PART III
JAPAN'S SEARCH FOR STABILITY

The thirty months from April 1946 to October 1948 were a long plateau with virtually no signs that Japan would reach the high ground of political stability and economic growth. The main cornerstones of the SCAP reform program had already been set; it was up to the Japanese to rebuild their institutions on the foundation that had been laid. They would have to find leaders of a new mold, men—and women, MacArthur hoped—who could cope with the mountain of economic troubles the nation faced: the food shortages, unemployment, racing inflation, lack of raw materials, and cutoff of foreign trade.

The Japanese slowly started to come back to life. An early sign was their vigorous election for a new lower house. When MacArthur rejected the man who was sure to be elected prime minister, Yoshida Shigeru emerged from obscurity to take over the government, even though he lacked both experience and a political base. Moving energetically, he created overwhelming support for the new constitution and the legislation to implement it. Another exception to the postsurrender lethargy, called kyodatsu by the Japanese, was the surging labor movement. Workers, particularly in the government employee unions, made up the most dynamic political force in Japan throughout the occupation. Labor showed its strength even before Yoshida took office in May 1946, and by the end of 1946 it was planning a general strike that could have threatened the security of the occupation and the stability of the government. At the last minute MacArthur prohibited the strike. Some critics, both American and Japanese, have claimed that at that moment

the occupation turned away from liberalism and reform. Eighteen months later MacArthur reinforced this impression by denying government workers the right to collective bargaining as well as the right to strike. Yoshida and the conservatives welcomed these steps.

MacArthur directed that a new election be held in 1947, and Yoshida resigned in May. Following an election that produced no clear winner, Japan experimented with two different governments. Both were coalitions, the first headed by a socialist and the second by a conservative. Despite SCAP's preference for the social democratic approach, the right and left wings of the Socialist Party found their differences irreconcilable. A huge bribery scandal in late 1948 put an end to moderate coalition government.

Political instability deepened. Three different prime ministers—a conservative, a socialist and a middle-of-the-roader—had all tried to get the nation going. But none was able to stabilize the political situation or gain much support from the people. MacArthur's grip as supreme commander did not weaken, but his attention wandered for a time as he looked toward Washington and saw visions of high public office.

Chapter 8
The Emergence of Yoshida Shigeru

The most important political action Japan took after its surrender was to elect a new lower house on April 10, 1946. The FEC, worried that an early election would "give a decisive advantage to the reactionary parties," asked MacArthur if he shared this concern. He countered that "the new Diet will be the most truly responsive body to the will of the people that has ever served Japan and will provide the basis for a much more representative cabinet."^[1]

Because the Allies had agreed at Potsdam that Japan would consist of the four main islands, with minor islands to be determined later, it became necessary to define Japan's territory for electoral purposes. After consulting Washington, SCAP issued an order on January 29, 1946, that for electoral purposes Japan would exclude the Bonin Islands and the Ryukyu Islands to the south and the Kurile Islands, the Habomai Islands, and Shikotan Island to the north. The denial of Japanese administrative rights in these areas, even with the caveat that this action was not definitive, seemed to weaken Japan's chances of getting them back. Korea was also separated from Japan by MacArthur's order but remained under his supervision for U.S. military purposes until American forces were withdrawn in 1949.^[2]

As the election neared, it was evident that the dominant political figure was Hatoyama Ichiro, the founder of the Liberal Party, who had a mixed record of cooperation with nationalist elements in the prewar period. Yoshida Shigeru was not a candidate and no doubt anticipated that his short spell as a cabinet minister was about to end. The socialists

seemed to promise real change, but their leader, Katayama Tetsu, was an unknown quantity dealing with a turbulent and divided party. The Communist Party had several active and popular leaders, notably the intellectual Nosaka Sanzo, who returned to Japan in January 1946 after a long exile in China, where he had worked with communist leaders, and the dynamic Tokuda Kyuichi, who had spent seventeen years in prison. Then as now the Communist Party was more unified in its policies than the other large parties. Most Japanese, however, remained highly suspicious of communism and the Soviet shadow.

More than 3,000 candidates ran for the 466 seats in the House of Representatives. The electorate of 37 million voters, consisting of all adult men and women, was far larger than in any previous election. Voter turnout was high, with 73 percent of those eligible voting. It was a fair and orderly election. Hatoyama's Liberal Party, which won 140 seats, received a distinct plurality. The Progressive Party won 93 seats; the Socialists, 92; and the small People's Cooperative Party, 14. The Communists won 5 seats, with 3.8 percent of the votes.

The right-of-center parties had thus obtained 246 seats, more than 50 percent of the total. Most of the independents and minor party figures were also conservative, making the final result a distinctly conservative victory. Thirty-nine women were elected, the record for Japan's entire postwar period. Some said that so many women were elected because voters, who could vote for three candidates, gave them a "courtesy vote" as the second or third choice on their ballots. Three hundred seventy-five members of the new house were elected for the first time. The results seemed in an indirect way to affirm support for the new constitution because the communists, who provided the only vocal opposition to the charter, did very poorly. On April 25 MacArthur issued a lengthy press statement asserting that democracy had registered "a healthy forward advance." He said nothing about the constitution.^[3]

The two most dramatic political events of the entire occupation—the purge of Hatoyama and the emergence of Yoshida—occurred in the aftermath of the elections. Widely recognized as Japan's most skilled politician, Hatoyama came out of the election as the leading candidate for prime minister. Sixty-three years old, he was an affable man who was on good terms with all political groups in postwar Japan except the communists. Although his record had been screened and cleared by the Japanese before the election, he soon became the target of intense press interest and suspicion.

On election day the Civil Intelligence Section (CIS) of SCAP asked Japanese officials to provide more details about Hatoyama's prewar activities, in particular his 1933 order as education minister dismissing a Kyoto University professor accused of "leftist leanings" and his authorship of The Face of the World , a report by Hatoyama on a trip to Europe in 1938 that made several favorable allusions to Hitler, Mussolini, and the way the Nazis controlled the labor movement in Germany. CIS intimated to the Japanese that if they did not take action on Hatoyama, the occupation would issue an order that would cause them to "lose face."^[4] Hatoyama's confidence was not shaken. His friend Yoshida, who had had some experience dealing with SCAP purge orders, advised him that an explanation about his book might end the matter.

The Japanese began to get nervous, however, and the cabinet decided to seek SCAP approval for Hatoyama's nomination as prime minister. When informal soundings did not work, Yoshida wrote a letter to MacArthur on May 4 stating that Shidehara intended to "recommend to the Throne that Mr. Hatoyama be empowered to form a new cabinet." Whitney replied at once that a directive had already been issued covering this subject. SCAPIN 919, a two-page order, directed the Japanese government to purge Hatoyama because the supreme commander found that he was an "undesirable person" who had "denounced or contributed to the seizure of opponents of the militaristic regime." The order cited a number of specific actions.^[5]

Yoshida later wrote in his memoirs that the purge of Hatoyama "came as a complete surprise to me." Actually he was aware weeks before the purge that Hatoyama was suspect. Yoshida surmised that officials in the Foreign Office were conniving with SCAP officers to bring about Hatoyama's downfall. Yoshida used this opportunity to banish a promising young diplomat, Sone Eki, to a central liaison post in remote Kyushu. Sone, one of the most talented and liberal men in the Japanese government, later resigned and became an important member of the Japan Socialist Party and the Diet. Yoshida did not stop at this one action; he used what became known as the "Yoshida purge" to transfer or demote officials he did not like, especially young diplomats.^[6]

Yoshida and Hatoyama had known each other well for years. Even before he was purged, Hatoyama thought that if something untoward happened to him, Yoshida could take his place. After receiving the purge order, Hatoyama approached Yoshida about the prime ministership. Yoshida consulted with his family, in particular his father-in-

law, Count Makino, and his daughter, Aso Kazuko, all of whom strongly counseled him to stay out of politics. As his daughter said, he did not have the temperament, the money, or the skill at speech making necessary for a politician. His old friend Shirasu told him he would be "a damned fool" to take the job. Yoshida turned Hatoyama down, saying there were other more suitable candidates.^[7]

The political scene was in turmoil. The liberals were paralyzed by a leadership crisis. The second party, the Progressives, were discredited by Shidehara's ineptness as prime minister and all but shattered by purge losses. The third-ranking party, the Socialists, made a bid for power but lacked the strength and finesse to build a coalition. The crisis was compounded by mass disorders in Tokyo that had begun in early April before the election. Thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets demanding food and calling for the departure of the already resigned Shidehara cabinet.^[8] SCAP dispatched armored cars and jeeps to help disperse the demonstrators.

Shidehara turned again to Yoshida and by a combination of persuasion and trickery got him to accept political office. Yoshida said in his memoirs that "the ending of the political deadlock and stabilization of the situation became an urgent necessity" in view of reports that "Japan had been submerged under a sea of red flags." Yoshida's friends and relatives were taken aback. His dose friend and physician, Dr. Takemi Taro, asked if he was confident he could do the job. Yoshida is reported to have replied, in words that became famous in Japan, "History shows that there can be defeat in war and victory in diplomacy." These words reflected more than anything Yoshida's determination and confidence. According to his daughter, Yoshida felt there was a job to be done and that he could do it better than anyone else.^[9]

At a May 13 meeting with Hatoyama, Yoshida agreed to take over leadership of the Liberal Party on three conditions. First, he would not collect money for the party. Second, he would make all government personnel selections. Third, he could resign whenever he wanted. The two seemed to be in agreement on those conditions. Hatoyama later asserted there was a fourth condition—that Yoshida would give up the post of party president whenever Hatoyama or other leaders in the party asked him to quit. This is hardly a condition that Yoshida would have wanted, but at that time he might have been willing to accept it.^[10] Hatoyama remained a power behind the scenes throughout the occupation, despite SCAP's interdiction of political activity by purgees. Neither Yoshida nor Hatoyama could have had any idea in 1946 how long

the occupation would last or that Yoshida would turn into a resourceful, successful politician who wanted to keep his job.

On May 15 after the deal with Hatoyama had been cut, Yoshida, ever the punctilious diplomat, sent a note to MacArthur saying that Shidehara would propose him to the throne as prime minister and asking for the general's approval. MacArthur penciled a note on Yoshi-da's letter, as he often did on incoming mail, saying, "No objection from SCAP. Best of luck. MacA."^[11] In accordance with the old constitutional procedures, which were still in effect, Yoshida received an imperial order on May 16 to form a cabinet. He formally joined the Liberal Party in May 1946 and became chairman of its executive committee. He was elected party president four months later.

Although new to power and politics, Yoshida was a shrewd observer and quick learner. He realized that as prime minister the key to success was to get along well with MacArthur. For Yoshida and most Japanese MacArthur was the voice of the United States and the Allied powers— an impression MacArthur wanted to convey. In time Yoshida grew confident of his ability to deal with the general and learned that SCAP was a loosely organized headquarters, that MacArthur delegated freely, and that SCAP staff sections often disagreed. The one person who really counted was the man at the top. This, too, was a viewpoint that MacArthur encouraged.^[12] Yoshida came to feel little need to yield on every occasion to MacArthur's subordinates. He even took issue with Whitney and the powerful GS, but he was well aware they had MacArthur's ear and confidence. Yoshida won few bouts, but he kept trying. He also came to relish the art of maneuvering within the loose SCAP setup to get around GS.

The new prime minister's first job was to form a cabinet. He had observed this operation many times as a diplomatic official, and in 1936 he had helped his friend and fellow diplomat Hirota Koki form a government. Yoshida decided to keep the Foreign Office portfolio himself, as he did in all four of his cabinets during the occupation, so that he could personally deal with the occupation forces.^[13] Some said he kept the Foreign Office portfolio so that he could continue to live in the stately residence reserved at that time for the foreign minister, the Aso-ka mansion in Shiba. He had a taste for luxury—nice places to live, good food, expensive cigars, a British sedan, and French brandy—and he was well enough off to pay for these things out of his own pocket.

After some initial soundings, Yoshida concluded that a democratic government should seek to carry out the will of a majority of the elec-

torate but would not be workable if it tried to encompass the views of many disparate elements. He therefore rejected a coalition with the Socialists. This policy has guided the Liberal Party and its successor, the Liberal Democratic Party, for more than forty years. No doubt Yoshida was motivated even more by his strong suspicion of the left wing of the Socialist Party.

Most of Yoshida's choices for the cabinet were conservatives, including Ishibashi Tanzan, editor of the Oriental Economist , as finance minister and Tanaka Kotaro, a professor of law at Tokyo University and a Catholic, as minister of education. Neither was a career politician. Cabinet ministers in Japan, except in the unusual situation right after the war, have almost invariably been career politicians who deal with only a few matters of high policy, notably the budget, and leave most of the decisionmaking to subordinates in the bureaucracy.

Finding a minister of agriculture was Yoshida's hardest task. Nobody wanted the job because the food shortage was the most critical problem Japan faced in the months after the surrender. Rice on the black market was fifteen times the official price. The situation was so desperate that the emperor offered to sell some of his imperial treasures to obtain money for purchase of food abroad. Hearing of this, MacArthur asserted that it was his responsibility to obtain food and that the emperor should keep his jewels.^[14]

The food crisis led to great disorder in the streets of Tokyo and to demonstrations against the government. "Give us rice!" became a rallying cry. Riots broke out around the Diet building, and across the street demonstrators attacked the prime minister's official residence. The crisis peaked during a demonstration on May 19 known as "Food May Day" in which 250,000 demonstrators marched around the imperial plaza. Led by Tokuda, they forced their way into the palace demanding to see the emperor. They broke into the kitchen, ostensibly to see if any luxury items were stored there, and presented a petition detailing their grievances to an official of the imperial household. The police finally took charge of the situation.^[15]

Left-wingers were quick to seize the initiative in the chaotic conditions of postwar Japan. They were often the most experienced and dynamic people in mass movements and labor activities. They thought they had the support of the occupation and of the Allied powers. Indeed, many of them looked upon the occupation forces as a "liberation army" that would join with them in casting out the forces of reaction and liberating the masses. Yoshida wrote in his memoirs that if the

farmers had made common cause with the city crowds in May 1946, the situation would have been serious for the government. He added, however, that the thorough land reform program then getting under way was an important remedy for unrest in the countryside.^[16]

Yoshida had trouble filling the cabinet agriculture portfolio. To add to his burdens, the emperor telephoned Yoshida every evening to ask when he would have a cabinet. Yoshida could only reply, "I am trying." The third man Yoshida approached, Wada Hiroo, a well-known agricultural economist and career official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, accepted the offer after five days of discussions with Yoshida. Although Wada had a record of left-wing activities that aroused considerable suspicion, Yoshida stuck with him, even rejecting Hatoyama's critical advice.^[17]

On May 23 Yoshida was at last able to form a cabinet. An editorial in Asahi on that day asserted that the Yoshida cabinet was like the Shidehara cabinet and that little could be expected of it in advancing Japan's democratic revolution. Mark Gayn of the Chicago Sun lampooned Shidehara and Yoshida as "Tweedledum-san" and "Tweedle-dee-san."^[18]

SCAP did not stand aside during the food crisis. Early in 1946 General MacArthur recommended to Washington that 2.6 million tons of food in rice equivalents be sent to Japan to fill deficiencies and establish a reserve for emergencies. Opposition arose in the FEC to any action that would seem to give Japan better treatment than that received by other needy Asian nations, many of which had suffered at Japan's hands in the war. The commission decided on April 25 that Japan should not receive preferential treatment except for "imports essential immediately for the safety of the occupation forces." On this basis food could be sent to Japan.^[19]

In March and April 1946 the United States provided Japan with 155,000 tons of cereal. In May 1946 former president Herbert Hoover led a food mission to Japan as part of a worldwide survey requested by President Truman. General MacArthur reported to Hoover on May 6 that the food situation in Japan was the worst in thirty years. The general dramatized the situation with a favorite simile: "Japan can only be considered a vast concentration camp under the control of the Allies and foreclosed from all avenues of commerce and trade." Hoover recommended that 870,000 tons of food be sent to Japan. Between May and September 1946, about 600,000 tons of rice equivalents were exported from the United States; this proved to be adequate to stave

off the food crisis. By the summer of 1946 one-quarter of the food being consumed by the Japanese came from Allied sources, including U.S. Army reserve supplies in Japan. SCAP historians estimated that American food aid to Japan in 1946 saved 11 million Japanese from starvation.^[20]

Japan's food problem remained serious for several years. But domestic rice production did begin to improve markedly. Fishing fleets increased in size, and SCAP enlarged their zone of operations in waters off Japan. With the approval of the U.S. government and in spite of much unhappiness in Allied circles, MacArthur authorized a pelagic whaling expedition to Antarctica in 1946, marking the beginning of Japan's intensive whaling activities in the postwar era. By 1948 the food crisis was over. During the postwar years the United States brought in 3.8 million tons of foodstuffs at a cost of $500 million.^[21] U.S. aid, especially food in the early years, had much to do with the receptive Japanese attitude toward the occupation; the carrot was more potent than the stick.

In later years Japanese writers claimed that Yoshida delayed forming his cabinet in May 1946 to put pressure on MacArthur to bring in food. Yoshida reportedly told his associates that when the Americans saw a sea of red flags all over Japan, they would send Japan food. The general is supposed to have called Yoshida to his office in the Dai Ichi building on May 21 and said that "so long as I am Supreme Commander, I will not allow one Japanese to die of starvation."^[22] This naturally elated Yoshida, who told Wada that Yoshida's one condition for forming a. cabinet had been met. This account may well contain several kernels of truth, although nothing in U.S. records substantiates it.

MacArthur was not intimidated by the food demonstrators. On May 20, the day after the huge demonstration in the imperial plaza, he issued a tough statement that "the growing tendency toward mass violence and physical processes of intimidation, under organized leadership, presents a grave menace." If this continued, "I shall be forced to take the necessary steps to control and remedy such a deplorable situation."^[23] His statement was the first sign during the occupation of a strong line against left-wing agitation and violence. It came as a shock to the radicals, who had looked for sympathy from the "liberation army."

Yoshida's next test as prime minister was to navigate the new constitution through the Diet without significant change, as MacArthur and Whitney expected him to do. Although only a "gist" of the new constitution had been made public, the supreme commander said that

"the April election was what I had wanted—a true plebiscite." According to a Japanese study, however, the constitution was only a minor issue in the election, with voters and candidates far more concerned about issues such as food, clothing, and shelter.

The full text of the draft constitution was made public on April 17, 1946, and submitted to the soon-to-expire Privy Council as the first step in obtaining government approval. The Japanese had proposed, and the Americans had agreed, that the new constitution should be written in ordinary Japanese, not in the formal style normally used in legal documents. This has become the standard practice in Japan. To help get the constitution through the Diet, Yoshida appointed a special minister, Kanamori Tokujiro. They spent much of the summer of 1946 answering parliamentary questions by the Privy Council and the two houses of the Diet, which set up special committees to examine the issues. The constitution was finally approved on October 29, 1946, after 109 days of wide-ranging debate.^[24]

The new status of the emperor was the biggest issue in the Diet. Questions elicited a variety of responses. Yoshida agreed with a questioner on June 25 that "the emperor and his subjects are one," that they are "one family." The new prime minister went on, "The national structure of Japan has not been changed by the new constitution." This seemed to mean that the emperor and the people possessed sovereignty together, an interpretation smacking of the old kokutai , where the Japanese people were thought to be one great family with the emperor at its head. Yoshida's view was widely challenged by, among others, President Nambara of Tokyo University, who had just been appointed to the upper house (the House of Peers) to strengthen liberal elements there. Nambara and others argued that the constitution clearly meant that sovereignty resided in the people.^[25] Concepts such as "sovereignty in the people" were evidently confusing to many Japanese, and the idea of one big happy Japanese family was not about to disappear quickly.

