Japanese Postwar Success

In November 1945, Japan’s postwar production reached only 9 percent of its World War II levels, and “the bombed-out streets of Tokyo were a landscape of wayward veterans, orphaned children, and maimed civilians; of black markets, prostitutes, and drunk intellectuals.”Footnote ¹ As Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), one of the first tasks undertaken by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur entailed providing food to a country on the brink of starvation. Coal production failed to meet the needs of operating the railroads, let alone heating homes. Only 20 percent of the cotton textile plants remained functional, and almost none of the steel mills and shipyards functioned. To make matters worse, the population spiked as over five million Japanese citizens returned from China, Korea, the Soviet Union, and other places where they had colonized, occupied, or served in the military. Moreover, high birth rates added five million more mouths to feed by 1950, and top leaders perceived the increasing populace as the nation’s biggest challenge.Footnote ² Inflation ran rampant. The cost of rice, the main staple of the island, increased 400% in 1946, 600% in 1947, and 200% in 1948. Thus, starvation and lack of jobs persisted as the main government concerns prior to 1950.Footnote ³ Japan’s defeat shattered morale, and its failed transwar ideology left a sense of disillusionment among many ordinary citizens. The imperial system with ever-increasing territorial ambitions brought disaster. Rebuilding the country’s ethos by channeling the indomitable Japanese spirit [yamato-damashii] proved as important as rebuilding its infrastructure. Moreover, Japan suffered worldwide condemnation, particularly among neighbors such as China and the Philippines, where animosities ran deep even before the war.

Ultimately, the turnaround in Japan was extraordinary. In 1945, GDP was $102 billion, and by 1961 had grown to $420 billion. Even more dramatically, over that period, GDP per capita more than tripled, far surpassing Germany’s less than 200 percent increase and the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) increase of about 26 percent.

The purpose of this article is to document an unexplored factor that assisted in this economic growth:Footnote ⁴ the work of an external nongovernment organization, Moral Re-Armament (MRA), in the moral rebuilding of postwar Japan. In a June 1948 Time article, Paul Hoffman (administrator of the Marshall Plan) described MRA’s role as giving the world “the ideological counterpart of the Marshall Plan.”Footnote ⁵ Others have documented the importance of many other factors, such as the allied occupation, the growth of the managerial enterprise,Footnote ⁶ quality movement, and eventually the national focus on exports. MRA came at the challenge from a vastly different angle, moral development.

MRA’s abundant activities and impact have mostly been lost to history. This article expounds MRA’s substantial but largely forgottenFootnote ⁷ impact on Japan’s transformation to a respected international power: an example of an endogenous nongovernmental influence. Although this article primarily features the story of labor, industrial relations, and business, the success of Japan’s companies in the 1950s was intertwined with national culture and politics. As such, this history cannot be properly told without that important context. Ichiro IshikawaFootnote ⁸ (first president and Chairman of Japanese Federation of Economic Organizations [Keidanren] and later the inaugural chairman of Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers)Footnote ⁹ as one of the top industrial leaders in the country said, “The development of the Japanese economy after the war is said to be due to the strong ties between the political, government, and business worlds, so strong that they are known as the ‘iron triangle.’”Footnote ¹⁰ OkazakiFootnote ¹¹ also demonstrated an important role played by the cooperation of the Ministry of Finance, Japan Development Bank, and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

The Overall Moral and Political Challenge

As noted, the initial postwar challenge for Japan required simply providing basic food and shelter to avoid a humanitarian calamity. After satisfying survival necessities, many observers believed that the larger challenges became the moral and structural reinvigoration of the country. Issues included strong pressure for communism within much of Japan, reindustrialization of the nation, escalation of conflict between unions and management,Footnote ¹² and reconciliation and integration with formerly occupied or invaded countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. By 1949, Japan experienced “a surge of labour institutional creativity”Footnote ¹³ with over 34,000 new unions and nearly seven million new union workers, half of whom maintained affiliation with the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan [Sohyo]. As a left-wing organization, Sohyo supported “sympathy for the pro-Soviet global labour camp” until political exigencies prevented it from joining its prior organization, the World Federation of Trade Unions.Footnote ¹⁴

It was with this backdrop that MRA went to work. Some Japanese leaders became familiar with how MRA had been instrumental in establishing Germany’s moral foundation, overcoming the communist challenge,Footnote ¹⁵ helping to create the country’s economic resurgence, and reconciling with international neighbors, particularly France. The importance of the support offered by key Japanese political leaders to MRA cannot be overemphasized. It is unlikely, though, that the motivation of the prime ministers, chief executive officers (CEOs), and union leaders was solely an interest in increasing the morality of the Japanese. For example, Hofmann (Reference Hofmann2021) noted, “whether it was Nakasone’s believe in state power through remilitarization, Hatoyama’s desire for national harmony, or Kishi’s emphasis on a new Japan-centered regionalism, they found in the political language of MRA a register to reconfigure prewar principles as postwar values, updated to safeguard democracy from the Left, and a decolonizing Asia from the spread of international communism.”Footnote ¹⁶

Yukihisa Fujita, former Member of Japan’s House of Representatives, former Member of the House of Councillors, and currently on the board of directors of the International MRA Association of Japan, explained how MRA’s principles fit, or not, into Japan’s cultural context, paying particular attention to dynamics such as the role of conflict, compromise, and apology. FujitaFootnote ¹⁷ noted that some of the relevant cultural dynamics date to Prince Shotoku, born in the sixth century. In particular, the Shotoku Constitution stated that harmony should be valued and quarrels avoided. Conflict exposed a failure of the leader. Moreover, in traditional Japanese society, an apology must not be expressed visibly. At the same time, the belief that it is never too late to make amends remained consistent with how Samurai saw “a manly leader.”Footnote ¹⁸ Despite these prevailing cultural norms, in a vacuum of devastation and loss of pride after the war, the Japanese openly welcomed new ways of conflict resolution. Witnessing the dramatic reconciliation between Germany and France, and through humble interaction with MRA Western foreigners, helped both the leaders and common people perceive the new norms of apology and reconciliation that were novel in Japanese culture.Footnote ¹⁹

Fujita also commented on how the Cold War context influenced MRA’s reception in Japan. He noted that the proximity of the Korean peninsula, and its West versus East conflict, challenged the Japanese with the issue of whether communism would be viable for, or thrust upon, them. MRA arrived with Western faces, but the espoused message was not a religion, and their respect for traditional Japanese values made the message of opposition to communism impactful in Japan. Finally, their method of sharing and staging plays and performing songs, some written in Japanese, fit well into Japanese culture.Footnote ²⁰

What Was Moral Re-Armament?

