History of  "The Mita Campus"    Chapter 3 <1956 - 1960>

 

<1956>

 

Since the launching of the Mita Campus in June 1946, 10 months after Japan's defeat

in the World War II, 1956 was the eleventh anniversary of the publication of the Journal.

The first ten years of the journal was very hectic as was Japan itself. The nation-wide starvation and the material destitution of the Japanese populace inclusive of Keio students alleviated unexpected quickly

 

This was because of the Cold War which turned Japan into an ally and the logistic center was no longer and no longer a foe to the members of the Allied Forces . Japan became the first line of the defense, or even a participants in the form of removing the mines from strategic positions or providing the crews to transport vessels, or establishing National Police Reserve (later the Self Defense Force) etc to forestall the incursion of communist influences which seemed particularly real and imminent in the Far East where the alliance of USSR, People's Republic of China and the People's Republic of Korea in the actual military conflicts engulfing the Korean peninsula appeared to be monolithic as they confronted the military might of the United Nations (actually that of the USA).  Meantime, the Japanese people were able to recover or improve the material standard of living, which was probably the best deterrent against the proliferation of communism at home.

 

On the other hand, the peace treaty negotiation with USSR and its colleagues were being

Conducted by the cabinet led by Ichiro Hatoyama (1883 - 1959). Hatoyama's parents were both well-known pedagogues. Father studied in the U.S. and taught law at the Tokyo Imperial University while practicing as an attorney and participated in politics.  Haruko, his mother was one of the co-founders of Kyoritsu Women's University founded 1886 originally as a dress-making school to teach women skills to live independently and then diversified and developed into a full university for women.

 

Ichiro Hatoyama read law at the Imperial University and became an attorney. Then inherited his father's constituency in 1915 when elected to a seat of the House of Representative from his father's constituency in Tokyo. During the WWII, he was considered as an anti-military liberal and kept away from lucrative war-related appointments.  At the end of the war he organized the Liberal Party that won the General Election of January 1946 but was immediately "purged" along with Nobusuke Kishi and Tanzan Ishibashi - all three became post-war prime ministers and banned to assume a public office - by the Occupation authority - apparently due to the internal skirmishing of GHQ rather than their war-time roles they played except for Kishi. Hatotama  and Ishibashi were kicked around by both the pre-surrender chauvinistic regime and by the Occupation Force. Hatoyama nominated Shigeru Yoshida as his successor as the head of the Liberal Party.

 

Hatopyama was reinstated in June 1951, several months before the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, by General Ridgeway (along with some 2,700 victims of "the GHQ purge")  but Yoshida refused to concede the position of the Prime Minister and the leader of the party. Hatoyama had to wait until December 1954 when Yoshida faced the vote of non-confidence at the Diet.. It seemed natural that Hatoyama wanted to reassess the policies set by the Occupation Authority during his exile, and the peace treaty negotiation with USSR was one of such activities.

 

Hatoyama personally visited USSR in October 1956 to sign the Joint Declaration with USSR on the Resumption of the Diplomatic Relations which technically ended the military conflicts and just short of concluding the Peace Treaty which should have included the repatriation of the Kuril Islands to Japan which is not yet realized as of September 2011. 

Japan was admitted to the United Nations in December 1956 by unanimous consent of all member nations.

 

After Joseph Stalin's passing on March 5, 1953 the post humus criticisms on his administration intensified and the strong attack on Stalin made in Moscow in February 1956 provided great political impacts on East European countries which resulted in the large scale civil riot against the USSR domination in Hungary, when Warsaw Pact Forces intervened〔The Prague Spring〕and set the clock back.

 

After which Hatoyama retired from the politics and premier-ship and the vacancy was assumed by Tanzan Ishibashi (1884 - 1973), an economic journalist. Meantime the anti-US military base movements erupted particularly in Sunagawa , a Tokyo's western suburb town where frequent bloodshed of notable atrocity between the demonstrators and Japanese police took place. Even though the nation and the world were still full of problems, there was no denying that the people became accustomed to the peace which allowed them to appreciate more sophisticated arts and entertainment.

 

1956 -2

 

A youthful author, ,Shintaro Ishihara (the Current Governor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture - one of the most populous urban areas in the whole world who appears to be the most conservative politician in Japan contrary to his own personal past exploits) won the coveted literary laurel of Akutagawa Prize annually awarded to a noteworthy literary work recently published by a novice writer in 1956 immediately made into a movie.  Akutagawa Prize is sponsored by Bungei Shunju , the publisher of a popular monthly magazine introducing new literary works and commentaries covering political, social and other diverse issues. The selection of the winner is by a panel of popular writers unrelated to any government agencies. The prize winning novel was entitled "The Season of the Sun" (Taiyo no Kisetu) published in 1955　

 

Incidentally, a French-Italian movie named "Plein Soleil" (Taiyo ga Ippai) known for Alain Deilon's lead role was released in 1960. The stories are different even though the subjects and the prevailing situations and atmosphere similarly focus upon unrestrained behaviors and absence of any coherent philosophy of life. There were comparisons of the two works in Japan mainly due to the similarity of the title but the possibility of the plagiarism apparently did not become a major issue.

 

Ishihara's story led to the proliferation of the word "Taiyo-zoku" (The Tribe of the Sun) which depicted the nonchalance of the adolescents who ignore all social conventions as well as all of w3hat are considered to be the established morals while leading parasite lives completely relying on their well-to-do parents . The essence of the story including an outrageous scene of a youth perforating a shoji (a door made of plain wooden lattice covered by a single plain sheet of opaque Japanese paper of the fiber from mulberry bark which gives you some visual privacy and protection from draft and some illumination from outdoor light) with his erect penis in front of his girl friend, whom he agreed to sell to his own brother for 5,000 yen, pregnancy, illegal abortion and heoin's death etc was told to the author by Ishihara's younger brother (a Keio drop-out who later became a popular cop-actor in a TV serial ) . He had an un-Japanese pair of long legs and good looks which served him well in his later career.

 

The writer became a nation-wide celebrity covering all generations overnight. "Shintaro Cut" was a most popular youngsters' hair style . There were "Shitaro Beer" and "Shintaro Dry". "Sister Boy" (a pervert), "Romance Grey" (amorous middle aged males) and "Itch" (unstoppable impulses) joined the rank. What was interesting was in the same year probably due to coincidence rather than rivalry, a different type of a novel named

1956-3

"Narayama-busi Ko" (A Story of the Air of Narayama ) by Shichiro Fukazawa won another of the Prise for the new debutante to the literary world called "Chuo Kooron Sinjin Sho". (Prize for the New Writers by Chuo Kooron Magagine)."Chuo Kooron" was another respected magazine enjoying about same status as Bungei Shunju but was considered slightly more stuffy, austere and for the slightly more intellectual audience.

 

"Narayama-bushi Ko" is a story of a little rural village in a deep mountaineous area chronically hit by the shortage of food, due to the poor soil, bad whether, floods and other adverse natural as well as artificial conditions such as robbers and/or samurai tax collectors supposedly anytime between 14^th century to 16^th century somewhere in the hills of central Japan.

 

Narayama village had an unwritten law which stipulated that the old folks who reach a certain age will be carried by one of his/ her kin to certain mountainous areas of some distance from the village where they are left to die untended. This is to ensure that "unnecessary waste of food" will be avoided and the food so saved would be diverted to the younger people. The distance is too much for the old people to crawl back to the village and the one-way journey takes place in the middle of the winter when the climate is the severest in order to keep the period of agony of the abandoned person to the minimum.

 

."The Air of Narayama" is a tune supposedly rendered by old folks in privacy as they draw nearer to the date of their fatal trips, and then on the trip as they are carried on the back of the younger man who are assigned to the unenviable task. Naturally a son did not want to leave the old mother alone to the certain death. But in order to feed the younger members of the family, and not to antagonize the rest of the community for breaking the rule everyone else observe, he had no other choice. It reminds the readers the most disheartening stories of the Grimm Brothers.

 

"Narayama" reflects the sense of resignation and confinement which prevailed in Japan in 1950s. The scarcity of food, general destitution and the lack of escape were the reality  everyone had to face everyday in Japan of 1950s. There was no hope, salvation, resistance、  exodus or suicide religious, social, political or otherwise. Everything in the narrative was grim, dark and hopeless, exactly opposite to the world of "The Season of the Sun". "Narayama Pilgrimage" (Narayama Moude) won a citizenship in the post-war vocabulary.

