At 4 a.m. U.S. Marine Pfc. Adolph W. Merten took a blurry look at the barroom quintet and decided he saw four Japanese Communists all set to kill an American Army sergeant. Merten, a Korea veteran subject to "Bolshephobia" (i.e., seeing Red) when liquored up, fired five wavering revolver shots. Shiro Takawa, 19, no Communist but simply another patron in the Yokosuka bar, fell dying. When Merten went to trial before a Japanese court last week for manslaughter, his Japanese lawyer pulled out Article 39 of the Japanese criminal code, which holds that "an act by a person of unsound mind...
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