MRA consisted of a group of volunteers committed to following, and spreading to the world, a particular set of principles that The New York Times characterized as “to keep the peace and make it permanent; to make the wealth and work of the world available to all and for the exploitation of none; and with peace and prosperity as our servants and not our masters, to build a new world, create a new culture, bring in a golden age.”Footnote ²¹ No one in the organization ever received wages or a salary. These workers traveled the world, staffing various initiatives as needed. Countless others maintained other employment and supported MRA however they could.

The Oxford Group, MRA’s earlier iteration, was a successful evangelical movement in the late 1920s and 1930s. In 1938, it launched an enlarged program to offer the world a way to address global political crises by calling on all individuals to embrace a change of heart and make themselves available to the larger goal of world-changing. MRA’s birth was marked by an official launch in the cradle of the British labor movement in East Ham, London, on May 29, 1938. Meeting attendance consisted of about 3,000 people, including 26 mayors and chairmen of town councils; workers from factories, docks, and railways; and many who were unemployed. The specter of what would later be called World War II loomed on the horizon. The MRA leaders believed that such a war could be averted if countries reconciled, and they worked very hard toward that end. However, in a little over a year, Germany invaded Poland, and the hope of preventing war died quickly. Still, the name Moral Re-Armament fit for the effort ahead – to foster in the world a stronger moral foundation to match the stronger armament needed to defeat the Axis powers.

From very early in its evolution, MRA developed as a Christian-based endeavor that reached out to and worked with others, regardless of religion, as in the examples of India, Japan, and indigenous peoples. While it maintained a spiritual core, it minimized its focus on the trappings of Christianity and found common ground with non-Christian traditions by emphasizing morality. Its founder, Frank Buchman, articulated his purpose as fostering “a new social order under the control of the spirit of God, making for better human relations, for unselfish cooperation, for cleaner business, clear politics, for the elimination of political, industrial and racial antagonisms.”Footnote ²² From July 1943, Buchman referred to MRA as an ideology. Its dramatically rapid growth was described by the Nazis in a classified report as a formidable enemy, “seldom has any religious revival movement succeeded, as the Oxford Group [MRA’s earlier name] has, in establishing itself in such a relatively short time in almost all the countries in the world.”Footnote ²³

MRA functioned very much like an entrepreneurial organization, quickly pivoting as opportunities arose. In 1941, the group wrote a pamphlet entitled You Can Defend America and later created a revue by the same title. Both soared in popularity as the war effort gathered steam. In the immediate post-World War II world, MRA started working on reconciliation in Germany before Japan, and its success there inspired many Japanese leaders, thereby increasing its influence once the war ended. This article will illustrate and elucidate several MRA practices and philosophies.

Methodology

This study employs historical archival research methods centered on the postwar period during and after the occupation to investigate the influence of moral development on Japan’s economic development through the lens of business practices, government policies, and union activities. Specific attention is given to studying the MRA movement as a catalyst for ethical transformation across Japanese institutions during this formative time.

Primary data for this study were collected from four major repositories: (1) the Nippon Times Archives with extensive coverage of MRA activities during the postwar period, (2) MRA’s For a New World Archives containing records of MRA’s activities worldwide, (3) the US Library of Congress Archives with a generous section for various sources of MRA’s activities, including personal letters and photographs, (4) US Congressional Records with statements by Japanese Diet members. Additionally, contemporary Japanese business periodicals were consulted, including the Journal of Economics [Keizai Bunka], and recent personal communications with Y. Fujita provided important contextual insights into historical interpretation. Special attention was given to Japanese primary sources (i.e., The Nippon Times) to prioritize Japanese perspectives over Western interpretations, including Tamai’s “A Note on the Origin of Social Security in Japan; History of Forgotten Disputes” [日本型社会保障の原型に関する覚え書]. Documents were translated when necessary and organized chronologically to trace the evolution of MRA’s involvement during Japan’s postwar period.

To situate the primary materials within the historical context, scholarly works on business ethics and economic development were consulted. Testimonies were also analyzed in both Japanese and Western media, including extensive coverage in The Nippon Times of MRA activities and key events. This approach is intended to avoid culturally biased evaluations of Japanese business practices to discern the distinctive nature of Japanese moral development. Valuable theoretical framing was provided by Hofmann’s analyses and Dent and Randall’s examinations. The research examined and contextualized cultural traits that enabled the cultivation and development of MRA principles in Japan.

Limitations of this archival approach warrant acknowledgment: archives preserve formal documents, which may present idealized and espoused practices rather than those enacted and tacit. This limitation is addressed by corroborating MRA claims with independent sources (such as The Nippon Times coverage) and critically examining evidence found in secular business publications and governmental records in an effort to maintain a balanced historical assessment. Additionally, as with any historical research, interpretation is influenced by contemporary understanding. To mitigate this retrospective bias, period-specific explanations are prioritized. This approach aligns with the study’s aim to legitimize non-Western perspectives on Japan’s moral development as a factor in its transformation. This methodology seeks to present a balanced analysis that respects historical actors’ perspectives while maintaining scholarly critical distance.