The no-war clause came in for much scrutiny. On June 29, in one of the few dramatic interpellations of the entire constitutional debate, Communist leader Nosaka asked Yoshida if Japan should not limit its renunciation only to wars of aggression because war for defense was justifiable. Nosaka added that the causes of war—plutocracy, reactionary politics, feudal land control, bureaucratism—should be uprooted. Nosaka and other questioners shared the view that Japan should join a world federation before it agreed to outlaw war. Many in the Diet seemed to believe in the desirability of abolishing war, but they were

concerned about renunciation by Japan alone. Yoshida replied to Nosa-ka that nations often used the cloak of "defense" to justify war of any sort; by outlawing war in any situation, including war for defense, the new constitution would prohibit this kind of subterfuge.^[26]

The issue, however, remained one in which the Diet showed considerable independence. Ashida Hitoshi, a former diplomat, lawyer, and politician, was chairman of the lower house subcommittee that studied the draft constitution intensively during the summer. His subcommittee proposed a subtle amendment to Article 9 designed to stress Japan's new devotion to international peace.^[27]

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling disputes with other nations.
For the above purpose, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Minister of State Kanamori, who handled constitutional amendments on behalf of the prime minister, evidently thought up this amendment and drafted its wording. The key changes were the introductory phrases inserted at the start of each paragraph, which seemed to limit Japan's renunciation only to war as a means of settling international disputes; war for other sovereign purposes, such as self-defense, would not be prohibited. This change proved to be a Pandora's box. When Ashida proposed it to Kades, he approved it although he realized it meant Japan could use its forces for defense and for purposes other than settling international disputes. Others in GS and many Japanese shared this view, which is now the standard interpretation of amended Article 9. The interpretation is strengthened by general agreement among legal experts that the "right of belligerency" inserted in the constitution at MacArthur's behest is virtually meaningless in international law.^[28] But nothing in Ashida's records, including his detailed diary, throws light on what he had in mind or exactly what his role was.

The Ashida/Kanamori amendment was easily the most far-reaching of any in the constitutional debate of 1946. As interpreted by successive Japanese governments, it spawned a new international concept of a conventional military force that could be used only for defense of the nation's territory but could not have "offensive" weapons and could not engage in collective defense measures, except perhaps inside its own territory. The United States never formally agreed with these limited

interpretations of Article 9, and while recognizing that determining defense policy is Japan's prerogative, the United States has constantly and often vigorously urged Japan to expand greatly its defense power and liberalize its interpretations of Article 9.

A significant amendment with idealistic overtones proposed by the Socialist Party was approved as part of Artide 25 of the constitution: "All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living." This clause has been cited to justify various pieces of progressive legislation.^[29]

Japanese legal experts also used the Diet consideration of the draft constitution to amend several provisions along lines more in keeping with conservative Japanese practice. The most notable was the elimination of earlier SCAP language providing that "aliens shall be entitled to equal protection of the law" and prohibiting any discrimination in social relations on account of "national origin." As amended, the constitution provided in Articles 10 and 14 that the conditions for nationality and guarantee of equal protection applied only to kokumin , or persons of Japanese nationality. Significant protections for aliens, in particular Korean and Chinese minorities, were thus eliminated. One could say, however, that this process of "Japanizing" the constitution, as one Japanese authority called it, facilitated its acceptance by the Japanese people and countered fears that SCAP applied undue pressure.^[30]

GS followed the Diet proceedings closely and sometimes challenged the Japanese on legal interpretations or translation points. The issue of sovereignty gave GS particular concern. Whitney sent MacArthur a memorandum in July complaining about Kanamori's explanation that the constitution would bring no change in kokutai . Whitney's staff was upset that Japanese interpretations of this sort would undermine the new charter. While acknowledging MacArthur's "view that much weasel-worded explanation is offered to persuade the two-thirds majority required" for adoption of the constitution, Whitney was concerned that "the will of the people will be constantly subjugated to the mystic concept of the 'national polity.'" The file copy of this memorandum bears the notation "Read by CINC. No comment." Nevertheless, GS raised the issue of sovereignty with Yoshida, and they quickly agreed on a precise statement in the preamble that "sovereignty rests with the people."^[31]

The occupation authorities satisfied themselves that the new constitution could legally be considered as an amendment to the old one,

thus ensuring legitimacy and preserving continuity from one to the other. In an extensive memorandum on this point, Alfred Oppler, GS's German-born expert on constitutional law, concluded that the emperor possessed unlimited power to initiate constitutional amendments and sanction revisions. Oppler believed that acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration committed Japan to alter its national structure along lines consistent with the declaration.^[32]

The FEC watched the proceedings in Tokyo intently. It had already tilted with MacArthur over its prerogative to pass on the final draft. On May 13, 1946, it decided that the method of adopting the constitution should show that it "affirmatively expresses the free will of the Japanese people." It took heavy pressure from State and Defense to win MacArthur's consent to carry out this directire, which he did on June 21, 1946, in the form of a press release incorporating the words of the FEC policy without, however, making any attribution.^[33] The general showed he was sullen in his attitude toward the FEC but not mutinous.

The FEC made a significant substantive decision on July 2, 1946, when it approved a statement of basic principles that closely followed the U.S. policy paper, SWNCC-228, "Reform of the Japanese Governmental System." Its key provisions for inclusion in the constitution were that sovereign power reside in the people and that a majority of the cabinet members, including the prime minister, be members of the Diet. These changes were inserted in the draft. The FEC policy asserted that "retention of the emperor institution in its present form is not considered consistent with the foregoing general objectives" and enumerated the safeguards that the Japanese would have to apply if they decided to retain the emperor institution. The FEC went along with MacArthur's opposition to releasing this decision to the press on the ground that "the voluntary character of the work now in progress would instantly become clothed with the taint of Allied force."^[34]

The next FEC action, decided on September 25, 1946, reaffirmed that all members of the cabinet should be civilians. It took this action at the urging of the Chinese representative that this position be reaffirmed in light of the adoption of the Ashida amendment to Article 9. MacArthur and the Japanese were unhappy about this decision, which they thought unnecessary because Japan planned to abolish its military. forces. But on the theory that Article 9 might be amended later to permit the establishment of armed forces, the FEC amendment was duly implemented. A new Japanese word for "civilians," bunmin , was invented to capture the right nuance.^[35] No reference to the crime of

treason was included in the draft charter because Japan would have no armed forces and presumably no national secrets to protect.

The final decision by the commission on constitutional issues, on October 17, 1946, specified that between one and two years after the constitution went into effect "the situation with respect to the new constitution should be reviewed by the Diet" and the FEC. MacArthur again opposed publicity, which "would result not only in the collapse of the constitution but would give rise to serious deterioration in the whole Japanese situation."^[36] He informed Yoshida of this decision in January 1947.

Neither the Japanese nor the FEC ever formally reviewed the constitution. Yoshida said later that SCAP had suggested in the summer of 1948 that the Japanese government should review the constitution, but his government had no desire to do so.^[37] The FEC decision formally advising the Japanese that they could review the constitution and even amend it may have mitigated some of the feeling of pressure in Japan. The Diet debate plus FEC interventions resulted in amendment of the preamble and twenty-five articles, the addition of four articles, and the deletion of one, a total of thirty-one changes, beyond a number of minor alterations in wording.^[38]

The enactment of the constitution was Yoshida's greatest achievement during his first term in office. Whatever his initial doubts, he loyally supported the American-made charter. He recognized that "international circumstances" dictated change for his nation. But beyond that he came to believe that new ideas and new institutions could be good for Japan. His advocacy, aided Kanamori and Ashida, erased many of the doubts and frictions that MacArthur and GS had created by their strong-arm methods earlier in the year. The successful launching of the constitution owed much to Yoshida's adroitness.

On October 7 the lower house passed the constitutional revision bill by 342 to 5. The five opponents were all Communists. In the upper house a voice vote was overwhelmingly in favor, with only a few votes of no. The bill thus easily won the required two-thirds vote in favor. The Privy Council mandated its own extinction by approving the bill on October 29 at a session attended by the emperor.^[39]

Only a few days later, on November 3, the constitution was promulgated by the emperor at a large ceremony held in the House of Peers. Both the emperor and the prime minister made statements. According to the emperor, the constitution would enable the nation to establish the "basis of national reconstruction in the universal principles of man-

kind." Yoshida said, "This constitution is indeed one which has been decided by the will of the Japanese people, seeking the reconstruction of their nation on the basis of democratic principles. Moreover, we feel unbounded pride and responsibility in leading the world by our renunciation of war."^[40]

The choice, suggested by Yoshida to MacArthur, of November 3 as the day for promulgation of the constitution was curious because this was the birthday of Emperor Meiji and had been a national holiday for some time. Some in SCAP thought that a day so revered in the old Japan was a poor choice for adoption of a democratic constitution. MacArthur, however, went along with Yoshida's suggestion.

On May 2, 1947, the general wrote the prime minister, "To mark this historic ascendancy of democratic freedom....I believe it particularly appropriate that from henceforth the Japanese national flag be restored to the people of Japan for unrestricted display." Although the flag was not in Japanese eyes the hallowed symbol it was for Americans, this was a welcome gesture.^[41]

On only one occasion since the end of the occupation has the new constitution received searching scrutiny, and that turned out to be not very serious. In 1956 the Diet enacted a bill to set up a commission of distinguished people to recommend possible changes in the 1947 charter. Socialists and leftist parties refused to take part, making dear they thought the operation was a conservative device to undermine the constitution. The commission, consisting of thirty-eight persons including one woman, filed its report in 1964.^[42]

Neither MacArthur nor Yoshida appeared in person, but both filed statements regarding the origins of the constitution. In a letter of December 5, 1958, the general asserted:

A new charter was immediately imperative if the structure of Japanese self-government was to be sustained. The choice was alien military government or autonomous civil government. The pressure for the former by many of the Allied nations was intense, accompanied by many drastic concepts designed to fracture the Japanese nation .... The preservation of the emperor system was my fixed purpose. It was inherent and integral to Japanese political and cultural survival. The vicious efforts to destroy the person of the emperor and thereby abolish the system became one of the most dangerous menaces that threatened the successful rehabilitation of the nation....The suggestion to put an article in the constitution outlawing war was made by Prime Minister Shidehara....Nothing in Article 9 prevents any and all necessary steps necessary for preservation of the safety of the nation. I stated this at the time of the adoption of the constitution.^[43]

This letter illustrated the general's propensity for sweeping statements, historical reinterpretation, and prediction of dire consequences if his views were not accepted.

In a letter dated December 17, 1957, Yoshida said he had believed quick approval of the constitution would help expedite action by the Allies on a peace treaty.^[44] He thought that the no-war clause was MacArthur's idea but that Shidehara probably agreed with it. Yoshida observed that MacArthur had almost religious views about the evils of war. Yoshida stressed that the Diet had been free to discuss the draft charter and make amendments. He noted that occupation authorities had also suggested that the Japanese try the new constitution, see how it worked, and change it if experience showed it was not suitable. Yoshida concluded that from the vantage point of 1957 he saw no reason to change the constitution, even in the respects that had been most discussed, such as Article 9 or the family system.

As part of the final report, twenty-nine members of the commission signed a memorandum concluding in a guarded way that the constitution might not have been adopted on the basis of the free will of the people. As they put it, "In essence, it is clear that the constitution of Japan is the product of a lost war and that it was enacted under the very special circumstances of a military occupation as well as in the very center of the chaotic environment of the people's lives.... It is not too much to say that Japan's future was decided in reality by the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration."^[45] Commission member Nakasone Yasuhiro, then a conservative Diet member from the Liberal Democratic Party, who was a Diet freshman from the Democratic Party in 1947, commented in the report that the liberals and the progressives had agreed to the constitution in 1947 "with deep regret." (Nakasone was prime minister of Japan from 1982 to 1987.)

A majority of the members of the commission favored revision of the constitution in a number of respects, especially Article 9. But the commission made no specific recommendations for change, and the government took no action on the report. In 1985 the Nakasone cabinet did consider some minor modifications in the constitution, but there was little public interest or support. Japanese do not look upon laws and the constitution as having the same fixed and binding quality that Westerners see, and accordingly they do not seem to feel any urgency to amend the constitution, even to correct an apparent contradiction,^[46] as in the case of Article 9 and the existence of military force labeled a "self-defense force."

The 1947 constitution, for all the haste and pressure surrounding its birth, now enjoys almost general acceptance in Japan. It is one of the monuments of the MacArthur-Yoshida era. When the new emperor made his first speech to the nation on January 9, 1989, he pledged to uphold the constitution. His reign had already been designated Heisei, meaning "the achieving of peace."^[47]

Chapter 9
The Second Reform Wave

On September 27, 1946, as the Diet was nearing the end of its debate on the draft constitution, Prime Minister Yoshida wrote a letter to General MacArthur about a report that greatly disturbed him. At a meeting the day before with GS, Japanese liaison officers had been told that "you had informed me that because of many instances of non-compliance by Japanese Government officials with the desires and directives of the general headquarters, you were being forced to consider dealing with problems by issuance of directives instead of by negotiations and discussions and to consider altering occupation policy from 'a soft one to a hard one.'" Yoshida asked the general for clarification.

MacArthur wrote back immediately saying, "There has been no change whatsoever in my position as outlined to you in our recent conversation.... Upon inquiry from the Government Section [I] find that their comments have been completely misinterpreted and misunderstood. This I attribute to language difficulties and welcome your action in seeking immediate clarification with me."^[1] In his memoirs Yoshida included a brief recollection of this episode by his chief liaison officer, Shirasu, to the effect that GS "was merely playing games." The Japanese obviously drew wry satisfaction from seeing the general put down his zealous staff officers. Yoshida recounted how MacArthur would call in senior officers on matters Yoshida had raised and give orders to them, "to which all they could answer was 'Yes, sir.'"^[2]

Several SCAP sections had for some time been concerned—and annoyed—about the Japanese failure to comply with orders and re-

quests as well as about some Japanese actions: Japanese police had arrested and treated harshly some strikers at the Yomiuri newspaper, the government had failed to enact important antimonopoly legislation, and it was late in submitting required reports. General MacArthur's soft touch with the Japanese, which he displayed several times during the occupation, smoothed over the friction.^[3]

Yoshida and MacArthur gradually evolved a modus operandi by which they exchanged letters on important subjects and often met personally, before or after, to discuss the issue. The two men exchanged some 130 letters during the occupation. Letters from MacArthur no doubt helped Yoshida show hardheaded politicians that he was doing his best. Some Japanese even thought that letters to Yoshida beginning "My Dear Mr. Prime Minister" reflected MacArthur's special esteem for Yoshida.^[4]

The supreme commander and the prime minister both relied heavily on their staffs, although neither was averse to overruling his experts. Neither got himself too involved in details. Whitney was the closest man to MacArthur, and he in turn relied heavily on Kades. Kades had no background in Japan before he arrived in late August 1945, but he was a quick and eager learner who drank in the knowledge and insights of the Japan experts. When Yoshida first met Kades, the prime minister said, "So you're the man who is going to make us democratic. Ha, ha."^[5]

Yoshida's alter ego in dealing with the Americans was Shirasu Jiro, a handsome and shrewd man who had been educated in the 1930s at Cambridge University, where he got to know Yoshida. Shirasu served as Yoshida's personal chief of staff for much of the occupation. His English was nearly flawless, and he exhibited great assurance in dealing with Westerners.

Shirasu was the architect of Yoshida's strategy of avoiding GS and taking issues to General C. A. Willoughby, G-2, or Colonel Laurence Eliot Bunker, the military secretary to General MacArthur. A burly man with a right-wing outlook and a volatile temper, Willoughby had considerable diplomatic and linguistic skill. He showed marked deference to the Japanese, reflecting a view he held from the outset of the occupation that Japan could become a valuable friend of the United States in the struggle he foresaw with Communist China and the Soviet Union. His staff was also a conduit for cigars procured in Hong Kong to be passed to Yoshida by Shirasu. Willoughby thought SCAP was loaded with leftist employees and wrote several memos to MacArthur in 1946 and 1947 listing civilians in SCAP, mostly in GS and ESS, whom he considered undesirable leftists.^[6] Willoughby's evidence was in all but a

couple of cases pretty flimsy, but his accusations caused continuing harassment for those on his lists. MacArthur paid little attention to them.

Colonel Bunker was a good-looking, socially graceful bachelor who sat in MacArthur's outer office and knew more than most people about what was going on in GHQ SCAP. Bunker had an easy relationship with the general, to whom he passed tidbits of information along with official papers. Officials such as Shirasu and Watanabe Takeshi, a senior Finance Ministry official with an international background, as well as officials from the imperial household, often dropped by to see Bunker, whose own political and economic viewpoints were more conservative than most occupation policies. He was friendly with a number of Japanese women, including Yoshida's daughter. When they wanted to ask a favor or complain, they called him up.^[7] Mrs. Aso herself played an important role in the male-dominated occupation as her father's confidante and hostess.

After the constitution had been safely passed by the Diet in September 1946, a new wave of SCAP reforms engaged these and many more actors. The most contentious plan was labeled "extension of the purge." Many Japanese looked upon the first purge in 1946 as one of the most hateful of SCAP actions, and they were understandably shaken when they got a second dose of the same medicine a year later. The second purge was to include local government officials, senior economic positions, and influential figures in the media. ESS had trouble winning support within SCAP in early 1946 to go ahead with the economic purge, so GS moved in and won MacArthur's agreement on August 19, 1946, that an economic purge should be carried out.^[8]

Not all Japanese were against the purges. SCAP received thousands of letters from ordinary Japanese urging that the purge be widened and even naming people the writers considered ultranationalists. Education experts in SCAP had been impressed in the same way by the strength of the liberals during the early battles between liberal and conservative elements in the nation's biggest newspapers.^[9] Public opinion polling began later in the occupation, but even in the early days there were ways to find out that many Japanese wanted change.

SCAP wanted the Japanese to take responsibility for carrying out the new purges. Responding to this pressure, Yoshida sent a letter to MacArthur on October 22, 1946, stating that the government would submit proposals for extending the purge to local officials and to economic positions. But to show his true feelings, Yoshida cited the comments of an American congressman on the bad effects of the purge in Germany and somewhat flippantly added that Japan might face the

same results of "anarchy, chaos and communism" cited by the congressman.^[10] The government entrusted the media purge to committees of Japanese writers charged with examining the writings of those suspected of nationalist views and determining who should be purged.

Fearing that the Japanese were going to come up with an unsatisfactory plan, Whitney sent his boss a remarkable piece of advice on November 8, 1946: the Japanese "government manifests a continuing tendency to negotiate with you ... rather than to proceed to implementation within the letter and spirit of your policy and decisions already determined and communicated to it.... I strongly recommend that you decline to discuss this matter further with the prime minister, making dear to him that the same is now my responsibility for implementation, controlling policy having already been determined and enunciated by you."^[11] Whitney was evidently trying to protect MacArthur from himself.

Yoshida was particularly unhappy about the local purge. He sent an impassioned letter to MacArthur on October 31 asserting that the "regimentation of the military regime had been engineered by a clique of professional soldiers, of government officials, right-wing reactionaries and some members of the zaibatsu, and the people were merely the target of this scheme of regimentation." MacArthur replied that the chief purpose of extending the purge was "to afford the people new opportunity for new local leadership."^[12]

Yoshida got some satisfaction out of the economic purge by a translation ruse: the word standing director in the U.S. draft of the purge order was translated into the Japanese for "managing director," which was one notch higher in the Japanese corporate hierarchy. In this way the number of company officers purged was considerably reduced.^[13]

When SCAP insisted that the economic purge apply for ten years to relatives "within the third degree by blood, marriage or adoption," Yoshida wrote MacArthur on December 21 that when a man committed an offense in ancient China, all his relatives were sentenced accordingly but that modern concepts of justice did not attach blame even to the family of a murderer. MacArthur countered that "the vital and irrepressible issue of collusion" must be met.^[14] The SCAP position seemed to fly in the face of the stress on individual rights SCAP was trying to nurture in Japan.

A valuable insight on MacArthur's thinking about both Yoshida and the purge was provided by a conversation on November 14 with the British ambassador. Sir Alvary Gascoigne mentioned rumors that the Yoshida cabinet "was on its last legs." MacArthur riposted that

"solid results which he and his ministers had obtained during the first seven months of office had won them considerable merit." He was no doubt referring to the government's success in winning Diet approval of the new constitution, for which MacArthur showed marked appreciation.^[15]

MacArthur then said that he had tried to persuade Yoshida to carry out the extension of the purge on his own initiative but that "Mr. Yoshida had at first shown signs of considerable perturbation and had begged General MacArthur publicly to assume the responsibility for ordering the purge." On the "strong recommendation of General MacArthur," however, Yoshida had decided that the purge should appear to be executed spontaneously by the Japanese government so as to avoid the charge that it was "nothing but an American puppet." This was a good example of MacArthur's well-known power to persuade.^[16]

On January 4, 1947, exactly one year after the initial purge orders, Yoshida finally acted. Six imperial ordinances were issued. Included were:

Local officials, such as mayors and prefectural assemblymen; 3,960 persons (less than 1 percent of those screened) were purged.

