Occupation Hangover The special relationship between the United States and Japan begun during the Occupation entered a new phase with the signing of the Mutual Security Treaty on April 28, 1952, which formally terminated SCAP rule. Officially hailed in Tokyo as ‘fair and generous’, it gave Japan her freedom and stipulated that America provide Japan’s defense. Yet ordinary Japanese, perhaps, found little reason to cheer. Under the terms of the treaty, Japan had been forced to commit herself, reluctantly, to America’s hard anti-Communist stance vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and China and allow the stationing of 120,000 US troops on 150 bases dotting the Japanese isles. The country, in effect, remained occupied, and over the next several years a string of unpleasant occurrences served to remind the people of that fact. In November 1953, a Tokyo pimp drowned after three American soldiers threw him into a central city canal. In a similar incident the following month a Japanese salaryman lost his life.