MRA in Prewar Japan

Although this chronicle of MRA in Japan begins postwar, MRA workers previously made meaningful inroads, winning supporters in Japanese society dating to MRA founder Frank Buchman’s first trip to Japan in 1918, in which “he became friends with two of the creators of modern Japan, Baron Morimura and Viscount Shibusawa.”Footnote ²⁴ Takasumi Mitsui (of the powerful merchant and industrialist Mitsui family, of whom Takateru Mitsui was listed as the tenth wealthiest Japanese in 1947 and who donated a Tokyo home to MRAFootnote ²⁵), the Chairman of the Mitsui Foundation,Footnote ²⁶ studied earlier at Oxford University and became an MRA adherent then. In 1939, Mitsui delivered a series of lectures about MRA to business clubs in Japan, including to 200 Mitsui executives. In 1935, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kensuke Horinouchi met Basil Entwistle, who later lived in Japan for most of the 1950s, leading MRA work. Entwistle convinced Horinouchi and his wife to embrace the MRA principles.Footnote ²⁷ Toyotane and Tokiko Sohma (former viscount, physician, and women’s rights leader, respectively) previously engaged with MRA. They had travelled throughout Europe with an international MRA team.Footnote ²⁸

The First Formal Postwar MRA Conference

Around 1948, MRA activity in Japan increased substantially. At a time when SCAP prevented nearly all international travel, thirty US congressmen and others on MacArthur’s staff engaged in protracted negotiations, ultimately arranging for nine prominent Japanese to attend the tenth World Assembly of Moral Re-Armament conference in Riverside, California, USA.Footnote ²⁹ They were invited by over eighty US senators and members of the House of Representatives.Footnote ³⁰ At this meeting, Dr. Chen Li-fu, Vice President of the Legislative Yuan of China, showed how MRA applied beyond its Christian beginnings, “If Confucius were alive today he would [be] an ardent supporter … Moral Re-Armament is the foundation of Chinese social life … [it is] substantially what Gen. Chiang Kai-shek implied in his New Life movement for China in 1934.”Footnote ³¹ The Japanese saw that although MRA began as a Christian evangelical organization, its mission had adapted, now transcending religion. They also joined with an estimated 15,000 people who viewed the MRA musical revue The Good Road in the Hollywood Bowl and heard about MRA’s efforts in nearly 20 countries.

MRA and Theater

MRA extensively used plays, revues, and movies (such as the aforementioned The Good Road and You Can Defend America) to facilitate change in people’s mindsets.Footnote ³² Walt Disney described an MRA production as “the happiest, most hard-hitting way of saying what America is all about that I have ever seen or heard.”Footnote ³³ The use of theatrical performances was central to MRA’s approach. Scores of people have testified that the viewing of the plays alone caused them to make dramatic changes in their lives, demonstrating the critical importance of plays in fostering MRA principles. For example, in February 1955, two dozen of Japan’s top industrialists led by Taizo Ishizaka (President of Tokyo Shibaura/Toshiba, Chairman of the National Productivity Council, and later Ishikawa’s successor as Chairman of the Japanese Federation of Economic Organizations [Keidanren]) previewed the play The Boss as discussed below. MRA plays “had an easily discernible moral or religious message. The idea was that audiences might be awakened by drama in a way that direct preaching could not achieve.”Footnote ³⁴ The Boss had that effect on several men in the room who had tears on their faces, and they decided to stage more performances. Each night, a different national leader introduced the play.Footnote ³⁵

The World Assembly for Moral Re-Armament at Caux-sur-Montreux, 1949

In summer 1949, a delegation of Japanese attended The World Assembly for Moral Re-Armament in Caux, Switzerland. Once again, their travel had to be personally approved by General MacArthur. Most of these leaders who attended were new to MRA and understood very little of what lay ahead.Footnote ³⁶ Tetsu Katayama (former Prime Minister and current Socialist Party Chairman) led the delegation, accompanied by two reporters from Mainichi Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper at the time. A competing paper, Asahi, commissioned Katayama. This resulted in extensive reporting of the trip as these two papers rivaled for the best coverage. Even though conference attendance exceeded 5,000 people from seventy countries, MRA rolled out the red carpet for the Japanese with their inclusion of “To discover with Japanese leaders the most effective way of rooting democracy in that country and of training inspired leadership to make it work successfully”Footnote ³⁷ as one of the six agenda items. At the end of the meeting, Katayama remarked, “the Moral Rearmament Movement is one of the big things Japan should adopt.”Footnote ³⁸ Here, Japanese leaders grew familiar with MRA’s instrumentality in establishing Germany’s moral foundation and overcoming the communist challenge,Footnote ³⁹ creating the country’s economic resurgence, and reconciling with international neighbors, particularly France.

After attending the conference, the Japanese delegation visited several locations in Germany, Paris, London, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and Seattle before returning home. Likely the first Japanese to visit Germany postwar, they saw MRA’s extensive work underway in the industrial Ruhr Valley. High government officials and industry leaders received the party.

