Governments have made plenty of outrageous requests of their citizens, but few are as remarkable as what the Japanese Government secretly requested of tens of thousands of Japanese women 50 years ago.
Six days after Japan's surrender in World War II, the Cabinet met in the Prime Minister's residence to discuss "urgent measures" that had nothing to do with the atomic bombings or the millions of homeless people or similar national crises.
Instead, the Cabinet struggled with how to sate the libido of American "sex-starved soldiers. Fearing that the Americans occupying Japan would behave as Japanese troops sometimes had overseas, raping any woman in sight, the Government quietly set up a front organization to establish brothels, and asked patriotic Japanese women to sacrifice themselves as "comfort women" for the Americans.
After two frantic weeks, using Government help to obtain futons, scarce in war-devastated Tokyo, Mr. Suzuki had turned the restaurant into a brothel with 30 women supplied by the Government.
The charge to the soldier only Americans were admitted was the equivalent of eight cents, and that included a bottle of beer.
