Self-Defense Force

For one hour last week, in a villa by the sea, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida and Progressive Party Chief Mamoru Shigemitsu conferred on a measure to give Japan new world stature as a sovereign nation. Then the two party leaders, the most influential men in Japan, issued a joint statement that Japan's defenses should be strengthened, "in view of the present world situation, and of the rising spirit of independence among Japanese people." The plan:

P:Japan's null National Safety Force, limited by Japanese law to the maintenance of "internal order," should be renamed "Self-Defense Force," and should be built up to oppose direct foreign aggression.

P: U.S. garrisons stationed in Japan under the two-nation security pact should be "gradually reduced" as the Japanese force --armed by the U.S.--grows in strength.

By getting together on the program, Japan's two major political parties hurdled one of the big obstacles that had stood in the way: the anti-rearmament sentiments of Japanese women, who were granted the vote by Japan's postwar MacArthur constitution." Neither party dared take on by itself the political risk of going against the women.

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