Daily News Service in English TOKYO NEWS (Formerly OKUYAMA SERVICE) Nippon Times Bldg. 1, Uchisaiwai-cho 1-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Telephone: Ginza (57) 7983 Publisher & Editor:Issued by Tokyo SEIHEI OKUYAMANews Service, Ltd DAILY PRESS COMMENTS No. 4,689 - B Thursday, February 12,1948 Reading Mr. Keenan's Arguments for Prosecution Asahi Shimbun, February 12,1948 The Tokyo trial entered the phase of final arguments for the prosecution delivered by Chief Prosecutor Joseph B. Keenan yesterday when the 371st session of the International Military Tribunal far the Far East was opened more than 21 months after the trial began. The trial was opened as part of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and the Japanese people, having accepted those terms unconditionally, are in no position to make comments on the proceedings but we must not neglect to derive lessons from them, to make positive efforts to avail of the suggestions they offer and to appraise them calmly in our minds. For they point the way to a Japan transformed from a militaristic past into a nation newly reconstructed on the basis of peace. Mr. Keenan's arguments contain such important points as that the responsibility for the irresponsible militaris¬tic actions of which Japan was guilty since the Manchurian incident of September 18, 1931 lies with their leaders and not the people, that militarism dominated the nation during all those years preceding the Pacific War and that the latter war was one of aggression and not of legitimate self-defense. What we would like to take up here is the first point, that the responsibility for the militaristic actions of Japan lies with their leaders and not the people. It is now a fact not to be denied that throughout the period since the Manchurian incident through the China war to the Pacific War the military clique, which Accused Tojo repudiates, substantially dominated government and dogmatically and exclusively directed the course of