Economic positions, applying to managing directors and above in 154 important companies; 8,309 persons were screened, and 1,973 were purged.

Important persons in the media, including government officials, scholars, journalists, and writers; 605 institutions were involved, 1,328 persons were screened, and 1,066 were purged.^[17]

Soon after, Ambassador Gascoigne asked MacArthur about the purge ordinances. The general replied that "this purge had been carried out at the express orders of Washington and that he would have been in trouble if he had failed to carry it out." He went on to say that he agreed with his government that the purge should be carried out, noting that those being purged were not being imprisoned as in Germany. The ambassador commented to the Foreign Office that MacArthur was worried that the purge had gone too far.^[18]

One of the most prominent Japanese purged in 1947 was Finance Minister Ishibashi Tanzan, who had clearly resisted SCAP's anti-inflation policy. Soon after the occupation began, SCAP insisted that the Japanese enact two taxes to recoup both the wartime profits of individuals and institutions and the indemnity payments that the govern-

ment had authorized corporations or individuals to receive during and after the war. Ishibashi stoutly opposed the proposals, arguing that these taxes would seriously damage corporations and banks. A wide difference in outlook separated Ishibashi from SCAP experts: Ishibashi claimed that government spending was necessary to prime the pump of industrial production, while SCAP economists argued that inflation was already excessive and that the volume of currency in circulation should be reduced. The feeling was also strong in SCAP that the Japanese who had financed the war should pay for their mistakes. After long and acerbic negotiations, the legislation required by SCAP was enacted on October 18, 1946.^[19]

On May 16, 1947, soon after the general elections held in April, Ishibashi was purged, even though General Marquat had told him only a short while before he did not have anything to worry about. GS had won MacArthur's approval, however, arguing that Ishibashi, as chief editor and president of the prestigious Oriental Economist , was accountable for its prewar editorial policy, "which supported military and economic imperialism, advocated Japan's adherence to the Axis, ... [and] justified suppression of trade unionism." His "hostility to the objectives of the occupation" was also cited. Ishibashi wrote a long rebuttal to the purge decision and even held a press conference on October 27, 1947, attributing his purge to General Whitney and General MacArthur. SCAP's refusal to take punitive action in response to this display of "resistance" was a tribute to Ishibashi's guts and to SCAP's tolerance. The Ishibashi case was one of the most obvious examples in which SCAP decided hostility to the objectives of the occupation was as important as "militant nationalism."^[20] Ishibashi was relieved from the purge in 1951 and became prime minister of Japan in 1956.

Purge policy was largely the work of SCAP. But missions from the United States determined both the policy of breaking up the zaibatsu and education policy. In 1945 SCAP had wrested out of the reluctant Japanese a kind of consent decree for breakup of the Big Four zaibatsu holding companies. From January 6 to the end of March, an American mission explored the complex zaibatsu issue. Led by Corwin Edwards of Northwestern University, it submitted a report defining excessive concentration as any private enterprise or combination of enterprises that by reason of its relative size or cumulative power "restricts competition or impairs the opportunity for others to engage in business independently, in any important segment of business." The report recommended that these excessive concentrations be dissolved into nonrelated units.^[21]

After extensive review within the U.S. government and some debate with SCAP experts, SWNCC approved a proposal on the zaibatsu and submitted it to the FEC in October 1946. Labeled FEC-230, it became the best-known and most controversial of all FEC papers, although it was never approved by the commission and never formally transmitted to the supreme commander for execution in Japan.^[22]

No case better illustrates the confusing lines of policy during the occupation than the zaibatsu issue. At the very time the United States was asking the FEC to formulate a specific policy on the basis of the recommendations set out in the Edwards report, MacArthur and his staff were going ahead on the basis of the vague and general authority contained in the initial U.S. policy statement, to which some months later they added an advance copy of FEC-230, which SCAP received for information and not for action. While the FEC was debating FEC-230, the SCAP staff was pressuring the Japanese to adopt major parts of the policy contained in the document.

In late 1946 and early 1947 the Holding Company Liquidation Commission (HCLC) raised from eighteen to eighty-three the number of designated holding companies whose stock was to be sold along with the stock of fifty-six zaibatsu "persons." All this stock was transferred to the HCLC, which was eventually able to sell it to the general public. The former zaibatsu owners received as compensation ten-year non-negotiable government bonds, which turned out to be virtually worthless. These operations redistributed some ¥67 billion of securities (worth about $670 million in early 1947). Of the eighty-three designated holding companies, sixteen were dissolved, including the fifteen zaibatsu family companies; twenty-six were dissolved and then reorganized; eleven were reorganized; and no action was taken regarding the remaining thirty. Two hundred fifty holding company subsidiaries were made independent.

The zaibatsu breakup was only the first part of the SCAP antitrust program. It was later diversified by actions to prevent monopolies and excessive concentrations of economic power and by the economic purge. In addition, the Law for Prohibition of Private Monopoly and Methods of Preserving Fair Trade that was passed on March 12, 1947, outlawed "unreasonable restraints of trade" and unfair competition and set up a fair trade commission as an enforcement agency. This commission was alive and well a generation after the end of the occupation.

A paradoxical feature of the SCAP campaign was the virtual exemption of financial institutions. Although U.S. policy called for the dissolution of large banking combinations, they were not placed under the

same limitations as nonfinancial institutions, nor were they seriously damaged by the capital levy or the cancellation of wartime indemnities. One reason for this special treatment was bureaucratic: banks were under the control of a branch of ESS operated by American banking experts who were able for a year or so to ward off the inroads of the trustbusters in other sections of the occupation on the ground that breakup of the banks would produce chaos. Another reason was that the ESS finance divison vigorously pressed the financial industry to create more banks and promote competition, arguably a healthier approach than dissolutions and forced sales. It is noteworthy that after the occupation, banks bought large amounts of zaibatsu stock and thus established a powerful position in Japan's later industrial growth.^[23]

Action on another major reform, agricultural land redistribution, also began in 1945, and the government submitted a new plan in March 1946. In a rare gesture of Allied amity, MacArthur referred it to the new ACJ for advice. At four different meetings beginning on April 30, the council discussed the plan. To strengthen it, the Australian member, W. Macmahon Ball, offered a series of proposals drafted by his economic adviser, Eric Ward, such as reduction in the holdings landlords could retain, ceilings on rent payments, and written contracts for tenants. The council's recommendations based upon the Australian proposals were for the most part accepted by SCAP. The Soviet member, General Kuzma Derevyanko, proposed that payments to landlords with larger holdings be virtually eliminated, but he got no support.^[24]

On July 26, 1946, the cabinet approved a new bill that Agricultural Minister Wada had taken the lead in working out with SCAP. MacArthur congratulated the cabinet for its "courage and determination to strike at the roots of an archaic landlord system." Yoshida commented that SCAP action on this issue, "affecting as it did the fundamental structure of our society, could only bear fruit if it was planned by the Japanese people themselves and of a nature genuinely acceptable to the Japanese people.... I think that the methods employed in this matter of land reform, at least, enabled GHQ and the Japanese Government to work well together, which was not always the case."^[25]

On October 11 the Diet finally approved the land reform program in the form of two bills. The first provided that tenant cultivators would be given the first option to buy the land they worked, either outright or by installment payments over thirty years at low interest. The price of the land would be based on an official evaluation, a low figure soon rendered almost nominal by raging inflation. Owners would be paid in

long-term government bonds, which proved to be equally valueless. Yoshida said in his memoirs that the tough Soviet line in the ACJ "probably helped in reconciling the landowners."^[26] The landlords did not in fact get much more than Derevyanko had originally proposed.

The government was given the task of serving as agent for the transfers to ensure they were done efficiently and honestly. When the program did not move as quickly as SCAP wanted, it had to be expedited by an occupation order in February 1948. Rural land commissions were established with both landlord and tenant representatives to oversee administration of the program, which the law provided should be put into effect in two years. Setting up commissions on a nationwide basis was still novel in Japan and reflected another vigorous policy of the occupation—the promotion of local management of local issues. The commissions did a remarkable job throughout the country in dealing with a host of complicated issues whose resolution required a lot of time and patience.^[27]

The second bill on land reform passed by the Diet in October stipulated that all future lease agreements would have to be in writing, that payments in kind would be prohibited, and that the amount of rental payments would be limited. These were all remedies for past abuses. The SCAP program reduced tenant-tilled land from 46 percent in 1941 to about 10 percent in 1949. More than 3 million tenants became owners of 5.5 million acres.

On October 11, 1946, MacArthur issued a public statement lauding the land reform program as "one of the most important milestones yet reached by Japan in the creation of an economically stable and politically democratic society." He was sitting in his office when he learned of the Diet approval of the two bills and was reported to have turned to a photograph of his father and said, "Dad would have liked this." General Arthur MacArthur had unsuccessfully advocated land reforms to benefit tenant farmers in the Philippines forty years before. The program in Japan, involving millions of farmers and vast amounts of land, with only a hundred or so incidents of violence and no bloodshed, was indeed an astonishing achievement.^[28]

For many years land reform in Japan was considered one of MacArthur's most spectacular successes. The reform gave farmers independence, incentives to produce in volume, and strong purchasing power to help fuel the nation's economic growth. It also filled a need almost universally recognized by the Japanese themselves, and most of the success of the program was due to Japanese efforts. The powerful

nokyo , or "agricultural cooperatives," now more than 30,000 in number and including nearly all farm families, facilitated the rise of a healthy agrarian society. In recent years, however, land plots have been considered too numerous and too small for efficient operation; the high cost of rice production is one result and is exacerbated by the protective legislation farmers obtain from the politicians.

SCAP education reforms, more than any other SCAP policy, were largely determined by an expert mission from the United States. The proposals of the Stoddard mission made in March 1946 were well received by Japanese officials and educators. Inoki Masamichi, a prominent educator and writer, recalled how impressed he was by the words of George Stoddard, head of the commission: "The essence of democratic: education is respect for the diversity, spontaneity and creativity of people." Sir George Sansom, however, took the somewhat jaundiced view that American education was "not of such a quality as to encourage one in feeling that it provides a good model for any other country." Prime Minister Yoshida commented later that the report "was, on the whole, sensibly inspired and sound," but in 1946 he counseled a go-slow response because he felt Japan lacked the money to carry out the changes rapidly.^[29]

The report became a virtual bible for SCAP education experts. Its recommendations served as the basis for the momentous changes SCAP urged on the Japanese in the next few years. CIE's technique for handling the Japanese was different from that of GS. CIE preferred to avoid. public debates and to quietly win over educators and bureaucrats receptive to American ideas for change. The vehicle for this conciliatory. approach was the Japanese Educational Reform Council (JERC), a large and influential committee of forty-nine prominent educators and other leaders joined by eight Diet members. The JERC was formed in August 1946 and attached to the prime minister's office. Its moving spirit was Nambara, Japan's senior educator. He and his associates worked well with the Stoddard mission, and there is reason to believe that some of the mission's proposals, notably the 6-3-3 system, may have been the product of joint American and Japanese cooperation.^[30]

The Education Ministry wanted to delay the start of the 6-3 school track of compulsory education, but CIE insisted that it begin in 1947. Japanese educators and many in the general public felt strongly that early action should be taken. SCAP received many letters from ordinary, people who said that Japan's only hope for the future was education of the young and that efforts should be made to provide every opportun-

ity. The CIE view prevailed: 6-3 would begin in April 1947. The minister of education, Tanaka Kotaro, was made the sacrificial victim; he was removed from office in January 1947 not so much for any opposition to 6-3 but because his usefulness suffered by his being caught between go-fast SCAP and the go-slow Yoshida cabinet.^[31]

One of the other contentious proposals of the Stoddard mission was to relax the strong central control of the Ministry of Education. The ministry lost a good deal of its power during the occupation, especially because CIE officials scorned the ministry bureaucrats but it has survived as a potent force in education below the university level. Another Stoddard recommendation was to increase greatly the number of universities and opportunities for higher education. The number of universities rose from 20 in 1945 to 304, including 200 junior colleges, by the end of the occupation. It is ironic that despite the vast increase in educational opportunities, competition to get into the better schools remains intense, and the elitist tradition anointing the former imperial universities, notably the University of Tokyo, is about as strong as ever.

The most controversial proposal in the mission's report was to substitute roman letters for kanji and kana in the written language. This suggestion was largely the work of Robert K. Hall, then a CIE officer and later a professor of education at Columbia University. The proposal was not pressed. MacArthur preferred to leave the matter to the · Japanese, especially because they were showing some interest in language reform. The Japanese carried on a few experimental projects in the teaching of romaji , or "roman letters," partly at the behest of the Americans, but nothing much came of them. Not only does the Japanese written language have aesthetic and pedagogical value; it has dearly not been a bar to democratic reform or to technological advance in Japan, even though it is a high hurdle for foreigners trying to learn more about the country. MacArthur's decision seems to have been eminently sensible.^[32]

The JERC's biggest achievements were the drafting, in partnership with CIE, of two basic laws intended to take effect with the new constitution in early 1947. The more significant law—the Fundamental Law of Education enacted on March 22, 1947, and called the "education constitution"—provided for academic freedom, respect for truth, equal educational opportunity for all, free and compulsory education for nine years, and coeducation. The law forthrightly maintained that "the political knowledge necessary for intelligent citizenship shall be valued in education." The second law—the School Education Law

enacted in March 1947—provided for compulsory education in elementary and middle schools and required coeducation to the upper secondary level.^[33]

Prime Minister Yoshida took a keen interest in education and devoted a chapter in his memoirs to the subject. He worried about the cost of building new schools, partly because, in the view of his critics, he wanted to stall the entire program. He thought that teachers were too interested in politics and not enough in teaching, especially in lower education. And he thought more emphasis should be placed on teaching discipline and character. These have been persistent concerns of conservative political leaders since the end of the war. Yoshida foresaw those problems but, like his successors, found no solutions.^[34]

Amid all the turmoil of Yoshida's first months in office, he and MacArthur worked together without any serious hitches. They never became friends—MacArthur did not have close friends—but their mutual respect and rapport seemed to grow. On August 15, 1946, after Yoshida had been in office a few months, he sent the general a short note enclosing a newspaper article by Admiral Suzuki, the prime minister at the time of the surrender in August 1945. Suzuki wrote that he was happy with the progress of the occupation because he and the emperor had been confident that General MacArthur would be fair and just, as proved to be the case. The general wrote a short note of thanks to Yoshida, who had himself been advised by the admiral to be "a good loser" in dealing with SCAP. The prime minister claimed this was the policy he followed.^[35]

On October 16, 1947, the supreme commander and the Tenno held their third meeting. In 1975 the Japanese press carried a report of this session, made by the Japanese interpreter. It revealed that, unlike their first meeting in September 1945, when MacArthur did most of the talking, the emperor was now a lively interlocutor. When he raised the subject of Japan's food shortage, MacArthur commented in some detail about his success in getting food from the United States, saying he told President Truman he would resign if the United States did not help Japan. Then the emperor mentioned that public opinion in the United States did not seem favorable to Japan, and MacArthur agreed. When MacArthur commented that his American visitors did not believe him when he told them the emperor's democratic attitude was very helpful, they both laughed. To the general's statement that the new constitution was an extremely good one, the emperor retorted that the ideal of renouncing war still seemed remote from the existing world situation.

The general asserted that Japan's action had been courageous and wise and that in one hundred years Japan would be a moral leader in the world. The emperor said he was concerned about the threat of labor strikes, commenting that the people showed "a low level of education and a lack of religious spirit" in thinking that strikes reflected democracy. MacArthur said he thought the labor movement would be dangerous if it was used for political purposes. They also discussed the repatriation of prisoners of war, and MacArthur said he would keep trying to speed up return of Japanese prisoners from the Soviet Union. He added that the emperor should let him know any time the general could be of service.^[36]

Some Japanese students of the occupation have speculated that MacArthur and the emperor had become dependent on each other: MacArthur needed to show the occupation was going well in order to buttress his position in dealing with Truman and the Pentagon, while the emperor needed support to ward off charges in Japan and abroad that he bore some responsibility for the war. Because both of them were in a "fluid" or unsettled position in the early months of the occupation, they worked out an informal "power-sharing arrangement" for joint cooperation and mutual support, relying on MacArthur's power (kenryoku ) and the emperor's authority (keni ).^[37]

MacArthur's respect for the emperor and his invitation to the Tenno to give him advice about the occupation, together with the emperor's full endorsement of major occupation programs, give some plausibility to this interpretation if only the opening months of the occupation are considered. But the record is clear that MacArthur was in full command throughout most of the occupation, and the emperor's role after the first year was minor. It was not MacArthur's way to be dependent on anyone else.

MacArthur avoided explanations or justifications of his actions, and so it was unusual for him to tell the British ambassador on September 9 that his efforts were not directed "towards the chastisement of a defeated enemy but to teach the Japanese the way of life as followed by the Anglo-Saxon democracies."^[38] This comment surely characterized the general's own attitude, even if his staff found it necessary fairly often to be tough and at times punitive.

Chapter 10
The 1947 Labor Crisis and the Defeat of Yoshida

By the end of January 1947 Yoshida had spent eight hard months in office weathering MacArthur's second tidal wave of reforms. Now the two faced a truly serious crisis. More than 3 million workers were poised to begin a general strike in Tokyo on February 1. They planned strikes against railways, communications facilities, schools, government offices, and many factories. Whether there would be food, electricity, or transportation was uncertain. The largest city in Japan was sure to be paralyzed. No one knew for how long.^[1]

On the afternoon of January 31 MacArthur issued a press statement, which he had taken the unusual step of writing himself. Even though the statement was not an order or even a letter to the prime minister, its meaning was perfectly clear: "I have informed the labor leaders ... that I will not permit the use of so deadly a social weapon in the present impoverished and emaciated condition of Japan, and have accordingly directed them to desist from the furtherance of such action.... I have done so only to forestall the fatal impact upon an already gravely threatened public welfare.... I do not otherwise intend to restrict the freedom of action heretofore given labor in the achievement of legitimate objectives."^[2]

Growth in the labor movement during 1946 had been explosive, raising union membership to nearly 4 million. Hundreds of unions had been formed, most of them members of one of the two large federations. The first, called the Japan Federation of Labor (JFL), or Nihon

Rodo Kumiai Sodomei, claimed nearly 1 million members. It drew its strength largely from the right wing of the socialist movement, which included textile workers and seamen. The second federation, the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIU), or Sambetsu Kaigi, was more leftist and claimed 1.6 million members. It was strong in the government workers' unions, notably among railway and communications workers.

Although Communists held less than 10 percent of the membership of Sambetsu, they had great influence in the organization. Several of its most dynamic leaders were extreme leftists, such as its president, Kikunami Katsumi, and Dobashi Kazuyoshi, head of the communications workers' union. Both subsequently announced their affiliation with the Communist Party. The left provided the most aggressive and experienced labor leaders in the period after the war, and among them Communists turned out to be the most skillful.

The militance of the public unions resulted largely from the government's failure to increase wages in accord with the rapid rise in the cost of living, which had increased eightfold since the surrender. In May 1946 SCAP estimated that the salaries of government workers had increased from only 20 to 40 percent in that period, while wages in private industry had gone up two to four times.

By the summer of 1946, a few months after Yoshida took office, the labor movement was ready to put heavy pressure on the government. It forced the cabinet to abandon a plan to fire 75,000 railway workers and opposed the Labor Relations Adjustment Law enacted on September 20, 1946, which was designed to encourage settlement of labor disputes through mediation or arbitration with the help of the labor relations commissions set up nearly a year before. The unions particularly objected to the new law's prohibition against "acts of dispute" (meaning strikes) by public workers such as police, firemen, and employees of local governments; employees of public enterprises, such as railway workers, were not debarred from acts of dispute.^[3]

On November 26 five of the big government workers' unions formed a joint struggle committee claiming to represent 2.4 million workers, with Ii Yashiro of the national railway workers union as chairman. The unions included not only office workers and schoolteachers but also workers in the post offices, telephone and telegraph offices, national railways, and the government monopolies of tobacco, salt, and camphor. The workers' demands were both economic—higher wages, more benefits, and enforcement of minimum wage laws—and political—the

overthrow of the Yoshida cabinet. While granting labor a small "winter allowance," the government proposed to deal firmly with the strike threat but did not win the approval of SCAP to take tough measures.

