U.S. occupation policy in Japan was committed to administering democracy by hypodermic needle, and Douglas MacArthur meant to see that the inoculation took.
The Supreme Commander gave his blessing to Shigeru Yoshida as Japan's third postwar premier.
Stuffy, blundering Yoshida ran into immediate trouble. While he struggled to form a government, Tokyo leftists swarmed into the streets. They coupled the demand "Give us more rice," with the cry "Down with Yoshida." One mob, 200,000 strong, marched on the Premier's residence. Thirty demonstration leaders, among them Kyuichi Tokuda, Secretary General of Japan's Communist Party, entered the house, bedded down in the front parlor,...
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