These two novels provided diversity and depth to the contemporary Japanese literature and the complexity of the apres guerre generation in which the traditional values are either denied or re-appraised.

 

TV broadcasting in Japan started on February 2^nd 1953 to serve 1,110 households and the subscription expanded to 165,000 by March 1956. With the acceleration of the degradation of the quality of the programs, the proliferation of the TV network as a new media became the center of the hot discussion on " TV as the Source of the Creation of 100 Million Idiots ".

 

1956 was the year when at Keio University, the controversy over the election system of "Jukuchoo" (The Head of the Entire school from the elementary school to the Post Graduate School) which was started in 1955 was rekindled. A proposal had been made to alienate "Jukuchoo" System from the university and the university's board of the faculty members should elect the president (Gakuchoo) as the head of the university.  But the "Juku Hyoogikai" (the Board of Councilor of Keio Gijuku comprised by the faculty members as well as the teachers of junior schools and the members of alumni which had been the highest decision maker for Keio schools ) vetoed in 1956 the appointment of Professor Okui of the Faculty of Economics by the Board of Professors as "Gakucho" made in 1955. So there was an unprecedented situation where a Gakucho and a Jukuchoo co-existed without the approval of "Juku Hyoogikai".  Eventually, Professor Ushioda has tendered resignation as "Jukuchoo" and Professor Okui became a new "Jukuchoo". The position of "Gakuchoo" was renounced after six months of the appointment of the first nominee and the internal controversy was settled apparently without grudge on either side.

 

In 1956, The Mita Campus issued the introduction of "Taiyozoku" (The Tribes of the Sun)

and articles and commentaries covering various other movies which were produced in great numbers with the Japanese economy's recovery from the post-war lethargy..

 

Another notable feature in the same issue of the journal was the chronicle of the successful　climb of Manaslu Peak one of the highest of the Himalayan Mountains by a Japanese team.　Another was the photo collection of the scenes of various local festivities, occasions, daily life practices and customs of Japan entitled "Sometime, Somewhere in Japan".

 

Apart from the topics above, the editors of Mita Campus in 1956 very diligently engaged themselves in one of the original objective of the journal for introducing Japan and Japanese students' life  Also there were introduction of the customs, practices, attires etc of Keio students in campus. Student Dances were covered by an article named "Dance, This Wonderful Thing".

 

Another article covered the various ways the students managed to earned money for the purposes ranging from the dire need to make the end meets to continue student life to earn extra spending money without letting the parents know why. Yet another was how to hunt for a job after graduation. A unique feature covered the issue of "Student Discounts on Train Ticket, Home Coming and Travels" (The performances and the prices of cars -even of dilapidated second-hand  - and the qualities of highways in Japan in 1956 made the trip by car impractical. Railways that survived the wartime overloading and poor maintenance was still the only practical means of travel of significant distance not only for students but for all people including Occupation Forces personnel and the Emperor Hirohito.)  The manners of the Japanese Tea Ceremony and Flower Arrangements were also introduced in another article. The Mita Campus conducted opinion polls of Keio students on these subjects which were considered to be of their special interest then and published the results.

 

The readers should be aware that any one of the information enumerated above may be available in English and obtainable at a bookshop in any major hotel in most cities in Japan in 2011, or probably as early as in 1970. But back in 1956, these information in English were very hard to obtain because commercial newspapers were preoccupied with what they considered to be of greater importance.

 

November 1956 issue of The Mita Campus reported Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975), a British Historian's 's visit to Keio campus. He is generally considered to be "Comparative Historian".  He was born in London, educated at Winchester College and Balliol College Oxford and taught at Balliol College, King's College London, London School of Economics and Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham. He was a leading British consultant to the British Government of international affairs, especially regarding the Middle East and was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (Versailles Conference). Since 1917 when he was appointed to Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History at the University of London. He became critical of the Greeks in the controversy with Turkey and had to resign from the chair in 1924 due to the pressures from the wealthy Greek who endowed the Chair. He was a pro-Zionist when he was working at the Information Office of the British Foreign Department in 1917 but gradually inclined towards the Arabs and by the 1950s was an open opponent of Israel.

 

His major scholastic work is "A Study of History" issued in three separate installments over 1934 through 1954 in ten volumes covering 21 civilizations , 16 of which were extinct by 1940. But his work was naturally confined to the "Western Civilization" which was the leading modes of living in all nations existed in Western Europe since the collapse of Roman Empire, "Orthodox Civilization" of Russia and Balkans and "Greco-Roman Civilization".  His works were led by religious perspective and accepted favorably in the U.S. One- volume abridgement edition sold over 300,000 copies in the U.S. alone. He was severely criticized by other scholars mainly because of his use of myths and metaphors as being of comparable value to factual data and what was considered to be his excessive reliance on religions as the regenerative forces in the rises and falls of civilizations.

 

There seems to be little doubt that the controversial historian visited Japan and Keio in particular in 1956, eleven years after Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces and five years after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty with "Western Allies" in the World War II in order to propagate his views on the vicissitude of civilizations. However, it is doubtful whether he had been able to form any views over Japan as a nation and its civilization as its sub-structure. which is entirely foreign to any of the civilizations enumerated above, i.e. "Western Civilization, Orthodox Civilization or Greco-Roman Civilization." It could have been a mere reconnoitering of a nation of apparently incongruous and minor civilization which succumbed to what the historian considered to be "a major civilization". He did not indicated such a view then or later, and The Mita Campus also never showed such a conjecture except the news of his visit.

 

August 1956 was the 10^th anniversary of The Mita Campus. A Commemorative Issue of the Anniversary was published with a large banner on the top of the top page saying "The Mita Campus was born and grew in the Chaos of the Post-Defeat Days".

 

Another special issue which became by this time a regular issue came out for the baseball

Match. (There seems to have been an understanding with "Waseda Trojan", Waseda's counterpart of "The Mita Campus", that Trojan will cover the spring match and the Campus will cover the autumn match.)  This was the lucky season for Keio because it came out on the top of the six-collage league by defeating Waseda.)

 

< 1957>

 

This was the year in which USSR successfully launched the first man-made satellite. In Japan, Tanzan Ishibashi (1984-1973) resigned as the prime minister due to ill health and Nobuske Kishi (1896-1987), who was one of the war-time cabinet members as the Minister of Commerce and Industry and thus was indicted immediately after the surrender as an A-Class War Criminal and incarcerated in the Sugamo Prison until he was released in December 1948. He organized several political parties but was not successful in securing a seat in the Diet. Eventually he joined the Liberal Party and won the seat in the House of Representatives in March 1953.

 

1957 was the year Japan sent its first national Antarctic Observatory Team and the "Showa　Kichi" (The base camp) was completed in January. 

 

Japan's post-war reconstruction steadily continued and 1957 particularly was a "boom year". Media said the year was the best after the surrender or even in the entire history of Japan and often referred to its as "Jinmu Keiki".("Jinmu" is the name of the era assigned to the first emperor of Japan, "Jinmu Tenno" (711 B.C. - 585 B.C), who is presumed to have conquered Kyuushu and the western portion of Honshuu Island and proclaimed his ascendance to the Emperor of "Akitsushima" - the old name of his tribe's in territory in 660 B. C. After WWII, the early history of Japan and the lineage of the Emperor were regarded as myths. However, the archaic tales in "Kojiki" and "Nhihonshoki" are not all those of glorious and successful conquests but contain many tales of defeat and failure. Also an isotopic test on the ashes of a palace destroyed by fire conducted by University of Michigan identified the age of the building as 2,600 years + 200 years. The details of the narratives cannot be relied upon as there is no means of verification, however, the cinders indicated that certain intense political/social activities existed around 700 B.C. to 500 BC. in the Yamato area.)

 

Even though the year started in great prosperity, the boom dissipated itself by October of the year as the deflationary mood prevailed. The Government and the Bank of Japan issued a bank notes of Yen 5,000 denomination and a Yen 100 coin. The new bank note and the coin somehow instilled the sense of stability to the people who had been ravaged by

inflationary instability since the end of the war.

 

In the literary circle, the symptom of the improvement of the material standard of living became significantly noticeable. Kimitake Hiraoka (Yukio Mishima is his pen name) (1925- 1970) the precocious boy wonder of the literary world published "Faltering Virtue" (Bitoku no Yoromeki) which dealt with post-war adultery, infidelity, and flirtation entirely unrelated with the hardship or destitution but full of "ennui of the affluent" of the peace time. "Yoromeki Fujin" ( Affluent wives looking for "aventure") and "Yoromeki Drama" (dramas full of "Yoromeki" activities) became popular and favorite expressions of ordinary

Folks.   Yukio Mishima has been known as a prolific author with diverse and convoluted background being a member of the family of the elite scholars who served Tokugawa

Shogunate (which made them pseud-aristocrats under the pre-war Japanese peerage system) and also the elite bureaucrats educated at the Imperial University Law Faculty

to serve the Meiji Government.

