFL (and later the
AFL-CIO) •,,50 During World War II they,
together with the embittered ex-communist,
Jay Lovestone. had founded the American
Labor Conference on International Af-
fairs (ALeIA) as a vehicle for their own
reactionary brand of unionism.
In the postwar period a rabid anti-
~~unism. closely linked with support
o American overseas business interest,
came to shape the activities of the
international labor set. In 1952
~aderls Digest published an account
of the exploits of Irving Brown, the
AlLIs chief European representative.
which gave the American public its
first knowledge of labor's role in the
Cold War. It described how Brown split
the trade union movement in France,
West Germany, and Italy, organized
goon squads to wrest control of the
European waterfront from Communist-
dominated unions. and allegedly made
it impossible for any trade union
in \~estern Europe to "pull a major
strike for political reasons and make
it stick."
In all, Irving Brown today
has his finger in more than 100
individual projects which keep
him working 16 to 18 hours a
day. seven days a week. In the
past seven years. he has traveled
more than 500.000 miles in 26
countries. He gets back to the
United States about twice a year
to report to the AFL Executive
Council and to confer with Jay
Lovestone. executive secretary
of the AFL Free Trade Union
Committee. Lovestone ... has
overall supervision of Brown's
work and the similar work being
done by AFL representatives in
Japan. Formosa~ Indonesia. and
South America. 1
In the early cold war years American
labor leaders were busy trying to destroy
the newly unified (October. 1945) inter-
national labor movement represented by the
World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU),
and create in its place a new anti-
communist labor international;52 at
the same time they were also carrying
the cold war to Asia where occupied
and isolated Japan was a key battlefield.
In January. 1947, General MacArthur
took two actions designed to weaken
the Japanese labor movement. He issued
for political and ideological reasons
a ban against a proposed general strike
of government employees s~t for February 1.
1947, and he wrote a letter ;0 Matthew
Woll to get his organization shelp
in countering the leftist trend in the
Japanese labor movement. On Wol1's
 44
recommendation, James Killen, "a top
official of the International Brother-
hood of Pulp, Sulphite, and Paper
Mill Workers". was sent to Japan and
appointed chief of SCAP's (Supreme
Commander Allied Powers) labor division.
Under Killen's direction "democratiza-
tion leagues" were set up as anti-com-
munist cells within Japanese unions and
an intensive effort was made to split
the newly formed "National Liaison
Council of Labor Unions" (Zenroren).
On July 22, 1948 the Japanese govern-
ment, in response to an open letter from
General MacArthur to Prime Minister
Ashida, issued an ordinance "denying
government workers not only the right
to strike but also the right of col-
lective bargaining." This drastic
and unexpected action led Killen and
several of h5~ associates to resign
their posts.
AFL cooperation with the Occupation
then took a different form. AFL agents
working through SCAP put all of their
efforts into getting Japanese unions to
affiliate with the AFL and CIA-inspired
anti-communist international labor
federation that was then taking shape
in Western Europe. In late 1949 and
early 1950, SCAP stepped up its anti-
communist witch hunt, purging all com-
munist leaders from the unions. An all-
out effort was made with strong AFL
backing to bring organized labor under
the control of the right-wing "socialists"
through a new national labor center
called Sahye.
The first program of sOhya pro-
posed to eliminate Communist
influence in the unions, to
concentrate upon economic ques-
tions to the exclusion of poli-
tics, and to affiliate the J apan-
ese labor movement to the
ICFTU, rival international to the
WTU. But ••• SOhye failed to
achieve any of these reactionary
objectives. Instead, in 1952
it rejected affiliation with the
ICFTU and it prompt!l came under
left leadership ••• "
From the end of the Occupation
until the 1960 mass struggle against
renewal of the Security Treaty, the
American effort on the labor front
was consistently low-keyed, and, with
but one exception. relatively ineffec-
tive. In 1952 Richard Deverall was
sent to Japan by Jay Lovestone--the
type that Isaac Deutscher once described
as a "Stalinist in reverse"--to do there
what Irving Brown had done in Europe.
