Japan's Open Door

Up to last week the U.S. Government had every reason to believe that its initial one-power occupation of Japan was acceptable to Great Britain, China and Russia. They had every reason to believe that eventually they would have a nominal share in the job.

But they wanted more than a nominal share. Since August, when the U.S. offered to set up an Allied Advisory Committee in Washington (but not an Allied Control Council in Japan), the War and State Departments had been under quiet but heavy pressure to let the other powers in on the Tokyo show.

Russia, missing no bets, last week brought the pressure into the open. Viacheslav Molotov suddenly raised the question before the harassed Council of Five in London, insisted upon immediate action.

Molotov's maneuver sorely displeased Jimmy Byrnes. Said he: such a proposal was not on the Foreign Ministers' agenda, and therefore he was not prepared to discuss it. Thoroughly angered at Molotov on other points, Britain's Bevin at first sided with Byrnes. But the Dominions, headed by Australia's bellicose Herbert Evatt, immediately subjected Bevin to such pressure that Byrnes found himself standing alone against everybody else.

Something had to give. At week's end Mr. Byrnes announced the solution: the preliminary commission already proposed by the U.S. would meet shortly in Washington and set up a stronger commission for Tokyo. Participants: the Big Five, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, The Netherlands, the Philippines, possibly India.

The China Crowd. When last week's acerbity subsides, the Allied commissioners headed for Tokyo will find food for thought in a recent change of attitude toward Japan by the U.S. Department of State. The Department's Far Eastern views used to be heavily influenced by men like Joseph Clark Grew, ex-Ambassador to Japan who later became Under Secretary. The Grew men--the "Japan crowd"--were obsessed with the idea that Japan would always be the strongest power in east Asia. They were not anti-Chinese, but they could not see in sprawling, floundering China any possible growth of power that would hold Japan in check.

After Potsdam, Harry Truman and Jimmy Byrnes squeezed Grew out, and purged other men who thought like him. The Department's Far Eastern policy is now being run by "old China hands" who believe that defeated Japan can be kept down and that China can become the key power in Asia.

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