The crisis took on a new dimension when the FEC approved a labor policy on December 6 providing that "trade unions should be allowed to take part in political activities and to support political parties." This provision, promoted by Commonwealth representatives, in several of whose countries labor party cabinets were in power, was approved by all of the nations on the commission. General Whitney asked SCAP labor expert Ted Cohen whether it was SCAP policy to permit labor unions to engage in political activity, and Cohen assured him that it was. Later in the occupation this clause was often cited by leftist unions to justify their support of political activism. SCAP never wholeheartedly agreed, especially when political activity meant strikes.^[4] On December 17 a massive demonstration was held on the imperial plaza to support a Socialist Party resolution in the Diet calling for the resignation of the Yoshida cabinet. The resolution was voted down, but several important newspapers called for a new election.

Prime Minister Yoshida recognized that the position of his minority government was shaky. He entered into discussions with the Socialist Party to see if some of its right-wing members might be persuaded to enter his cabinet. Both sides perceived that Japan was entering a crisis, but neither was willing to give up much.

Yoshida poured oil on the flames in his 1947 New Year's broadcast by castigating the futei no yakara (lawless gangs) that caused labor disputes. He accused them of hampering production and trying to seize political power. This was one of Yoshida's most famous and intemperate, albeit deliberate, statements, which endeared him to neither workers, liberals, nor even commonsense citizens. By mid-January Communist Party leaders were giving open support to the labor campaign. Tokuda Kyuichi, invariably described as a fiery orator in a society that produced few orators or dynamic political leaders, addressed a rally of government workers to whip up their spirits. He and his comrades on the far left were now in charge. On January 18 the joint struggle committee of government workers, the spearhead of the strike movement, with support from thirty-three unions and representatives of the CIU and the JFL, set the date of February 1 for a general strike if their terms were not met. They also gave assurances that services to the occupation forces would be provided during any strike, making clear they did not want to confront the supreme commander. The support of the JFL was

weak, however, and some of its unions decided to stay out. Nevertheless, as the end of January neared, the specter of a general strike became real.^[5]

American officials had intently watched the gathering clouds, hoping that labor leaders and the government could get together and work out a solution. In late October MacArthur told the British ambassador he was not worried because the unions did not want to risk incurring his displeasure. The ambassador reported, "In the event of any serious threat of a general strike, the general would step in openly to stop it." Contacts between the government and the joint struggle leaders were unproductive, although SCAP officials tried to push them together. Within SCAP different tactics for handling the strike were debated. Those who had been in charge of labor policy were sympathetic toward the budding labor movement and stern toward Japanese employers and government officials. Their approach seemed consistent with the U.S. policy of the period. SCAP also wanted to restrain the left wing and so joined with the Japanese government at the end of 1946 in encouraging unions to form "democratization leagues," or mindo , to promote conservative attitudes and positions.^[6]

Some critics of SCAP labor policy, Americans in the occupation as well as Japanese and others on the outside, have asserted that its top labor experts at that period, Anthony Constantino and Ted Cohen, were extreme leftists. Both were on Willoughby's lists of SCAP leftists. But it would probably be more accurate to describe them as believers in the kind of liberal policies that restored the United States in the 1930s, especially a healthy labor movement. In short, they thought a New Deal would be beneficial in a less developed country such as Japan.

Cohen, the head of the SCAP labor division, wrote a memo to his boss, General Marquat, on January 15, 1947, recommending strongly that MacArthur issue an immediate statement that he would prohibit strikes. Cohen wanted labor leaders to have no doubt that a strike would interfere with occupation operations, especially transportation, communications, and repatriation movements, and would not be tolerated. Marquat presented this view the next day to MacArthur, who decided that he would not act right away but would give the Japanese more time to work out a solution.^[7]

The general's attitude was strangely reminiscent of his handling of the Hatoyama purge ten months before: he would wait and give the Japanese a chance to handle the matter. At no time during the 1947 strike threat did MacArthur meet with his labor experts. All the in-

formation and ideas he got were filtered through Marquat. This was not a good approach. Because on labor issues, and on broader economic matters, MacArthur and Marquat were often in the position of the blind leading the blind,^[8] MacArthur might have profited from more expert advice in what proved to be the biggest challenge to law and order during the occupation.

Under instructions from the CINC, Marquat verbally informed government officials and workers that a strike would not be permitted. Another week of negotiations proved fruitless. On January 30 Marquat used an "informal memorandum" to tell leaders of the joint struggle committee once again that the supreme commander would prohibit any strike and that any violations of law would result in arrests. The struggle committee nevertheless refused to back off. Another lengthy meeting of the unions with the Japanese mediators accomplished little, even though the difference between the two sides in salary terms was narrowed to ¥70 in monthly wages, then worth about $1.^[9]

Occupation officials began to make plans for dealing with a strike. They worried especially about the transportation of essential items such as food and coal. Marquat sent a memo to MacArthur summarizing the actions to be taken if the strike came off. Eichelberger, whose operational duties as head of the Eighth Army were far more onerous than those of the staff officers in Tokyo, was particularly worried. Like many senior military officers, he thought many occupation policies were ultra-liberal and served only to weaken Japan and damage the prospects of future cooperation. He also thought left-wingers in SCAP should be removed. MacArthur paid no attention to the critics in his own camp.^[10]

On the afternoon of January 31 MacArthur banned the strike. His press people simply issued copies of his statement, while his staff told the Japanese government and the joint struggle committee of his decision. The strike was called off, and February 1 was a normal working day.

To reinforce the strike ban, Marquat immediately called in the head of the joint struggle committee, Ii Yashiro, and told him to make sure the strike did not take place. Ii claimed that he reluctantly agreed only after he was subjected to great pressure. In one of the more memorable episodes of the occupation, he wept as he told a press conference that evening that workers and farmers must stand together even more resolutely as "they took one step back and two steps forward." To the end Ii "could not understand why MacArthur has suddenly blocked the

strike at the last minute. Until then SCAP had been sympathetic to labor."^[11]

MacArthur banned the strike to protect the fragile Japanese economy. Yet the directives to him clearly provided that he was to "prevent or prohibit strikes ... only when you consider that these would interfere with military operations or directly endanger the security of the occupying forces." Moreover, his guidance from Washington provided that "changes in the form of government initiated by the Japanese people or government in the direction of modifying its feudal and authoritarian tendencies are to be permitted and favored." The strike threat of 1947 seemed to be the kind of situation in which the 1945 policy prescription would apply. Yet MacArthur ignored it. One of the most liberal persons in the occupation, T. A. Bisson, who had long been a student of East Asian economics and politics, wrote in his diary, "The one really significant challenge to the old guard Japanese establishment has been turned back." Some historians have argued that Japan was ripe for revolution in early 1947 or even a year earlier. Conservative Japanese were especially fearful of violence and chaos, but few Americans serving in the occupation felt that there was a serious threat to U.S. control. The social bureaucrats in the Japanese government, who supported moderate policies, "breathed a collective sigh of relief" when MacArthur banned the strike.^[12]

MacArthur's position was clear throughout the occupation. He would not permit violence. He wanted the Japanese authorities to deal with strike threats and large demonstrations, but if they did not, then he would order American units to preserve order, as he did several times. The Japanese people seemed satisfied with his firm line, although they expressed strong sympathy for the economic plight of Japan's workers.^[13] The censored press supported the decision to ban the strike. At the same time the press and public criticized the tactics and statements of the Yoshida cabinet.

Although Yoshida was, like MacArthur, a believer in "legitimacy," or solution of political problems by legal or traditional methods, he did not have the power to deter or put down violence, and so he had to rely on SCAP. Nevertheless, after MacArthur banned the strike, the prime minister set about to repair the damage done to his government and the labor movement. In a speech to the Diet on February 14, he expressed concern about working conditions and called the labor movement helpful to economic recovery and to democracy in Japan. On February 20

the government announced a new wage plan for government workers and shortly made several collective bargaining agreements that doubled the wage bill.^[14]

A few days after MacArthur banned the strike, he told General Charles Gairdner, the personal representative of the prime minister of the United Kingdom, that he had been "let down by the leaders of both sides," including the prime minister. They had assured him there would be no strike. When the government later told him it could do nothing to prevent the strike, he had banned it at the last minute, even though he might have ruined "any chance he might have of becoming a 'big political figure' in the United States." He also told Gairdner he would not "hide behind" the excuse that a strike would endanger the goals of the occupation.

Aside from MacArthur's revelation of political ambition, his explanation that "both sides" had told him there would be no strike was surprising. Labor's confidence that SCAP would support it reinforced its determination to have a test of strength with the Yoshida cabinet. For their part, Yoshida and his advisers thought MacArthur would have to step in and stop the strike, although they had little confidence in. Marquat and even less in Cohen. The Japanese were leaving it up to the supreme commander. Yoshida met with him only once in the period immediately before the strike.^[15]

A well-informed liberal historian has written that "spontaneous anti-capitalist radicalism" had been stronger in the spring of 1946 than in January 1947, but because SCAP's power and will to prevent a strike were greater in 1947, the "struggle for national liberation" ended "with disastrous consequences for the union movement and the working class."^[16]

Some people in Japan felt that the 1947 strike ban marked the start of a conservative reaction in occupation policy. In late 1951 the Japanese press coined the term reverse course (gyaku kosu) to describe efforts by the Japanese government to cut back the liberal reforms instituted by the occupation. As time went by, Japanese and American observers applied the term to many of the actions undertaken by SCAP and the Japanese government in the waning years of the occupation.^[17]

MacArthur and the U.S. government did not see the events of January 1947 this way. In their view they were ensuring there would be no violence or lawlessness. They did not feel that the left wing of the labor movement could be allowed to push its claims so far that it would damage the social order or interfere with government efforts to maintain

order and rebuild the nation. MacArthur and his staff were convinced that they were aiding the development of a moderate labor movement.^[18] Many Japanese agreed with them.

MacArthur also made it clear that the occupation would afford no support for a revolution, bourgeois or proletarian. Sheldon Garon, who wrote a perceptive study, The State and Labor in Modern Japan , analyzed Japanese policies and attitudes during the occupation, concluding that "from the perspective of the Japanese bureaucrats and ruling bourgeois parties, no reversal occurred. Although in the wake of defeat the civilian elites generally favored the legal recognition of labor unions, they never ceased to oppose the development of a highly politicized or Communist-dominated labor movement." This was the U.S. attitude as well.^[19]

On February 6, 1947, General MacArthur wrote Yoshida that "momentous changes" had taken place in the previous year and that therefore "it was necessary, in the near future, to obtain another democratic expression of the people's will on the fundamental issues with which Japanese society is now confronted."^[20] MacArthur had been planning well before the labor crisis to call for an election at the time the new constitution came into effect. He mentioned this plan twice to the British ambassador, in October and November of 1946, cautioning that this advance notice was for the ambassador's information only, "as he [MacArthur] had not yet informed his own government of his intentions."^[21] The general also forecast a large rise in the number of Socialist seats and a small increase for the Communists, with corresponding losses by the Progressive and Liberal parties. In addition to wanting to clear the electoral slate with the advent of the new constitution, MacArthur probably thought that the moderate left had a big electoral opportunity because the Yoshida cabinet was weak and unpopular.

On February 10 Yoshida sent a short reply to MacArthur thanking him for his February 6 letter. He also expressed "the greatest possible satisfaction" with the decision to hold new elections because he thought the conservative parties would win a big victory.^[22] In fact, Yoshida's political position was then low. He had just reshuffled his cabinet because of losses from the new purge. Party leaders were criticizing him for not standing up to MacArthur by opposing the purge. They felt Yoshida was not strong enough and that his negotiations with the Socialists for a coalition had been clumsy.

A preliminary item of legislative business was another revision of the

election law. Yoshida and the Liberal Party had concluded that the large electoral districts adopted in 1945 gave the Communist Party and other smaller parties too big a chance to pick up seats, especially because many voters had no compunction about splitting their votes between conservative and leftist candidates. The conservative leaders therefore decided to revert to the prewar system of 117 districts in which each voter had one vote and three to five representatives were elected from each district. Whitney opposed the change, but Yoshida went to MacArthur and persuaded him to go along. The opposition parties were also against the change, but after a fistfight in the Diet the revision was approved.^[23]

Yoshida was not a Diet member and had never been a politician. Nevertheless, he wanted to run, particularly because the new constitution mandated that the prime minister and a majority of the cabinet be members of the Diet. Yoshida's natural father had come from Kochi Prefecture on the small and remote island of Shikoku and had been elected to the Diet from there in Japan's first parliamentary election. Yoshida had lived in Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo for many years and had only distant connections with Kochi. Some friends in Kanagawa urged him to run from there. But a veteran politician told Yoshida that because "he was not a very amiable person," he would not please the people in Kanagawa for very long, whereas the voters in Kochi were far enough away that he would not be criticized if he did not show his face very often. So he chose Kochi and made a three-day visit there, bowing frequently and confining his speech-making—he was always a miserable public speaker—to brief and banal salutations.^[24]

Yoshida had to jump one more hurdle. As a candidate for the Diet, he had to go through the purge screening process, along with more than 190,000 other candidates in the April elections. He was cleared after what seemed almost a perfunctory examination. If Yoshida's record as vice foreign minister in the expansionist era of the late 1920s had been given the microscopic examination that Hatoyama's had received in April 1946, Yoshida might have been in trouble. And if GS had known about Yoshida's earlier activities, it would have been sorely tempted to throw the book at him. But Yoshida was lucky. His record was not well known, and his arrest by the militarists in 1945 cast a protective aura of heroism around him.^[25]

Because the lower house election would take place shortly before the new constitution was to come into force on May 3, the key legislation implementing it had to be enacted before the election. This herculean

task was carried out only through SCAP pressure, bureaucratic docility, and an almost total absence of parliamentary scrutiny of the bills that were being passed. The job may have been easier for the Japanese because they do not attach a definitive and fixed meaning to laws or even to a constitution the way Western nations do but are rather more flexible in their interpretation of legal documents.^[26]

Among the many significant pieces of legislation requiring revision were the Civil Code, the Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure, and a judicial code. Normally revision of each of these would have occupied many months of careful study and debate, but instead a highly irregular solution was devised: a series of provisional bills for "temporary adjustment pursuant to the enforcement of the constitution" was submitted to the Diet. These bills were in effect outlines couched in broad language that by their terms would be valid only until the end of 1947. With SCAP and Japanese officials working together, eleven laws were pushed through before May 3, 1947. In the fourteen months after that, seventeen laws in regular form were enacted to bring the legal and judicial systems into line with the new constitution.^[27]

MacArthur and Yoshida took part in this vast legislative operation on several occasions. Yoshida wanted special legislation to punish violence against the emperor. MacArthur replied, "The respect and affection which the people of Japan have for the Emperor form a sufficient bulwark, which need not be bolstered by special provisions. ... The experience of the United States ... demonstrates the adequacy of general legislation to punish crimes even against the head of the state." Yoshida wanted to use the court organization law to appoint the president and fourteen judges of the new Supreme Court before the constitution came into effect. MacArthur rejected this sally, which would, he said, "disturb public confidence in the court and create an undesirable impression throughout the Allied world." Other legislation defined the authority of the Diet and strengthened the powers of local government throughout the country.^[28]

On March 22, three weeks before the election, MacArthur sent Yoshida a strong letter instructing the government to "maintain a firm control over wages and prices and to initiate and maintain a strict rationing program for essential commodities in short supply so as to insure that such commodities are equitably distributed," as SCAP had ordered at the start of the occupation. The general also told the government to make use of the Economic Stabilization Board (ESB), which had been created at SCAP instigation.^[29]

The MacArthur letter had an unusual history. It was drafted by Tsuru Shigeto, a Japanese economist who had joined ESS a short time before at Yoshida's request. Tsuru's direct statement of the situation, written more clearly than most SCAPese, sailed right through headquarters and received the supreme commander's imprimatur. Yoshida replied on March 28 that he had read the general's letter "with a deep sense of appreciation" and was taking a number of corrective steps, including better food collection, the setting of a production goal of 30 million tons of coal in the next year, and the strengthening of ESB.^[30]

The Japanese economy was not far from collapse in early 1947. Unemployment remained in the millions and fed on returning repatriates. Industrial production in 1946 was about 31 percent of the 1934-1936 level. The total money supply was twenty-six times higher than in late 1945, and real wages were rising far more slowly than the inflation rate. Foreign trade was inconsequential in the years right after the war, reaching in 1947 a volume of $174 million for exports and $526 million for imports. Most of this trade was with the United States.^[31]

The most important economic action taken by Japan in the early years of the occupation was Prime Minister Yoshida's adoption of "priority production" to revive industrial production. When he became prime minister he established the practice of meeting regularly with a group of economic experts, many of them academics, to discuss means of getting the economy going. One of these experts, Arisawa Hiromi, asserted that expanding coal production along with imports of coal and oil could lead to increased steel production; the two could be mutually reinforcing and could in turn lead to increased production in other key industries, such as electric power and shipbuilding. Arisawa estimated that 30 million tons of coal would have to be mined each year to get the process in full swing.^[32]

Yoshida handed MacArthur a memorandum on December 3, 1946, requesting SCAP's assistance in obtaining the import of anthracite coal, coking coal, and crude oil to help increase steel production. The letter was drafted by Okita Saburo, one of Japan's best-known economists, who became foreign minister many years afterward. Four days later Marquat advised the prime minister that most of his requests for oil and coal could be met. Yoshida was so elated he told the emperor the good news. On December 11 Yoshida sent a note to MacArthur saying that "His Majesty has commanded me to convey to you his gratitude for the industrial assistance promised in the memorandum" of General Marquat. Coal production in 1947 was more than 29 million tons, just

short of the target. Iron and steel production also began to mount significantly by 1948.^[33] Japanese writers look back on the priority production program as the key step in starting Japan on the road to economic recovery. The program was particularly welcome as a sign of Japanese initiative and worked because both the Japanese and SCAP fully supported it. Planning priorities for industrial production became standard.

Some observers, including SCAP economists, felt that in the early years of the occupation many Japanese officials and businessmen showed little energy or initiative in combating their economic problems and even passively resisted occupation changes. It is true that the Japanese often seemed overcome by lethargy and confusion. Many of them obviously thought that all they could do was take care of themselves and let the Americans decide what to do about the government and the economy. People such as Yoshida and Tsuru did not fall into this feckless category. In addition, in the early postwar period two important management and industrial organizations were formed: Keidanren (Federation of Business Organizations), which coordinated the views of business and industry, and Nikkeiren (Japan Management Association), which dealt with labor policy from the point of view of business. They remain powerful today.^[34]

As a final achievement, the first Yoshida cabinet won passage of the Labor Standards Law on April 17, 1947, prescribing basic rights and procedures of employment. It established an eight-hour day and a forty-eight-hour work week, with a 25 percent premium for overtime work. Wages were to be paid in cash directly to the workers. A labor-management committee in each industry was to set minimum wages. The law prohibited child labor and required additional protective measures for women and young workers.^[35]

In April 1947 democracy came to Japan in full force. Virtually every elective office in the land was at stake. Five separate elections were held to choose 205,092 officials at the national, prefectural, and local levels. These elections were the first to be conducted by the local election commissions set up under the Election Law of 1946 to replace supervision by the Home Ministry and the police. They were also the first for the new elective upper house (the House of Councillors), for governors of the prefectures, for mayors, and for all local assemblies. The political parties were better organized than the year before, but they needed all their skill to meet what was probably the busiest month in the modern electoral history of any state.^[36]

The Liberals' year in office had given them no advantage. Public opinion as reflected in the press was anti-Yoshida and anticonservative. Yoshida hoped to join with the Progressives in a united conservative party, but the factional rivalries endemic to Japanese politics, which revolved around personalities, fund-raising, and leader-follower relationships, made this impossible.

Instead, Ashida, a prominent and ambitious Liberal leader, moved into the Progressive camp along with a small group of Liberals. Together they formed the Democratic Party, which wanted to create a more progressive image. In line with the Japanese political tradition, the party's platform was vague: uphold the spirit of the new constitution, establish a democratic political structure, and make plans for industrial reconstruction.

The Socialists rejected the laissez-faire views of the conservatives on economic issues, advocating instead state control over the coal, iron, steel, and fertilizer industries. They strongly opposed any cooperation with the Communists. The known preference of GS for the Socialists may also have boosted the influence of the moderate left. The Communists had a radical platform: extend the purge, democratize the bureaucracy and the police, nationalize major industries, and "eliminate feudalism."