Although it is not certain, Deverall
may have helped launch the second
"democratization" movement, known as
Minroren, which first appeared that
summer and culminated in 1954 in the
formation of the right-wing Ja~anese
Trade Union Councilor Zenro. S The
issue on which this split occurred
was SOhya's opposition to U.S. policy
and its refusal to affiliate en bloc
with the ICFTU, which was then coming
increasingly under AFL and CIO cont~gl
and supporting Japanese rearmament.
Nevertheless, with the one key excep-
tion of Zenro, Japanese labor responded
more to its own internal dynamics in
this period than to outside American
interference. Labor was not yet recog-
nized as a high priority front in the
American quest for world hegemony.
By the late Fifties, however, as
the Soviet Union and the United States
approached a balance of nuclear power,
American global policy began to grope
toward "a different kind of attempt
to contain Communism and revolutionary
instability." In his brilliant essay
on "The CuI tural Cold War" Christopher
Lasch explains that at this time
••• official liberalism, having
taken over essential features
of the rightist world view,
belatedly dissociated itself
from the cruder and blatantly
reactionary type of anti-
communism. and now pursued the
same anti-communist policies
in the name of anti-imperialism
and progressive change. Once
again. the Kennedy administration
contributed decisively to the
 45
change of style, placing more
emphasis on "counter Lnsu'rgency"
than on military alliances, ad-
vocating an "Alliance for Pro-
gress", de-emphasizing military
aid in favor of "development",
refraining from attacks on neu-
tralism, and presenting itself
as the champion of democratic
revolu in the undeveloped
world.5,on
The new liberal style in U.S.-Japan
policy was forecast in a 1959 foreign
palicy study prepared by a private San
Francisco research firm for the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. Known
as the Conlon Report, the section deal-
ing with Japan was written by Robert
A. Scalapino, a prominent liberal
scholar in the field of Japanese studies,
who was later to become even more pro-
minent for his defense of the Johnson
administration's Vietnam policies and
for authoring the 1967 Tuxedo-Freedom
House Statement on American policy
for Asia. The problem, Scalapino
argued, was that
In the mid-20th century, it is
no longer sufficient to do business
merely with the government in power.
Success, perhaps survival, depends
upon "doing business" with as
many of the people within a society
as can be reached. This is a
multifaceted problem 0 f images,
contacts, and approaches, and
despite our endeavors, we are
still far from successful in Japan.
As a result, the American-Japanese
alliance is still relatively
shallow; it does not have the kind
of intellectual, political, and
cultural roots needed to sustain
it in an era of perils. 58
The situation, dire as it was, could
be improved, according to Scalapino,
provided that the United States imple-
mented in Japan the concept of "diplo-
macy in depth." This would entail
strengthening certain images of the
United States.
First, the United States should
be displayed correctly as a
dynamic, changing society where
the common man has had his great-
est 20th century victories.
Second, it is entirely proper to
emphasize America as a society
of material prosperity, scien-
tific prowess, and military
power. But ••• it is important
to highlight the creative work
going on in American art, litera-
ture, music, and in the social
sciences •••Means also need to
be found to dramatize our intense
desire for g~ce and human progress
everywhere.
The main thrust of Scalapino's argu-
ment, however, was that "diplomacy in
depth" was "a task not merely for
government, but for foundations, uni-
versities, business, and unions as well."
Could a more ingenious formula for
interference in another country's
internal affairs ever have been con-
ceived'?
Scalapino's progressive-sounding
recommendations obviously fitted in
with the new Kennedy administration's
evolving "peace strategy" for the
Third Wbrld. If universities, founda-
tions, and labor unions could be made
to redouble their efforts overseas
on behalf of freedom and anti-communism--
in practice the two wer~ regarded as
synonYmQus--then surely it was in the
national interest to encourage them to
do so. The same message with less
liberal rhetoric was sounded by the
Assistant Secretary of Labor, George
C. Lodge, when, in an article in Foreign
Affairs (July, 1959) be declared
We would be seriously delUding
ourselves if we did not recog-
nize that the Communists have
increased their influence in
the labor movements of Asia.
Africa, and Latin America.
