American Caesar

by William Manchester

  After his fall, Richard H.’ Rovere and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., gently taunted those who had adored him, noting that though he had always had many admirers, the “MacArthur cult had its origins after the war in Tokyo’s Dai Ichi Building, where high priests conducted daily devotions and sought to make converts of visitors.” Undoubtedly individuals on his staff flattered him excessively. Bowers recalls a postcard to SCAP from his pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony F. Story, who was on leave in Manila, which began “Dear General, I write this card to one who talks and walks with God.” To Edward M. Almond SCAP was “the greatest man alive,” to George E. Stratemeyer, “the greatest man who ever lived.” Another officer told Gunther, “He’s too enormous, too unpredictable, I really don’t understand him. . . . No one could.”83

  These were career officers whose futures depended upon MacArthur’s estimation of them. Their judgments are rightly suspect. But others confirmed them. Reischauer felt the General’s “deep sense of mission.” Sebald, noting that SCAP had eliminated the menace of Japanese military power, introduced the way for democratic government, and kept Nippon out of the Communist orbit, concluded that “the achievement of these three major objectives was in large measure the result of the initiative of General MacArthur.” After dining in Paris with Alfred M. Gruenther, C. L. Sulzberger wrote: “Gruenther admitted that when he went out to Tokyo last summer, he had a preconceived prejudice against MacArthur, but by the time he left Tokyo, MacArthur’s charm and personality had won him over. ‘How long did he take to get you in his pocket?’ Al asked me. ‘About thirty seconds.’ ‘Oh,’ Al sneered, ‘it was about thirty minutes for me.’ “ After Henry Luce had been received at the Dai Ichi, Life observed: “Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the age of Britain’s greatness—all the splendid and tragic meanings of the drama of these centuries are the constant prompters of his mind and spirit.” One theme runs through all such testimonials to him. He is seen as a benign, patriarchal figure whose wisdom guided the destinies of those in his charge and shielded them from malevolence. Philip LaFollette writes: “There was something about him that kept reminding me of my father.”84

  Japanese were reminded of the genrõ, or “senior statesmen,” who had dominated their nation’s politics from the promulgation of the Meiji constitution in 1889 to the early 1930s. As men who had played a leading role in the Meiji Restoration—the overthrow of absolute feudalism—the genro became counselors to the throne and virtually ran the country by directives and discreet suggestions. MacArthur, similarly, managed Japan through the emperor, the cabinet, and the Diet, thus preserving the continuum of government. Legally, Nipponese rule of Nippon never lapsed. Even at the moment of surrender on the Missouri, the people were governed by their own politicians and civil service.

  MacArthur had another great advantage which the Allies in Europe lacked. Soviet attempts to sabotage the occupation continued to be thwarted at every turn. In Washington an Allied Far Eastern Commission “settled down,” in Reischauer’s words, “to a genteel position of pompous futility, ” while the Allied Council in Tokyo first became an arena for “acrimonious argument” and then “lapsed into a moribund state.” The council, which met in a paneled second-floor boardroom of the Meiji Insurance Building, just down the street from the Dai Ichi, had been assigned a vague “advisory” role. MacArthur attended only one of its first meetings. “As the functions of the Council will be . . . consultive,” he said pointedly, “it will not divide the heavy administrative responsibility of the Supreme Commander as the sole executive authority for the Allied Powers in Japan.” Thereafter he let it drift. Sebald represented him at its meetings. Most of them lasted less than a minute; those that ran longer dealt with the emotional issue of Soviet-held Nipponese prisoners and usually ended with the Russian delegate, Lieutenant General Kuzma N. Derevyanko, stalking from the room, his crimson shoulder boards, big as shingles, swinging angrily. MacArthur handled Derevyanko by writing him from time to time, informing him that his views were very helpful to SCAP and that the Supreme Commander was very grateful to have them.85

  Most Americans, and indeed many SCAP officials, were under the impression that the Supreme Commander had been instructed to introduce democracy in Japan. Actually he had been told that “it is not the responsibility of Allied Powers to impose upon Japan any form of government not supported by the freely expressed will of the people.” But that was enough for him. Early in October 1945, after Japanese troops had been demobilized, he issued a civil-liberties directive lifting all restrictions on political, civil, and religious freedom. The kempei-tai was abolished and its torture chambers destroyed. All political prisoners were released. Newspapers—including the Communist Akahata, until the prospect of a general strike threatened the entire nation—were free to publish whatever they liked, provided, of course, they did not criticize SCAP. Probably it never occurred to MacArthur that they would have anything to complain about. At all events, few of them protested. Their columns were full of information which had previously been withheld from their subscribers, and the General had taken the first step toward responsible elections: an informed electorate.86

