At 7 p.m. on Oct. 11, 1946, it was quiet in The Japan Times newsroom in central Tokyo. The deadline for the next day's first edition had passed, and day-shift editors were ready to pack up and leave. Then, with no prior warning, a surprise visitor appeared in their midst.
Escorted by two U.S. military policemen, Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, head of the General Headquarters' Civil Intelligence Section, was looking for the editor in charge.
Willoughby had been met at the door by shipping department staffers, who had asked "what kind of trouble" the newspaper was in with the GHQ authorities. Tsunejiro Amagata, chief copy editor at the newspaper and liaison officer for the GHQ's censorship procedure, had already gone home.