The day has long since gone when
relations with other countries
can be effectively carried on
 46
solely in the ~raditional
"diplomatic" way at the
usua l "diplomatic" levels. 60
Lodge was concerned with what he
believed to be a new communist .attempt
--it is interesting how conveniently
timt!d these new cOlllfllunist offenses
always are--to subvert independent
labor movements, and the problem 0 f
America's poor image in foreign lands
(for example, the erroneous notion
that th~ U.S. was a "ca-pitali~t na-
tion"). I Young Lodge seemed to be
calling (~r a new anti-communist crusade
through the government's newly expanded
labor attache and labor exchange pro-
grams. In 1960 the Asia Foundation,
an offspring of -the right~wing Free
Asia Committee and since 1954 a "non-
political" foundation with close ties
to t he CIA, promoted the first AmerLcan
labor exchange ~rogram in Japan. Two
years later th~ U.S.-Japanese Conference
on Cultur<11 ~~c.1 Educational Exchange
was se t up. - The need of the U.S.-
Japan military-corporate alliance for
"the kind of Ln t e Ll ec t.ua L, political
and cultural roots needed to sustain
it in an era of perils" was beginning
to be met: the Security Tr~aty was
evolving into a security system.
In the early Sixties, ,\merican labor
leaders attempted on three significant
fronts to undermine the left-wing
Japanese unions. The AFl.-eIO Interna-
tional Affairs Department launched a
frontal attack on sObyo for its neutral-
ism in international affairs. Through
Harry Pollack. a Lovestone-approved
"labor attache" who took up his post
in the American Embassy in April, 1961.
new efforts were made to strengthen
the right-wing unions with SOhyo.
In November. 1964. Zenro and Sodomei
merged to form a new national labor
federation. Domei Kaigi. It is quite
likely that AFL-CIO officials played
a role in abetting this merger. Third.
a general appeal was made to Japanese
labor unions regardless of their poli-
tical orier-tation to abstain from
political struggles. The labor ex-
change program conceived by the Asia
Foundation and funded by the State
Department brought some 880 Japanese
labor leaders to the U.S. between
1962 and 1965. Upon returning home
they were organized into groups by the
American embassy and consulates and
allegedly encouraged by American
officials and unionists to resist
any proposals to struggle against the
Security Treaty. Efforts were also
made to utilize the right-wing leader-
ship of Domei Kaigi to help organize
the labor movement in Southeast Asia,
a ~actic which one Japanese student
of the labor movement likened to the
American military stratg~y of using
.Asians to fight Asians.
If strengthening the righ~-wing
Japanese labor unions was the reverse
side of the American policy of pressur-
ing Japan to rearm. mention must also
be made of a more subtle American effort
to influence Japanese intellectuals.
Since American cultural imperialism
in post-occupation Japan has received
little attention in the U.S •• I can
only cite a few examples. One example
of the American cultural effort. cen-
tering on Japanese inte llectuals,
was an article by Ambassador Reischauer
in the November. 1961 issue of the
Japanese-language magazine Jiyu (Free-
dam), entitled "The Problem of the
Japanese Intellec tua1." Reischauer
touched off the attack on Japanese
intellectuals by taking them to task
for their impracticality. lack of
realism. and commitment to the Marxist
tradition in scholarship. thereby
implying. no doubt. that they take as
models some of the activist scholars
then in the Kennedy administration.
Reischauer's theory of modernization was
offered as a more realist model of
social change than the Marxist model
and was later given wide publicity
by the American Embassy and the U.S.I.A.
in Japanese universities. high schools,
and in the press.
One further example of the political
purposes informing much. though certainly
 47
not all, of American cultural acti-
vities in Japan was provided in 1962,
when the role of the Ford. Asia. and
Rockefeller Foundations as "support
institutions" for U.S. foreign policy
was widely discussed i~ the pages of
the nistorical journal Rekishi Hyoren.
Suzuki Ryo and others in the Augu~t
and September issues called attention
to the Southeast Asia Research Center
which Kyoto University bad announced
was going to be set up. The idea for
such a Center had originated with J.
S. Everton, a Fo£d Foundation official
in 1958, the year before he was ap-
pointed U.S. ambassador to Burma.
Suzukits analysis of the prospectus
for the Center disclosed that its
purposes were remarkably congruent
with U.S. foreign policy needs a~ that
time. The Center, which was to be
funded chiefly by the Ford Foundation,
was to limit i~ research activities
to Malaya and Burma, two areas not
adequately covered by U.S. counterpart
research institutes. Burma, moreover,
was a country where the Ford and
Asia Foundations~ after having invested
large sums of money for educational
and research purposes, had just two
months earlier, on April 18, 1962, been
declared persona non grata by Prime
Minister Ne Win as part of his cam-
paign to drive out the CIA.