The most crucial election was on April 25 for the new House of Representatives, which was to be the most powerful organ in the Japanese body politic. More than 27 million people voted that day, or 68 percent of the electorate. As MacArthur had foreseen, the Socialists did well, coming in first with 143 seats, or 45 more than they had held in the old lower house. The Liberals came in second with 132 seats, a loss of 8. The Democrats, formerly the Progressives, were a close third with 126, a loss of 19. Surprisingly, the Communists won only 4 seats, 2 less than they had held in the old house. Fifteen women and 12 independents were elected. Of those elected, 221, or nearly one-half of the 466 total, were "new faces" in the Diet.

The share of the vote obtained by the Liberals and the Communists, the parties of the extremes, had not changed much since the 1946 election. The Socialists did much better. The Democrats did not do as well as their predecessors, the Progressives, had done in 1946. All eleven members of the Yoshida cabinet who ran in 1947 were elected. The advice Yoshida had received on where and how to run proved good. He came in first in his district and was reelected three times thereafter.

The results of the other four elections held in April were mixed. Here

again the Socialists did well, even though independents, most of whom were conservative, did better, both nationally and locally. Overall, the Socialists came in first in both houses of the new Diet. As a political party, they were clearly number one. The elections showed that the people were looking for a new approach somewhat to the left of center. They had definitely repudiated the far left, where the Communists did badly because they were associated with the reckless strike threat earlier in the year.

In a high-flown statement on April 27, two days after the election for the House of Representatives, MacArthur noted that the elections were the last step before the constitution came into effect and declared that its effectuation marked "a new era in the Far East which may well prove vital to the future of civilization." He showed foresight in adding that "the Japanese people have ... overwhelmingly chosen a moderate course, sufficiently centered from either extreme to insure the preservation of freedom and the enhancement of individual dignity."^[37]

The politicians generally agreed that the Socialists should have the first chance to form a cabinet. Under their president, Katayama Tetsu, they drew up a statement of policies for the party to follow. It would seek to control wages and prices, stimulate key industries, reduce inflation, increase food production, foster cooperation between capital and labor, and set higher standards of education. On the basis of this program the four big parties—Socialists, Liberals, Democrats, and People's Cooperative—agreed on a coalition cabinet. On May 19 Katayama and his political strategist, Nishio Suehiro, called on Yoshida to discuss cabinet posts and suggested the Liberal Party might take the Foreign Office portfolio, thinking this offer would make Yoshida happy. But Yoshida insisted that the left Socialists should not be included in the cabinet because they advocated cooperation with the Communists. He went even farther by stating that the Socialist Party had to "rid itself of left-wing elements," an obvious impossibility for Katayama because the left wing provided a good part of his political strength. As a result, Yoshida decided that the Liberals should stay out of the cabinet. A party caucus endorsed his decision.^[38]

On May 24 the House of Representatives designated Katayama as prime minister by an almost unanimous vote, including the support of the Liberals. On the next day he was invested by the emperor. Katayama's cabinet, consisting of eight Socialists (none of them leftists), seven Democrats, and two from the People's Cooperative Party, was sworn in on June 1. Although the Liberals did not enter the cabinet,

they continued to subscribe to the four-party agreement, which was supposed to be the basis of the new government's policy.^[39]

Yoshida's decision to stay out of the cabinet was a fateful one. At the time it seemed selfish and almost unpatriotic. But from the point of view of party politics, this seemingly self-sacrificial exclusion made sense because it enabled the Liberal Party to retain its pristine conservatism and stay clear of the troubles the coalition later got itself into.

On May 24 as he left office, Yoshida sent warm thank-you notes to General MacArthur and General Whitney. Yoshida told the supreme commander, "I consider it my rare privilege to have so largely profited from our association. ... I leave office with an earnest expectation that this country will witness, under your superb guidance, a steady progress toward a genuine democracy."^[40] There is no record of any reply by MacArthur.

The prime minister also thanked Whitney, in an artful choice of words, for his kindness and particularly "for your advice and assistance in drafting the present constitution, which owes so much to you." Whitney was equally deft in his reply of May 28: "Few understand better than I the difficult and complex problems which you have faced during your tenure as Prime Minister." He added prophetically that "I ... know you will respond to any further call upon your energies in the public service."^[41]

In his memoirs Yoshida listed a dozen important accomplishments of his year at the head of government, including the constitution, land reform, revision of labor and education laws, local autonomy legislation, and even the antimonopoly law.^[42] But a knowledgeable U.S. expert on Japan, Hugh Borton of the State Department, who met with the prime minister on March 29, 1947, was not impressed. Borton noted in particular Yoshida's strong objection to SCAP's emphasis on the importance of decentralizing the government. Borton could not understand how Yoshida was able to regain power in October 1948 and remain prime minister for the next four and one-half years.^[43] For most Americans, Yoshida was not a very amiable person, and the 1947 elections seemed to show that many Japanese felt the same way.

Chapter 11
MacArthur, the Allies, and Washington

The period from the spring of 1947, after Yoshida left office, to the fall of 1948 lacked the quick tempo and intensity of the first eighteen months of the occupation. The Allies were more querulous, MacArthur made a guarded bid for the Republican presidential nomination, American critics attacked his performance, and the pace of reform slowed down as the Japanese tried to find new leaders and new policies.

The ACJ (a miniature FEC) began its sessions in Tokyo in early 1946. MacArthur attended the opening meeting on April 5, one of his few appearances at a public meeting, and cordially welcomed the Soviet, Australian, and Chinese representatives. He reproved "those throughout the Allied world who lift their voices in sharp and ill-conceived criticism of our occupational policies," asserting that "history has given us no precedent of success in a similar military occupation."^[1]

MacArthur had not had much experience in diplomacy. But he had worked with Allies in Europe in World War I and with the Australian government and army for four years during and after World War II. He knew little about the Soviets and not much more about the Chinese. But as supreme commander in Japan, where he was at least "quasi-sovereign," some twenty foreign liaison missions were eventually accredited to him, and he met periodically with their chiefs and saw several of them often.^[2]

The Soviet member of the ACJ, Lieutenant General Kuzma Derev-

yanko, a heavy-set, handsome man and a career intelligence officer in the Red Army, was new to diplomacy. His political adviser, Jakob Malik, was a diplomat who had been in Japan for several years and whose astuteness MacArthur respected. Malik was recalled to Moscow in 1949, however, for being too conciliatory, according to MacArthur.^[3] At the second meeting of the ACJ, the Soviets asked to be "informed, as fully as possible" why undesirable persons subject to the purge order of January 4, 1946, had not been removed from office. MacArthur angrily charged General Whitney to make an answer in the ACJ, "even if it took all summer." Whitney spent nearly three hours at a council meeting reading long lists of organizations banned by SCAP and apologizing that he did not have the names of the organizations' members.^[4] The ACJ became known as a forum for East-West controversy with little relevance to the key issues in Allied policy for Japan. MacArthur's decision that meetings should be open to the public did not help matters.

MacArthur soon named his political adviser George Atcheson as head of the newly established DS and as his deputy on the ACJ and its chairman. DS was to be in effect a protocol office for SCAP in dealing with the foreign diplomatic missions in Tokyo. MacArthur told Atcheson that some governments on the ACJ might have "sabotage and obstruction" as their goals and that he should counter them "with equally embarrassing and nasty questions and statements." For example, the Soviets might be asked why they did not send troops to share the burden of the occupation. The general added, curiously, that he himself would protect the position and responsibility of the supreme commander but that Atcheson should "protect the foreign policy of the United States in council meetings."^[5] This was another instance in which MacArthur claimed his jurisdiction was separate from that of the United States.

The ACJ met every two weeks throughout the occupation, for a total of 125 meetings. About one-half of these, especially in later years, were without an agenda and lasted only a few minutes or less. Many of the meetings, however, were informative, and some were even constructive, as when the Soviet representative put the subject of police reform on the agenda on June 4, 1946, and a discussion without polemics ensued.^[6]

On June 26, 1946, the United States put on the agenda the subject of repatriation of Japanese prisoners of war from Siberia. The refusal of the Soviet Union to return any of the 760,000 men captured in North China, Manchuria, and Korea in the first days after the war (the Soviet government later claimed it held only 523,000 Japanese prisoners of

war in late 1946) touched the lives of millions of people. The Japanese public soon learned that the Soviet Union was forcing these prisoners to work under harsh conditions and holding kangaroo trials at which many of them were being sentenced to prison for alleged violations of Soviet laws. Lengthy U.S. presentations to the council on the Soviet failure to repatriate Japanese became a powerful propaganda weapon. The Soviet member claimed this subject was beyond the council's jurisdiction, but Atcheson overruled him. After all, the Potsdam Declaration provided that Japanese military forces should be permitted to return home. SCAP continued to prod the Soviets on this issue and reached an agreement with the Soviet government on December 18, 1946, for the return of 50,000 Japanese every month. This agreement was observed for only a few months, and the issue remained unresolved.^[7]

MacArthur did not consult with the council in advance of issuing orders, one reason being that after April 1946 he did not issue formal orders. A peculiar exception was his request in February 1947 for the comments of council members on a letter he planned to send Prime Minister Yoshida stating that the time had come for a general election. No one on the council objected to what MacArthur termed an "administrative action."^[8]

After Atcheson was killed on August 17, 1947, in an airplane accident off Hawaii, William J. Sebald from the POLAD office took his place on the council. An Annapolis graduate and prewar lawyer in Japan, Sebald was a calm, judicious man who knew Japan well and was able to get along with MacArthur. He tried to be a good diplomat and proved effective as a debater in ACJ forensics. Sebald started his chairmanship with agenda items such as trade, industrial production, and education, but by the end of the year, he had become discouraged by criticisms in the council. He recommended to Washington, with MacArthur's approval, that the ACJ be abolished, leaving diplomatic contacts in Tokyo to normalize relations between SCAP and the foreign diplomatic missions. The State Department informed him, as he and MacArthur must have expected, that his proposal was not practical.^[9]

MacArthur and his staff were keenly disappointed by the conduct of the Australian and Chinese members of the ACJ. The Chinese said little, other than occasionally expressing concern that militarism might be reviving in Japan. Their silence annoyed SCAP, as did some of the reporting from China by U.S. diplomats about Chinese attitudes critical of American policy in Japan. The most irritating gadfly was the Australian representative, Macmahon Ball, an academic well grounded in political

science and tenacious in his pursuit of liberal ideas. Ball was a protégé of the dynamic and strong-willed foreign minister of the Labour government, H. Vere Evatt, an advocate of a tough policy toward Japan. Evatt reflected the Australian position that it had made an important contribution to the Allied victory in the Far East and therefore should speak for the British Empire on Asian issues. A campaign was eventually mounted to get rid of Ball, ending in his recall in August 1948 and resignation.^[10]

In contrast with the ACJ, the FEC in Washington was a model of accomplishment and decorum. It approved thirty-seven policy decisions in the first eighteen months of its operation. Many of these put the Allied stamp of approval on existing U.S. policies, but others—on popular sovereignty, Diet supremacy, education, labor organization, war crimes trials, and interim reparations—were improved by a new and hard look from Allied experts. When MacArthur wrote disparagingly in his memoirs of the Allied role in the occupation, he did not do credit to his reputation for fairness.^[11]

The Japanese government and public knew little of the workings of the FEC beyond fragmentary press reports. Japan had no independent sources of information. The government's contacts with foreign diplomats in Tokyo were proscribed, although this rule was not rigorously enforced. Japanese officialdom watched the ACJ closely. Japanese reporters and one of their diplomats, Asakai Koichiro, were permitted to attend meetings but had to enter through a back door. Asakai's reports, which were later published, provided his superiors, including Prime Minister Yoshida, with some remarkable insights into the actions of the council and the increasingly divergent attitudes of its members.^[12]

Although the occupation was from the outset overwhelmingly an American show, it was U.S. policy to encourage other Allies to send forces to share the burden of what was widely expected to be a long and arduous operation. The United States wanted the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to be major Allies, and Asian nations such as China and the Philippines to send forces. Under British auspices, a force called the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), consisting of units from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and India was organized. An agreement with the United States reached on January 30, 1946, placed BCOF under the operational control of General MacArthur and under the administrative direction of an Australian, Lieutenant General J. F. Northcott. BCOF's area of control was the Chugoku region in central Honshu to the west of Kobe and the island of

Shikoku. It had no military government duties. The first elements of BCOF arrived on February 8, 1946; by August the force totaled 36,154 officers and men. But it soon became dear that BCOF had very little to do. Occupied Japan was very peaceful, and the participating governments, except Australia, decided to withdraw their troops, starting in the fall of 1946.^[13]

Although the United States had rejected the 1945 Soviet bid for a separate zone, it still anticipated that the Soviets would send an occupying force on the same basis as the Commonwealth nations. MacArthur planned to put the Soviet forces in central Japan in a relatively harmless location. As in the case of the Commonwealth forces, he would have had operational control over them. The U.S. offer to the Soviets to take part in the occupation was still alive as late as early 1947, but they never took it up.^[14]

The Republic of China (ROC) accepted the U.S. offer in late 1945 and made plans to send a Chinese division in early 1946. But Chiang Kai-shek decided in 1947 that because of the worsening situation in his war against the Chinese Communists, he could not spare a division for duty in Japan. None of the other Allied powers offered to send forces.^[15]

The issue of dividing up reparations engaged all the Allies. The FEC began grappling with it early on. The Soviets exacerbated matters by claiming that the Japanese property they had seized in Manchuria and Korea should be treated as "war booty," not as part of the USSR's reparations share. MacArthur valued this property at $50 billion, but Washington estimates were much lower.^[16]

In 1946 the FEC approved eight policy decisions for "interim reparations" removals in industries such as light metals, synthetic rubber, shipbuilding, and machine tools. On August 24, 1946, SCAP sent the Japanese government lists of "reparations selections" in the eight industries approved by the FEC but did not order any removals. Prime Minister Yoshida wrote to MacArthur on October 23, 1946, pointing out that these removals would damage Japan's industrial recovery and asking that some of the plants be exempt. He also urged that final selections be made quickly. MacArthur replied that the issue was important to the FEC nations but that Japanese views would receive careful consideration.^[17]

With the FEC hopelessly deadlocked over how to allocate reparations, the United States decided on April 2, 1947—over stiff Allied objections—to issue an "interim directive" authorizing limited "advance transfers" of up to 30 percent of the anticipated total. China

would get 15 percent; the Philippines, 5 percent; the Netherlands, 5 percent for the East Indies; and the United Kingdom, 5 percent for Burma and Malaya. Deliveries consisting mostly of machine tools were made over a period of two years. MacArthur estimated that the total value of the deliveries was $40 million.^[18]

On March 19, 1947, MacArthur held the only on-the-record press conference of his five and one-half years in Tokyo. The surprise of the foreign correspondents association when he accepted their longstanding invitation to attend a luncheon turned into excitement when he began by saying he was speaking on the record. Some reporters had to scramble for pencils and paper. Only sketchy reconstructions of the questions and answers were available afterward, but SCAP headquarters did put together a partially verbatim transcript.^[19]

It was evident that the general wanted to say something dramatic. The first question was about his suggestion to a group of visiting American journalists a few days before that "the Japanese be placed under the United Nations." MacArthur's reply was a minispeech, which he had prepared well and in fact had already given to the British ambassador.^[20] "The time is now approaching when we must talk peace with Japan .... The military purpose ... to ensure Japan will follow the ways of peace...has been, I think, accomplished .... The political phase is approaching such completion as is possible under the occupation…. I believe sincerely and absolutely that [democracy] is here to stay…. The third phase is economic. Japan is still economically blockaded by the Allied powers.... But this is not a phase the occupation can settle. We can only enforce economic strangulation."

In response to another question, the general said he thought a peace treaty should be concluded "as soon as possible." Handling peace treaty matters was of course not part of MacArthur's job as occupation commander. He told the British ambassador later that he had spoken as an "international officer."^[21] Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson commented to a press conference in Washington on March 18 that further progress would have to be made on the peace treaties with European nations before a Japanese treaty could be addressed. Political adviser Atcheson played down the import of the general's press statement.^[22]

MacArthur lunched on March 13 with Hugh Borton and Ruth Bacon from the State Department. The general knew they were experts working on a draft peace treaty. Borton asserted later that MacArthur

"was fully aware of its contents both when he spoke to the press dub and when I saw him in his office" a few days later. At a second meeting MacArthur told Borton that the occupation had outlived its usefulness and suggested that a peace conference be held in Tokyo in the summer of 1947, with formal signature of the treaty six months later. MacArthur thought other Allied nations could be persuaded to sign a treaty with Japan, with or without the Soviet Union, and as a last resort the United States might even make a separate treaty. The general suggested the Japanese could attend the peace conference and might even have a vote. Borton said that would almost certainly not be possible.^[23]

MacArthur's views were often at variance with those of the Pentagon, but that did not restrain him from speaking out, more often in private than in public. Some of his notions were overoptimistic or simplistic, but his vision of an early, short, and nonpunitive treaty was a helpful guide in later negotiations. He was the first American leader to advocate a liberal settlement of this kind. His ability to express without much challenge opinions independent of those held by his superiors showed how great his self-confidence and authority were.^[24]

MacArthur floated his treaty trial balloon at a time when cold war clouds were gathering in East and West. Only four days earlier President Truman had announced his "doctrine" that the United States would assist friendly nations threatened by communist expansion, specifically Greece and Turkey. In Moscow the Big Four foreign ministers began one of their most fruitless meetings in March 1947, which in the words of a senior diplomat "really rang down the Iron Curtain." In China Mao Zedong's armies were sweeping over North China and Manchuria. And in Tokyo MacArthur had six weeks earlier prohibited a general strike that had seriously threatened the stability of the Japanese government. Peace was not in the air.^[25]

MacArthur had said many times that all military occupations ran down and should not last more than three years. Now, only months after the surrender, he began a new refrain—Japan should have an early peace treaty. This desire to finish the job partly explains his hurry in pushing the reform program and putting the constitution in place. Yoshida ascribed this to the "impulsiveness common to military people of all countries."^[26]

MacArthur may have had other reasons, particularly a fascination with U.S. presidential politics. Even in 1944 when he was fighting the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific, he had let his name be put in nominao-

tion as a presidential candidate. An overwhelming defeat in the Wisconsin primary on April 4, 1944, destroyed any chance he may have thought he had.^[27]

He frequently discussed politics with Eichelberger, Whitney, and Joe Keenan, an Ohio Democrat, as Eichelberger recorded in his diaries. The general once told Eichelberger that Harry Truman thought "FDR was always afraid of MacArthur and seemed to think he might have tremendous political power." MacArthur probably hoped FDR was right. But at times MacArthur seemed to sense that General Eisenhower was the dark horse who might eventually run ahead. MacArthur denigrated Ike's candidacy by saying that "there was no Eisenhower for president movement except as a means to get rid of me" and that Eisenhower should withdraw and give his support to MacArthur. The record also contains unpleasant remarks by Eisenhower about MacArthur. The most famous was undoubtedly the comment by the hero of the European theater that during his tour of duty on MacArthur's staff in the Philippines, "he [Eisenhower] had studied dramatics for seven years." But Ike added that if MacArthur were to walk into the room and say, "'Ike, follow me,' I'd get up and follow him." President Truman may have been right in saying that these two outstanding generals of World War II seemed to suffer from "Potomac fever."^[28]

When MacArthur heard from Borton in April 1947 that plans for a Japanese peace conference were being made in Washington, he was probably pleased. Not only did he think that he had accomplished much of his task in Tokyo, but he may well have felt he could look forward to the climax of his proconsulship at a dramatic international peace conference. A treaty could be signed in late 1947, and he could leave Japan for home the next day. His luster would be at its brightest. And the 1948 presidential campaign would just be getting under way.

In fact, the negotiations for a peace conference broke down in the summer of 1947 over procedural differences among the major powers. Meanwhile, MacArthur's presidential ambitions took on more steam, propelled by friends back home. In September retired Brigadier General Hanford MacNider, an Iowa cement manufacturer who had served in the Pacific under MacArthur, wrote to offer support. MacArthur replied on October 14, 1947, "I do not covet or actively seek ... any other office," but if a movement for his candidacy won widespread support, "there would be no other course open to me but to accept it as a mandate and risk the hazards and responsibilities involved…. This is the first letter I have written on this subject."^[29]

In November 1947 a group of MacArthur's supporters met in Chicago, led by General Robert E. Wood, chairman of Sears Roebuck; Philip LaFollette, a former governor of Wisconsin; and General MacNider. They thought it essential that MacArthur return home and campaign actively. MacArthur wrote back on November 16, 1947, to General Wood that he was too engaged to return but would give the matter further consideration. By not campaigning actively, MacArthur protected himself from charges that he was violating the law prohibiting federal employees from participating in politics.

