Clipped Fangs

When an inflamed Communist mob beat up five U.S. soldiers on May 30 (TIME, June 12), General Douglas MacArthur decided that he had had enough of Red rabble-rousing. One morning last week the angry general ordered the Japanese government to bar the Communist Party's 24 Central Committeemen from all further political activity. The next day MacArthur added to the list 17 top staffers of Akahata (Red Flag), the party's newspaper.

Most Japanese, shocked by Communist violence, thought the general's action overdue. "Well, MacArthur lost his temper at last," said a maritime union leader. "I would have lost my temper, too, at that Red gang." Occupation officials were pleased that MacArthur had neutralized Communist leadership without driving the party underground by banning it completely. It was fitting, they felt, that Japan's top Communists had been given the same purge treatment applied earlier to the nation's World War II militarists. "We've clipped their fangs scientifically," said one U.S. officer.

The Communists, who had expected eventually to be outlawed as a party, were surprised both at the suddenness and the form of MacArthur's edict. They appointed a new eight-man control group and called in vain for a general strike. They ground out denunciations of the purge. Japanese police were kept busy arresting minor Communists for attempts at public agitation against MacArthur's action.

But nowhere to be seen or heard was the top purgee, Secretary General Kyuichi Tokuda. Equally elusive were the usually vocal Ritsu Ito, ousted Communist theorist and spokesman, and Yoshio Shiga, leading party advocate of violent action, whose "tough" policy had brought on the MacArthur order. From shrewd, slippery Sanzo Nozaka, pre-purge chairman of the Japanese Politburo, came only ironic speculation. Said Nozaka: "Now that I have so much time on my hands ... I may try to become a movie critic. Or else, now that summer is here, perhaps I can start an ice candy [Japanese Popsicle] shop."

Unless MacArthur put more heat on, Nozaka and his purged comrades probably would stay out of the ice candy business. Remarked one Tokyoite: "After the Zaibatsu [big capitalists] were purged, they still ran their companies as 'black curtains' [i.e., the men behind the scenes]. I suppose Nozaka and Tokuda will become 'red curtains.' "

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