These examples merely suggest the
manner in which American imperialism
works itself out in practice in a
single country. Certainly more
research needs to be done on this
subject before the extent of reaction-
ary American influence on-postwar Japan
can be gauged.
Part IV Conclusion
Most American commentators on
U.S.-Japanese relations regard the
military alliance with Japan as an
historically wise, mutually beneficial,
and necessary measure. They believe
that the Japanese have prospered under
it and have not had to rearm signi-
ficantly. Today, they a r gue , the
Security Treaty is actually a bl~ss·
ing in disguise, for it functions as
a restraint on Japanese rearlll3m('nt
and an incentive for Japan's conserva-
tive rulers to steer a moderate course,
allowing them to avoid a re~tionary
policy that would silence dom~stic
critics on the left.
Few of the problems I have mentioned
receive attention from American scholars
on Japan. Most are pro-Security Treaty
"rea l Ls ts" and have little serious fault
to find with the American policy--past
and present--of pressuring Japan to.
assume more "responsibilities" within
the American imperial system. ~~en
Georgetown Cniversity's Center for
Strategic Studies mobilized a group
of Japan experts in 1968 to discuss
U.S.-Japanese political re Lac rons , they
recommended to government policy-makers
that
the seriousness of the threat
posed by the recent revival
of isolationist sentiment in the
United States should be made
clear to the Japanese .•. The result
might be a somewhat more coopera-
tive disposition on the p~t of
the Japanese Government toward
greater participation in the
developmental and se curity task
in East and Sou.theast Asia. 64
When Edwin O. Reischauer, the former
ambassador to Japan y took up "the
defense question" in his. book Beyond
Vietnam: The United States ~ Asia,
he was abl~Q ignore entirely the
long-term American effort to control
the flow of trade in Asia and to open
up Southeast Asia g~ a market for
Japanese products. Reischauer's
case against Japanese neutralism and
for continuation of the military alliance
with the U.S. also ignores both the
increasingly offensive nature of that
alliance as well as the domestic con-
sequences for Japan of an expanding
 48
military-industrial complex. It concen-
trates instead on the "problem of stability
in East Asia and the security of sea
lanes, both of which are vital to Japan. ,,66
In effect, the liberal apologia for
the Security Treaty corresponds to the
Japanese conservatives' vision of Japan's
future role in Asia, and resembles the
role advanced for Japan by American right-
wing think-tanks. While Reischauer
argues that "a much broader international
approach to the problem of Asian security
would seem feasible ••• and if it were
achieved it would give us much firmer
international footing in the event that
we were again forced to use military
power to halt aggression," others speak
more candidly about coaxing Japan into
assuming the leadership of some future
Asian-Pacific Defense and Development
Community. On the eve of its renewal
even the liberals' case for the Security
Treaty turns out to be merely a genteel
version of the "let Asians fight Asians"
formula.
Orthodox discussion of the Security
Treaty system fails to appreciate that
Japanese opposition is in many respects
a justifiable resistance to the revival
of Japanese imperialism. Yet until a
new generation of Japanese--unencumbered
by the experience of defeat--move into
positions of power, it will be diffi-
cult to determine the direction that
imperialism will take.
FOOTNOTES
In writing this essay I benefited from
the helpful criticism of Noam Chomsky,
John Dower, and James Peck.
1. Brigadier F.W. Speed, "Japan's
Self-Defense Fa rces, .. The Ar my Quarterly
and Defense Journal (April, 1969).
2. Wilfred G. Burchett, Again ~
(New York: International Publishers). 16.
3. Jane's Fighting Ships 1968-69. 164.
4. The Oriental Economist (June,
1969), 10.
5. Albert Axelbank, "Maritime Se1f-
Defense", in The Far Eastern Economic
Review (February 27, 1969).
6. u.s. News and ~ Report (Octo-
ber 27, 1969).
7. The Christian Science Monitor
(Sept. 13, 1969). "The third defense
build-up plan calls for 311 Nike-
Hercules and HAWKS manufactured in
Japan."
8. Frank Kowalski, Jr., The Rearma-
ment of Japan (The Simul Press, Iric , ,
Japan, 1969).
