Government by Assassination
By
$3.00
KNOPF
HUGH BYAS, a Scotchman who served for many years in Tokyo as correspondent for the New York Times and the Times of London, is as far removed as any human being could be from the sensational journalist of Hollywood and fiction. But the authentic stories in this book of actual and planned murder, carried out from alleged patriotic motives, would whet the imagination of the most hardened writer of detective stories.
There was the “incident” of May 15, when naval cadets penetrated into the official residence of the Premier, Tsuyoshi Inukai, and shot him down. There was the more formidable “incident” of February 26, 1636, when Tokyo woke up to find several high officials murdered, others in hiding, and the central part of the city in the hands of two mutinous regiments. And there was the bizarre case of the Shimpeitai, or God-sent Troop, when a businessman threatened with bankruptcy financed some assassination by nationalist fanatics to try to start, a bear movement on the Tokyo stock exchange.
The author’s views on a Far Eastern settlement are based on many years of experience and study and deserve careful attention.
W. H. C.