 

Mishima had an extensive family connections along with the gifts which made him a successful writer and which made him a member of the privileged class which provided him with many short cuts not available for other writers and/or critics and convinced himself as the one destined to lead followers and disciples without particular efforts .which made him haughty and conceited and even antagonized his friends.

 

His domineering grand mother with the aspirations for "High and Mighty" which was not fulfilled as the promotion to the peerage － may be due to the family's Tokugawa connections - sent Mishima to the Peers' School (Gakushuin) where his literary inclination flourished - his first two novels were published in the School's magazine ("Hojinkai Zassi") as early as 1938. He became the editor-in-chief of the magazine in 1941. Fumio Shimizu, Mishima's Literature teacher at the Peers' School, encouraged Mishima to participate in

literary activities by composing Haikus and Verses to send to various publications. Mishima also read Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, Lafcadio Hearn, Oogai Mori and the original editions of Kojiki and Manyooshuu.

 

In 1941, Shimizu introduced Mishima to the group of writers of which Shimizu was a member. The group decided to publish Mishima's first novel outside of the Peers School "Woods in Full Bloom" (Hanazakari no Mori) in the same year when Japan started open hostilities against the U.S., Great Britain, Netherlands etc. 

 

In this group Mishima was imbued with the influence of "Japanese Romanesque" or "Romanesque" School”led by Yojuuro Yasuda, a literary critic and an author to a lesser extent. Yasuda was a prolific writer but the staff who compiled this report found it hard to define his literary, historical or political principle, philosophy belief or leaning except he glorified the archaic Japanese art and historical stories.. The staff also made several searches on Wikipedia in August 2011 and astonished to see a very large number of contributions under the titles such as "Japanese Romanesque", "Yojuuro Yasuda" or "Yukio Mishima" almost all of them from the Chinese students and scholars including thesis for M.A. or Ph.D. in Japanese literature. Maybe these Chinese scholars felt "Japanese Romanesque" movement between 1930s and 1940s reflected, aided and abetted the Japanese expansionist orientation and eventual military invasion into China and other

Asia countries., Another reason so much studies on "Japanese Romanesque" are conducted in China even now may be that the materials on the subject are available in Chinese colleges and other institutions after the war as they escaped the Allied air raids and other destruction in the war..

 

However, Mishima drifted away from "Japanese Romanesque School" even before the end of the war. At the end of the war, he resumed his literary work graduating from the Imperial University Law Faculty, employed by and resigned from the Ministry of Finance in 1948,  and published "Confession of the Mask" dealing with homosexual relationship. In 1950, he published  "The Hunger for Love" and "The Age of Blue"( the story about a famous loan shark graduated from Tokyo university) and " Suppressed Desire" in 1951. These were the years in which his status as first-class contemporary author was confirmed In December 1951 he was sent to a eight-month trip to North and south America and Europe as the special overseas correspondent of Asahi Shimbun News Paper. 

 

Mishima's attitude towards the Japanese Monarch System is complex, convoluted and even confused. Mishima glorified the Japanese Emperor as the center of the nation's history and the tradition of the Japanese civilization, and the Head of the Officiating Priest of a Religious Nation and insisted "The emperor must be "a Religious, Sacred and Impersonal Existence." He was against the image of the Emperor as "the Symbol of the People and the Unity of the People of Japan"(Article 1 of 1946 Constitution.)

 

Mishima despised the Emperor who accepted "the empty position of the Symbol of the people" and accused Shinzo Koizumi 　(1888 - 1966) who was Keio"s "Jukuchoo" between 1933 and 1947 . a politics major 1910 Keio Graduate who decided to seek an academic career and studied in U.K., France, and Germany between 1912 and 1916 on the economic theory of David Ricardo and criticized the Communist/Marxist economic theory which he studied with vigor with detailed research and analysis.

 

Prof. Koizumi lost his son, a Keio graduate, in the war as a naval officer, and disfigured his face in an Allied air-raid.  He was retained in 1949 as the full-time mentor of the then Crown Prince Akihito (the current Emperor ) lecturing on the "Biography of King George the Fifth" and "Monarch System" in order to establish a monarch system based on the support of the people as the traitor guilty of high treason for depriving the dignity the Emperor. He introduced "Lawn Tennis" to Keio students by sending a copy of "On the Court and Off" written by Anthony Wilding, a four-year consecutive winner of Wimbledon match from Europe.                                                              

According to Mishima, Koizumi was a traitor of the highest order for depriving the dignity from the Japanese monarch. Mishima went even further by stating he held certain antipathy personally against the late Emperor Hirohito who tried to recruit the plebian supports after Japan's defeat by conducting the pilgrimage of destroyed towns.

 

In 1966 Mishima met the editor of an ultra-nationalistic magazine "Journal of Arguments"

(Ronso Journal) and developed the concept of national defense based on a militia system and discard the reliance on Japan-US mutual security treaty. He approached SDF to the extent to personally participate in SDF's "trial experience program" offered to the would-be recruits. His literary works started to include the settings where the main characters' aesthetic views and political motives are closely connected and end with the death of the hero. Mishina eventually organized his version of a militia group named "Comrades of theShields" (Tate-no-Kai) in November 1968. (According to the Japanese myths and the stories of the Imperial conquests, the rank and files of the Emperor's forces were referred to as "Shield" ( which is of course 'passive' and the one to absorb the blunt of the enemy's attack without skills or the means of self-defense or active retaliation) and not as the active combatants who were equipped with "offensive" weapons such as swords, clubs, spears, bow and arrows etc.

 

Maybe the then Japanese monarchs were more afraid of the armed mutiny of their conscripts than their logical combat capabilities against the enemy. The WWII Japanese army strategist officers may apparently followed this pattern of unwarranted waste of their manpower in Guadalcanal etc without slightest compunction..

 

l  See "Shintei Shinkun Manyooshuu"…

   (Iwanami Bunko ISBN4-00-30051/310052 edited by Nobutsuna Sasaki)

4094    "…….仕へし官　海行かば水漬く屍　山行かば草生す屍　大君の邊にこそ死なめ　顧みはせじ　と言立

           て……." ……….We declare this family served the Emperor for generations and died in ocean or in mountains  even without proper burial but always nearby his majesty with no regret and the family name was never tarnished…….."

4373    "" - 今日よりは顧みなくて大君の醜の御楯と出で立つ吾は”" From today, I leave you to serve as the shield of his majesty in the coming battle without second thought."

Mishima split with "Ronso Journal" group after getting into a controversy over the expenses of "Tate-no-Kai". On November 25, 1970 Mishima and four of his followers, who stayed with Mishima after the split of the militia group, attacked the Eastern Headquarter of Self Defense Force in Tokyo, held the Commander hostage, delivered an hour long speech from the balcony of the main office building, and committed suicide by Harakiri with one of his followers. He shocked the people but apparently failed to win their supports even from the members of SDF.

 

While Mishima was establishing his popularity as a author catering to the common - or

non-literary - readers with his "Yoromeki" series, Frank Nagai, who used to sing at the G.I. camps of the Occupation forces for US$100 a month (it was a good pay when US$1.00

was \360 with much higher purchasing power) , successfully launched a ballad named

"See you at Yurakucho" (Yuurakucho de Aimasho) which became popular explosively with saccharine sweet minor key melody fit for a young men waiting for his sweet heart in a tea room at Yurakucho area (nearby the former site of Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices in the vicinity of Ginza and Marunouchi areas) worrying whether she had an umbrella to come through the softly falling rain. There was no more sign of the post-war hardship and destitution anywhere in the song or in Yurakucho area (except for the rows of shoddy wooden huts where slightly older office workers tried to fortify themselves  with dubious concoctions served in strait porcelain tea cups with broken rims before going home on the congested commuter trains.)

 

"Yurakucho…" was an instant and complete success with its anticipated bliss of gentle and decent domestic life of a young couple in a completely peaceful world of their own which most young people were looking for after the devastation by the war. (Incidentally this song was a promotion of a Sogo Yurakucho Department Store just opened in the area then  and sponsored the song, (closed 2000) undoubtedly most success promotion stunt without mentioning the sponsor's name.