9. Speed, 2E. cit., 30.
10. The Oriental Economist (May,
1969); New York Times, December 7, 1969.
11. I.F. Stone's Weekly, (Oct. 6,
1969); Institute for Strategic Studies,
The Military Balance 1968-1969 , 11;
Jane's Fighting Ships 1968-69.
12. Kaoru Murakami, "Dangerous
Aspects of the Japan-South Korea Treaty
Talks, n in Journal of Social and
Political Ideas in Japan, vol. IV, no. 1
(April, 1966), 58-59.
13. Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 28, 1965.
Hatada Shigeo, "Nikkan Joyaku no Seiji-
teki Gunjiteki Shiten," in Nikkan Man-
dai (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, Dec., 1968), 118.
14. For more information on the Pen-
tagon's role in instigating the Mitsuya
plans see Yoshihara KDichiro, Nanajunen
Ampo to Nihon B£. Gun j iryoku (Tokyo:
Nihon-hyoronsha, 1969), 183-185.
15. T. Matsueda and G.E. Moore,
"Japan's Shifting Attitudes Toward the
Military: Mitsuya Kenkyu and the Se1f-
Defense Force," in Asian Survey, no.
9 (Sept., 1967), 614.
16. Tetsuo Izu, "Facts About the
 49

Japanese Type of Industrial-Military Source: Ministry of Finance and"

Complex," in Japan Socialist Review,
no. 170 (Jan. 1, 1969), 33.
It can be pointed out •.. that for
a peace-time defense budget, the
rate of growth of Japan's mili-
tary spending is far higher than
that of other developed countries.
The spending involved by the
current Third Defense Plan (FY
1967 through FY 1971) is double
that of the Second Plan, while
it is certain that the amount
for the Fourth Plan will be
more than double that of the
Third. Japan's defens~ indus-
try is at the threshold ~f an
era of growth, and it is widely
expected that there will be
soaring progress under the
Fourth and Fifth Defense Plans.
The Oriental Economist,
vol. 37, no. 704 (June,
1969), 10.
17. G.C. Allen, A Short Economic
Hist0!'Z of Modern Japa~7-l937, With
~ Supplementary Chapter on Economic
Recovery and Expansion 1945-1960 (New
York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), 173,
214.
VALUE OF FOREIGN TRADE, AMERICAN AID
AND SPECIAL PROCUREMENT, 1945-1960
(in million U.S. dollars)
Exports Imports Aid
Economic Planning Agency. Procurement
includes Allied military expenditure in
dollars and pounds, yen purchases for
Joint Defence Account, expenditure of
Allied soldiers and civilian officials
in Japan, and payme nts in respect of
certain off-shore procurement contracts.
G.C. Allen, ~. cit., 214.
18. Peter Wiley, "Vietnam and the
Pacific Rim Strat;egy," in Levia than
(June, 1969), 7.
19. D. Petrov, "Anatomy of the
Japanese Miracle," in New Times, no.
36 (Sept. 11, 1968), 20--.-- -----
The Japan Quarterly gives estimates
of direct and indirect Vietnam special
procurements as $450 million and
$1000 million respectively for 1966-67.
It cited two factors to account for
"the increase in normal exports--i.e.
indirect procurement--due to the Vietnam
war."
The first factor here is that
the upswing in the American
economy, which began at the
time President Kennedy assumed
office, was accelerated by the
Vietnam War. By now, the
~conomy has become overheated,
so that America's supply margin
has decreased both at home and
abroad, with the result that
Procurement Japanese exports have increased

--
Sept. 19~5-Dcc. 19/,6
1947
(f.o.b.) (c.i.f.)

103
]74
306
526
193
404
to fill the gap.

Secondly, the U.S. Government

]948 258 634 461 makes a point of ordering
1949 510 905 535 special procurement goods frQm
1950 820 9i4 361 149 countries such as South Korea,
1951 1,355 1,995 164 592 the Philippines, and Taiwan
1952 1,273 2,018 824 which are cooperating in the
1953 1,275 2,410 809
Vietnam War, and these countries
]954 1.629 2,399 ~96
1955 2,471 557 are passing on to Japan orders
2.011
1956 2,501 3,230 595 for the raw materials and semi-
1957 2.858 4,284 ~9 finished products necessary to
1958 2,1:76 3,033 482 produce these goods. It is
1959 3,456 3,599 458 generally agreed that indirect
1960 4,055 4r'~91 549 procurement, represented by these
 50
t~o sourccs ..• is far greater than
direct procurement.
