Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

by John W. Dower

On April 30, 1948, the central Press, Pictorial and Broadcast division within CCD was ordered to conduct “100 percent surveillance” of the Communist media, largely for purposes of intelligence rather than direct control. Early in 1949, the conservative government, with SCAP’s concurrence, cut the rationed allotment of newsprint to official Communist publications from 86,000 to 20,000 pounds per month.67 The “Red purge” that the Yoshida government conducted with GHQ’s active cooperation beginning in late 1949 initially did not seriously affect the media, for it was carried out against radicalized employees in the public sector in the name of “retrenchment” or “rationalization” or comparable euphemisms. In the wake of the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, however, the Red purges spilled over into the private sector and, among many other fields of activity, swept through publishing and film making, as well as public radio.