In June 1948 Eisenhower made a bombshell statement in a letter to a New Hampshire newspaper: "Nothing in the international or domestic situation especially qualifies for the most important office in the world a man whose adult years have been spent in the country's military forces." Ike added that he would not be a candidate. Later he denied that he intended to discourage MacArthur from his candidacy, asserting he hoped MacArthur "feels as great a friendship for me as I do for him." Nevertheless, MacArthur resented Eisenhower's "slur upon the U.S. Army" and as a result "felt obliged to offer his own candidacy," according to the British ambassador, who sometimes liked to probe the general's inner thoughts.^[30]

By early 1948 the general's backers in Wisconsin were getting agitated about his chances, even though polls were showing him to be the favorite over Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and former governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota. In a public statement on March 9 MacArthur responded with an almost Ciceronian touch, ending with the words, "I can say, and with due humility, that I would be recreant to all my concepts of good citizenship were I to shrink because of the hazards and responsibilities involved from accepting any public duty to which I might be called by the American people." The general still had not crossed the Rubicon, but he would do so if the right call came.^[31]

The Japanese watched these maneuvers with keen interest and no doubt some puzzlement. Newspapers ran extras and editorials expressed regret that MacArthur might go. Signs appeared in downtown Tokyo, one reading, "Pray for General MacArthur's Success in the Presidential Election." Prime Minister Ashida, who had just taken office, wrote an effusive letter to MacArthur in March 1948 that "it has been my ardent hope that you would continue to remain in this country to carry on the magnificent work you are accomplishing here." He added that if the general should answer the call, "Japan's loss will be the world's gain."^[32]

On March 29, 1948, The New York Times predicted victory for MacArthur in the Wisconsin primary, but wrongly, it turned out. MacArthur finished a poor second on April 6, gaining only eight of the twenty-seven delegates to be chosen and 36 percent of the vote. Harold Stassen from neighboring Minnesota got nineteen delegates and 40 percent of the vote. Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who eventually won the nomination, got 24 percent of the vote but no delegates. The day after the election, MacArthur's chief of staff in Tokyo said, "The general is low as a rug and very disappointed."^[33] A week later MacArthur ran fifth in the Nebraska primary. He then asked that his name be withdrawn from other primaries. MacArthur's name was put in nomination to an almost empty hall at the Republican convention on June 25, 1948, at 4:30 A.M. On the first ballot he got 11 of the 1,094 votes cast. Dewey was chosen on the third ballot, with 1 dissenting vote—by a MacArthur supporter.

MacArthur wrote bitterly in his memoirs, "My name was precipitated into the struggle for the Republican nomination.... I was not a candidate and declined to campaign for the office. I had not the slightest desire to become the head of state, having had more than enough of such an office in the administration of Japan.... The attempt was abortive, and its only tangible result was to bring down on my head an avalanche of abuse from the party in power.... From that moment on it became only a question of time until retaliation would be visited upon me."^[34]

Whether MacArthur's White House aspirations colored his attitudes and actions in Japan before 1948 is hard to assess. His name was always associated with conservative causes in American politics. In Japan he carried out with reasonable fidelity the policies he had been given, liberal though many of them undoubtedly were.^[35] Nevertheless, MacArthur knew from firsthand observation of the New Deal in Washington what a spectacular success Franklin Roosevelt had been as a politician. The general may have figured that the liberal flavor of many of the policies he executed in Japan—the breakup of the big business combines and the emancipation of farmers and workers—invested him with a useful touch of New Deal populism.

Even before he became engaged in presidential politics, MacArthur was the target of press criticism back home. Newsweek in particular took a number of pot shots at him. On December 1, 1947, it published a lengthy article entitled "Lawyer's Report Attacks Plan to Run Occupation ... Far to Left of Anything Now Tolerated in America."

The lawyer was James Lee Kauffman, an American attorney with prewar experience in Japan. Quoting extensively from the copy of FEC-230 he had obtained surreptitiously in Japan, he claimed the policy set forth in this document would cause the "virtual destruction of Japanese business and the sale of its assets at nominal prices to selected purchasers, including labor unions, about one-half of which are communist-dominated." The Newsweek article shortly led to debate in the U.S. Senate, with Senator William F. Knowland, a Republican from California, taking the lead in criticizing the proposal embodied in FEC-230.^[36]

Not one to hang back when under attack, MacArthur charged forth. In a long letter of February 1, 1948, to a private citizen that SCAP made public, the general thundered that the Japanese system "permitted ten family groups ... to control, directly or indirectly, every phase of commerce and industry; all media of transportation, both internal and external; all domestic raw materials; and all coal and other power resources.... The record is thus one of economic oppression and exploitation at home, aggression and spoliation abroad."^[37] The general also wrote to Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut on February 1 that "if this concentration of economic power is not torn down and redistributed peacefully, and in due order under the occupation, there is no slightest doubt that its cleansing will eventually occur through a blood bath of revolutionary violence." The supreme commander was firing his big guns.^[38]

Newsweek had attacked him early in 1947 regarding the purge program. MacArthur issued a long rebuttal claiming that Washington had imposed the purge on him and asserting that not only did the Japanese press support it but that thousands of Japanese had written to SCAP calling for its extension. A few months later, Harry Kern, the sword-sharp foreign editor of the magazine, reported from Tokyo that "the Japanese economy is about to go into a tailspin.... Unless really drastic measures are taken ... the chances of making Japan into 'the workshop of the Far East' as part of the American policy of rebuilding the world and containing communism will have gone glimmering."^[39]

Kauffman and Kern founded the American Council on Japan in June 1948 to "reverse the reformist orientation of the early occupation." They approached a group of prominent conservatives in Washington and New York, circulated critical and sometimes vicious literature about SCAP policies and officials, and won some hearing for their views from reputable former diplomats such as Grew and William Castle, and from James Forrestal, William Draper, and Lieutenant

General Robert Eichelberger in the Pentagon. But these attacks had little influence.^[40]

MacArthur was temperamental in dealing with the press, and his press advisers were often clumsy. He was not popular with many of the foreign press corps. Seventeen foreign correspondents were expelled from Japan—reportedly with the general's approval in each case— during the first five years of the occupation. He had a few confidants, such as Miles W. Vaughn of the United Press, to whom he fed views from time to time. Otherwise, he saw few journalists other than distinguished publishers or senior editors who came on visits from abroad. He sometimes granted farewell interviews to foreign reporters who were leaving Japan. He and his staff followed the press avidly, and their sensitivity to criticism was notorious. They censored the Japanese-language press and, on occasion, the English-language press. Excessive censorship was a black mark on the occupation record.^[41]

The most famous censorship incident occurred in October 1946 when the English-language Nippon Times carried an English translation of an article from the vernacular press cautioning the Japanese people not to look upon MacArthur with "idolatry." Willoughby, evidently unbeknown to his boss, had deliveries of the paper stopped and the offensive article deleted because it was "not in good taste." By that time millions of Japanese had already read the offending article in their own language.^[42]

SCAP received criticism from liberal elements in the United States as well but handled it deftly. Well-known civil liberties advocate Roger Baldwin visited Japan in early 1947 to present a list of complaints compiled by civil liberties advocates in the United States. He received plush treatment, including two meetings with MacArthur, and left Japan with a profound admiration for MacArthur, asserting the general was as liberal as he was. But Baldwin did not get much support from SCAP for the civil liberties complaints he had advanced, and his later letters to SCAP also failed to bring about any change in attitude. MacArthur had defended the image of the supreme commander without altering his policies.^[43]

Chapter 12
The Failure of Coalition Politics

General MacArthur was always more intrigued by American political maneuverings than by Japanese politics. By 1947 his control in Tokyo was so sure that it did not seem to make much difference who was prime minister. Neither the departure of Yoshida nor the advent of a Socialist gave him any qualms. In fact, he and his GS were heartened that a humanitarian liberal was taking over the helm of state as the new democratic constitution came into effect.^[1]

Katayama Tetsu was a sixty-year-old successful attorney who had been elected to the Diet three times before the war. A Presbyterian who believed "democratic government must be permeated by a spirit of Christian love and humanism," he was quite lacking in the cunning of many politicians. His grip on power was tenuous from the start because his cabinet was an ill-assorted coalition of Socialists, Democrats, and members of the People's Cooperative Party and his party held only a slim plurality in the lower house. To avoid attack from the powerful right and probably out of concern for American sensibilities about pure socialism, Katayama excluded the left Socialists from his cabinet and was compelled to split it almost evenly between right Socialists and Democrats, who were barely distinguishable from Liberals in political outlook. He wrote later that MacArthur suggested at an early meeting that he talk to Communist leader Tokuda about a united front of the Socialists and Communists. Katayama understandably did nothing about this far-out idea.^[2]

The new National Diet was far more representative of the people than the old Imperial Diet. SCAP believed it would no longer encounter the niggling opposition to change and the laissez-faire economics espoused by Yoshida and the conservatives. It hoped the road to political reform and economic democracy would now be smoother. Indeed, Katayama was willing to cooperate with SCAP and even eager to do its bidding.

Katayama lasted eight months as prime minister, from June 1947 to February 1948. Despite his high hopes and tireless efforts, he made little headway in raising production, lowering inflation, or wiping out the black market economy. His one big push—to nationalize the coal industry—marked the high point of socialist endeavor in Japan's modern history. MacArthur told Katayama on September 18, 1947, that the Diet was free to act as it saw fit on this matter, adding that Japan should try to boost coal production to its wartime peak of dose to 50 million tons a year. Well watered down by the Diet, Katayama's coal bill, passed in December 1947, in effect established government supervision, not control, over the industry. Coal production mounted steadily in the following years, but not because of the insignificant coal law of 1947.^[3]

SCAP also pressed Katayama to adopt two controversial reforms: to break up large "economic concentrations" and to decentralize the police. Late in the summer of 1947 ESS received a copy of FEC-230, the U.S. antitrust proposal. At the same time the FEC was studying it, ESS called in two senior Japanese from the ESB and told them immediate action was necessary to implement an "order" from Washington entitled "Elimination of Concentrations of Economic Power." The moderately socialist Katayama cabinet was so disturbed that the prime minister wrote a letter to MacArthur on September 4, 1947, asserting that although the government supported the principle of deconcentration, the new proposal was "even more stringent than the law enacted in Germany." SCAP was unyielding, however, and pushed for quick approval.^[4]

Before the bill was enacted, Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall "directed" MacArthur to ensure that it was amended to contain certain modifications Washington wanted. MacArthur reluctantly instructed the Japanese to make the amendments as well as a significant change the Japanese wanted: insertion in the title of the word excessive . The bill was passed late on December 9, 1947, with two SCAP officials on the floor of the Diet and the parliamentary clock stopped to enable negotia-

tions to finish before the Diet session ran out of time.^[5] The Law for the Elimination of Excessive Concentrations of Economic Power, or the Deconcentration Law, was probably the most contentious piece of legislation passed during the occupation; SCAP and Washington disagreed about the plan, as did SCAP and the Japanese. Yet it proved to have a far-reaching effect on at least a few industries in Japan. For example, the law led to the split of Japan Steel Company into two companies, Fuji and Yawata, which brought about intense competition in the steel industry. This ended when the two were reunited in 1970 to form Nippon Steel Company, one of the largest in the world.

Police reform remained a sensitive issue throughout the occupation. The Home Ministry had tightly controlled the prewar police, whose many duties involved law enforcement, tax collection, election observation, customs enforcement, census taking, intelligence gathering, and thought control. The police commanded the respect and even the obsequiousness of the general public. In late 1945 Japanese requests to SCAP to approve increases of the size and arms of the police, then numbering 93,935 persons, were rejected.^[6]

MacArthur moved cautiously on police decontrol, waiting for the Japanese to come up with their own plan. By the summer of 1947 police reform had become one of the more notorious footballs of the occupation, as Whitney's GS and Willoughby's G-2 fought to determine not only which section would make occupation policy but also what kind of police forces Japan should have. G-2 experts wanted larger and more centralized police. GS advocated only a small increase in the numbers of the police and bitterly opposed any centralization. As on several other occasions, GS instructed the Japanese to deal only with it on police matters. Willoughby wrote an interoffice memorandum on August 24 referring bitterly to "this new inexperienced government, completely under the thumb of the Government Section."^[7]

Prime Minister Katayama discussed the subject with General MacArthur on August 26 and submitted a reform proposal on September 3, which GS found objectionable. GS and G-2 met nineteen times in the next two weeks and finally agreed on a compromise plan. MacArthur's letter to Katayama, dated September 16, 1947, provided for total police forces of 125,000 divided into two parts. One would be the national rural police of 30,000 operating in rural areas and small towns; it would have centralized units at the national level only for limited purposes such as the setting of standards and some forms of training. The other would be the autonomous local forces totaling 95,000 in cities

and towns of more than 5,000 in population; the result would be about 1,600 independent municipal police forces. Public safety commissions. would be set up at both the national and local levels. The prime minister could take control of the police forces if he proclaimed a state of nation-. al emergency, which would have to be ratified by the Diet within twenty days. The Police Law embodying the principles enunciated by the supreme commander was enacted by the Diet and went into effect on March 8, 1948.^[8]

The official GS report paid tribute to the Police Law as typical of "the relationship that existed generally between the government and the headquarters in reaching solutions to Japanese problems."^[9] In fact, the resolution of the police issue was a tribute to the power of GS to win over MacArthur, thus overwhelming the experts in G-2 and compelling a reluctant Japanese government to go along.

In 1954, two years after the occupation ended, the Yoshida cabinet amended the Police Law to organize all police into forty-six prefectural police forces, despite strong left-wing opposition. It called for a national public safety commission and prefectural commissions to supervise these forces and established a police agency at the national level to formulate operational standards for the entire country.

The Diet passed a maritime safety agency law on April 15, 1948. Japan actually maintained maritime control units throughout the occupation, an embryo navy that was never disbanded. The law established a new agency, modeled after the U.S. Coast Guard, to handle patrol and safety functions in coastal waters, with water police functions divorced from normal civil police activities. The personnel strength of the new force was 10,000. The ACJ debated the bill at the instigation of the Australian member, thereby stirring MacArthur's ire at this implied criticism of his policy.^[10]

On December 31, 1947, the Diet formally abolished the Home Ministry. Long the most powerful civilian agency of the government, the ministry embodied the centralized and oppressive bureaucracy of prewar Japan, although its officials were generally considered to be among the most efficient in the government. GS had come to believe early in the occupation that the Home Ministry would have to be radically restructured but finally decided to abolish it and parcel out its functions to other agencies. Some observers have noted that a number of officials of the presurrender Home Ministry were never purged or reentered the government to serve in important positions. They were, of course, relatively young in the earlier period, and the bureaucratic

institutions they now work in are very different from the old Naimusho. Many of these carryovers proved to be effective and moderate bureaucrats.^[11]

Katayama set up the Labor Ministry on September 1, 1947. It included a women's and minors' bureau, which has played a key role in advancing the rights of women and children in postwar Japan. From the start of the occupation Japanese and American women had worked together to advance the cause of women's rights. Their efforts were crowned by inclusion of several provisions in the constitution of 1947. Later legislation provided further protections. There had been considerable support for a separate ministry for women and family matters, and setting up a bureau within the Labor Ministry was the compromise.^[12] Equality of the sexes as promised in the 1947 constitution is still a long way off, but opportunities for women in politics, government, business, and education are steadily expanding.

During the short term of the Katayama cabinet, the Diet passed six of the permanent laws to implement the new constitution. The most significant items were the revised civil and criminal codes. The revised civil code, which became effective on July 1, 1948, enshrined into law the concepts of the dignity of the individual and the equality of the sexes. According to the official GS report, it was the Japanese who made the decision to radically alter the old family system, even beyond what the new constitution required. The eagerness of many Japanese legal experts in the early days of the occupation to adopt different ideas, often of Western origin, was one of the surprising aspects of that era. One is tempted to say that the Americans were not the only New Dealers in postwar Japan. The revised criminal code abolished adultery as a crime because the Diet did not want to make it equally punishable for both sexes. Provisions regarding libel and defamation were rewritten. The code protected the rights of defendants and witnesses much as in U.S. practice and circumscribed the authority of judges to conduct trials, which had been all but absolute.^[13]

Japan has no trial by jury. Jury trials had been tried experimentally in the prewar period, but the test was considered a failure. The Japanese are not comfortable sitting in judgment on their fellow men and women. Western concepts of right and wrong, legal and illegal, are much tempered in their view by human feelings such as sympathy, regret, or a sense of obligation. The occupation did not try to tamper with these deep-rooted traits.

MacArthur's greeting to Katayama on May 24 spoke of "spiritual

implications.... For the first time in its history, Japan is led by a Christian leader.... It reflects the complete religious tolerance which now dominates the Japanese mind and the complete religious freedom which exists throughout this land." Noting that two other Asian Christians were at the head of their governments, Chiang Kai-shek in China and Manuel Roxas in the Philippines, the supreme commander suggested that this "offers hope for the ultimate erection of an invincible spiritual barrier against the infiltration of ideologies which seek by suppression the way to power and advancement. This is human progress."^[14]

Washington policy guidance spoke of religious freedom but said nothing about promoting Christianity. The general was nevertheless attentive to opinion back home on religious matters, as several incidents testify. On one occasion in late 1947 he received a letter from a Christian missionary complaining that "our own American government ... informed the Japanese Government that Christianity is to be placed on the same plane with their own religion (in other words that it is no better than idolatry) and that it must not be favored ." MacArthur's office drafted a reply that he believed "that Japan will become Christianized. Every possible effort to that end is being made."^[15]

Lieutenant Colonel Donald R. Nugent, whose job as chief of CIE included religion, advised MacArthur that his section was not in fact making "every possible effort" to Christianize Japan, its policy being a maximum of freedom of religious belief. MacArthur said that so long as no religion or belief was oppressed and the legal treatment of all religions was equal, the occupation had every right to propagate Christianity and to give it every assistance. The general added that visiting church dignitaries asserted that the CIE had a "stiff-necked attitude of impartiality and did not show sufficient enthusiasm in the propagation of Christianity." Nugent said he would orient his staff about the point of view of the commander in chief.

MacArthur received a flock of letters a few months later from Christians in the United States criticizing a Japanese textbook containing the assertion that "today we cannot believe in all that is written in the Gospel (the Birth of Christ, the miracles he achieved, and his resurrection)." CIE reprimanded the author and publisher, suspended new printings of the book, and set up checks to prevent recurrence. MacArthur sent a virtually identical reply to all the critical letters describing what had happened and stating in regard to Christianity in Japan that "a whole

population is beginning to understand, practice and cherish its underlying principles and ideals."^[16]

Many letters from the United States inquired about the progress of Christianity in Japan. The original CIE draft of a reply to one of these letters stated there were about 200,000 Christians in Japan. Fearing the "old man" would consider this figure too low, a staff officer added a zero before submitting the letter to the general for signature. Although he signed the letter, MacArthur reportedly thought that the figure of 2 million was too low and said later that 4 million might be more accurate. MacArthur's intense interest and hope for a Christian revolution began to taper off, however, and after 1949 it was rarely mentioned. The number of Christians in Japan increased by about 10 percent during the occupation, to a total of about 390,000, or 0.5 percent of the population.^[17]

By the beginning of 1948 the divisions in the Socialist Party were steadily widening. Katayama's leadership was under challenge from both the left and right. In January the left wing decided to support a budget-breaking supplemental allowance for public workers. The defection of the leftists was largely due to differences over economic policy and dissatisfaction with the "middle-of-the-road" policies of the Katayama cabinet. Soon after, the purge of Hirano Rikizo, the minister of agriculture and one of the party's right-wing leaders, dealt another hard blow to party unity. It was widely known that Kades of GS had been pressing the Japanese to purge Hirano. According to one gossipy account by a Japanese historian, Hirano had committed two sins in the eyes of GS: he had given support to Yoshida in earlier interparty negotiations and had maintained good contacts with G-2. Several years later Whitney authorized his judicial expert, Alfred Oppler, to intervene directly with the president of Japan's Supreme Court to deny Hirano's appeal from his purge decision.^[18] The breakaway of the Democratic Party group in Katayama's coalition delivered yet another blow. This was formalized on March 15 when former prime minister Shidehara Kijuro and thirty of his supporters joined Yoshida and the Liberals. The Liberals soon renamed their party the Democratic Liberal Party, although cynics claimed they merited neither adjective.