The articl~ goes on to cite the govern-
ment's differing evaluation of the role
of Vi0tn~m special procurements.
"\'ietn~m Special Prucurement and
the Economy," in Japan Quar t e rl y ,
vol. XI\', no. 1 (Jan. - ~arch,
1':1(7),14.
20. Takahashi Ryozo, "BOei Seisan
Keikaku no Zemba," in Chuo Koran (April,
1953), 78. as quoted in Chitoshi Yanaga,
~j~ Busin~ss in Japanese Politics (~ew
Haven: Yale Univ~rsity Press, 1968), 255.
Al though the o r LgLnaI source was un-
available to me, Professor Yanaga has
indicated in a private conversation
that the figure of 72 per cent seems
entirely reasonable in the light of
other evidence on this period.
21. Yo s h Lha ra Koichiro, ~. ~it. ,320.
22. Yanaga, £E. ci~., 257.
23. Yo sh Lhara Koichiro, ~.£. ~it_.,
320-321.
24. On this point see Gabriel Kolka,
The ~ of American Foreign Policy--
An Analvsis of Power and Purpose (Hostun:
Beacon Press, 1969), 96-103.
25. We should not lose sight of the
irony of this development: at the same
time that America was making plans to
expand its hegemony in Southeast Asia.
it was forced to restrict it in the
interest of creating room there for a
revival of Japanese capitalism. This
contradiction was implicit in the very
conception of rebuilding Japan as a
bastion against her Commun Ls t neighbors.
Hampering the industrialization of China
and North Korea by denying them a market-
place connection with an already indus-
trialized Japan, and creating a market
for the output of Japanese in dustries
in an anti-Communist Southeast Asia were
simply two sides of a single strategy.
The tenacity of some U.S. government
officials in pursuing the war against
the Vietnamese people is directly
related to this strategic conception
of Asia as a market outlet f or Japan.
26. Yanaga, ££. cit., 262-264.
27. Gunnar Adler-Karlsson,
Western Economic Warfare 1947-1967,
~ Case Study in Foreign Economic
Policy (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wik-
se l l , 1968), 5, 23, 25, 202.
28. Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, ibid.
29. ~Iainichi Shimbunsha hen,
Ampo !£ Keizai-Nihon no Heiwa to
Anzen (Tokvo: ~lainichi Shimbunsha,
1969), 70.' By 1965 Sino-Japanese
trade still accounted for only 2.8
per cent of Japan's total world trade.
A. ~1. Halpern, "China and Japan," in
Tang Tsou, ed., China in Crisis--
China's Policies~sia and America's
Alternative (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1968), 443.
30. Adler Karlsson, ££. c t t , ,
51, 28. Ad l e t--Ka r Lsson adds, "It is
also a fact that the Japanese trade
with China and its conformance \"ith
the U.S. embargo policy is still, in
1967, regularly discussed in a special
U.S.-Japanese Joint Economic Committee."
31. On the question of the effec-
tiveness of the embargo, see Frederick
L. Pryor, Th~ Communist Foreign Trade
System (M.I.T. Press, 1963).
32. ~Iainichi Shimbunsha hen, 2£.
c I t , , 106.
33. Yanaga, £E. cit., 226.
The Eisenhower-Dulles years also marke~
a high tide in American opposition to
"neutralism." On June 9, 1956, Dulles
denounced neutralism. saying that it
"pretends that a nation can best gain
safety for itself by being indifferent
to the fate of others. This has beco.e
an obsolete conception, and, except un
under very exceptional circumstances,
 51

it is an immoral and short-sighted No r t h Amer Lc an

conception." Quoted in Raymond F. Aviatioo
Betts, Europe Overseas: Phases of Sikorsky
Imperialism (New York: Basic Books, Phillips P0troleum
1968), 176. Un ioo en rb ide
Dow Chemical
34. Robert A. Sca1apino, "The U.S. Monsanto
and Japan," in The United States and Hercules Puwder C0.
the Far East (The American Assembly,
Graduate School of Business, Columbia This list is incomp10te
University, 1956), 64.