 

The 1957 issues of The Mita Campus carried the features of the Hungarian exiles who escaped from "the Spring of Prague" of the previous year. with the interview of Hungarian

students who were visiting Japan to solicit supports by delivering the accounts of real happenings involving USSR intervention. The literary comments on Mishima's "Faltering Virtue" was there. The major topics on the first page of the issues of the journal were Induction Ceremony of the new university students, Keio-Waseda Baseball match, the shift of the members of the Council of university Students' attitude to more reconciliatory stance,  the prospect of the job placement of the next year's would-be graduates, and the Mita Festival.   The special features for each of the issues in 1957 were the daily life of Keio students,  the outline of the Mita Library, then oldest and largest of all Keio libraries, the effects of the Atomic and hydrogen bomb explosion tests, how Keio students spend their summer holidays, the comparison of the college students' lives in the U.S. and Japan, and the recommendation of the successful job placement winners to their juniors to be

successful. would be graduates

 

The special feature on June 1957 issue of the Mita Campus on the experimental explosions of Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, made the comparison of the views of Keio students randomly approached on the campus, the views of U.S. Pacifists (Quakers) groups and the opinion of the Japanese media (the larger newspapers) and criticized the developments and expansion of the nuclear weapons by the U.S. and the USSR and other nations supporting nuclear armaments.

 

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India visited Japan this year and visited Keio and

Waseda Universities where he delivered a speech at each campus. At Keio he delivered

his greetings from the balcony of the Mita Library. (Mita Campus had an approval to make the recordings which they did, but there were some difficulties due to the accent, the staff of the journal, (including future Professor Yoshihiro Tsurumi of New York State University) had to ask the Indian Embassy to check the final copy of the full text of the speech which they kindly did. It sold well because some of the students anticipated that at least some parts of the speech would be used as a part of questions of the annual exam or a mid-term quiz. (At this moment, we cannot verify whether this was the case. Anyway it was the most widely read copy of a foreign politician's speech ever visited Japan.)

 

Another was Keio-Waseda Baseball Match special in the November 1957 issue. It had on the front page large photos of the Keio nine, a encouragement message from Aiichiro Fujiyama  a Keio alumini, then Chairman of the Tokyo Chamber of the Commerce and Industry and also the Chairman of The National Association of the Chambers, and the CEO of Dai Nippon Sugar Refinery as well as another message from the then U.S. Ambassador MacArthur II.  The second and third pages covered the introduction of the members of the both teams, and the fourth and fifth pages carried the predictions of the result of the  game and encouragement from celebrities from different sectors including Shigeru Mizuhara (Former KO Third Base man), Hitomi Nakahara (a popular actress), Hisaya Morishige ( Waseda alumni and an actor playing the major roles in movies and plays) Osamu Mihara (Former WASEDA Infielder) and Keishichi Ishiguro (TV personnel).

The editorial of November 1957 issue was the protest against U.K.'s  experimental explosion of  hydrogen bomb and the views on the war and peace. Yet on another page there was the large photo of the typical students' dance party. These may be what we may deem as the average concern of then Keio University students and the Mita Campus staff. 

1957-7

 

An important change at the University in 1957 was the separation of the Faculty of Commerce from the Faculty of Economics.

 

 < 1958 >

 

Some of the student staff around this year reminisced that the Mita Campus taught them the importance of the discussion and the value of co-operation in a joint project. But there were others who indulged in card games in the editorial room with the door locked. Both were candid views of the time they spent together.

 

There were two commemorative issues of the Mita Campus in 1958. One was for the routine Keio-Waseda Baseball Games and another was of an overwhelming magnitude and significance - the Centennial of the Establishment of Keio Gijuku.

 

The founder Yukichi Fukuzawa started Keio Gijuku in 1858 as a private educational institution of which main instructions (politics, mathematics, economics, business etc at the post secondary level) were given in English using English text books.. The school had to endure numerous disadvantages and persecutions as a "private" educational institution in order to survive its first one hundred years of existence despite ubiquitous presence of its almuni on the faculties of "government" schools during which it has grown into a leading comprehensive university in Japan including medical and engineering schools as well as arts subjects and the post-graduate schools. (In 2010, Keio merged an pharmaceutical college which made its coverage of the comprehensive health care services together with the engineering school already leading the studies and applications of highly sophisticated

Apparatus such as endscopy, MR scan, etc.)  Another significant nature of Keio Gijuku was it did not have any "religious" supports from Christianity, Buddhism or Shinto. Most

"private" educational institutions opened at this point of the history of Japan except for law schools (Chuo was a "English Law School" and Hoosei was a "French Law School") were "mission" schools.

 

1958 was the year of the tension and conflicts in the Middle East, after the Revolution in Iraq.  After the World War I, the Ottoman Empire which had ruled over Iraq was fragmented, and the League of Nations mandated Britain to manage the area. Britain imposed a Hashimite monarchy on Iraq and set the boundaries without taking into account the politics of the different ethnic and religious groups in the area.

 

In February 1958 King Hussain of Jordan, and Regent 'Abdal-Ilah of Iraq invited the ruler of Kuwait to discuss the formation of "the Arab Hashimite Union" to counter the recently

formed "Egyptian- Syrian Union". This was against British policy of keeping Kuwait its mandate. Iraq's monarch tried to contain rising domestic discontent by increasing the political oppression. On July 14 1958, Iraq's military officers inspired by Nasser of Egypt,

overthrew the Hashimite monarch proclaiming Iraq to be a republic and rejected the idea of a union with Jordan.

 

Internal political conflicts and ever-pending claim over Kuwait and the wars with Israel kept Iraq chronically unstable. until General Sadam Hussein (1937- 2010) assumed the positions of both President and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of the Republic of Iraq in July 1979.

 

In France General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) launched the Fifth Republic on October 5^th 1958  as the commotion of Algerian Independence issues intensified and assumed its presidency himself. . In USSR, the criticisms on the late Stalin's policies slowly subsided and Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev (1894-1971) was solidifying his leadership. 

 

U.S./USSR cold war was showing no sign of abatement as the two nations competed against each other in the improvement of the missile performances..

 

Japan-PRC relationship was deteriorating because of the profanation ( burning) of the PRC national flag in Nagasaki in May 1958 and the suspension of Japan-China trade. The betrothal of the Crown Prince (Emperor Akihito) and the Crown Princess (Empress Michiko) was finalized towards the end of 1958.   Kids were playing hula-hoops on streets. Tokyo Tower (a TV Broadcasting Station in central Tokyo) construction project was completed and commissioned in 1958.

 

In May 1958, a Japanese youth pulled down the National Ensign of the Peoples Republic of China (Five Yellow Stars on Red background) at the Exhibition the Chinese Post Stamps held in Nagasaki, which led to the deterioration of Japan-PRC trade relations.  Heretofore, the relationship between Japan and China (with both PRC and KMT) has been unnatural.

 

Neither Kuomintang (Taiwan- Chiang Kai-shek - KMT) regime nor PRC (Mainland- Communist- People's Republic of China- Mao Zedong- PRC) regime was invited to 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference. As the result, neither of the Chinese regimes joined the 1951 Peace Treaty concluded then, except that  U.K. and the U.S. agreed that Japan would conclude "a peace treaty with a Chinese Government" after the San Francisco Peace Treaty becomes effective.

 

At that time, U.S. wanted Japan to conclude a peace treaty with KMT regime which was natural in view of the intensifying Cold War and the potential of Japanese industries

as the source of the supplies . There was the exchange of letters between Shigeru Yoshida, then Japanese Prime Minister and John Foster Dulles, then U.S. Secretary of State which witness the agreement between the two nations to the effect that Japan would conclude a peace treaty with KMT Regime on condition that such a peace treaty will be applicable to the geographic areas effectively controlled by the party to the treaty.

 

Looking back to April 28 1952 when both San Francisco Peace Treaty and U.S. Japan Mutual Security Treaty (MST) became effective simultaneously (abolishing the GHQ and depriving its, administrative powers over Japan, Japan and KMT Regime signed "Japan China Peace Treaty". which became effective on August 5^th of the same year.

 

In November 1949, COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multi-lateral Export Controls; actually "Coordinating Committee for the Prohibition of supply of Strategic Materials to the Communist Countries" consisting of NATO nations minus Iceland plus Japan had been formed under the U.S. initiative and went into effect in January 1950. In September 1952, the enhanced prohibition of trade particularly against PRC and North Korea (CHINCOM) was enforced by the COCOM participants.

