Occupation Without Troops. Glenn Davis
and a few renowned generals and admirals. In addition, he counted among his supporters a number of the most prominent American financiers, their corporate lawyers, and heads of their powerful foundations. The question of where the real power lay, and who was serving whom, unveils itself as we introduce the main players of the ACJ.
Having scored his greatest coup some five decades ago, Harry Kern died on May 12, 1996, at the age of eighty-four.8 A consummate public relations man, he made his fortune, and much larger fortunes for others, by avoiding publicity himself. Hence, he was able to move in and out of Japan frequently, consulting its most famous and infamous leaders freely, and transacting important and lucrative business without attracting the attention of the press. Even the keenest reader will search almost entirely in vain for his name among the bibliographies of major works on the Occupation, either in English or in Japanese.
From the 1940s to the 1960s, Kern made a practice of paying his respects to Shigeru Yoshida, Japan's best known postwar prime minister, and to Yoshida's successors, who are known collectively in Japanese as hoshu honryu or "the wellspring of conservatism." Some of these conservative politicians were indebted to the ACJ for their success. One of the best known of the latter group was Nobusuke, or Shinsuke, Kishi, former industrial boss of Japan's pre-war puppet state of Manchukuo, and minister of trade and industry (later of munitions) in the wartime cabinet of General Hideki Tojo.Held on suspicion of serious war crimes, Kishi spent three years in Tokyo's now-defunct Sugamo Prison, the current site of the Sunshine City shopping complex in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo. Kishi was mysteriously released in December 1948, the year in which the ACJ was formed. It is alleged, with considerable supporting evidence, that Kern and his ACJ associates sponsored Kishi in his swift rise to leadership in the conservative party, along with other pre-war militarists and imperialists, including other members of Hideki Tojo's wartime cabinet.
Kishi was prime minister from 1957 until 1960, when an upheaval was caused following his forced passage of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Ampo in abbreviated Japanese) extension through the Diet against overwhelming popular opposition. Police pulled opposition party members from the chamber kicking and screaming so that the conservatives could take a vote. Kern advised and assisted Kishi in his relations with the United States throughout this stormy period, and remained close to his old friend until Kishi's death in the late 1980s. In February 1978, during another visit to Tokyo, allegedly as a middleman for armaments sales to Japan, Kern spent hours in Kishi's office.
Nobusuke Kishi was typical of the pre-war military nationalists who, being pro-capitalist, pro-emperor, pro-armament, and expansionist, became the most enthusiastic allies of the American right-wing policymakers such as Kern's close friend John Foster Dulles, the ultra-conservative secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Dulles' aim in U.S.-Japan relations had been to build Japan into the northern Pacific bastion of an anti-communist alliance for the containment or neutralization of the two major communist powers on the Asian continent at that time—China and the Soviet Union. Being eternally grateful for their narrow escape from the gallows, or long prison terms, crusty veterans of the old guard in Japan were the ideal vehicles for putting the policies of their American protectors into action.9
During the Occupation, the function of the Japan Lobby was to influence American policy toward Japan. It was during the crucial years from 1947 to 1951 that Kern induced his supporters and clients to reverse the zaibatsu dissolution, and release business and political leaders from the purge. By restoring them to positions of influence, the anti-reformers helped to curb the exercise of democratic rights, roll back the emergent labor movement, and start Japan along the road to re-armament. In particular, the ACJ lobbied successfully for the retention of the Emperor System, which is presumably what earned Kern the coveted Order of the Sacred Treasure medal, and for his legal collaborator, James Lee Kauffman, the Order of the Rising Sun. An indispensable member of Kern's inner circle, Kauffman was an attorney who had been instrumental in promoting American investment in Japan before the war, and was now preparing to help investors recover their assets and advantageous positions.10
The Rise of a Journalist
Harry Frederick Kern, born in Denver, Colorado, in 1911, was no ordinary journalist. Having studied at Harvard during the depression years, he joined Newsweek in 1935. At that time, Newsweek and Business Week, both published by McGraw Hill, were links in the widespread propaganda network of the National Association of Manufacturers, often referred to then as the general headquarters of American big business. Newsweek was especially under the influence of J.P. Morgan & Company, and a few other leading financial family groups such as the Harrimans, Astors, Whitneys, and Mellons, and was regarded as being even more conservative than its main rival, Time. Like many big business people, Newsweek's directors tended to favor European and Asian fascism, which they perceived as a bulwark of capitalism against encroaching collectivism. Thus, Newsweek supported General Francisco Franco, both before and after his military forces, aided by Adolf Hitler, crushed the freely elected Spanish republican government. Even while the United States was at war with the Axis powers in 1942, Newsweek praised the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for having "saved Italy from communism." It was that kind of a magazine, and Kern was Newsweek's kind of man.11
Thriving in such a plutocratic atmosphere, the ambitious young journalist rose rapidly, becoming assistant editor in 1937, associate editor in 1941, and war editor in 1942. In the latter position, Kern became acquainted with leaders in the U.S. State Department, the War Department, and military industries. His job was not only to follow the course of the war but to learn as much as possible about the peace that was to ensue in Europe and Asia. But it was after the war that Harry found his true vocation, that of a press agent for the powerful industrialists he had met through big business journalism. During the U.S. Occupation, he assisted Japanese business and political leaders seeking privileged treatment from the U.S. government, thereby encouraging their future success and winning their future cooperation. Extending his operations in the mid-1950s, Kern left Newsweek to become a full-time middleman, lobbyist, and publisher of Foreign Reports, said to be a newsletter on world affairs.
As the 1960s unfolded, Kern developed contacts with oil interests in the Middle East, exploiting his friendship with such figures as King Saud of Saudi Arabia and his son Faisal. Having become a Muslim himself, Kern acted as go-between for Japanese leaders (including Kishi) and Saudi Arabian royalty, and is said to have assisted Arab oilmen and their agents in their dealings with the United States. One such agent was Adnan Khasshoggi, who was also close to President Richard M. Nixon. Kern also represented the Grumman Aircraft Company in deals between Japan and the Middle East.12 According to an insider at Grumman,13 Harry got his position with Grumman through a former undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force, who happened to be a law partner of Charles Colson, one of Nixon's convicted Watergate henchmen. One of Kern's close associates, with whom he is said to have collaborated on public relations projects, was Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt, a son of former president Theodore Roosevelt and the chief architect of the coup d'etat in Iran in 1953 that placed the Shah back on the throne. Ironically, the Shah himself was unseated in the late 1970s by an Islamic revolution, leaving his country for "a vacation" in January 1979, a holiday from which he never returned to Iran.14
A Volatile Background
In Japan, the international battle that was raging between capitalism and communism, known popularly as the Cold War, formed a volatile setting in which Kern and his circle of friends carried out their early political stage management. Toward the end of the Pacific War, the U.S. government was dominated by men who had conducted the social reforms of the New Deal, which brought the United States out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. By nature, these men were generally anti-fascist and favored stern treatment toward enemies blamed for unleashing the most destructive war in history.
Opposing the New Dealers in the United States were conservatives, who regarded their opponents as radicals, subversives, or even communists. Among the main points of difference between these two groups were the policies to be followed after the surrender of Germany and Japan, especially in economic matters. Both Newsweek and Time were organizing political support for conciliatory—rather than vengeful—policies toward these countries. This was quite natural, since American capitalists had large and valuable interests in both enemy countries, and also high hopes of developing investments