39. Roberts,~. cit., 287.
35. Yanaga,~. cit., 133. The According to Roberts, "the business mag-
Socialists obtained 32.9 per cent of nates who have been pressing for easier
the popular vote in 1958; 36.4 per cent entry of foreign investment into the
in 1960. motor industry have not" almost unani-
mously begun to call for ~xpans~on of
36. Scalapino, ££. cit., 70. the defense programme." (288)

37. John G. Roberts, "To Arms. 40. Tetsuo Izu, 9~' ci~., 41.
Dear Friends," in The Far Eastern
Economic Review, no:-31-cJuly 27- 41. Roberts,~. cit., 289; George
August 2, 1969), 287. Thayer, The War Business (~e~ York:
Simon and Schuster, 1969), 317-318.
38.
42. :·[ainichi Shimbunsha hen, Ampo
Fiscal 1969 American Companies to BOei Seisan-Nihon no Heiwa to Anzen
Defense Dept. with ties to Japanese (Tokvo: ~tainichi Shimbunsha, 1969)-,--
Ranking by defense industry 104-105.
size of con-
tracts 43. Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 22, 1959.

1 Lockheed - 44. Clarence H. Danhoff, Government

2 G.E. Contracting and Technological Change
3 General Dynamics (B~i~s Institution, Washington, D.C.,
4 McDonnell Douglas 1968), 369.
9 Boeing
11 Ratheon 45. From a copy of a letter from
12 Sperry Rand John S. Foster, Jr. to Senator J.W.
14 Hughes Aircraf t - Fulbright, dated August 20, 1969.
15 Westinghouse Electric
International 46. Kowalski, £E.. c t t . , 280.
17 Grumman Aircraft
18 Honeywell 47. Mason Willrich, Non-Prolifera-
19 Ford Motor Co. tion Treaty: Framework for Nuclear Arms
21 Litton Industries Control (Charlottesville, Va.: The
23 R.C.A. Michie Company, 1969), 43, 181.
24 Standard Oil (N.J.)
27 1. B.M. 48. Co-production on a large scale
31 E.I. DuPont de Nemours was first adopted in 1957 as a means
44 Collins Radio of circumventing the anti-militarist
45 Kaiser Industries feelings of the Japanese people. The
Bell first defense plan had called for
 52
equipping the new air force with FI04J
fighters. As a Rand Corporation study
of the Japanese aerospace industry
stated it,
The Japanese Government [and the
U.S. Government] desired an
increase in the capabilities
of Japanese self-defense forces.
This was--and is--an extremely
touchy political issue in
Japan. Co-production ... was part
of a package that made the
Government's defense policies
politically acceptable to the
Japanese. The fact that the
Japanese regard the FI04Js
produced in Japan as Japanese--
not U.S.--airplanes explains many
of the political benefits of
co-production.
G.R. Hall and R.E. Johnson,
Tranasfers of U.s. Aerospace
Technology !£ Japan (July,
1968), 77, P-3875. The
underlining is mine.
48a. "Kyokasho Kentei Sosho (Tokyo
Chisai Minji Nibu) Genkokugawa. Saigo
Junbi Shomen (Yo shi)" [Summary of the
Concluding statement of the Textbook
Trial -- Defense Counsel for the Plain-
tiff], in Rekishigaku Kenkyu, no. 354
(Noy., 1969), 58-59.
49. William Appleman Williams. The
Countours of American History (Chicago:
Quadrangle Paperback, 1966), 431.
50. Michael Meyerson, "The ILGWU:
Fighting-for Lower Wages," in Ramparts,
vol. 8, no. 4 (Oct., 1969), 55.
In 1967, the first CIA operative to
offer direct testimony of CIA ties to
front groups, Thomas W. Braden, revealed
that "He gave Irving Brown of the American
Federation of Labor $15,000 to bribe
dockers in France to unload American
supplies (i.e. arms). He says he shelled
out $2 million annually to the AFL's Jay
Lovestone, who used it to split the
French and Italian labor movements. On
one occasion, he gave Victor Reuther
the United Auto Workers S50,000 in $50
bills to buy off West German labor."
Quoted from Andrew Kopkind in I.F.