MRA Principles: Apologizing/Confessing

A significant component of the meetings the Japanese delegations attended in 1948 and 1949 included speakers confessing and offering apologies. MRA’s experience had been, not surprisingly, that if people take time to listen to their consciences, they will likely surface and disclose information about their errors in interacting with other people.Footnote ⁴⁰ To elaborate, MRA advocated that if you participate in a relationship that is not ideal, even if you think the other person is 99 percent at fault and you contribute only 1 percent of the fault, approach that person and apologize for your portion. For example, James D. Newton (an MRA volunteer who previously served as a senior executive of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company) frequently told the story of conflict with another executive. Their bitterness trickled down to their hundreds of employees. Although Newton attributed the issues as primarily the other executive’s fault, he nonetheless attempted reconciliation by confessing and apologizing for his perceived 1 percent. Once Newton apologized, his colleague soon reciprocated.Footnote ⁴¹ Adherents reported that almost always (over time), the other party responded and apologized for their role, leading to reconciliation of the relationship. Luttwak and others have reported on the mastery of MRA workers at this technique, using it impactfully, even as it is conveyed as subtle and unobtrusive.Footnote ⁴²

Takasumi Mitsui put this lesson immediately into action. On his way home from the 1949 conference, he and his wife, Hideko, set foot in Burma as the first Japanese since the war. Takasumi Mitsui announced in Rangoon, “I want to apologise for the wrong we have done to the people of Burma” as quoted in a New Times of Burma story entitled “New Framework of Unity through Change: Japanese Business Magnate Stresses Burma-Japan Teamwork.”Footnote ⁴³

In a dramatic demonstration at the next conference described below, Katsuji Nakajima (head of the metal workers’ union) discovered Eiji Suzuki (Osaka police chief) was also in the delegation. Nakajima hated Suzuki passionately because he believed Suzuki used excessive force in policing labor protests. Nakajima spent many sleepless nights at the conference, as the various speakers’ courage and confessions weighed upon his mind. Ultimately, he decided to face Suzuki and admitted that, despite their differences, Nakajima was wrong to hate Suzuki and asked him for forgiveness. The conversation deeply moved both men. The next day, they spoke together from the conference platform and agreed to work toward unity in Japan.

The 1950 ‘Mission to the West’Footnote ⁴⁵

At the suggestion of Prime Minister Katayama and the 1949 Japanese Caux delegation, in February 1950, MRA sent American Ken Twitchell and Englishman Basil Entwistle for an extended period of work in Japan. Subsequently, Entwistle moved his wife and young children to Tokyo for eight years. Many believed that reviving the country’s spirit was critical to the economic recovery of Japan.

Shortly after Twitchell and Entwistle arrived in Tokyo in 1950Footnote ⁴⁶ Shinzo Hamai (Hiroshima’s mayor) asked for a meeting. He explained that his citizens needed to hear the MRA message and hence invited them to Hiroshima. During their five-month stay, they spoke at over fifty lunches and dinners with civic and industrial organizationsFootnote ⁴⁷ that included a meeting with General MacArthur.Footnote ⁴⁸

The Toshiba company extended an invitation that included an extensive tour of the facilities, dinner, and a late evening discussion with the executive team. After the war, the communist party had gained control of many labor unions, including Toshiba. The succeeding aggressive tactics included strikes and violence that nearly bankrupted the company. Ultimately, General MacArthur’s organization and the government intervened to oust the communists from control of the Toshiba union. This happened at companies in many industries. Such coercive intervention by SCAP, though a relief to some workers, contributed to resentment by many others and backfired later when communists were allowed back into union leadership positions. Under the leadership of Toshiba President Taizo Ishizaka, the company began to thrive again.

A few days after the Toshiba visit, Ichiro Ishikawa, one of the key people who helped to establish an MRA home in Tokyo in 1951–1952,Footnote ⁴⁹ invited Twitchell and Entwistle to address a luncheon of top industrialists. The pair traveled to factories and communities in several cities and convinced many to commit to MRA principles and bolstered already supportive MRA followers. As all these Japanese proponents advocated MRA principles, they also assembled the delegation of labor, business, and government leaders willing to leave their work for weeks of Caux-bound travel for the 1950 conference. Before their departure on June 12, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida hosted a luncheon and said to the party, “In 1870 Japanese representatives went to the West and changed the course of Japanese history. This time, Japanese representatives will build a new Japan by going to Caux.”Footnote ⁵⁰ After the conference, Ishizaka said, “The new understanding and unity I found with Japanese labour at the Caux conference would influence greatly the industrial condition of Japan. The whole world is hungry for something new. Nations cannot survive without an ideology which is beyond class and race—the ideology of Caux. I start with change in myself: personal change is the basic foundation for world prosperity and the priority task for an industrialist.”Footnote ⁵¹

Many believed the “Mission to the West” represented the turning point in a new approach to labor-management relations. It received worldwide press and resulted in a forty-seven page booklet describing the events in Caux, Switzerland; Italy; Germany; France; England; and in the United States—New York, Washington, Detroit, Mackinac Island (a second MRA conference), and Los Angeles. Diet Member Chojiro Kuriyama spoke as the first foreign dignitary in the chambers of the US House of Representatives. He offered a deep, heartfelt apology.Footnote ⁵² to which the editors of the Saturday Evening Post, the most widely-read periodical for middle-class Americans, responded, “the idea of a nation admitting that it could be mistaken about anything has a refreshing impact … Already most of us feel somewhat softer toward Japan than we swore on a stack of Bibles we would ever feel. Perhaps even Americans could think up a few past occasions of which it could be safely said, ‘We certainly fouled things up that time.’”Footnote ⁵³

Diet Member Tokutaro Kitamura spoke on the floor of the US Senate and said,

The delegation of about seventy who made this trip included top labor, banking, and industrial leaders; senior Diet members of all parties; seven prefectural governors, and the mayors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Yasuhiro Nakasone (a thirty-two-year-old delegation member) remarked to Entwistle, “I am the youngest Diet Member, and I am going to become Prime Minister,”Footnote ⁵⁵ an office he later achieved.

