With "virtually" everyone on the Internet and computer traffic between correspondent and home office almost incessant, the Club is not the same trading post of stories and sources that it once may have been. But it remains a marketplace of ideas as well as a meeting place of people. Even those smiling pictures of long-gone members seem to be struggling to come off the wall, anxious to horn in on the conversation. Fifty years on, it's still a good place to come to.
-Frank Gibney
Foreign Correspondents in Japan
OVERVIEW
Demilitarization, democratization, and reconstruction were the three major objectives of the Allied occupation of Japan. These policies, implemented indirectly through the Japanese government, initially focused on the first two objectives. In 1947, the focus shifted to reconstruction, the mainspring of Japan's early postwar economic development, and from 1948 on the Japanese government was gradually given greater decision-making authority. As the Cold War developed, occupation policy shifted away from demilitarization and Japan increasingly became a strategic ally. The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 saw a relaxation of policies to prevent monopolies in the interest of speeding economic recovery, while enormous quantities of "special procurements" by the U.S. military contributed greatly to Japan's economic recovery. Japan signed a peace treaty with the U.S. and forty-six other countries in 1951 and the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty; it regained its independence in 1952. With the end of the Korean War boom, quantitative reconstruction tailed off and Japan turned to modernization and new technologies to expand its economy more qualitatively into the next decade.
This was the decade when the tough newsmen who had covered the fighting of World War II, and who often fought the military for the freedom of the public to know, moved into their new clubhouse at No. 1 Shimbun Alley-where they created the legends and traditions for which the FCCJ stands today. Their reports began to inform the world about Japan and its transformation under the tutelage of the Occupation forces; their example prepared the way for the generations of journalists who were to follow. And in the process, they also passed on to their Japanese associates the language of democracy. With less news to cover during the Occupation, the number of correspondents dropped, threatening the existence of the Club. The Korean War in 1950 brought another surge, with membership passing the 350 mark, and added more legends and traditions. The Club after the armistice in 1953 again began to wane, until the news value of Japan's economic recovery and return to world affairs brought a growing stream of correspondents
Day (Hiroshi) Inoshita, born in Los Angeles, came to Japan in 1936 to study Japanese. His first journalistic assignment was in Shanghai with the Domei News Agency, where he spent the war years. Afterward, he returned to Japan to work for Reuters, United Press (now UPI), and the Associated Press (AP). In 1966, he helped establish Universal News (Japan) as the Japan representative of UNS in London.
1945
1945 FCCJ FACT FILE
• Officially listed founding members . . . 58
• Professional events: Military press briefings, press conferences, and interviews.
• Social events: Opening party for No. 1 Shimbun Alley, New Year's Eve party.
• President from October through December: Howard Handleman (INS)
The war in the Pacific ended to all intents and purposes when the world's first atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15, nine days after the first bomb all but wiped out Hiroshima, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender. His reedy voice was broadcast throughout Asia over NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). Diehard nationalists erupted in grief-stricken protest: "No surrender. Choose seppuku, the way of our fathers." Fortunately, by this time, except for a few, the Japanese people trusted their Emperor to know better than their leaders; they turned their backs on The Way of the Samurai.
The advance guard of General MacArthur's forces landed at Atsugi air base, thirty miles southwest of Tokyo, on August 28; General MacArthur arrived on August 30 and moved into temporary headquarters in Yokohama as Supreme Commander Allied Powers (SCAP) in charge of the Occupation forces. Meanwhile, Admiral Halsey's 3rd Fleet put its forces ashore at the Yokosuka naval base, at the mouth of Tokyo Bay.
Two hundred newspapermen and photographers arrived with these advance units. General MacArthur had ordered all troops, and correspondents, too, to stay out of Tokyo until the 8th Army had secured it. But the correspondents wouldn't trust their own mothers not to scoop them in a situation like this. Who was the first with a story out of Tokyo? Frank Robertson, an Australian correspondent with the International News Service, received a special citation from the Overseas Press Club in New York for this feat. Others weren't far behind.
Russ Brines of the Associated Press and Carl Mydans of Life set foot on Japan at Atsugi. David Douglas Duncan, a marine lieutenant and photographer, later to work with Carl on the Life staff, came ashore at Yokosuka. Although the Allied landing forces and the correspondents were blissfully unaware of it at the time, MacArthur's fears were justified. On the night of August 14, fanatic rebels led by Major Kenji Hata-naka had shot and killed the commander of the Emperor's Konoe-hei elite guard and broke into the Imperial Palace in a futile effort to destroy the recording of the Emperor's surrender message. Taking responsibility for their actions, Army Minister General Korechika Anami committed seppuku (hara-kiri, if you prefer). Four members of the rebel group blew their brains out. Assassinations and other suicides followed. An estimated thirty Japanese disemboweled themselves on the open square facing the Imperial Palace (from Robert Guillain of Agence France Presse, in his book I Saw Tokyo Burning).
Contrary to initial fears, however, the landing forces and newsmen found no sign of hostility or resentment. Only a calm, even courteous, reception. The Japanese, for their part, found the victors weren't the blood-thirsty, sex-crazed maniacs they had been led to expect. At Atsugi, interpreters and automobiles were waiting at the airport, as directed by MacArthur when he met a surrender team of officers from Tokyo in Manila on August 20. Russ Brines, who had been AP bureau chief in Tokyo in 1941, went to Atsugi Station wearing a .45 on his hip. Brines was handed free tickets to Tokyo for himself and his interpreter. As he passed through the gate, he relates in his book With MacArthur in Japan, "a stiff colonel marched by, his samurai sword twisting at his side, and saluted."
Mydans went from Atsugi to Yokohama with a reconnaissance unit which secured the port city for General MacArthur's arrival. From Yokohama he attempted to jeep his way into Tokyo, but was turned back by U.S. military roadblocks. In the end, most of the correspondents chose, like Brines and Mydans, to board one of the jam-packed trains from Yokohama into Tokyo. Wearing khaki uniforms and sidearms, they rubbed shoulders with Japanese in shabby wartime clothes. The latter eyed them curiously and nodded courteously. The ride from Atsugi