 

Meantime the Japanese business leaders were looking for the increased business with the mainland China and Japanese private groups had entered into three "private" trade agreements with PRC Government in 1950s up to the 1958 NAGASAKI PRC Ensign Incident arranging for the barter trade (LT Trade) with the cumulative amount of STG 30 million over the period of one year each which was only 2.3% of the total Japanese annual foreign trade and negligible except for the political significance.

 

.The 1958 Nagasaki PRC Ensign Profanation led to PRC's declaration of Three Political Conditions PRC would apply to all diplomatic relations to be observed by Japan i.e. (1) Termination of all anti-PRC arguments and actions (2) Termination of all intrigues aiming at the sustenance of "Two China" (PRC and KMT) situations. (3) Prohibition of all acts which prevent the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and PRC.

 

The other factors which caused the virtual termination of all Japan-PRC relations in 1958 were the pro-Taiwan policies of Kishi Cabinet, the ultra-leftist tendencies of PRC politics such as anti-rightist campaigns and Great Progress policies as adapted at the Peoples Congress held in May 1958, and the mounting tension at The Taiwan Strait between KMT and PRC in which the U.S. explicitly sided with KMT.

 

For brevity and hopefully for improved clarity, we request you to indulge us to continue our narrative without precisely following the chronological order of the events for next several paragraphs.

 

PRC suffered severe draught in 1959. On September 30^th of this year, USSR Premier Khrushechev visited PRC in Beijin to discuss the various policies but no communique was released signifying the discordance between the two nations. This was only after two weeks of the USSR Premier's visit to U.S., where he proposed the general curtailment of armament at United Nation's General Assembly, followed by the meeting

with U.S. President Eisenhower at Camp David publishing a communique emphasizing the peaceful settlement of all international controversy. This made it apparent that the relation between PRC and USSR was seriously deteriorating.

 

Under the circumstance PRC tried to reopen the trade with Japan and in August 1960 Premier Chou En Lai conveyed to "private"Japan-China Trade Promotion Association PRC's consent on the trade with "Japan's PRC-friendly small firms" whereby the semi-annual Guangdong Trade Fairs were started in December 1960 to facilitate the contacts by the small private firms.

 

In 1960, the extremely Pro-U.S.(and pro-KMT)  Kishi cabinet collapsed under the popular pressure against the renewal of 1951 Japan-US Mutual Security Treaty (MST). The renewal of the Treaty itself did cause commotion only to a limited extent, but the attempt to legislate "Law on Police Officers' Execution of Duties (1958 LPOED)" which had been regarded as inseparable with the MST was aborted. The draft of LPOED was intended to eliminate the formalities/process for police officers to stop, interrogate, arrest, search the possessions of the people and enter homes, offices and other properties without warrants of a judge at the personal discretion of the police officer.

 

The supporters of the bill argued LPOED was absolutely necessary for the execution of MST. However, the majority of Japanese people felt LPOED was much worse than the notorious Security Maintenance Act of pre-WWII time which was intended not only to prevent labor union activities but also to suppress all anti-government (anti- military) activities which seemed to hinder all war efforts.

 

In 1963, the Japanese government approved the financing a vinylon fabric plant for PRC through the government-owned Japan Export Import Bank, which caused severe dissatisfaction on the part of the KMT Regime which had to be placated by sending Shigeru Yoshida, the ex prime-minister as a special emissary for apology to Taipei. However，the normalization of the formal diplomatic relations between Japan and PRC had to wait for the improved relationship between the U.S. and PRC as Japan had to and to some extent still has to rely on the U.S. initiative on all matters affecting its international activities.

 

Japan failed to detect any signs of the preliminary contacts between U.S. and PRC first took place in May 1962 when 60,000 ethnic Uyghurs in PRC's Xinjiang Province crossed the frontier to USSR allegedly fleeing the desperate economic conditions in PRC. in the spring of 1969.  Since the "Spring in Prague" incident in which Warsaw Pact forces intervened in Hungarian liberalization movement and more direct military conflict on Zhenbao / Damansky Island in Ussuri River in 1969, Chairman Mao felt the confrontation with USSR was becoming inevitable and asked four of his most senior lieutenants for the analysis of the international situations. Marshall Chen Kee, then PRC Foreign Minister proposed that PRC must take advantage of the US/USSR adversarial relationship in order to seek the improvement of PRC/U.S. relationship, which apparently influenced the foreign policy of Messrs. Mao and Chou.

 

U.S. was reciprocating in the efforts to establish formal contacts with PRC. The patrol in the Taiwan Strait by the 6^th Fleet was suspended in October 1969 and the restrictions on the Trade by U.S. firms with PRC was eased. In December 1969 the U.S. Ambassador to Poland proposed a PRC diplomat to resume the Ambassador-level meetings which had been suspended since 1968 at a Yugoslav Fashion Show held in Warsaw. and Messrs. Mao and Chow immediately agreed. At the Ambassador-level meeting held on February 1970, PRC suggested it would welcome a U.S. Ministerial-level emissary or a special representative to discuss basic U.S-PRC issues. Also in November 1970, Premier Chou requested Pakistani President to convey to President Nixon/Secretary Kissinger that PRC would welcome a Nixon's special emissary to Beijing for the discussion currently most arduous issue regarding the treatment of KMT regime in Taiwan and the opportune timing may be discussed through the Pakistani President. Also in April 1971, PRC further invited a U.S. table tennis team to PRC at the World Table Tennis Tournament held in Nagoya.

 

This was the first symptom of US/PRC collaboration which was noticed for the first time by the Japanese.  The incident was widely heralded in Japan as "Ping Pong Diplomacy" but Japanese media at that time missed all other preliminary unpublished US/PRC diplomatic maneuvers taking place outside of Japan mentioned above.

 

This traditional incompetence of Japanese media in covering international news in which no Japanese party is engaged in seems to be firmly entrenched in 2011 too.

 

While the Japanese general public including the editorial staff of The Mita Campus remained unaware of the complete picture of the delicate balancing acts in progress in the triangular relations of US/PRC, PRC/USSR and US/USSR,  The Mita Campus issues in 1958 carried the articles on the Hungarian insurrection the reassessment of various reforms of Japan's Education system since the end of the war including specific subjects such as the co-education, problems involved in the education of the Japanese language for foreigners, the students' participation in social welfare programs and the scholarships for the Japanese students who want to study at overseas educational and research institutions.

 

In November 1958, The Mita Campus staff finally published its Keio Gijuku Centennial
Commemorative Issue. The cover page carried the full-sized photo of the commemorative

Stamp. The 2^nd and 3rd pages carried felicitation messages from various groups, the

Congratulatory Message from the then Crown Prince Akihito and the message from "Jukuchoo" as well as the introductory comment on Yukichi Fukuzawa , the founder of the school who emphasized ”the Spirit of Independence and Self Respect” as "the Father of Japanese Modernization".

 

The 4^th page through the 9^th page of the Centennial Commemorative Issue carried the history of Keio Gijuku over the past one hundred years, describing the changes in the Japanese society and the Keio Gijuku's responses to such changes. Also the characteristics of each of the faculties and their background are provided. For the benefit of the readers of these articles, Keio Gijuku and Waseda are the two "private" modern educational institutions which are not affiliate with any religious sect (Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Shintoist etc) or Law Schools (Hosei was a "French" Law School and Chuo was an "English" Law School)

 

Keio was open to invite other educational institutions to merge. Its faculty of engineering used to be Fujiwara Institute of Technology. FIT was established in 1939 by Ginjiro Fujiwara (1869-1960) a Keio alumni (1885-1890), the CEO of Oji Paper Co., Ltd. Oji's

Share price skyrocketed in 1939 thanks to Fujiwara's efforts to reorganize it so Fujiwara

established it and donated it to Keio in1944..

 

As recently as 2007, Keio merged with Kyoritsu College of Pharmacy which was established in 1930 by Mrs. Tsuna Kojima a kindergarten owner and head-mistress and her son Noboru as the institution of higher education for women with the help of Motojiro Makino, CEO of Kyowa Bank, the largest savings bank until it was made co-educational in 1996.  It became a "full college" in 1949, and added Masters' course in 1986, and Ph.D course in 1988.and merged with Keio as the licensed pharmaceutists were required to complete six years of under-graduate course before taking the national examination. It had numerous affiliation with universities, hospitals and research institutions such as universities of Washington, Loyola, Kansas, Maryland, Iowa, North Carolina, Texas AM,  Upsala (Sweden), Queensland (Aust.) and major medical schools in Korea, China, Thailand and Japan.