In each country, leading political and industrial figures hosted the delegation. This included a special audience with Pope Pius XII. A subset of such activities included meeting delegates from forty-seven countries in Caux, Switzerland; Willie Benedens (German union leader); Hans Dütting (employer of 82,000 at the Gelsenkirchen Coal Company); sitting in the box of French President Auriol for the Bastille Day Parade on the Champs-Elyséss; attending a meeting where 1,500 union workers in West Ham, England, packed into a hall designed to accommodate only 900; meeting Trygve Lie (Secretary General of the United Nations in New York City); meeting Congress of Industrial Organizations leader Allan Haywood in Washington and Victor Reuther of the United Automobile Workers in Detroit; and participating in Los Angeles in a special Columbia Broadcasting System national show commemorating the fifth anniversary of the bombardment of Hiroshima. During this broadcast, Yukika Sohma said, “We saw the four standards of Moral Re-Armament—absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love—become the cornerstones of a new world order. We saw that with this new spirit Japan can become reborn and become a nation loved by the rest of the world.”Footnote ⁵⁶

MRA and the Absolute Standards

The four absolute standards mentioned by the speakers above represent one of the core tenets of MRA, that people should live their lives according to absolute honesty, absolute love, absolute unselfishness, and absolute purity. Buchman first extracted these principles from the New Testament of the Christian Bible. As MRA expanded worldwide, the absolutes became locally defined to attain consistency with every major religion, including Confucianism, as Chen Li-fu noted above, plus secular humanism.Footnote ⁵⁷ The standards contribute directly to the importance of asking for forgiveness, as discussed. Absolute honesty also played a critical role in the MRA principle, “make decisions based not on who is right (power and opinion), but what is right (principle and common goals).” This phrase means that it does not matter who one is in terms of status, level, or other dimensions of power. MRA proponents make decisions based on principle rather than power. Of all aspects of MRA’s approach, this commitment likely played the largest role in improving relations between labor and management in industrial settings. As in the earlier example of Newton at Firestone, he and his work colleague agreed to make decisions jointly based on what is right, not who is right. As described below, this standard proved an enormous factor in improving industrial relations in Japan in the 1950s. For example, Nakasone “as a freshman lawmaker in 1951, [in] a 28-page letter to General MacArthur criticizing the occupation, a brazen move at the time,”Footnote ⁵⁸ used the principle of “what is right, not who is right” as his central argument.Footnote ⁵⁹

Consistent MRA World Assembly Attendance by High-Level Japanese

For the next several years, Japan routinely sent major delegations to MRA’s World Assemblies, usually held in Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA and Caux, Switzerland. At the 1951 World Assembly at Mackinac Island, Chojiro Kuriyama read a statement on behalf of Prime Minister Yoshida expressing his strong support of MRA. Katsuji Nakajima reported that in towns with deep MRA penetration, twenty-four previously communist leaders within his Metal Workers’ Union fell in defeat in the most recent election.Footnote ⁶⁰ At the World Assembly for the Reconstruction of Pacific Relations held in Los Angeles, California July 6–16, 1951, Mr. Takahashi (Managing Director of Toshiba) together with Morio Hasegawa (Toshiba’s union chairman) “proposed a new basis of industrial cooperation and pledged themselves to work for ‘what is right’ in their industry.”Footnote ⁶¹

MRA also orchestrated many of the events for the Japanese at the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in September 1951. An ardent MRA advocate, Prime Minister Yoshida led the delegation. Among many meetings arranged by Buchman, the delegation experienced the MRA musical Jotham Valley. Footnote ⁶² At the 1952 Assembly at Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA, representatives from fourteen national parliaments participated. The Japanese delegation included two former cabinet officials, and as a group, they pledged to support the work of MRA by convening and funding (largely from their own salaries) regular MRA meetings in Tokyo. Diet member and former Cabinet member Kanju Kato said, “We are convinced that Moral Re-Armament is the ideology on which both East and West can unite.”Footnote ⁶³

Although the world assemblies typically lasted about two weeks, many specialized meetings (e.g., industrial relations, Korean peninsula) later continued throughout the warmer months at Caux and Mackinac Island. Shunichiro Nakagawa (Mitsubishi Electric Company’s industrial relations manager) traveled directly from such meetings in Mackinac to those in Caux. He told the audience of the healing he experienced at Mackinac from the hatred he harbored over the death of his wife and daughter due to the atom bomb. He said, “As we face the problems of world labour and the conflict of ideologies, I know that only Moral Re-Armament will be able to solve them.”Footnote ⁶⁴

MRA Full-Time Workers and the MRA House

Once the Entwistle family arrived in Japan in November 1951, local activity accelerated in earnest. They were greatly encouraged by Hideko and Takasumi Mitsui (who had worked closely with the movement since their days at Oxford in the 1930s), Yasutane and Yukika Sohma (whose previous work with MRA had also resulted in commitment to full-time service), and Shidzue KatoFootnote ⁶⁵ (part of the delegation that signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty).

Even in 1951, it still proved difficult to find housing for extra people in Japan. As a testament to the high level at which MRA worked, Toshiba President Ishizaka housed an MRA worker in his home. Other full-time MRA workers included Don LibbyFootnote ⁶⁶ (an American who spoke Japanese and Chinese) who lived with National Railways board member Yoshinobu Kataoka;Footnote ⁶⁷ Mas Mitani (fluent in English and Japanese); Roland Harker (who taught in Japan for several years prior); Toyotane (Yasutane’s brother); and Tokiko Sohma, Toneko Kimura, Katsuji Nakajima, and Hideo Nakajima (no relation to Katsuji). For years, this group of people worked, ate, and often lived together once the Japanese acquired an MRA home in 1952.Footnote ⁶⁸ Norwegian Jens Wilhelmsen arrived in 1953 and stayed five years.Footnote ⁶⁹ Notably unusual for Japan at that time, this MRA team spanned age, wealth, and class distinctions. The Sohmas were aristocrats, K. Nakajima served as a young labor leader with the All Japan Metal Workers Union, H. Nakajima toiled as the son of a poor farmer, and Toyotane Sohma worked as a physician.

