PEACE IN VIETNAM! BEHEIREN:
TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM AND GI MOVEMENT
IN POSTWAR JAPAN 1965-1974

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN
POLITICAL SCIENCE

AUGUST 2018

By
Noriko Shiratori

Dissertation Committee: Ehito Kimura, Chairperson
James Dator Manfred Steger Maya Soetoro-Ng Patricia Steinhoff

Keywords: Beheiren, transnational activism, anti-Vietnam War movement, deserter,
GI movement, postwar Japan

DEDICATION

To my late father, Yasuo Shiratori

Born and raised in Nihonbashi, the heart of Tokyo, I have unforgettable scenes that are deeply branded in my heart. In every alley of Ueno station, one of the main train stations in Tokyo, there were always groups of former war prisoners held in Siberia, still wearing their tattered uniforms and playing accordion, chanting, and panhandling. Many of them had lost their limbs and eyes and made a horrifying, yet curious, spectacle. As a little child, I could not help but ask my father “Who are they?” That was the beginning of a long dialogue about war between the two of us. That image has remained deep in my heart up to this day with the sorrowful sound of accordions.
My father had just started work at an electrical laboratory at the University of Tokyo when he found he had been drafted into the imperial military and would be sent to China to work on electrical communications. He was 21 years old. His most trusted professor held a secret meeting in the basement of the university with the newest crop of drafted young men and told

them, “Japan is engaging in an impossible war that we will never win. This is like a fight

between children and adults. Do your best to hide whenever you can and come back home alive.

Try to avoid hurting anyone.” My father listened to this advice the entire time he was away,

despite being beaten for disobeying orders often. When he returned home immediate after the war, he was greeted with utter ruin. In such a short time, his family had not only lost their house where his ancestors lived for over 300 years but also lost three of his older brothers although one of them, who was detained in Siberia, returned home six years later. All of a sudden, my father found himself as the oldest son instead of the fourth. He was not able to even consider going back to work at the university, as he needed to support his parents and younger siblings, so they could attend college. Despite not having any particular interest in becoming a businessman, he did have talent in drawing blue print, and seeing the burnt ruin surrounding him, he started an architectural design firm along with a printing company. Everybody needed to rebuild their homes and buildings in the immediate postwar, and Tokyo needed to rise from the ashes of war.

“There is no such thing as a ‘good’ war,” is what my father used to say. If my father did

not engage in genuinely straightforward conversations with his little daughter with many iquestions, I might have not started my Ph.D journey later in my life, and this dissertation might never have been written. Since my father sparked my very thoughts on the nature of war and peace, it is only fair that I dedicate this dissertation to my late father, Yasuo Shiratori, a proud Edokko (child of Edo), and the most anti-establishment person I have ever met.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I owe the completion of this dissertation to my dissertation committee. First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to Dr. Patricia Steinhoff. I will never be able to thank her enough. She consistently gave me unwavering support in various ways such as hiring me as her assistant for her projects and providing me a wide array of academic guidance with warm encouragement throughout my Ph.D journey. I am particularly thankful for her thorough reviews of all of my dissertation drafts and providing me with unbelievably detailed comments and good advice. Her immense passion for the studies of social movements kept me motivated for my own studies. This dissertation would have been impossible without Dr. Steinhoff. I am also grateful for my chairperson, Dr. Ehito Kimura, whose practical advice in each phase of writing this dissertation helped me navigate the road to progress. I am especially thankful for his unique ability to keep me sane and focused on completing my writing. Special thanks to Dr. James Dator for his genuine interest in my study and consistent encouragement with many great

suggestions. I appreciate Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng’s visionary words that made me think deeper into what I wanted to express. I am thankful to Dr. Manfred Steger’s quick grasp of my study. His

insightful comments from the perspective of a globalization scholar certainly made my dissertation a better one.

Many thanks to Laurie Onizuka for her vibrantly efficient way of doing her seemingly impossible business, to Dr. Carolyn Stephenson for introducing me to the world of peace studies, and to Dr. David Stannard for showing me broader perspectives of the Vietnam War. Thank you also to those who have supported my academic journey for a decade or more such as Dr. Wei Zhang for always cheering me up, Dr. Joel Fischer for his tenacity toward the antiwar cause, Dr. Violet Horvath for introducing me to the wonderland of research, and Dr. Hosik Min and Dr. Harumi Karel for their advice and encouragement upon starting my Ph.D journey.