By early February Katayama had decided to resign. He paid his farewell call on MacArthur on February 9. The general reportedly suggested he might go before the Diet and seek reelection, but the prime minister did not take up this suggestion. MacArthur then issued a state-

ment praising Katayama for his "conscientious and patriotic leadership" and commenting that the outgoing cabinet had "been confronted with the serious political, economic, and social dislocations which are a natural consequence of the war and defeat." He added in regard to the selection of the next government that "the occupation will continue to regard the determination of such internal political issues as a responsibility of the representatives of the Japanese people."^[19]

MacArthur told Ambassador Gascoigne on February 10 that "imbued as Katayama was with the highest ideals, he had been the victim of his own inherent modesty and patriotism." Katayama "had repudiated the policy of his own party to serve the interests of the nation" and "had endeavored to make the four-party coalition a reality but had failed owing to Yoshida's obstructive and selfish tactics."^[20]

On February 10, 1948, Katayama called on the emperor and submitted his resignation. Two questions then arose: whether the emperor, whose sole constitutional function in such situations was to attest the documents involved, should have received the prime minister's resignation and whether Katayama had acted in accordance with the constitution, which provided clearly that the house could be dissolved only at the end of its four-year term or when a no-confidence resolution had been passed.^[21] These issues became a subject for heated debate in the press and in political circles.

Yoshida had been working hard since he left office to build up his party and strengthen his own leadership. In the ten months he had been out of office, he had traveled around the country learning to be a politician and building political support. The enticement of the Shidehara faction away from the Democrats had been a major coup, encouraging Yoshida in his belief that two major parties might emerge in Japan— one conservative and the other left of center. In this way, he thought, Japan could develop a government strong enough to implement policy and avoid having constantly to placate warring political factions.^[22]

The Socialist Party had failed to lead the nation, much as the conservatives had failed nine months before. It had done the nation a service by trying to provide left-of-center leadership, giving labor and left-wing forces an opportunity for a practical test of their policies. But after this one experience, the Japanese people were reluctant to give the party another chance.

In his memoirs published in 1969, Katayama recounted an event that has never been satisfactorily explained. In a private meeting before the prime minister resigned, MacArthur made a "statement on the rearma-

ment of Japan." Katayama said that because he was personally opposed to rearmament and strongly in support of the no-war clause in the constitution, he did not feel he could respond in any favorable way to the general's suggestion. Nishio Suehiro, Katayama's top strategist, and Sone Eki, his diplomatic adviser and often his interpreter, stated they had no information about any such meeting with MacArthur or about advice from U.S. headquarters that Japan should "consider" rearmament.^[23] Certainly MacArthur opposed Japan's rearmament at that time. It was not until 1950, when the Korean War broke out, that the general entertained any argument from his own government that Japan should increase its defense strength. Nevertheless, by early 1948 Washington was rethinking Japan's role, and Tokyo was soon to feel the pressure.

The resignation of Katayama violently shook the uneasy political equilibrium within the Socialist-Democratic coalition. Yoshida Shigeru, abiding by classic parliamentary principles, argued that there should be a new general election of if not, that the leading opposition party—his Liberals—should form a cabinet. GS did not welcome the prospect of another Yoshida cabinet, however. The British ambassador quoted Colonel Bunker, MacArthur's aide, as saying that GS would do everything "to make it as difficult as possible for Yoshida to return to power."^[24]

In this fluid situation Ashida Hitoshi was able to build on the same three-party coalition—Democrats, Socialists, and People's Cooperatives—that had elected Katayama. On March 10, 1948; one month after Katayama left office, Ashida became prime minister. It took him two weeks to form his cabinet, which included two left Socialists. He had fought off Yoshida's challenge, but the old diplomat had made a good scrap of it. Some of Yoshida's supporters wanted him to join the coalition, but he fended them off. He was confident that another election was coming up and that his party would win.

General MacArthur did not endorse Ashida, as he had Yoshida and Katayama. A GS spokesman did state on February 24 that the election of Ashida had been "thoroughly democratic" and then rather incautiously suggested that perhaps the Diet should clarify the "true position of the Emperor" as a ceremonial symbol of the state without political power. This comment brought the emperor's interpreter, Terasaki Hidenari, running to Bunker to ask what SCAP had in mind. It was not clear whether the emperor was concerned, or only his protective servitors. MacArthur told Bunker not to get into the matter and that "no criticism of the Emperor" had been intended.^[25] Some concern re-

mained, however, that Katayama, by presenting his resignation to the emperor, may have conferred on the Tenno a degree of political power not sanctioned by the constitution.

With SCAP blessing, Ashida was safely ensconced in high office. The new prime minister had some assets for the job. A handsome and well-educated man, his diplomatic and legal background added breadth and sophistication to his political talents. He was more urbane and polished than Yoshida, and his command of English was stronger. From 1933 to 1940 Ashida had served as president of the Japan Times & Mail , an official organ of the Japanese Foreign Office and the voice of Japan for the English-speaking community. After the war it was renamed the Nippon Times and then the Japan Times . A GS memorandum of 1947 asserted that the editorial policy of the paper had "consistently and enthusiastically supported the government's program of naked aggression and ruthless exploitation in Asia." Nevertheless, Ashida had been able to escape being purged, mainly because the Japanese media subcommittee set up to examine purge cases felt that the Japan Times & Mail had only insignificant influence on popular attitudes because it was published in English.^[26]

Ashida, however, was something of a trimmer more eager to win influence than to advance good causes. Nor did he succeed in establishing good relations with MacArthur, who considered him "slippery" despite his skill in organizing his cabinet.^[27] The supreme commander's harsh judgment was somewhat surprising because Ashida tried mightily to curry favor with senior SCAP officials. The new prime minister got Whitney to write him a letter on April 3, 1948, asserting there was no basis for a new election at that time and supporting steps to increase attendance at Diet sessions.^[28]

Ashida's first months in office seemed promising. He was active and successful on several fronts. He met with Under Secretary of the Army William H. Draper, who had obtained a large congressional appropriation in early 1948 for assistance to Japan as well as a loan of $600 million to enable Japan to buy U.S. cotton. Cotton textiles had been Japan's prime prewar import-earning industry and served as the flagship of its postwar industrial revival. Ashida pushed the ESB draft of a five-year economic development plan. His grip seemed strong.

Ashida's running start at the helm of government was greeted in the summer of 1948 by a potent letter from MacArthur calling for restrictions on the bargaining rights of government employees. The government had 2.5 million employees, about 1 million of whom were in gov-

ernment enterprises like the railway. Government workers were the most highly organized in Japan, making up about 40 percent of all union members and the most active group in politics.^[29]

The bureaucracy had received no special attention during the first two years of the occupation, unlike the other pillars of the old order in Japan—the military, politicians, and big business. An effort was soon made to remedy this oversight. A U.S. civil service mission headed by Blaine Hoover, the president of the Civil Service Assembly of the United States and Canada, arrived in Japan in late 1946 to survey the situation. His solutions were 100 percent American. His June 16, 1947, report to MacArthur made two key proposals: establish a powerful central personnel agency and pass laws that (1) would give civil servants the right to organize but not to bargain collectively or to strike and (2) would empower government enterprise workers to organize and bargain collectively but not to strike. Government employees other than those in enterprise operations were already prohibited from striking by the Labor Relations Adjustment Law of 1946, although this provision was not strictly enforced.

When Prime Minister Katayama and his senior advisers learned of the Hoover recommendations on June 1, 1947, they felt consternation. These proposals would all but destroy the bargaining powers of the government workers, who were a powerful force in the Socialist movement. Yet there was little they could do about Hoover's recommendations. The drafting of a new bill went ahead, and much of the Hoover plan was embodied in a revision of the National Public Service Law (NPSL) passed by the Diet on October 21 while Hoover was in the United States. But the revision omitted the plan's key provision prohibiting strikes and collective bargaining by government workers, both civil servants and those in government enterprises, a compromise that SCAP sections were willing to accept, perhaps because they did not agree with Hoover's tough position. Hoover was incensed when he got back in November and set about to repair the damage.

By the early summer of 1948 new labor troubles were boiling. The settlement of the strike threat of early 1947 had left government workers dissatisfied with the wage increase they had received. The average pay of government workers was ¥2,900 a month (about $12), whereas pay in the private sector was about ¥5,087 (about $20). Work stoppages, slowdowns, refusals to work overtime, and similar tactics became frequent. As early as March 29 General Marquat had issued a memorandum banning a threatened strike by communications workers

and citing MacArthur's general strike ban of January 31, 1947, as his authority.

With Whitney's support, Hoover argued that all government workers had a responsibility to the public to refrain from strikes and coercive collective bargaining, with any disputes to be settled by the national personnel authority. James Killen, the labor expert in ESS, argued that workers in government enterprises should have the right to bargain collectively but not to strike. It is noteworthy that the Japanese constitution of 1947 provided in Article 28 that "the right of workers to organize and to bargain and act collectively is guaranteed."

The two sides put the issue up to the supreme commander. In a unique resort to staff action, MacArthur held an all-day meeting with a half dozen senior staff officials on July 21, 1948. He listened carefully as Hoover and Killen presented their cases and asked many questions. Kades had dug up a quotation from Franklin D. Roosevelt that made an impression on MacArthur: "A strike of public employees ... looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable."^[30]

At the end of the meeting MacArthur said he reserved his decision. The next day he sent Prime Minister Ashida a letter dearly embodying the view of Hoover and GS: "The paramountcy of the public interest is ... of foremost consideration and corollary thereto is the need that safeguards be erected to ensure that the lawful authority of the government as the political instrument to enforce the people's will as expressed in the body of public law be only challengeable at the polls as provided under well-established democratic practice."^[31]

The letter then proposed some major bureaucratic surgery: remove the bulk of the government enterprise workers, who were employees of the railways and of the salt, camphor, and tobacco monopolies, from. the civil service and place them in public corporations under mediation and arbitration procedures and split the Ministry of Posts and Communications into two ministries to handle postal services and other communications functions. MacArthur's decision was thus a compromise. Public workers would not have the right to strike or bargain collectively, but public enterprise workers would have the right to collective bargaining without the right to strike.

Prime Minister Ashida moved immediately to carry out MacArthur's instructions. A cabinet ordinance issued on July 31 put them into operation pending legislation by the Diet. This was the famous cabinet order 201, which Japanese liberals interpreted as another move to the right by the United States and the supreme commander.^[32]

The MacArthur letter of July 22 set off small bombs in many bastions—within SCAP, in the Japanese government, in Washington, and on the international diplomatic front. On July 30 Killen resigned as head of the ESS labor division after issuing a press statement that the proposed revisions of the NPSL were "ill-advised and will retard a healthy labor movement." Killen told the political adviser on August 9 that the Communists would make big gains as a result of MacArthur's action, but he put more of the blame for what had happened on Whitney and Hoover. The political adviser reported that on July 30 "the general appeared a bit worried about his letter to Ashida." MacArthur said he had "a great deal of factual material prepared" if the Soviets questioned his action. They soon did.^[33]

The SCAP letter became an international issue when the Soviet Union challenged it in both the ACJ and the FEC. A key Soviet argument was that the FEC had authorized political activities by labor unions, whether government employees or not. This objection was heard with some sympathy by representatives of the Commonwealth nations, but the United States was firmly opposed. The Soviet objections won no converts.

The Australian and British governments believed that government workers should be entitled to some form of collective bargaining or arbitration. A majority in the FEC seemed to support an Australian proposal that in effect could have given the strike right to government enterprise workers, but Australia did not press for a vote in the face of adamant U.S. opposition. The Commonwealth attitude enraged MacArthur. When he met with the British ambassador in Tokyo, "for the better part of an hour the general was in such an uncontrollable temper that it was almost impossible to reason with him." When told of the concern of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, a powerful leader of the British Labour Party, that the legislation proposed by the Japanese should provide for collective bargaining including arbitration, MacArthur complained bitterly that "in the most enlightened democracy in the world, the United Kingdom, it was not realized you could not give the same rights as were enjoyed in Britain to a backward, feudalistic nation such as Japan."^[34]

MacArthur encountered his most serious opposition in the Army and State departments in Washington, which recommended greater flexibility in the treatment of public enterprise workers.^[35] This was the nub of the issue: should government workers be entitled to some kind of collective bargaining in labor disputes? MacArthur and Whitney said no. Both Ashida and Yoshida were on their side.

In concert with SCAP, the Japanese government worked out and later in 1948 enacted the Public Corporations and National Enterprises Labor Relations Law. It set up five government enterprises, including the alcohol monopoly, and two government corporations, or kosha , including the national railways and the tobacco and salt corporations. In 1950, when the Post and Communications Ministry was divided into two ministries—postal services and telecommunications—the Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corporation was created as a third major public corporation. The employees of the five government enterprises and three public corporations did not have the right to strike under the new law but did have the rights to organize and bargain collectively. MacArthur hailed the amended NPSL as "a major victory for those who seek integrity of government over those who would leave the government prey to minority subjugation."^[36] Yoshida and his Democratic Liberal Party passed all of the legislation flowing from the MacArthur letter soon after they returned to power in October 1948.

SCAP was not yet through with government workers. Having ensured that government employees were deprived of the right to strike and bargain collectively, Blaine Hoover embarked on one of the more bizarre operations of the occupation. He planned a series of examinations to determine whether those holding or applying for senior positions in the civil service had the necessary qualifications. The uneasy Japanese tried to get the exams postponed, but General Whitney said no: "In Allied countries there has been criticism of the Japanese higher bureaucracy for the role they played in the planning and the preparing and in the leadership of the war."^[37]

The tests, held in mid-January 1950, put 2,649 positions on the line. Virtually every incumbent applied, along with about 5,000 outside aspirants. The exams were to probe knowledge, technical information, and adaptability for work in the civil service. The imaginative Japanese cooked up the term paradise examinations to describe the relaxed conditions under which the tests were to be given: the examinees could smoke, drink tea, and eat their lunch, and no time limit was imposed. A total of 7,432 persons took the exams. A SCAP report stated that 25 percent of the tested officials lost their jobs; another source put the failure rate at 30 percent; other sources put it much lower. Many who took the tests thought them reasonable and fair. The tests were never given again.^[38]

Although SCAP is often criticized for doing little to reform Japan's bureaucracy, it did in fact carve up government personnel and agencies rather considerably. Of government employees, 1,809 were formally purged. Many thousands more were either fired or forced to resign,

most of them in the opening months of the occupation: 4,800, nearly all police officials, were fired from the Home Ministry in October 1945 as a result of the bill of rights directive; 115, 778 teachers resigned under pressure from the Education Ministry, and 5,211 more were in effect purged; Yoshida fired 7,500 nationalists in the Foreign Office. Of the twelve cabinet-level ministries in existence at the end of the war, the Japanese abolished three—the Army and Navy ministries and the Ministry of Greater East Asia. The cabinet quickly converted another, the Munitions Ministry, into the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which became the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in 1949. With SCAP approval the Home Ministry was abolished in 1947, and its functions were parceled out to other agencies; and the Justice Ministry was reorganized. Several new ministries were set up during the occupation, such as the Labor Ministry, the Ministry of Welfare, the Ministry of Postal Services and Communications, and the Ministry of Transportation. All criticisms to the contrary, the bureaucracy was extensively pruned, and the structure of many ministries was significantly revised.^[39]

In the summer of 1948, when the national public service issue was being debated and the new legislation enacted, one of the biggest political scandals in modern Japanese history was welling up and engulfing many prominent victims. The Showa Denko (Showa Electric) Company, Japan's largest manufacturer of fertilizer, had obtained huge loans from the Reconstruction Finance Bank (RFB), a government financial institution set up in 1946 with occupation blessing to help finance development projects. The RFB had got the reputation of lending money without adequately checking the reliability and creditworthiness of recipients. Public prosecutors began an investigation of RFB's connections with Showa Denko in May 1948, seized company documents, and in June arrested its president on charges of having bribed government officials. Among those arrested were a former finance minister in the Katayama cabinet and a senior Finance Ministry official, Fukuda Takeo, who was later acquitted and in 1976 became prime minister of Japan.

Next the deputy prime minister, Nishio Suehiro, was arrested on a charge of having received a bribe of œ1 million (about $3,300). The day after, October 7, the cabinet decided to resign. On December 7 Ashida himself was arrested. All told, sixty-four persons were arrested and charged with having received some œ6 million (about $20,000) in bribes.^[40]

It was rumored that an even larger amount had been used to in-

fluence foreigners, meaning members of the occupation. That officers in GS were a favorite target of the rumormongers was ironic because only a few months earlier Kades had induced the government to make a thorough, but eventually fruitless, investigation of the "hoarded goods scandal," which involved possibly as much as $2 billion worth of military supplies and equipment illegally diposed of at the end of the war.^[41]

In 1958 Ashida and Nishio were finally acquitted after ten years of trials, an example of the excessively protracted judicial proceedings that are so frequent in Japan. In the end, of the sixty-four persons arrested, only two were convicted and sentenced to prison terms. Almost none of the money allegedly used for bribes was ever traced or even accounted for.

Documentary evidence does not indicate that the Shoden (as Showa Denko was known) case was of much concern to SCAP or that its officials were involved.^[42] What is dear is that Shoden was the coup de grace for coalition government. Thereafter, the power of the Democratic Liberal Party and its leaders grew steadily, buoyed by a huge wave of popularity for Yoshida Shigeru.

Chapter 13
The End of the War Crimes Trials
The Emperor Decides Not to Abdicate

A few weeks after the fall of the Ashida cabinet, the trial of Japan's major war crimes suspects, which had gone on for two and one-half years, came to an end—more on a note of relief that it was over than with any feeling that justice had been done. Probably no one welcomed the end more than General MacArthur, who always sought quick and neat solutions to his management problems and abhorred the bureaucratic morass the trial had bogged down in.