Other MRA supporters made brief trips to Japan. For example, Republican US Senator Alexander Smith traveled to Japan with his Democrat counterpart on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Sparkman. In addition to official business, Smith (father-in-law to the aforementioned Twitchell) attended a dinner in the MRA house with several Japanese leaders including Chikao Honda (President of the Mainichi newspaper), Hisato Ichimada (Governor of the Bank of Japan), and Hitoshi Kubo (National Chairman of the Telecommunications Workers Union), with the purpose of advancing MRA’s mission in Japan.

After the ‘Mission to the West’

As noted above, this trip made a splash worldwide and garnered support at home for a different reason: primarily that the delegation included members of political parties normally at odds with each other. They returned from their travels in unity on several issues. For example, even within the same socialist party, Satoko Togano of the Diet Lower House and Shidzue Kato of the Upper House often battled in opposition. At the MRA conferences, they developed into “dear friends and uniters of their party at critical times.”Footnote ⁷⁰ After a later meeting, Takeichi Aono (“a Left-Wing Socialist Party member” of the Diet) remarked, “This is the first time in my life that I have seen capitalists, labor leaders, representatives of all races, classes and creeds living together in a true atmosphere of unity.”Footnote ⁷¹ MRA pointedly recruited politicians of all parties in Japan and elsewhere in the world where they worked.

The seven Diet politicians spoke at companies and other organizations throughout the country, often in conjunction with a political counterpart. Future Prime Minister Nakasone “spoke on the average three times a day and within three months of his return had addressed audiences of some 50,000.”Footnote ⁷²

Nakajima joined with his new friend, Suzuki, and worked with Toshiba at the invitation of President Ishizaka. They assisted greatly in fostering teamwork between union workers and management. The Telecommunications part of the government and National Railways, both of whose unions remained heavily influenced by communists at the time, asked people with MRA training to work with them. The latter union become so inculcated with MRA principles beginning in late 1951 that by 1956 “National Railways became linked with Moral Re-Armament in the minds of thousands of Japanese.”Footnote ⁷³ National Railways hosted monthly meetings on MRA principles in its headquarters,Footnote ⁷⁴ and board member Yoshinobu Kataoka established himself as instrumental in MRA work.

Another important intervention occurred when MRA workers spoke to the presidents and top executives of the Electrical Manufacturers Association, including its four largest companies: Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and Fuji. The Nikkeiren Times published the following account: “Post-war Japan has suffered economic and moral confusion, which has led our labour-management relationships down a wrong path. … the MRA ideology to labour-management relations will affect the increase of production and job security … A big idea – Communism – … has brought a great loss to the world through division and strife. What can answer a vital ideology of either left or right, which might sway a nation? Moral Re-Armament is the answering ideology.”Footnote ⁷⁵ Subsequently, top union leaders and top executives of companies such as Mitsubishi and Toshiba started meeting on a topic other than negotiation for the first time.

For Toshiba, a breakthrough started at the Caux World Assembly in the summer of 1953, themed “Teamwork in Industry.” Etsuro Yamamura (union head) and Ryozaburo Kawahara (industrial chief) reconciled at the conference and then returned to Tokyo, where they testified publicly about their commitment to negotiating the current wage dispute using the principles of MRA.Footnote ⁷⁶ Industrial relations suffered so badly that they had failed to agree on a formal contract for years. The impact was immediate when they reached an agreed-upon contract one day before a strike deadline. One plant running enormous deficits was slated to close but quickly turned around, achieving profitability. Yamamura and Kawahara then spoke about their collaboration and spirit at an industrial conference in Japan and to companies such as Toyo Rayon, the Mitsui and Hitachi Shipyards, Yawata Steel, and Ishikawajima Shipbuilding. In the latter, Union President Renzo Yanagisawa persuaded Company President Toshiwo Doko to open the books to the union, an unheard-of idea at the time. Doko agreed, and the company transformed as a result.Footnote ⁷⁷

German Coal Mine Union Leader and Former Communist Arrives in Japan

Arguably, MRA’s initial entrance into postwar Japan influenced businesses and political leaders more than unions. This changed in the fall of 1953 when Max Bladeck, a German coal mine union leader, arrived in Japan on six months’ leave from his position. Bladeck, with MRA workers Jens Wilhelmsen and Frowin Junker (a former member of the Nazi youth), traveled throughout Japan, primarily meeting with unions and their leadership. They spent time with the leaders of the National Railways Workers Union, Heavy Electrical Manufacturers’ Association, Paper and Pulp Manufacturers’ Association, Toshiba,Footnote ⁷⁸ and many other organizations. The governors of all prefectures invited them to address a conference they attended.Footnote ⁷⁹ They met with the seamen’s union, the chemical worker’s union, the post and telecommunications workers’ union, the metalworkers’ union, the railway workers’ union, the coal miners’ union, and the three trade union federations: Sohyo (Japan’s largest, headed by a self-professed MarxistFootnote ⁸⁰), Domei, and Dokuritsuroren. They still addressed executives at companies such as Hitachi and Mitsubishi and spoke to the top leadership of the National Rural Police.Footnote ⁸¹ Down to the individual officer level, there existed no sense of unity but “many people groping in the dark.”Footnote ⁸² Bladeck was an expert on Marxism and straightforwardly skewered its shortcomings when speaking with communists. George Eastman (a wealthy American business owner)Footnote ⁸³ joined Bladeck, enthralling many Japanese who saw a capitalist and a union leader (and former communist) advocating for the same life philosophy. Their surprise mimicked their experience when Japanese politicians from opposing political parties embraced MRA, suddenly collaborating. Bladeck and Eastman led training sessions at companies such as International Telephone and Telegraph, Hitachi Shipbuilding, Mitsui Coal Mining, Mitsubishi Electric, and Ishikawajima Shipbuilding.Footnote ⁸⁴

Japanese MRA Philosophy Grows

Contemporaneously, several young Japanese union leaders became regular weekly visitors to the MRA House.Footnote ⁸⁵ These union leaders of the coal miners, national railway workers, telecommunications workers, postal workers, and chemical workers all won seats in the Upper House of the Diet and opposed the conservatives in power, but did it respectfully and did not implement the extreme and violent approaches preferred by some of their left-wing colleagues.