 

FIT and Kyoritsu were both leading educational institutions in their particular domains and the mergers benefited the parties enabling the students and the faculty members to provide them with additional dimensions and expanded scopes. Yukichi Fukuzawa started his exposure to European civilization at a small medical school called Teki-Juku in Osaka by studying Dutch in early 1850s.

 

!0^th page of the Centennial Commemorative Issue introduced the famous spots in Keio campuses such as "The Phantom Gate" and "The Steeple with a cupola roof on the Main Library". The origin of "The Phantom Gate" is unclear. Pundits say the origin should not be identifiable because it is a phantom and never physically existed . The generally accepted imaginary location is the entrance to Mita Campus compound on its east side which is formed by a narrow passage of a steep slope which lead to the Main Library and the Administration Building. None of the series of structures straddling the passage was neither spectacular or impressive either artistically or architecturally including the one in existence (as of 2011).

 

The name apparently came from a student song written by a Keio alumni ( admitted in 1910 but did not graduate formally),　Daigaku Horiguchi（1892-1981）, a noted poet , a literary critique and a translator of the works of modern French poets including Charles Pierre Baudelaire, Jean Cocteau, Gabriel Collete, etc into Japanese.  Daigaku''s father、Kumaichi, was a career diplomat and a collector of European books of art and literary works. After leaving Keio, Daigaku followed his father to Mexico, the country to which Kumaichi was assigned, where Daigaku studied French and witnessed the violent coup d'etat in 1913 when General Victoriano Huerta replaced and assassinated President Francisco I. Madero. Daigaku followed his father's assignments in Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Paris, Brazil, Rumania etc. with intervening home duties. Such multi-cultural exposures must have benefited his literary career.

 

Daigaku was a prolific writer .with more than 300 of his own verses and translations (French-to-Japanese ) combined to his credit. The first was "Moon Light and A Pierrot" published in 1919  He received the Order of Culture in 1979.

 

Daigaku was also a book collector in his own right and when the collection of the father and the son was finally sold in 1943 to avoid the destruction by air-raids, Tokyo's second-hand book market was literally saturated for several months.

 

Daigaku's student song (originally in Japanese) dedicated to Keio and which supposedly gave rise to the name of "The Phantom Gate" started as follows:

"Through the Gate of Phantom we ascend to the plateau of truth and wisdom…."

(幻の門ここ過ぎて叡知の丘に我等立つ………)

 

The 12^th page (the last page) of the Centennial Commemorative Issue carried an article by

Professor Kiyooka titled "Fukuzawa's Spirit Marches on". The editorial appealed "Let us advance into the New Century".

 

On November 11^th 1958, the Centennial Commemoration Ceremony was held with the presence of His Majesty the Emperor Hirohito, where his message of felicitation to the occasion was recited. It appeared 1958 was the year totally immersed in the festivities of the Centennial Commemoration.

 

However, it was "business as usual" elsewhere outside Keio campuses. The bill of "Law of Police Officers' Conducts during the Execution of his/her Duties" (1958 LPOCED Bill) was protested both in the Congress and on the streets with unprecedented vigor. December 1958 Issue of The Mita Campus carried an editorial asking the protestors of the bill how much they know and understand the practices of a democratic political system as well as

1958 LPOCED Bill, and condemned the protesters as the destroyers of a Democratic system.

 

The arguments presented in this particular article appeared to be unusual not because of the conclusion thereof - because the editorial staff of The Mita Campus had accepted and published the articles on more controversial issues with seemingly more extreme views after unnecessary amount of discussions previously, but because of the apparent lack of the preliminary discussions in this case.  The Mita Campus as a students' journal did take side on many issues but the presence of the contrarian views was a norm. However this article did get published, and it is our duty to comment on it rather than pushing it under a rag. )

 

< 1959>

 

1959 was an eventful year for Japan both domestically and internationally. In April Crown Prince Akihito (The current Emperor) married Crown Princess Michiko.

 

Judge Akio Date delivered his famous verdict over Sunakawa Incident.

(This was the case in which the constitutionality (based on 1946 Constitution) of U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty was challenged in a Japanese court of first instance which adjudged the MSA as unconstitutional. On July 8, 1952 a group of students and labor union members against the expansion of Sunagawa Air Base in Tokyo suburb, tried to prevent the surveyors and fell several tens of meters of the fence and trespassed into the base by four or five meters from the perimeter. The police apprehended the trespassers and sent them to Tokyo District Court where they were indicted for criminal trespass. The defense argued there was no criminal offence since MSA and consequently existence of the U.S. military base was unconstitutional.   On March 30, 1959 , the presiding justice Akio Date of Tokyo District Court delivered a judgement to the effect that the Article 9 of 1946 Constitution stipulates Japan will not resort to military actions for the resolution of international conflicts and shall not keep the military powers and facilities for such purposes, and the U.S. military bases in Japan under MSA are construed as such "powers and facilities" and thus unconstitutional so that any trespass upon such U.S. bases cannot be penalized by an agency of Japanese government. An appeal was filed by the prosecution with the Supreme Court － skipping the Tokyo High Court which is a normal intermediate appellant court - which on December 16 of the same year  overturned  the verdict of the District Court on the ground that the Article 9 of 1941 Constitution does not negate "the inherent right of self-protection by a sovereign nation" and the presence of the U.S. military forces in Japan under MSA cannot be construed as unconstitutional and null and void. Also for the issues involving highly political and diplomatic nature, the resolution through domestic legal procedures are unfit to apply. So the case was returned to the district court which proceeded with retrial whereby the offenders were fined Yen2,000 each)

 

The judgement on another notable court case of Matsukawa Incident was also delivered this year.   

In the early morning before sun-rise on August 7, 1949 the leading locomotive of a cargo train negotiating a curve on Tohoku Line (between Tokyo and major cities in the north-eastern region of Honshuu of then Japan National Railway Corp -JNR) nearby Matsukawa Station was derailed and capsized followed by several box cars in tow. The engineer on the locomotive and two other crew members were killed. The tie-plates on the rails as well as the several spikes on the cross-ties at the site had been removed which were indicative of malice.

 

As the labor unions of JNR and the Toshiba's Matsukawa Work were simultaneously campaigning against the manpower-reduction at their respective works, the police felt the incident was a joint operation of the two unions (JNR was one of the major users of Toshiba

railway equipment) and apprehended Katsumi Akama, a JNR unionist first, and eventually ten unionists each from the two unions were arrested relying on Akama's testimonies and those who were later apprehended. Police identified three JNR unionists and two Toshiba unionists as the principal suspects of the execution of the derailment and others for conspiracy and stealing the required utensils.  Seven of the total twenty suspects confessed to the crime during police interrogation with various facts. and nuances which rendered the sustenance of the prosecution somewhat difficult. Fukushima District Court, the court of the instance, delivered the judgement on December 6^th 1951 in which all 20 defendants were found guilty and five of them were sentenced to death and all of the 20 appealed. Sendai High Court, the court of appeal, delivered its judgement on December 22^nd 1953 in which three were acquitted, the remaining thirteen were found guilty and four of them were sentenced to death. The defense final submitted the final appeal to the Supreme Court. which reversed the decision of the High Court to which the case was returned. Sendai High Court on August 8^th 1961 delivered the sentence of not guilty to all defendants. The prosecution appealed to the Supreme Court which rejected the appeal on September 19^th 1963 when the all defendants were acquitted. after 15 years. Kazuro Hirotsu, a novelist, published a criticism of the court proceedings at Sendai High Court after its 1953 verdict in installment on "Chuo Kooron" magazine  which caused heated arguments on the appropriateness of an "out-of-court" criticisms,  never settled to this day.

 

The confrontation between the Conservative and the Liberals over Japan-US Mutual Security Treaty continued escalating throughout the year.

 

Then in September 1959, Japan was hit by the greatest-ever "Ise Bay Typhoon" which devastated the major portion of the rice crop of the nation causing the Farmers' Co-op to file the largest ever insurance claims to foreign Re-insurance companies.

 

On January 1^st 1959, the Cuban Revolutionary Army ousted Prime Minister Batista and elected Fidel Castro in his place and nationalized the plantations and other assets owned by foreign - mostly U.S. - capital together which extricated the Cuban people from exploitations by foreign companies, but the United States resorted to extensive embargo and Cuban economy had to suffer but the people survived the difficulties with fortitude.