With sincere gratitude and respect, I thank each former Beheiren activist and those who were involved with Beheiren whom I met for sharing their amazing stories and precious materials with me. I am especially thankful to Eric Seitz in Honolulu, Takahashi Taketomo and Sekiya Shigeru in Japan who connected me with many key actors in the movement and beyond. I am humbly honored to have had the opportunity to meet such remarkable people. Their

iii contribution to this dissertation, and to future generations of activists and peace scholars, is unmatched.
Special thanks go to Tokiko Bazzell at the Hamilton Library for her vast knowledge of archives and beyond, to Etsuko Chopey for helping me access materials in the Takazawa Collection, as well as Diana Graves for her great help whenever I needed it. Likewise, special thanks to Hirano Izumi at the Research Center for Cooperative Civil Societies at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, along with Azusa Ozawa and Hitomi Arai, who helped me collect archival data. My study was possible because of these dedicated librarians and archivists who preserve valuable materials.
Thanks to my colleagues Sreang Heak, Agussalim Burhanuddin, Anjali Nath, and Hye
Wong Um for making my journey enjoyable one. Additionally, I am grateful to all the graduate

students from the Department of Sociology who called me as an ‘honorary’ student of Sociology.

Among my friends, some deserve extra thanks: Michiko Kurosu for always feeding me excellent food and supporting my journey, Kumiko Hachiya for cerebrating each time I made an ounce of progress with lots of encouragement and advice, Meiko Arai for always giving me timely and practical advice, Jiro Arase-Barham for his never-changing civility and support, James, Sachi and Max Fujino for never failing to make me laugh, Hanna Looney for her

willingness to help. A special thanks to my Hawai‘i ‘ohana, the Lums. Elaine, Jennifer, and

Marissa, thank you for all that you have provided me with all these years. I especially could not have completed my Ph.D journey without generous support from Elaine.
This dissertation was supported by generous support of Graduate Fellowship and Minae
& Miki Kajiyama scholarship from the Center for Japanese Studies, and other scholarships including Graduate Division Achievement scholarships, Research Assistantships from the Department of Sociology, lectureship and travel fund from the Department of Political Science, travel fund from the Graduate Student Organization, and research and travel award from the Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit. I am thankful to all of them.
Lastly, a heartfelt appreciation goes to my daughter, Mari Shiratori Cobb, a young cell biologist, guitarist, and independent woman who always believes in my ability to complete any crazy thing I start and offers unlimited support and encouragement to finish them, including occasionally being my editor. I also extend my appreciation to her dad, John P. Cobb, in this regard. I am the luckiest mom in the whole entire world. iv

ABSTRACT
Beheiren (Betonamu ni heiwa wo shimin rengō [Citizen’s Committee for Peace in

Vietnam]) was launched by a handful of postwar intellectuals in Tokyo when the United States started bombing North Vietnam in February 1965. The widespread presence of US bases throughout Japan allowed American soldiers to be transported and carry out missions from Japan and (then) American occupied-Okinawa to fight Vietnamese people. Japan was a launching pad

for America’s war in Southeast Asia.

Hundreds of loosely formed Beheiren groups emerged on campuses, in towns and cities across Japan. The emergence of American deserters in the late 1960s transformed Beheiren into a transnational underground operation that sheltered American deserters and moved them out to Sweden and France in cooperation with the former Soviet Union and Resistance groups in Europe. By 1970, while getting the deserters out of Japan became harder because of the increased involvement of US intelligence agents, GI uprisings occurred in every major US base worldwide. American activists started coming to Japan and occupied Okinawa to connect with

Beheiren to get GIs out of the military system. Protesting America’s war during the Cold War

under the contradiction and dilemma involving Japan’s Peace Constitution and the US-Japan Security Treaty, the central issue of the Beheiren movement was fundamentally transnational. All the people, including deserters, antiwar GIs, young Japanese and American activists, ordinary citizens of Japan who sheltered American deserters in their homes, were thrown into transnational activism through their globalized experiences.
This study attempted to paint a holistic picture of Beheiren. The theoretical concepts used in this study includes the political process model, nonviolent direct action, especially in the form of civil disobedience, a generational model of continuity and change, and rooted cosmopolitans. Through archives, qualitative content analysis, participant observation, and interviews with the remaining key activists of Beheiren, this study found that, for the past half century, former Beheiren activists have been quietly continuing grassroots transnational activism to this day.

They maintain ‘loose’ civic networks and skepticism toward “power.” These elements stem from

keen observation and the experiences of the key actors growing up in the age of Imperial Japan. They remained firm in their belief that the future would support the rights of the individual to refuse to kill and be killed in the name of any state. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT........................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES.........................................................................................................................x LIST OF FIGURES..................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF MAPS........................................................................................................................... xii LIST OF PHOTOS .................................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .....................................................................................................xv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................1
Anti-Vietnam War Movement...................................................................................................4 Beheiren Anti-Vietnam War Movement in Japan ....................................................................6 Theoretical Framework...........................................................................................................10
Political Process Model.....................................................................................................10 Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Disobedience ...........................................................13 Generational Model of Continuity and Change................................................................17 Rooted Cosmopolitans......................................................................................................19
Research Questions.................................................................................................................19 Methods...................................................................................................................................20 Chapter Outline.......................................................................................................................25