Stone's Weekly, May 15, 1967.
51. Donald Robinson, "Mr. Brown
vs. Generalissimo Stalin," in
Readers Digest (Sept., 1952), 116.
52. William Z. Foster, An Outline
History of the World Trade Union Move-
ment (Ne~York: International Publish!
1956), 456. For an account of the spl
from a non-Communist point of view, bu
in my opinion equally as unflattering
to the AFL leaders see Lewis L. Lo~
The International Labor Movement --
HiStory, Policies,~ook (New York
Harper and Brothers, 1953), 214-237.
53. Jerome B. Cohen, J~pan's EC01J
in War and Reconstruction (Minneapol'
University of Minnesota Press, 1949),
439; Aoyama Ichiro, "Arnerika Te i koku-.
shugi no kyoryokusha -- AFL-Cra kanbu"
(Cooperators with American imperialig
the AFL-CIO leaders), in Zenei (Van-
guard), (Kay, 1963), 49-5~enei is
the organ of the Japan Communist Part}.
I am indebted to Mr. Aoyama's well-
documented article for awakening me to~
the problem of American labor unions
in Japan.
See also Miriam S. Farley, Aspectsl
of Japan 1 s Labor Problems (New York:
The John Day Co., 1950), 191-192. n-~
SCAP ban against the government em-
p19y~e8' strike of Feb. 1, 1947, was
not prompted primarily by. the need to
counteract any econee Lc loss to Japan.
from strikes. SCAP's own figures s~
that except for the month of October,
1946, the number of man-days lost
through strikes from January, 1946, ~
June, 1948, was never more than one ~
cent of total man-days available.
54. William Z. Foster, £E... c Lt , ,
55. See Robert A. Sca1apino, "Jap!
in Walter Galenson, ed., Labor and ~
mlc Development (John Wiley & Sons,
 53
1959), 132. Scalapino's account of
postwar Japanese labor fails to mention
Deverall's role. But George C. Lodge,
in his Spearheads of Democracy -- ~
in the Developing Countries (Har pe r &
Row for the Council of Foreign Rela-
tions, 1962), does credit Deverall for
doing good work for "freedom" in Indo-
nesia and Japan.
56. Certain union federations within
S~hyo are affiliated with the ICFTU, al-
though officially Sohyo adheres to a
neutralist stance vis-a-vis both the WFTU
and the ICFTU.
57. Christopher Lasch, "The Cultural
Cold War," in The Nation (Sept. 11,
l~67), 203. ---
58. The Conlon Associates aeport
(U.S. Government Printing Office, Nov.,
1959), ss ,
59. Ibid.
60. George c. Lodge, "Labor's Role
in Newly Developing Countries," in
Foreign Affairs (July, 1959).
61. Ibid., 668.
62. See Chitoshi Yanaga, ££. cit.,272.
63. A1:Jyama Ichiro., ~. cit.
64. The Center for Strategic Studies,
United States-Japanese Political Rela-
tions: The Critical Issues Affecting
AS1aTs Future, Georgetown University,
Washington, D.C., Special Report Series:
no. 7 (May, 1968), 13. The participants
in this discussion were Robert E. Ward,
director of the Center for Japanese
Studies at the University of Michigan;
Lt. General Paul W. Caraway, former
High Commissioner for the RyUkyu Islands
from 1961-1965; Warren S. Hunsberger,
Professor of Economics at the American
University; Raymond A. Kathe, Vice-
President of the First National City
Bank of New York; Frank N. Trager;
Richard L. Walker, author of The China
Danger (1966); and Takehiko Yoshihashi.
65. Edwin o. Reischauer, Beyond
Vietnam: The United States and Asia
(New York: Vintage Books. 1967), 130.
In exp1ainin~ Japan's pro-Western
economic orientation Reischau~writes,
The United States ••• provides
close to 30 per cent of its total
export market as well as imports
•••• Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand account for about 12 per
cent of Jpaan's imports and
together with Western Euro?e
take about 18 per cent of her
exports. By contrast, trade
with all the Communist coun-
tries ••• amounts to only about
6 or 7 per cent of Japan's total
trade. Communist nations by
nature are not great traders--
not the sort of trading partners
Japan needs because of its own
meager geographic base.
66. Ibid., 132.