JAPANESE PEOPLE SHOW HIGH SENSITIVITY TO NUCLEAR ALLERGENS
When he appeared before the Diet January 431, Eisaku Sato, the prime minister of Japan, backed up a bit in the course he has been following in hope of overcoming the "nuclear allergy" of the Japanese people. He told the legislators that any visit by a nuclear-armed submarine would be subject to the priorconsultation clause in the U.S.-Japan defense treaty. The implication was that he would veto such a visit.
The slight shift constituted acknowledgment of the strong allergic reaction touched off among the people by the visit of the nuclear-powered Enterprise January 19-23.
As The Japan Times Weekly put it January 27, “The Enterprise's call has been an expensive one to the Japanese Government in many senses. The Police Agency's budget was badly strained by assigning more than 5,000 riot police to Sasebo. The Government was hit for the way its police handled student demonstrators there. Most importantly, the carrier's visit sparked a surge in the opposition movement that has not been seen on the Japanese political scene for a long time. And it is still early to say this is the total political price the Prime Minister will have to pay for his emphasis on realism in defense affairs and Japan-U.S. cooperation."
The editors could have added -—were they not averse to giving it publicity -- that one of the most significant developments at the Sasebo demonstra~ tions was the appearance of a united front in action between the Japan Socialist and Communist parties, the first instance of this in many years.
Other political tendencies also participated, including the Democratic Socialist party and the very conservative Komeito (Clean Government party), which evidently did not wish to be left on the sidelines in such a popular action.
The powerful Sohyo (General Council of Trade Unions of Japan) threw its weight into the scales; and even members of the usually inert Domei (Japanese Confederation of Labor) were there.
The action was spearheaded by the very militant Sampa Rengo (Three Faction Alliance of the Zengakuren, the National Federation of Students Self-Government Associations), which charged into the phalanxes of riot police mobilized by the Sato regime to protect the U.S. naval base. The students suffered many casualties and arrests, but unlike previous demonstrations in recent months, they did not stand in isolation.
On January 19, for instance, Sasebo, with a population of 250,000, served as host to 47,000 demonstrators. Almost in their entirety, the huge crowds were sympathetic to the Zengakuren activists.
On top of this the popular reaction throughout Japan, after scenes of the Sasebo action were shown on TV, was strongly in favor of the students and decidedly against the police, who were not sparing in violence in meeting the protest action against the visit of the U.S. nuclear warship.
Consternation over the broad and massive nature of the protest was visible in top circles of the ruling Liberal- Democratic party itself. Chief Cabinet Secretary Toshio Kimura told a press conference January 22 that “we must take a serious view of the fact that even ordinary citizens joined in Sunday's disorder in Sasebo."
"The Government considers," he added, “that the Enterprise's visit at Sasebo caused a different reaction this time from that in the cases of visits by nuclear-powered submarines."
He stressed that the Sato administration was prepared to welcome continued visits by nuclear warships, since this is one of the obligations of the pact signed under pressure from Washington. But public sentiment must be taken into careful consideration and he was sure that the United States would understand this.
The implied criticism of Sato, however, if only over Sato's ineptness in handling the visit of the Enterprise, was enough to cause some fluttering in government circles.
Sato's first reaction was to "reaffirm" his government's policy. This was done at a cabinet meeting January 23. Considerable publicity was given to remarks by Transport Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that Kimura's statement might give the impression that the government had become less positive in its attitude toward port calls, and that Kimura's position would dampen the morale of police officers and have an adverse effect on national sentiment. A week later, however, Sato himself found it advisable to shift over toa less “positive" position.
It was indicated in the Japanese press that the visit of the Enterprise was agreed on by Sato when he visited Johnson last November. The Japanese government has been under heavy pressure from Washington for many years to end the stipulations in its constitution against
engaging in war activities. The Japanese ruling class has no disagreement over this, in fact it corresponds with its own imperialist needs to resume its position in the world as a leading military power.
The big obstacle has been the stubborn resistance of the Japanese people to ever again being sucked into the catastrophe of war. They are particularly sensitive to any schemes to arm Japan with nuclear weapons. This sensitivity has been labeled by the Pentagon and Japanese military circles as a “nuclear allergy."
Medical science has found that certain allergies can be overcome, at least temporarily, by injecting the patient with increasing amounts of the allergen. Thus the allergists in the Pentagon prescribed a series of visits at Japanese ports by nuclear-—powered submarines.
The visit of the Enterprise was part of the series, but represented a considerable increase in the dosage. The huge flattop, with its eight nuclear reactors, presumably also carries nuclear warheads. Perhaps even more important, it is a key ship in the Seventh Fleet, and is on active duty in the war in Vietnan. (After its call at Sasebo, it went to North Korea to prowl the same waters where the spy ship, Pueblo, was recently caught red-handed. )
This shot of nuclear allergens had the opposite effect to the one intended. It set off a sharp allergic reaction.
As preparations for the antiwar demonstration began, the visit of the aireraft carrier was delayed a day, from the scheduled Thursday to Friday. It was hoped that this would catch the demonstrators off guard, putting a damper on their action and making it possible for the ship to dock without much flurry.
But the demonstrations began on Tuesday and mounted from day to day until Friday, when the ship dropped anchor, the streets were jammed with 47,000 protestors. On Sunday 243,000 were still chanting and snake-dancing. And on Tuesday when the death ship slunk out of port, a crowd of students and unionists were there to wave their fists in a dramatic display of "good riddance" and "don't come back."
The temper of the people was well indicated when a dozen taxis, carrying sailors from the Enterprise on their way to the "fun" district, were halted by a crowd of some 43,000. Heavy staves rained blows on the roofs and windshields of the taxis and it took large contingents of police to rescue the unwelcome American guests.
Students injured by the police received unusual public sympathy. At the Sasebo Citizens Hospital, a student suffering an eye injury was "showered" by the other patients "with gifts of milk, fruit, toilet paper, underwear and even money aS soon as he was hospitalized." These patients had watched the action in the street from their windows. "No gifts are seen in hospital rooms of injured police officers except those from their families and relatives," added the Asahi Evening News of January 24. In the large cities, Zengakuren students collecting contributions in the streets were reported enjoying extraordinary success.
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