Tokyo's big, influential daily Yomiuri (circ. 2,284,902) last week headlined a series of articles on a startling economic theme: "Japan is at the mercy of the blue-eyed foreigners." The blue-eyed foreigners, cried Yomiuri, are U.S. businessmen in Japan, who are charging "exorbitant" royalty fees. Such American companies as Westinghouse, RCA and Caltex have been "very cunning" in their dealings. Concluded Yomiuri: "Japan was not defeated by General MacArthur but by General Electric."
The vicious newspaper articles were a symptom of the worsening relations, now approaching a postwar low, between U.S....