 

On September 15, 1959, USSR Premier Khruschchev visited the United States to proposed the overall curtailment of the armaments at U.N. General Assembly followed by the meeting with President Isenhower at Camp David which indicated the easing of the Cold War tension.

 

Akiko Kojima, a sweet, attractive, slender ( even slightly above the then standard Japanese vital statistics) young lady with the command of several languages was selected as the first Miss Universe from Japan which gave rise to a new expression "Transistor Glamour" which is contrary to the universally entrenched stereo-type concept of " sensual attractiveness of physically well-developed (sometimes excessively) woman" . New words were coined (rather than revived) in succession from the titles of stage plays such as "Gametsui Yatsu" meaning "A fellow with limitless avarice and greed", "Ikasu" meaning "Chic and Stylish not only with what he wears but also in demeanors and intelligence" and "Kack-coon ! (usually followed by a phrase "Shock-dawa ") made popular by "the Dassen (Derailed) Trio" a comedy group, an absolutely meaningless exclamation.

 

The staff of The Mita Campus in 1959 declared as the basic objectives of the group as

 

(1)  the promotion of the friendship and fraternity among the members, and

(2)  the nurturing of the comradeship among those who are interested in English language

   no matter whatever aspect it might be.

 

The April 1959 issue of the Journal (in Japan at most schools and universities April is the month of matriculation for majority of the students) reported the Induction Ceremony of the new university entrants and placed emphasis on the international exchange activities.

 

The titles of the articles on its 1^st page were "Two Keio Students to Study Abroad for a Year" (one went to Stanford and another went to University of British Columbia.), "Seven Stanford Students Visit Keio Campus" and "A student from New Delih University arriving

Keio in September for a year's study".(A Keio student went to New Delhi University in the same year.).

 

The titles of other features were "University Students and Sports" and "We Ain't the Apes

In a Cage" .  The latter made observations, criticisms and suggestions on how to make the student life worthwhile to the students themselves and those concerned. Also it criticizes

the job-hunting through personal connections totally unrelated to whatever you achieved at the University.

 

The April 1959 issue also contained an article on the verdict of Judge Date of Tokyo District Court on Sunagawa Incident in which the judgement held "the existence of U.S. military bases in Japan is unconstitutional (1946 Constitution). (See above)

 

The article states that interpretation of the Constitution provisions would gravely affect the issue of the future self-defense of Japan . In the special feature entitled " Narrow in the Road to Peace" The feature avoided then prevalent stereo-typed approach that through the international exchange of students from various nations, the mutual understanding will be enhanced and will head for the world peace.

 

Contrary to the optimistic approach above,  The Mita Campus described the specific difficulties that extensively hinder student exchange programs, and also the possibilities of

misunderstanding or even adverse impressions against the country and/or community the student visited which makes "the Road to Peace" narrow and arduous to traverse even though the common intention is the Promotion of the World Peace.

 

The editorials of 1959 issues of Mita Campus carried the comments on the final verdict on Sunagawa Trespas  Incident (See above) and on Japan-U.S. Students Exchange programs.

 

Also an editorial of one of 1959 issue commented on the small number of Keio graduates who stood as the candidates at the 5^th regular election of the members of the House of Counselors held on June 2^nd 1959 (and other elections of public officers) compared with the number of the graduates of other universities.

 

The editorial argued that Keio graduates should not seek careers at any particular industries and or professions, but much wider varieties of roles in the entire society with

"guts". The editorial urged Keio graduates to seek opportunities with more "fighting spirits" or "defiance".  But it was not clear whether this editorial was an attempt to attack and erase the entrenched image of "Keio Boy" of 1959 in the then cooperate society i.e. emptily debonair, superficially refined, sociable, pleasant, smooth, harmonious, non-argumentative, unimaginative, non-competitive, quiet , week ….. .

 

<1960>

 

1960 was the Year of the Revised Japan-US Mutual Security Treaty (1960 RMSA) which was signed on January 19 ( local time in Washington D.C.). It was accompanied by the status of the U.S. military personnel (and their dependents) in their facilities for 1960 RMSA in Japan and the exchange of the protocol on the matter of Japan-US preliminary consultation on the deployment of the U.S.  military forces to Japan, and the use of U.S. forces stationed in Japan for the strategic purposes in emergencies. As the treaty with a foreign nation, 1960RMSA needed to be ratified by the Diet under 1946Constitution. Then

Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi (1896-1987)'s  initiative had been declining with the failure to legislate 1958LPOCED bill.

 

In order to prevent the ratification of 1960RMSA by the Japanese Diet, 100,000 demonstrators staged a rally against it and 13.5 million people signed a petition on May 14 1960. on 5.60 million unionists and students staged a national demonstration.

 

On May 20 1960 the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Congressmen passed the bill for the ratification by unilateral vote in the House of Representative without the presence of the opposition who refused to participate in the proceedings of the Diet thereafter.

 

On May 26, the most numerous ever 170,000 demonstrators encircled the Diet Building protesting against the unilateral ratification by LDP.

 

On June 4^th 1960. the first national demonstration against 1960RMSA was staged by 5.6  Million participants. JNR union stopped the service for the morning commuter trains.

 

On June 10^th1960 Mr. Hagerty, a staff of President Eisenhower, who visited Japan as the precursor of the President's intended visit to Japan was surrounded by the anti- 1960RMSA demonstrators at Haneda Airport and escaped by a U.S. Force's helicopter.

 

On June 15^th 1960, the second national demonstration was staged by the total 5.8 million

Protesters. A right-wing pro-ratification group attacked the protesters of actors and artists

against the ratification and injured about 60 of them. A Zengakuren Main Stream Faction, consisting of about 4,000 anti-communist students, attacked the Diet Compound where they fought against the police forces in a most bloody encounter in which Miss Michiko Kanba, a co-ed at the University of Tokyo was crushed to death. 182 demonstrators were

arrested.

 

Kishi had invited President Eisenhower to visit Tokyo on June 19, 1960 when 1960RMSA

Ratification document could be exchanged. For such a tight schedule the ratification needed to be completed by June 18,1960 and LDP cut many corners in Diet proceedings.

The oppositions vehemently protested and cried foul and Kishi was accused of jeopardizing

DEMOCRACY and the demonstrations and social unrest reached the climax particularly

after Miss Kanba's death.

 

On June 16^th 1960, Nobusuke Kishi, then Prime Minister, formally requested the U.S. Government to postpone the intended state visit by President Eisenhower to Japan which had been scheduled to take place on June 19^th.  The President tooked the advice , and did not visit Tokyo but spent two hours in Okinawa, still under the U,S, military administration until June 17^th 1871.

 

On June 19^th 1960, while 330 Thousand anti- 1960RMSA demonstrators surrounded the Diet compound, 1960RMSA was automatically ratified without any further vote at either the House of Councilors or the House of Representatives in accordance with 1946Constitution Article 61 and Article 60 Section 2.

( Seniority of House of Representative;  Article 60 Section2 says " Concerning the budget of the national government if the vote at the House of Councilor is differently voted by the House of Representatives, according to the statute if the joint convention of the both houses fails to come to an agreement, or if the House of Councilor fails to vote on the budget which has been approved by the House of the Representative within thirty days of the receipt of the bill except for the period of adjournment, the decision taken by the House of Representatives through the vote shall be construed as the decision by both houses."   Article 61 says "Concerning the approval of the Diet of an treaty with a foreign nation, the Provision of the preceding Article 61 Section 2 shall apply.)  On June 19, 1960, Japan and the U.S.

exchanged the Instrument of Ratification of 1950RMSA and Prime Minister Kishi announced his intention to resign, which he did on July 15^th 1950

 

Kishi was succeeded by Hayato Ikeda (1899 - 1965), a career bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance until 1948 when he was elected to House of Representatives and appointed the

Minister of Finance at the third Yoshida Cabinet. Ikeda disagreed with Joseph Dodge, the

Adviser appointed by Truman for the reconstruction of Japan, through balancing the government budget, abolition of government subsidiaries and commodity prices controls and the suspension of new loans by the Reconstruction Finance Agency all of which were to

stop inflation through free competition and set the exchange rate at Yen360 = US $1;00 which set the benchmark for Japan to participate in international markets.

 

These were called "Dodge Line" policies and led Japan to the recession and deflation. The

salvation came in the form of the Korean War which started in June 1951. He had a habit of

making coarse- excessively undiplomatic - remarks on the economic policy.  Most famous was "The poor should eat barley." (not rice) made in December 1951. On the other hand, in February 1959, he published "Double Your Income Policy". It says that if the savings increase, the investment into capital equipment will increase, which will increase the GNP and the income of general consumers.  If this continues the consumers' salary will double in ten years time. What the government must do are Tax Reduction, Investment in Public Facilities and Social Security for those who cannot follow the activities and the development.

