A former officer of the GHQ of the Allied Forces who helped draft Japan's postwar Constitution suggested Tuesday that the nation's possession of armed forces and their roles be clearly written down in the supreme law.
Richard Poole, 81, and two other former GHQ officials -- Beate Shirota Gordon, 76, and Milton Esman, 81 -- were invited to the day's session of the Upper House research panel on the Constitution as guest speakers to shed some light on how the drafting process took place.
During the session, Poole claimed that Article 9 of the Constitution, which says Japan will "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes," now needs to match reality.