In May 1954, business leaders, including the heads of Fuji Spinning Company, Nippon Express, Toyo Rayon, Mitsukoshi Department Store, Toshiba, and Bank of Japan, met in the Bank of Japan guest house to further MRA principles. Later that year, five union leaders and former Marxists (Yanagisawa, Ishikawajima Shipyards: Yokokawa, Postal Workers; Yamamura, Heavy Electric Workers; Suzuki, Telecommunications Workers; and Yamahana Chemical Workers) met. They planned a two-day MRA labor conference in Atami Hot Springs, scheduled for January 1955, with the agenda of changing the voiceFootnote ⁸⁶ of Sohyo’s organized labor federation from combativeness to national unityFootnote ⁸⁷ while still accomplishing the objectives of union workers. Attending the conference included union leaders representing over one million employees, as well as six socialist Diet officials.

The summer of 1954 brought another dramatic unifying step for Japan. As recorded by Shinichi Hasegawa, Associate Editor of The Nippon Times:

By the end of 1954, many Japanese, including some in Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida’s cabinet, became disenchanted with his leadership. Several Diet officials fled from his Liberal Party to the new Democratic Party. Consequently, Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama replaced Yoshida on December 10, 1954. That month his finance minister, Hisato Ichimada, signaled the new administration’s support for MRA by saying, “We are convinced the spirit of Moral Rearmament is gradually permeating the life of our country … We pledge ourselves to fight with a fresh illumination which shall come to Japanese political life by making the ideology of Moral Rearmament the basis of our policy.”Footnote ⁸⁹

The Statesmen’s Mission and The Vanishing Island

Another important MRA foray, “The Statesmen’s Mission,” arrived in June 1955, with a contingent of 180 people from twenty-five countries (including Denmark, Iran, Tunisia, Nigeria, and Switzerland). They visited Japan for ten days before visiting other Asian countries. Many in the group staged the play The Vanishing Island, that

On June 15 at his home, Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama hosted this delegation, union and business leaders, and many in the Diet. Hatoyama concluded that the play drew “closer the bonds of friendship between the East and the West”Footnote ⁹⁶ and said of the visit, “This has been the most memorable moment of my life.”Footnote ⁹⁷ Upper House President Yahachi Kawai spoke of his highest priority to apply MRA principles in rebuilding Japan.Footnote ⁹⁸ The invitation for the visit resulted in “longtime bitterly rival factions … joining in a drive to enlist the country in moral rearmament [including] industrial leaders and chiefs of five top labor unions [and] the four major political parties – two Socialist and two Conservative.”Footnote ⁹⁹ The President and Speaker of the two Diet Houses each hosted receptions, as did Governor Araki of the Bank of Japan.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Although The Vanishing Island was well received in Japan, it cost MRA support in the US State Department, which then began to oppose MRA at every turn. Since the play was not pro-Western or pro-capitalist, “a senior staff member’s report [concluded] that the MRA production ‘ridicules the Free World ideals and institutions, such as freedom (portrayed as license and self-indulgence), liberty (a meaningless chant), elections (as a means to avoid responsibility), free enterprise (grasping for endless profits), and so on.”Footnote ¹⁰¹

After the visit to Japan, Yukika Sohma, Kanju Kato, Niro Hoshijima, and Katsuji Nakajima accompanied the delegation to other Asian countries such as Taiwan and the Philippines, notably a courageous action because of the hatred those countries felt toward the Japanese. One night, as the play closed in Manila, Hoshijima spoke from the stage. At the sight of him, many in the audience grew loud and menacing. However, Sohma quickly translated through tears, “We must humbly apologize for the past … Please forgive us. Moral Re-Armament is already building a new Japan, and with Moral Re-Armament all Asia can unite.”Footnote ¹⁰² Anton Philips listened from the audience and reported the Filipino response was overwhelming.Footnote ¹⁰³ The next day, they apologized to President Magsaysay, resulting in a larger contingent from Japan headed by Prime Minister Kishi visiting the Philippines in 1957 to express their regret.

At the time, Japan endured widespread isolation from the rest of Asia, and efforts to rebuild regional ties mostly failed. Yet, Japan’s economy and its future depended on substantial levels of trade. The desire for trade and the slow progress of reconciliation influenced the emergence of MRA in diplomatic efforts. Many saw that MRA’s overarching doctrine and reputation promoted harmony and reconciliation at all levels, whether family, work, or nation. Furthermore, MRA maintained adherents and networks across the globe who could be tapped for assistance, as well as evidence from other previous examples of national reconciliation, such as that of France and Germany. By late 1956, Deputy Prime Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu encouraged Prime Minister Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia that “Moral Re-Armament is an essential factor in the new Asian Unity” and can bring a “uniting ideology to North Africa.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴

Japan’s next leader, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, well understood MRA’s strengths, and he placed people with MRA connections in his administration. Active MRA members such as Niro Hoshijima and Hisato Ichimada (ex-Governor of the Bank of Japan) also served him as advisors and unofficial diplomats. The first instance of Kishi’s linkage to MRA for diplomacy occurred in 1957 at an MRA conference in the Philippines. Organized by the Japanese and Filipino MRA branches, it was intended to serve as an unofficial forum for Asia and Japan to address grievances.Footnote ¹⁰⁵

