ABSTRACT
Very different views on the value of language reform during the Occupation of Japan were held by two members of the Education Division, Civil Information and Education Division (CIE), Supreme Commander for Allied Personnel (SCAP). One of them, Robert King Hall, believed a radical language reform that would replace kanji(Chinese characters) with romaji (roman letters) was absolutely essential to Japan's democratization and cultural survival. He ended a lengthy chapter on the subject with the forceful conclusion that:
In any battle plan there must be a final choice of alternatives . . . Japanese themselves must make this final election. But if they be thoughtful, they can only arrive at one solution. Japan has available against the attrition of ignorance and the encroachment of nationalistic conservatism one of the most subtle and yet powerful allies of democracy — a phonemic writing system (Hall 1949: 401).
