Book Review: Far East: Protest in Tokyo
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200158 |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
150
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
PROTEST
IN
TOKYO.
The
Security
Treaty
Crisis
of
1960.
By
George
R.
Packard
I1.
1966.
(New
Jersey- Princeton
University
Press.
Toronto:
Saunders.
xiv
423pp.
$9.00)
Dr.
Packard
has written
a
lucid
and carefully
researched
account
of
the
origins, development
and
consequences of
Japan's
greatest
post-
war
political
crisis-the
"Security
Treaty
Crisis"
of
1960.
In
May
and
June
of
that
year,
events
m
Tokyo
attracted
the
world's
headlines with
accounts
of
hundreds
of
thousands
of
Japanese
demonstrating
or
roting
in
protest
against
the
revised
United
States-Japan
Security
Treaty
Disorderly
scenes
in
the
Diet and disruption
of
parliamentary
pro-
cedures
raised
the
possibility
that
Japanese
democracy was
breaking
down.
The
mobbing
of
President
Eisenhower's
press secretary,
James
Hagerty
at
Tokyo
airport,
and
subsequent
cancellation
of
the
Presiden-
tial
visit
for
which
he
had
been
the
advance
guard,
suggested
that
Japanese-American
relations
were
in
severe
disarray
In
the
event,
the
Treaty
was
ratified
and
the agitation
subsided,
but
the
Japanese Prime
Minister
at
the
time,
Nobosuke
Kishi,
was
forced
to
resign, and
there
were
important
after-effects
in
Japanese
politics
and
U.S.-Japanese
relations.
The
book
is
an
attempt, as
the
author
explains
in
his
preface,
to
answer
two
simple
questions:
what
actually
happened
in
Japan
during
May
and
June
1960,
and
why
did
it
happen.
Dr.
Packard
succeeds
admirably
in
this
endeavour,
despite
the
fact
that
the
answers,
as
usual
in
human
affairs,
are
not
nearly
as
simple
as
the
questions.
He
sketches
concisely
the
background
of
Japanese
post-war
politics
and
Japanese
attitudes
to
the original
Security
Treaty
with
the
United
States
signed
in
1951.
The
developing
attitudes
of
various
political
forces
in
Japan
toward
Treaty
Revision
are
then
traced
in
some
detail.
Some of
this
detail,
e.g.
the intricate
manoeuvrngs
of
factions within
the
Liberal
Democratic
Party,
may
seem
excessive
to
the
non-specialist
m
Japanese
affairs.
On
the
other
hand,
it
does
contribute
to
making
the
book
a
useful
short
guide,
in
case
study
form,
to
the
workings
of
contemporary
Japanese
politics,
and
this
is
one
of
its
great
virtues.
The
actual
events
of May
and
June
1960
are
recounted
with
considerable
journalistic
skill
and an
impressive
grasp
of
the
complicated
interacting
forces
and
motives
that
were
at
work.
In
his
conclusions
the
author treats
briefly
three
themes-national-
ism,
the
U.S.-Japanese
alliance
and
democracy He
argues,
rightly
I
believe,
that
a
"new"
Japanese
nationalism
was
one of
the
most
important
of
the
multiplicity
of
themes
running through
the
events
of
1960,
and
he evidently
takes
a
hopeful
view
of
the
prospects
for
this
nationalism remaining
"healthy
and
constructive"
It
is his
opinion
that
there
was
a
distinct
element
of
anti-Americanism
and
pent-up
feelings
of
hostility
towards
the
United
States in
the
demonstrations
of
1960,
but
he
points out
that
there
were subsequently
significant changes
in
United
States
policy
toward
Japan
in
the
direction
of
establishing
a
more equal
partnership.
It
would
have
been
interesting
to
hear
more
from
Dr. Packard
on
this
aspect
of
the
matter,
but
perhaps
one should
not
cavill
at
his
concentration
on
the internal Japanese
scene in accord-
ance
with
his
stated
purpose.
To continue reading
Request your trial