CHAPTER 2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND .......................................................................28
Old Left in Prewar Japan.........................................................................................................28 August 15, 1945: Perspectives of Children of the Time.........................................................31
Entering an Era of Contentious US-Japan Relations........................................................35
Intellectual Landscape of Postwar Japan ................................................................................37
The 1960 ANPO Protests..................................................................................................41 Shiso no Kagaku (Science of Thought) ............................................................................46 Koe Naki Koe no Kai (The Voiceless Voices) .................................................................47
Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................49

CHAPTER 3. LAUNCHING BEHEIREN................................................................................51
Three-Head Leadership...........................................................................................................54 vi
Tsurumi Shunsuke ............................................................................................................55 Oda Makoto ......................................................................................................................60 Yoshikawa Yūichi ............................................................................................................67
Organizational Characteristics ................................................................................................71
Three-Slogan Principle .....................................................................................................73 Two Quirky Rules ............................................................................................................75 Beheiren Style...................................................................................................................78
Conclusion...............................................................................................................................81

CHAPTER 4. PUBLIC IMAGE.................................................................................................83
Demonstrations........................................................................................................................84 Publications.............................................................................................................................86
Buying Ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post.....................................88
Outreach to American GIs ......................................................................................................89 Building Transnational Networks...........................................................................................89
The 1966 Lecture Tour with Howard Zinn and Ralph Featherston .................................90

Japan-United States Citizen’s Conference for Peace in Vietnam ....................................95

International Citizen’s Conference for Peace in Vietnam with Jean-Paul Sartre .............95 Rallies and Concert with Joan Baez .................................................................................96

International People’s Conference against War and for Fundamental Social Change .....97

On-the-Spot Protests..............................................................................................................100
US Field Hospital Protest ...............................................................................................100 Enterprise Protest............................................................................................................101 Shinjuku Folk Guerilla....................................................................................................104
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................106

CHAPTER 5. EMERGENCE OF AMERICAN DESERTERS............................................109

The Vietnam Era Deserters ...................................................................................................110 Escalation of New Left Student Movements in Japan .........................................................113 The Intrepid Four..................................................................................................................116
Getting Out of Japan.......................................................................................................122 The Intrepid Four Spoke Out..........................................................................................128 Legal Concerns ...............................................................................................................132
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................134

CHAPTER 6. A FLOOD OF DESERTERS AND A TRANSNATIONAL

UNDERGROUND OPERATION ............................................................................................136
Birth of the Specialized Committee: JATEC ........................................................................140
Screening Deserter-Candidates.......................................................................................143 GI Language....................................................................................................................147

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Terry Whitmore (1947-2007) .........................................................................................148 Searching for a New Exit Route .....................................................................................151 1968: More Deserters, More Spies ................................................................................155 Second-Term JATEC......................................................................................................161
Coming Out: Transnational Underground Project................................................................165
Connection with Underground Tradition in Europe ........................................................165 Going Underground: The Last Deserters.........................................................................172
Role of Student Beheiren Activists........................................................................................180 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................188

CHAPTER 7. GI MOVEMENTS IN JAPAN & TRANSPACIFIC ACTIVISM................190

Decline of the Civil Rights Movement and the Global Surge of the Antiwar Resistance....192
King’s Dilemma .............................................................................................................193 Rise of Black Power within US Bases ...........................................................................197
Emergence of Antiwar GIs ...................................................................................................200
GI Coffeehouse ...............................................................................................................206 GI Underground Newspaper...........................................................................................209
Transpacific Activism............................................................................................................212
Arrivals of American Activists as Transnational Brokers ..............................................214 Pacific Counseling Services (PCS).................................................................................218
GI Uprising in Occupied Okinawa ........................................................................................221
Koza: Epitome of Occupied Okinawa ...........................................................................222 The 1970 Koza Riot........................................................................................................224 American Activists in and out of Occupied Okinawa and Japan....................................225
Messages from GIs in US Bases in Japan (1967-1973).........................................................229
Message Senders.............................................................................................................230 Key Messages from GIs..................................................................................................232
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................237

CHAPTER 8. IWAKUNI: CENER OF GI RESISTANCE...................................................240

Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Iwakuni ........................................................................241 Transpacific Antiwar Network in the Early 1970s ...............................................................243
The 1970 Fourth of July Riot and the Iwakuni Thirteen.................................................250 Stop the Phantom! Kite Flying .......................................................................................256 Nuclear Weapons in Iwakuni?........................................................................................260 Free the Army (FTA) Show ...........................................................................................263
GI Coffeehouse Hobbit.........................................................................................................268
Opening of the Hobbit during the United Red Army Incident .......................................273 The Hobbit Staff .............................................................................................................280 Repression.......................................................................................................................285 viii
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................300
CHAPTER 9. CONCLUSION..................................................................................................302
Loose Transnational Civic Network ....................................................................................307 Skeptical of Power: Individual versus State .........................................................................309 Continuity of Transnational Civic Activism.........................................................................312
Reunion: The 50^th Anniversary of the Intrepid Four ......................................................315
Epilogue................................................................................................................................321