Evening star., 1951-04-20

Japanese Want Macarthur TO!
President" and proudly wore Mac
Arthur emblems In their button.
holes. But they were not al.
lowed to get full details Of tht
campaign. Censorship Of the loca
lpress still existed in Japan as o1
that date, and the Supersensitive
nervous press officers on Gen. Mac.
Arthur's staff carefully screened
what Tokyo should read.
Gen. Macarthur was roundly
beaten In Wisconsin, getting only
eight out of 27 delegates. The
general was, it seemed in Tokyo
disappointed and defiant. The
Macarthur boom never recovered
from the Wisconsin defeat. II
June the general was put in nomi-
nation at Philadelphia after mid
night when the hall was empty;
1T was a forlorn spectacle. He
got IL votes out Of 1904 on the
first ballot: these II sank to zero
on the third. So does the Ameri-
can public turn sometimes on Its
heroes.
For some years Gen. MacAr-
thur was heartily unpopular with
the newspaper colony in Tokyo
and vice versa. The supreme
commander did not have much
use for journalists in the large
anyway tthough he was not above
playing favorites among them)
and his attitude seemed to be
that the Tokyo correspondents
were a gang of illiterate police
reporters who should be subject
to his orders.
''Floored" by Roy Howard.
Once Roy Howard visited Tokyo
and Gen. Macarthur asked him
why American newspapers gave
such prominent space to crime
news, scandals, and the like. As
the supreme commander himself
relates this anecdote, Mr.. How
ards answer completely floored''
him. Howard said simply, Doug
las. American newspaper publish
ers and editors have to eat, too" )"
Gen. Macarthur thought that this
answer. shunting off responsible
ity to the newspaper-buying pub
lie, was masterful. It did not
occur to him that there are a
good many newspaper publishers
and editors who do not Sensa-
tionalize and vulgarize their front
pages and who, nevertheless. man.
age to eat quite well.
: It was, oddly enough, some of
these same sound and respectable
that at one time or
other aroused the particular ire
of the general. Conversely, Gen.
seems to go out of
his way to applaud the sensation
alists. When Mr.. Hearst cele-
brated his 87th birthday in 1850,
Gen. Macarthur telegraphed him:
"As you round another year in
the dedication of your firm voice,
indomitable will and great moral
courage to the building of an in
vincible America, in an uneasy
world, I send my warm admira-
tion and my gratitude"
Gen. Macarthur alienated a
good many correspondents during
the war not merely by his high
and-mightiness but because his
communicates did not always tell
the truth. The censorship in his
command made it incomparably
more difficult to work there than,
say, in Gen. Eisenhower's theater.
Seldom Held Conferences.
The General almost never held
press conferences, and correspond
ents stationed in Tokyo found it
difficult to see him at all. A new
arrival for an important agency
or paper was, however, received
as a rule for courtesy talk. But
not always. For instance one bu-
reau head for Time-Life Can or
gan highly favorable to Gen. Mac
Arthur and one which he GUS
tomarily favors) was not received
for many months. largely because
the general resented so deeply an
article in Fortune on "Scapital-
ism" that severely censured the
economic policies of the occupa-
ton. !.
Gen. Macarthur may appear to
have been distant to journalists,
but he was attentive in the ex-
treme to what was written about
him. If a correspondent in Tokyo
got a commission for a magazine
article and took a draft of it to
soap, it would be read and
checked with almost excessive
care. Once an Australian journal
ist brought him the manuscript OF
an article. The general took the
greatest pains to read it. and at
the end changed one word: He
did not like remote" in descrip-
ton of himself, and altered it to
"austere."
perhaps I should interpolate
at this point that nobody in Japan,
from Gen. Macarthur down, ever
put the slightest pressure on me
while I was working there-except
that of helpful courtesy-nor was
the slightest suggestion ever made
that I should submit what I was
writing to scrutiny of any kind.
Doubtless this book will be greeted
in Tokyo with panied silence, but
I have written nothing except the
exact truth of what I saw and
felt. It will be interesting among
other things to see whether soap
permits what I write to be trans
lated into Japanese.)
+ SUNDAY-The Men Around
Macarthur.
(From the book. THE Riddle Of Mac
Arthur" published by Harper and Bros.)
N \ |l