LE HAVRE: The American forces should evacuate Japan to insure world peace and threaten her with atomic bombs if she does not behave well, Mr. George Bernard Shaw, patriarchal dramatist and political stormy petrel, told a young American army camp editor who outdid veteran newspapermen by getting the “interview that could not be got”.

“Sitting on a country with a pistol in hand will only waste young peoples’ lives,” the 89-year-old Shaw said. The Irish-born playwright compared Gen. MacArthur’s occupation of Japan with English policy after the Irish rebellion and said: “We shall never have peace unless we respect peoples and countries as equals.” Sharp-tongued as ever, Mr. Shaw said: “America cannot even govern herself — how can she hope to govern other nations?”...

Determined to get an interview with Mr. Shaw, who has a reputation for savagery against the press, Private Wolpert went to Mr. Shaw’s isolated country home by himself. He walked in a side door and stumbled upon Mr. Shaw taking an afternoon nap. Mr. Shaw awoke and chatted with him for half-an-hour before suddenly asking: “How did you get in here anyway?” When Private Wolpert explained, Mr. Shaw hesitated and then laughed and said: “Well, you have crashed the gate. Congratulations.”

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2020