The Seinendan and The Road to Tomorrow

Also in 1957, 110 leaders of the Japanese Youth Federation [Seinendan] (with 4.3 million members) received competing invitations to visit either Moscow or MRA in Mackinac Island. They voted to accept MRA’s invitation and decline Moscow’s,Footnote ¹⁰⁶ thereby dealing a decisive blow to communism. While there, they wrote the play The Road to Tomorrow [Asu e no michi] (primarily by Yoshinori Yamamoto), and within days they staged it several times in the United States. After returning to Japan, they showed it to many unions in copper mines, coalfields, and shipyards, and companies such as Hitachi Shipyards and National Railways.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ The Road to Tomorrow “tells the story of a farming family who receive a letter from their son overseas, apologising for wrongs he has done them. The letter triggers a chain reaction in the village, from the poor farmer who admits that he has stolen water to old enemies who bury the hatchet. The play was so simple and genuine that the audiences felt that they were a part of the inner life of the village.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸ The Philippines’ President sent an emissary to speak after the performance at the Imperial Hotel Theater.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

At early performances just north of Tokyo in Urawa, National Railways Governor Shinji Sogo found himself in the same audience as Isamu Koyanagi, President of the Railway Workers Union. Railway workers had reputations as some of the most militant in Japan, and they launched a strike resulting in a serious accident. Sogo refused to negotiate unless the union leadership turned over, but the union reelected the same leaders. After the play, Sogo said to Koyanagi, “I was like the old dictator father that we have just seen on the stage. Often I have not done all I could to find a solution to the many conflicts that kept us divided. I am sorry.”Footnote ¹¹⁰ Negotiations in good faith restarted the next day.

Following the example of The Boss, union and business leaders performed in many roles. One actor known to be an incredibly shy man was Kichizaemon Sumitomo, head of the third-largest prewar conglomerate in Japan.Footnote ¹¹¹ He previously traveled in Japan, speaking from the same platform as union leader Renzo Yanagisawa and proclaiming, “This is a picture of the new Japan that Moral Re-Armament is creating.”Footnote ¹¹² The Board of Directors learned of Sumitomo’s portrayal in the play and tried to stop it from being shown near headquarters in Osaka. They appealed to Sumitomo that the humiliation of seeing him as a peasant would ruin the reputation of the Sumitomo business and empire. Kichizaemon Sumitomo insisted, and a company director dissolved into tears when he finally saw the play.Footnote ¹¹³ Many in the audience wrote letters to cast members professing that they had now found a great purpose for their lives.

Apologies to the Regional Countries

While unity developed within Japan, there remained great hatred toward Japan from the countries nearby who suffered at the hands of the Japanese before and during the war. By 1957, the Japanese economy outpaced its prewar production but without access to sufficient markets to sell their products. Prime Minister Kishi decided to visit countries in the region—South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand—in an attempt to restore trade. Several of these countries did not have peace treaties with Japan, let alone trade agreements. Reparations persisted as the sticking point. When MRA supporter Senator Kato heard of Kishi’s plan, on behalf of the opposition, she reached out to offer her support. However, she noted this offer was contingent on Kishi agreeing to apologize for Japan’s actions toward these countries before and during the war. He was open to the idea but knew of strong opposition to doing so from the Foreign Office and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

The MRA team, with Senators Kato and Sohma, sprang into action. They began with a time of listening to see what guidance they received. They then developed a plan. Kato would speak to Hoshijima, who previously apologized to the Philippines and now acted as speaker of the house in parliament, maintaining a close allyship with Kishi. Hoshijima relayed to Kishi how the Filipinos refused to listen to anything he said until they realized he was apologizing. Kato and Sohma reached out to an MRA friend, Takizo Matsumoto (Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and friend of Kishi), enlisting him to mute the concerns of government bureaucrats. Senator Kato also arranged to question Kishi when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offering the opposition’s support and strongly advocating for the inclusion of a Japanese apology during the trip as part of her remarks.Footnote ¹¹⁴

Each of these steps worked beautifully, and Matsumoto also provided Kishi a list of MRA supporters in each of the countries with planned visits. The bureaucrats still opposed an apology, but Kishi insisted upon rewriting his speech after they arrived in Manila. Before the stunned Filipino congress, Kishi apologized. This went a long way toward softening their hearts. Australia was the most difficult stop, with the press attacking their own government for allowing a war criminal into the country. Kishi addressed the Australian parliament and offered a humble apology, “It is my official duty, and my personal desire, to express to you and through you to the people of Australia, our heartfelt sorrow for what occurred in the war.”Footnote ¹¹⁵ Kishi expressed feeling that the atmosphere changed immediately from cold hostility to a warmth of trust. When the Australian prime minister proposed a toast to the Emperor of Japan, one member of parliament turned to another who the Japanese imprisoned in Malaya and commented that his friend probably never thought he would be toasting the Japanese. The former prisoner, parliamentarian Les Norman, downed the toast, signaling his forgiveness.Footnote ¹¹⁶

The attitude of the Australian press changed from suspicion to cordiality, and the Sydney Morning Herald editorialized, “We cannot afford the luxury of living in the bitter past. … Kishi handled a delicate mission with skillful tact. His ice-breaking tour … could hardly have been a pleasant experience. But no one could have gone further in making official amends for the sins of his country.”Footnote ¹¹⁷ In Indonesia, Prime Minister Kishi completely settled the long-standing reparations conflict during his visit. On the last day of 1957, Japan and South Korea signed a trade agreement.

The Washington Evening Star commented, “Premier Kishi is now back in Tokyo after having completed one of the most unusual missions ever undertaken by a statesman of his rank. Over the past three weeks he has visited no fewer than nine nations that Japan occupied or threatened with conquest … and in each of these lands he has publicly apologized for his country’s actions during the war.”Footnote ¹¹⁸ On Kishi’s return to Tokyo, he told the press, “I have been impressed by the effectiveness of Moral Re-Armament in creating unity between peoples who have been divided. I have myself experienced the power of honest apology in healing the hurts of the past. This idea is most needed at this critical time in our history.”Footnote ¹¹⁹