On November 12, 1948, seven of the twenty-five defendants in the Tokyo trial, as it was commonly known, were sentenced to death: General Tojo Hideki (a former prime minister), five other generals, and former prime minister Hirota Koki, a civilian. Sixteen defendants, five of them civilians, were given life imprisonment. Of the remaining two, former foreign minister Shigemitsu Mamoru was given seven years in prison and General Umezu Yoshijiro received a sentence of twenty years. None of the defendants in the Tokyo trial was acquitted.^[1]

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East had held 818 sessions, 419 witnesses had testified in court, 779 witnesses had given written evidence, and 4,336 exhibits had been admitted in evidence. The transcript of the proceedings covered 48,412 pages. It took eleven judges nearly seven months of deliberation to arrive at their judgments. There were three dissenting opinions, one—by Radhabinod Pal of Indiana sweeping disagreement with the majority judgment.^[2] (The Nuremberg trial of twenty-two Nazi leaders and generals had taken less

than eleven months· Twelve defendants were sentenced to death, and three were acquitted, including financier Hjalmar Schacht.)^[3]

MacArthur was empowered to review the Tokyo sentences. He decided to consult with the representatives in Tokyo of the FEC nations, most of whom recommended no change in the sentences. On November 24 he ordered the sentences to be executed as pronounced by the tribunal. In his reviewing statement, which he wrote himself, the general de-dared he could "conceive of no judicial process where greater safeguard was made to evolve justice." He called the trial "a symbol to summon all persons of good will to a realization of the utter futility of war ... and eventually to its renunciation by all nations."^[4]

MacArthur wrote in his Reminiscences that after Washington rejected his recommendation in 1945 that only those political leaders responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor without a declaration of war be tried, he "was then relieved of all responsibility having to do with the actual trial procedures" in the Class A cases. Yet the general did play a significant, usually behind-the-scenes, role. This case was, after all, the longest and most complicated war crimes trial in history, engaging the full-time effort of several hundred persons (judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, interpreters and translators, guards, and supporting staffs), not to mention the defendants and the additional Class A suspects who were kept in custody but never brought to trial.^[5]

The handling of General Tojo illustrated how carefully MacArthur monitored the trial. Tojo was not only the best known of the defendants, often ranking in world opinion with archvillains Hitler and Mussolini; Tojo was by common agreement the crucial witness in the prosecution's effort to prove that Japan had committed aggression in 1941. He was a sharp and articulate witness, deserving his nickname, "Razor." Taking the stand in late December 1947, Tojo offered a lengthy and almost defiant defense of all he had done before and during the war: "I believe firmly and will contend to the last that it was a war of self-defense and in no manner a violation of presently acknowledged international law."^[6]

Extensive cross-examination by Keenan did not shake Tojo .He also defended the emperor, as Kido had done, against charges of responsibility for Japan's aggressive actions. Keenan was helpful in this endeavor. A few days after Tojo said that no Japanese subject "would go against the will of His Majesty," Keenan took considerable pains to have Tojo clearly state that the cabinet and the military high command decided on the war and that "the Emperor consented, though reluctantly."^[7]

Japan's failure to declare war before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tojo asserted, was the fault of the Foreign Office and his fellow defendant Togo Shigenori, the foreign minister at the time. The Japanese note breaking off diplomatic relations was to be delivered to the United States about twenty minutes before the attack began, but the text was so long that the understaffed Japanese Embassy in Washington was not able to decode, translate, and type it by the deadline. It was delivered to the State Department at 2 P.M. , December 7, 1941, one hour after the attack on Pearl Harbor had begun.^[8]

The British ambassador asked General MacArthur on January 24, 1948, if he thought Tojo's statements had made a lasting impression. MacArthur responded that he was "extremely concerned" at the way the prosecution had handled Tojo and that he had arranged with Keenan that there would be no cross-examination of Tojo, who was to be told to "stand down" after his lengthy affidavit had been read to the tribunal. But Keenan had persisted in questioning Tojo, with unfortunate results. MacArthur worried that Tojo's defense might have a "profound effect" on the Japanese.^[9]

Keenan was not a skilled prosecutor. He did a poor job on direct examination of Henry Pu Yi, the "last emperor of China," a witness for the prosecution. As the Tojo interrogation showed, Keenan also lacked the hallmark of a good trial lawyer—skill at cross-examination. He did not get on well with the president of the tribunal, Sir William Webb, an autocratic and acerbic man. Keenan had a drinking problem: Arthur Comyns-Carr, the chief British prosecutor, a highly able barrister who was later knighted, commented that Keenan was "incapable of distinguishing black and white even when they were in the same bottle."^[10]

The trial was plagued by a number of administrative hitches in which MacArthur became involved. The first U.S. judge to be appointed to the tribunal, Chief Justice John P. Higgins of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, resigned when he realized the trial would go on far longer than he had expected, and the judge advocate general of the United States, Major General Myron C. Cramer, had to be drafted as a replacement one month after the trial had begun. In late 1947 when Sir William Webb was called back to Australia to sit on the high court there for a month, MacArthur tried to order the British judge, Lord Justice William D. Patrick, KC, judge of the High Court of Edinburgh, to fill in, but Lord Patrick declined for health reasons. MacArthur then ordered Cramer to fill in while Webb was absent. In the summer of 1948

MacArthur received advance information of the dissenting views held by three of the judges.^[11]

The judgment, which took 1,218 pages, relied heavily on the opinion of the Nuremberg tribunal in reaching a number of significant conclusions:

1. The IMTFE Charter, like the Nuremberg Charter, was deco laratory of existing international law and was not ex post facto legislation.

2. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 made aggressive war illegal, and by implication aggressive war is a form of murder and therefore criminal. Waging and conspiring to wage aggressive war are crimes for which individuals can be punished.

3. A defendant nation can not plead self-defense without reasonable grounds. Prewar Japan had been the object of economic sanctions but not of hostile military action or threats.

4. An order by a superior does not free an individual from responsibility where "moral choice was in fact possible."

5. Japan's plans for aggression were not the work of one man but "the work of many leaders acting in pursuance of a common plan for the achievement of a common object," which was a criminal conspiracy to wage a war of aggression.^[12]

In an exhaustive review of Japan's diplomatic and military actions from 1928 to 1941, the tribunal wrote a virtual history of the period as seen by the Allied powers. It devoted more than one hundred pages to a description of conventional war crimes and atrocities committed during the Pacific War. No mention was made of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the tribunal had rejected a defense attempt to raise this issue.

Eight judges found all of the defendants guilty of some of the fifty-five offenses charged. Two of them wrote separate concurring opinions. Three judges dissented in whole or in part. President Webb brought up the matter of the emperor, saying, "If he did not want war he should have withheld his authority....Even a constitutional monarch would not be excused for committing a crime at international law on the advice of his ministers." MacArthur commented later that Webb was playing "cheap politics" addressed to the people in Australia.^[13] Judge B. V. A. Rö1ing of the Netherlands dissented on the ground that defendants found guilty only of crimes against peace should not have re-

ceived the death sentence, following the precedent at Nuremberg. Judge Pal's dissent was book length: aggressive war was not a crime in international law; rules of evidence were unfairly applied against the defense; it had not been proved that any of the defendants were guilty of conventional war crimes; therefore, all of the defendants were innocent on all counts. Curiously, none of the separate opinions was printed at the time the judgment was made public, but they were published later and widely read in Japan.^[14]

Seven defendants filed motions with the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments and decided on December 20 that because MacArthur had acted as the agent of the Allied powers, the Court had no power or authority to review the judgments. MacArthur cited the Court's decision as "striking confirmation" of his international authority as supreme commander for the Allied powers.^[15]

Early in the morning of December 23, the seven death sentences were carried out at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.^[16] The condemned men wore cast-off U.S. Army clothing without insignia. A Buddhist priest minis-tered to them. Before mounting the scaffold, they shouted three times as a group, Tenno heika banzai (Long live the emperor), in the traditional Japanese manner. The four members of the ACJ attended as witnesses. No photographs were taken, MacArthur having rejected a plea by Secretary of the Army Royall that Allied photographers be admitted to take pictures, as had been done at Nuremberg.^[17] Several prisoners gave the priest poems they had composed. That of Tojo Hideki read in translation:

Farewell to all,
For today I cross the earthly mountains
And gladly go
To the folds of Buddha.

The bodies of the men were cremated and the ashes scattered over Tokyo Bay from an airplane. Occupation authorities wanted to prevent their interment in a grave that might become a memorial to the former leaders. A Japanese source claims that some of the ashes were preserved at the crematorium and buried in a mountain area near the city of Nagoya in 1960. Yoshida Shigeru, well known for his calligraphy, reportedly wrote an inscription on the tombstone: Shichishi no haka (the grave of seven brave men). In 1978 fourteen of the twenty-five convicted Class A war criminals were enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine, Japan's memorial in Tokyo for military men who died in war.^[18]

Japan committed itself in the peace treaty signed in 1951 to carry out all the war crimes sentences imposed by the Allied powers on defendants in Japan. One of the convicted war criminals, Shigemitsu Mamoru, was released in November 1950 and became foreign minister in 1954. In 1958 the ten surviving defendants, who had already been paroled, were released unconditionally. All of these releases were approved by the Allied powers.

On December 24, 1948, nineteen Class A war crimes suspects—six others had died or been released earlier—were released from prison or house arrest after nearly three years of detention. SCAP lawyers concluded on the basis of the IMTFE judgment that it was unlikely any of them could be convicted in a second trial of Class A suspects. Two were later charged with conventional war crimes. Among those released were Kishi Nobusuke, a skillful bureaucrat who was minister of commerce and industry in the Tojo cabinet at the time of Pearl Harbor and became prime minister in 1957, and two accomplished behind-the-scenes operators who had been active rightist agitators and later made a lot of money in dubious activities: Kodama Yoshio and Sasakawa Ryoichi.^[19]

Morethan 5,000 Japanese were tried by national tribunals set up by the various Allied powers for Class B and Class C war crimes (violations of the laws and customs of war, such as maltreatment of prisoners of war, and crimes against humanity, such as brutal treatment of civilian populations). These figures do not include trials by the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China (PRC), which did not release complete data on their trials.

As a result of these trials, 920 Japanese were executed, 475 were given life imprisonment, 2,944 received terms of less than life, and 1,018 were acquitted. The United States tried 1,344 Japanese, resulting in 140 executions, 145 life sentences, 877 sentences of terms less than life, and 182 acquittals.^[20] The Bataan death march, the beheading of American pilots, and the Kyushu University vivisection murder of eight American fliers were among the more notorious atrocities perpetrated against American fighting men by the Japanese who were tried by U.S. military courts.

The ROC executed 148 Japanese war criminals and sentenced 310 to terms in prison. In February 1949 Prime Minister Yoshida asked General MacArthur to seek ROC approval to bring to Japan 260 convicted war criminals serving in Chinese prisons to keep them from the hands of the communist armies then sweeping southward on the mainland. MacArthur and the ROC agreed, and the prisoners were repatriated.^[21]

The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China conducted war crimes trials of Japanese independently of the authority of SCAP. Japanese sources assert that in 1956 the PRC sentenced 45 Japanese to prison terms of up to twenty years for war crimes. Information about Soviet treatment of Japanese prisoners of war came mostly from interrogation of Japanese repatriates from Siberia. Some 3,000 prisoners were punished not for war crimes but for violations of Soviet law and for "procapitalist conduct."^[22]

Some time after the war ended, the Soviets came upon gruesome reports made by Japanese about germ warfare operations by the former Kwantung Army near the city of Harbin in Manchuria. The commanders of the Kwantung Army, who often operated independently of the high command in Tokyo, had reportedly set up a unit after the Manchurian incident in 1931 to experiment with ways of spreading bubonic plague over the farmlands of Manchuria or infecting Chinese and other victims with a wide variety of contagious diseases. These activities continued up to the end of World War II, resulting in a considerable number of deaths—estimates vary from several hundred to several thousand—but without any marked success in inducing bubonic plague. Army leaders in Tokyo almost certainly knew what was going on in Manchuria, but no official Japanese records were found.

U.S. military intelligence had got wind of these operations from its own prisoner interrogations well before the war ended. General MacArthur's initials appear on one such intelligence report made in early 1945. The general in charge of Japanese germ warfare operations in Manchuria at the end of the war, Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro, who had three to four thousand troops under him in Unit 731, was interrogated by American intelligence experts in Tokyo early in 1946.

Late in June SCAP sent a report to Washington summarizing in detail its information on Japanese germ warfare activities and giving the opinion of Chief Prosecutor Keenan's staff that the Japanese had in fact violated the rules of land warfare. The message cautioned that this opinion was not a recommendation that the Japanese be tried for war crimes because the prosecution had closed its case against the major war crimes suspects. It had not presented any evidence on bacteriological warfare. "It could not assure the tribunal under its rulings that the accused or some of them would be shown to have been associated with acts of the biological warfare group." Strangely, an American assistant prosecutor read a brief report into the IMTFE record about Japanese use of "poisonous serums" on civilian captives in occupied China but

under questioning advised the tribunal that further evidence would not be presented.^[23]

In 1947 the Soviets asked the U.S. government for permission to conduct interrogations in Japan about bacteriological warfare. Washington agreed after checking with headquarters in Tokyo. Soviet officers came to Japan in 1947 and interrogated Ishii and other suspects. U.S. intelligence experts had become friendly with Ishii and his family by that time, and they sought to focus Soviet interest on "theoretical data" rather than on what the Japanese had actually been doing. Official SCAP reports reflected a keen interest in the intelligence value of Ishii's research and expressed the view that "documentary immunity from 'war crimes' given to higher echelon personnel" of the Ishii group would be useful to U.S. intelligence efforts, but the JCS and SWNCC did not approve this proposal by MacArthur's headquarters.^[24]

The Soviets moved slowly in exploiting the germ warfare opportunity. It was not until December 1949 that they opened a trial in Moscow of twelve Japanese prisoners of war charged with "manufacturing and employing bacteriological weapons," a crime under Soviet domestic law. The indictment further charged the Japanese with "acting upon secret instructions from Emperor Hirohito" and Imperial Army leaders. After an elaborate and highly publicized trial lasting five days, the Japanese all pleaded guilty and were given sentences ranging from two to twenty-five years.^[25]

The Soviet Union then sent a diplomatic note to the United States and other Allied nations on February 1, 1950, proposing that a special tribunal be established, as was permissible under FEC policy, to try the emperor and four generals including Ishii for serious crimes against humanity. The United States first planned to reply that it was too late to begin a new war crimes trial, but on learning that Australia had only one month earlier requested the arrest of fifty-seven war crimes suspects, it decided to treat the Soviet demarche as a propaganda ploy. MacArthur agreed, on the ground that a Soviet trial "would obviously be based on political and propaganda motives rather than considerations of justice." On February 3, 1950, the State Department issued a press release stating that because the USSR did not make a proposal directly to the FEC, as would have been the normal procedure, its action in making "these belated charges in a sensational manner raises obvious questions about the real motive behind the Soviet note."^[26]

Although Washington refused to approve any deal with Ishii or his subordinates, it was evident that SCAP officials and the International

Prosecution Section were willing to help the Japanese avoid war crimes charges in return for what the technical experts thought was useful information on bacteriological warfare. No evidence was produced that the emperor knew about germ warfare activities by his forces. Some Japanese were punished as a result of the Soviet trial, but the ringleaders in Japan got off scot-free. Both the United States and the USSR considered cold war politics more important than impartial justice.

In recent years a committee of the U.S. Congress heard testimony that U.S. prisoners of war in Manchuria were maltreated by the Japanese and subjected to bacteriological tests, resulting in a number of deaths. A Japanese official reportedly admitted in 1982 that more than 3,000 Allied prisoners of war and Chinese civilians were used in biological and medical experiments. The finger of responsibility for the failure of the United States to punish the Japanese engaged in these activities points to senior intelligence officers and even to General MacArthur.^[27]

Japanese wartime germ warfare operations in Manchuria attracted heavy publicity in Japan long after the war: a best-selling book and many articles and TV shows were devoted to this subject. American media also gave the story some attention and in some cases were highly critical of the protection of Ishii and of the U.S. government's apparent willingness to condone biological warfare.^[28]

In 1989 a book published in the United Kingdom charged that there appears to have been "a prolonged international conspiracy by a number of nations to conceal the crimes of Unit 731." General MacArthur is reported to have been well informed by U.S. medical experts about the Japanese activities in Manchuria and to have told an American officer to "promise as coming from General MacArthur that no one involved in [biological warfare] will be punished as a war criminal." The evidence for MacArthur's involvement all comes from this one officer, now deceased, and no other evidence has been adduced that MacArthur ever saw this officer or had any connection with his activities.^[29]

It was long after the occupation before Japanese were able to write and speak freely about the war crimes trials. But once they overcame their reluctance to look dispassionately at the war years, a steady stream of critical comment poured forth. The dissenting opinions of judges Pal and Rö1ing received widespread favorable attention.^[30]

Many Japanese believe that the Tokyo trial was unfair. They feel that civilians were punished for crimes committed by military leaders, that tribunal rulings unduly restricted the defense, and that Tribunal Presi-

dent Webb was prejudiced against the defendants. Legal experts claim that the charge of conspiracy was a peculiar concept in Anglo-American law that had no general legal recognition and that it was in any case impossible to find a conspiracy in prewar Japan, where there had been fifteen different cabinets in fifteen years.^[31] In Japan and elsewhere a number of critics claimed that the trial was based on legal principles created after the fact. Others claimed that the Class B and C trials were hasty and ill-prepared, were directed against minor subordinates rather than responsible officers, and resulted in an excessive number of death penalties.

General MacArthur wrote in his Reminiscences that he "was pleasantly surprised at the attitude of the Japanese people," who "seemed to be impressed both by the fairness of the procedures and by the lack of vindictiveness on the part of the prosecutors." Kawai Kazuo, a man who knew both the United States and Japan well, described the Japanese reaction as a manifestation of a prominent cultural trait— "situational ethics"—which held in this case that war crimes may have been wrong but seemed unavoidable in the circumstances of a desperate war. The punishment may have been tragic, but it was also unavoidable and therefore appropriate under the circumstances. Because atrocities and punishment were both preordained, it was futile for the victors to claim that punishment represented abstract justice and for the losers to try to justify their past acts.^[32]

The execution of Hirota Koki has ranked in Japanese eyes with that of General Yamashita as the most extreme and dubious of the war crimes punishments of major figures. Hirota was a close friend and contemporary of Yoshida. Their careers in the Foreign Office were parallel, although Hirota worked harder and rose more rapidly, becoming prime minister in 1936. Two events particularly damaged his career. Japan entered the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany soon after he became prime minister in 1936. In 1937 when he was foreign minister under Konoe, Japan invaded China and savagely attacked the city of Nanjing. A best-seller written about Hirota painted him as a patient and flexible moderate who was overwhelmed by sinister forces, in contrast to his easygoing and opportunistic friend Yoshida. The book recounted how Yoshida, unable to see MacArthur to appeal for clemency on behalf of Hirota in late 1948, instead saw Whitney, only to be "reproved for conduct unbecoming a prime minister."^[33]

While the Tokyo tribunal was mulling over its judgment, rumors began to circulate that the emperor might abdicate. The British ambas-

sador tried to find out whether there was any truth to them. A senior official of the imperial household, Matsudaira Yasumasa, reported that the emperor was depressed, "was showing sympathetic interest in Christianity, and would no doubt be relieved to surrender his position as Emperor." Matsudaira said that many former military officers had come to feel that the emperor had let them down badly and "had become virtually a puppet of the United States."^[34]

The Canadian representative then took up the matter. On June 16 he called on MacArthur, who asserted, with characteristic emphasis, that there was not a "scintilla of truth in these reports." The general added that "he would not allow the Emperor to abdicate but would require him to stay on as a matter of duty." MacArthur professed to see a plot by American business circles, which wanted "a return to pre-war Japan with the zaibatsu and an autocratic court running a docile country."^[35]

On October 8, 1948, Ashida—who had resigned as prime minister two days before—told political adviser Sebald that he had come to feel, after a recent talk with the emperor, that "pressure for abdication may become great" when the verdicts in the war crimes trial were announced. Sebald confided to his diary that day that the emperor might "either abdicate or commit suicide." On October 28 Sebald mentioned his musings to MacArthur, who agreed that the emperor's abdication or suicide would be "politically disastrous."^[36]

MacArthur then took the initiative. He saw Yoshida several times in early November and may well have told him to assure the emperor there was no need for him to abdicate, whatever the Tokyo tribunal decided or said. On November 12, the day the sentences were pronounced, the chief official of the imperial household, Tajima Michiji, sent a letter to the supreme commander on behalf of the emperor:

I am most grateful for the kind and considerate message Your Excellency was good enough to send me by Prime Minister Yoshida the other day. It is my lifelong desire to serve the cause of world peace as well as to promote the welfare and happiness of my people. I am determined now more than ever to do my best in concert with the people to surmount all difficulties and speed the national reconstruction of Japan.

This message was not made public until 1978. At an informal press conference in 1979 the emperor was quoted as saying that MacArthur had persuaded him not to abdicate and that the general had asked for the emperor's message of November 12 in writing. MacArthur gave a different version to the Canadian diplomatic representative in January

1949: "Emperor Hirohito had asked him [MacArthur] what course he should adopt, and had intimated that he would be willing to abdicate if the Allies wished him so to do. If they were not, however, anxious to see him go, he would 'stick it out.'" Thereupon MacArthur had assured His Majesty that the whole issue was an artificial one and that there was no necessity for him to abdicate.^[37] It would have been surprising for MacArthur to request a written assurance from the emperor; throughout the occupation the emperor was only too willing to cooperate with the supreme commander, and the general at no time felt the need to press him to put something in writing.

The general told Norman that to have compelled the abolition of the emperor system altogether would have been a great blow to Japanese pride and that he had been trying to "inculcate into the Japanese the love of the flag in place of the love of the Emperor" but had been unsuccessful. "The Emperor was, and would remain, the Japanese 'symbol.'"^[38] Not only did MacArthur want the emperor to stay on his throne; he also wanted to shield the emperor from undesirable influences. He scrutinized appointments for foreigners to see the emperor. At times he also suggested to his visitors they should call on the emperor, and he was the instigator of the emperor's visits around Japan to enhance his image as a democratic ruler. In one curious situation in 1950 MacArthur vetoed a British project to bring in an English tutor for the crown prince who would also advise the court on diplomatic procedures. A piqued Sir Alvary Gascoigne concluded that MacArthur "does consider that the Emperor and the Court are entirely his own preserves—preserves which he will, apparently, not have infringed upon by any outsider whatsoever."^[39]