 

On October 12^th 1960, Inejoro Asanuma, Secretary General of Japanese Socialist Party was killed by a boy who was a member of right-wing group while he was delivering a speech at

Hibiya Auditorium in the center of Tokyo. The right-wing violence was getting worse.

 

In Kyushuu, Mitsui Mining Company was fighting the death match against its labor union

at Miike Coal Mines. The coal was still the major source of energy that was indigenously procured without paying the foreign currency which Japan did not have then.  The strike started on January 5^th 1960 when the Union rejected the 1,214 pink slips served by the management, and the management resorted to a lock-out. The whole coal mine was on strike without limit and the fist fights between the police and the union continued endlessly. . The Central Labor Relations Commission demanded the carte blanche from both the union and the management and the controversy was finally resolved on July 19^th.1960.

 

There were other depressing incidents. One of them was the abduction and killing of Masaki Ozeki, a Keio Yoochisha (Elementary School) second grade pupil on his way to the school in the morning on May 16^th 1960 . The culprit, Shigehisa Motoyama, demanded Yen Two Million initially but raised it to Three Million.(The monthly pay check a new college graduate recived at that time was usually Yen 15,000 to Yen 20,000-. The current monthly salary amount is about Yen 170,000 to Yen 300,000.)  Moyoyama was a son of well-to-do family, attended a dental school, received the dentist license, and opened his own practice in 1955. He had a wife and two sons, but got involved with another woman who bore him a child. Motoyama could not support two families with the earning from one clinic and closed the practice down after five years. He divorced the "legal" wife and started sending alimony every month, but soon became unable to do so..

 

On that day, Motoyama intercepted the victim at Meguro Station and told him to accompany to a hospital where his mother was waiting. They went to Motoyama's apartment together where the victim was drugged and gassed to death after three days of the abduction. Motoyama escaped to Osaka and started working at a luggage clasp factory but a colleague got suspicious and reported to the police.

 

Motoyama was convicted by Tokyo District Court on March 31^st, 1961, appealed  to the intermediate appellant court and then to Supreme Court which rejected his appeal on May 26^th 1967 and executed in 1971 at the age of 43. This was a dismal case in which the police

failed to protect the victim due to clumsy tailing etc. and the police could not improve on

it in later similar incidents.

 

Another dismal incident is "Sanya Riots". On August 1^st 1960, about 3,000 residents at

Sanya area of Tokyo attacked "Jumbo Kooban" (Giant Police Box) throwing stones and setting fires. Similar incidents were repeated time and again.  Sanya is a particular area so designated by Tokyo Metropolitan Government where low priced accommodations (mostly without meals, but with color TV and HVAC which are prominently shown on the signs) to cater for the daily-hired laborers who came to work in the post-war reconstruction of Tokyo. As of 1961, there were about 300 of such establishments capable of accommodating about 20,000 workers.

 

After 1960s, there were multiple riots involving several thousand workers each time. There were varieties of reasons but some were started by the agitation of extremists or criminals. Also there were the confrontation between the organized crime groups who involved themselves in the laborers recruitment process and the groups of workers fighting against such exploitations. As SANYA residents became old and depleted, even though the senior citizens without the family supports congregate in this area, the area is changing from "the temporary workers' accommodation area" to "The old-age welfare area". Another feature is ,starting around 2002, the back-pack carrying foreign visitors started gathering in this area because of the cheap accommodations, relatively satisfactory securities - not much robberies or killings (about five a year mostly between the Japanese) compared with foreign counterparts and relatively convenient location to Ginza, Akihabara, Roppongi and other scenic spots SANYA is now identified as the location of cheap accommodations for young foreign visitors.

 

Meantime, the Imperial Family had felicitous occasions.  Naruhito, the current Crown Prince was born to the Crown Prince and Princess. Princess Suga (the youngest sister of the current emperor) got married.. In the commoners' world "Instant Ramen Noodle" appeared and enthralled bachelors' dietary habit instantly. Japan Salt & Tobocco Monopoly Corporation introduced the first Japanese long-sized cigarette "Hi Lite" which became instantly popular even outside of Japan. Dakko-chan, air-inflated vinyl dolls, clung to the arms of children and women. The elegant - somewhat conservative - fashions of the Crown Princess Michiko (the current Empress) swept across Japan. (Mitchee Boom). These were accepted as the signs of the advent of the new generation and affluent life.

 

In the U.S., John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected to the President. His capacity for achievement inherent to youth was seen as the symbol of hope of the new generation.  However, Laos was marred by internal wars and Viet Cong - (National Liberation Front) or the group consisting of the National Liberation Front for Southern Vietnam, Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republique of South Vietnam (PRG), People's Liberation Armed Force (PLAF),.Alliance of National Democratic and Peace Forces and Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) - was organized in Vietnam, which predicated the new trends of the world to come in 1960s.

 

June 1960 issue of the Mita Campus reported the successful scaling of the Hymalchuri Peak by Keio Mountain Climbers and the feature entitled "The last Phase of the Negotiation on the New Japan Mutual New Security Treaty" which carried many comments from both inside and out of Keio with the full text of the draft treaty and the comments on its article under the sub-title of "The Questions Remain".

 

The editorial of the May 1960 issue comments on the sudden rise of the students' interest and involvement in political, social and other affairs not directly connected with the scholastic activities at the schools and universities.

 

June 1960 issue had a special feature entitled "Crisis of the Parliamentary Political System" covering various problems and issues revealed during the Diet sessions covering

the ratification of the Mutual Security Treaty and criticized the arbitrary action by the

LDP majority which prevented the thorough deliberation of the vital issues related to the

interpretation of 1946Constitution Article 9 and the possibility of the repetition of such undemocratic actions.

 

On the lighter side, students were immersed in mahjong and dance parties with the addition of "Mambo Pants" with its extremely tight silhouettes. In the autumn series of  Keio-Waseda baseball games, the teams played six games instead of usual three. due to three games ended in tie.  Waseda side won the series thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Ando, Waseda hurler.

 

November 1960 issue of the Mita Campus was the Centennial Commemoration Issue

of the journal.(The first issue came out in August 1946.) The unchanged story of the hardships the staff had to continuously suffer was that of the financing the journal,

i.e. soliciting for the advertisements and selling the journal in the shortest possible time.

!960 was an exceptionally happy year for the staff because there was a little carry-over

to the next year thanks to the extra efforts they put in in selling the journal in front of the

Jingu Ball Park at KEIO-WASEDA Games.  The Journals office for the 1960 was on the second floor of "Yamanoue Shokudo"(student cafeteria) building and the printing was done by Tokyo News.

 

End of Chapter III (1956 - 1960)

 

追加参昭資料

 

１．昭和史　戦後篇　1945-1989 半籐一利　平凡社ライブラリー　

        ISBN978-4-582-76672-1

2.      日中関係　戦後から新時代へ　毛利和子　岩波新書1021  ISBN4-00-431021-0

 3.   「戦後」を点検する　保阪正康＋半藤一利　講談社現代新書2072

       ISBN978-4-06-288072-5

4.            ポスト戦後社会　シリ－ズ日本近現代史（９）吉見俊哉　岩波新書1050

ISBN978-4-00-431050-1

５．     戦後日本の宰相たち　渡辺昭夫　編　中公文庫　わー１９－１

ISBN４－１２－２０３８２７－８

６．     決断できない日本 The Japan That Can't Decide ケビン・メア　文春新書821

ISBN978-4-16-660821-8

7.          戦後史年表1945-2005 Chronology of Postwar Era 神田文人・小林英夫編　小学館

ISBN4-09-376021-7

8.          戦後と高度成長の終焉　日本の歴史24  河野康子　講談社学術文庫1924

ISBN978-4--06-291924-1

9.          米中論　何も知らない日本　田中宇　光文社新書045  光文社　IBSN4-334-03146-3

 

１０．The Age of Extremes, A History of the World,1914-1991 ; Eric Hobsbawm,

      Vintage Books, ISBN0-394-58575-5

11.  図解による法律用語辞典　補訂３版　自由国民社　ISBN978-4-426-10588-4

12.       有斐閣　判例六法　平成20年版

１３．Black's Law Dictionary Eighth Edition, Bryan A. Garner, Editor In chief

      Thomas West

 

その他。