  That same week Toshihiko Higashikuni resigned the office of prime minister—as Hirohito’s uncle, he did not want to preside over the scuttling of imperial powers—and Baron Kijuro Shidehara, a seventy-three-year-old statesman who had opposed the war, succeeded him. Shidehara crossed the moat to pay what he thought would be a courtesy call on the Supreme Commander. MacArthur handed him a list of reforms he wanted “as soon as they can be assimilated.” These were: woman suffrage, “encouragement of the unionization of labor,” liberalization of schools to teach “a system under which government becomes the servant rather than the master of the people,” an end to “secret inquisition and abuse” by officials, an end to monopolies, a wider distribution of income, and public ownership of production and trade. The General said he assumed these steps would require sweeping constitutional reforms, and he wanted the government to get cracking on that, too.87

  Shidehara blinked, left, and appointed a committee to rewrite the Meiji constitution. The committee knew that a MacArthur wish was a command. Its chairman, Dr. Joji Matsumoto, a member of the cabinet, called on George Atcheson, Jr., then the General’s chief political adviser, and asked him what it should do. Atcheson told them to write a few amendments, reducing imperial power and abolishing the army. Those measures were, in fact, all that MacArthur had in mind at the time. Weeks passed. Nothing happened. The General called in Whitney and said, “That committee is not catching its cue. They’re not moving. Step in and help them out.” Whitney found them deadlocked. The liberals wanted radical changes; the conservatives would accept none. Since Matsumoto himself was reactionary, the conservatives had their way, and in January 1946 a draft reached the Supreme Commander, who later wrote that “it turned out to be nothing more than a rewording of the old Meiji constitution. The power of the Emperor was deleted not a whit. He simply became ‘supreme and inviolable’ rather than ‘sacred and inviolable.’ And instead of incorporating a bill of rights, the new constitution took away some of the few rights that already existed . . . . In other words, after three months of work, the constitution was the same as always—worse, perhaps.”88

  MacArthur faced a delicate situation. Rather than use fiat to dismiss the die-hard Diet carried over from the Tojo regime—including such bitter-enders as Matsumoto—the General had scheduled a general election for April 10, and he wanted it to be an unofficial plebiscite in which the electorate approved or disapproved a new constitution. If the Matsumoto draft went before the people, they would merely be voting for or against a carbon copy of the Meiji charter. The plebiscite was essential, because word had reached him that the Far Eastern Commission, reflecting Allied wishes for a tougher occupation policy, frowned on constitutional reform and the reemergence of a strong Japan. If the Nipponese endorsed a draft he liked, he could present the commission with a fait accompli. It was a public
-relations problem, though hardly cosmetic; without the legal underpinning of a national charter, he could not begin to pass his legislative program through the Diet which would be chosen in April. He decided that the only way he would get the version he wanted would be to write the key sections of it himself. As it happened, he had become interested in democratic constitutions, and over the holidays he had read all then in force. Tearing off a sheet of yellow legal paper from a pad, he wrote his first memorandum on the subject, starting: “Four Points for a Constitution . . . .”

  By the middle of February he had what he wanted. He proudly wrote: “It is undoubtedly the most liberal constitution in history, having borrowed the best from the constitutions of many countries.” A Japanese scholar, while critical of the General’s high-handedness in forcing it on Nippon, concluded that it was a good one: “Although in places its turgidly MacArthurian language was annoyingly un-Japanese and although it was loosely organized and redundant, its provisions did conform to the best standards of a truly parliamentary democracy.” Many Japanese were offended by the concept of “public servants”—traditionally, Nipponese officials were responsible only to the throne—and some thought that Jeffersonian “pursuit of happiness” was immoral. Nevertheless its structure was sound. The emperor was reduced to a symbol; he couldn’t even vote. The Diet was empowered to make laws, the feudal aristocracy was abolished, popular liberties were guaranteed, the voting age was reduced from twenty-five to twenty, collective bargaining was guaranteed, and “essential equality” of the sexes established.

  The form of government was a blend of America’s and Britain’s. Supreme power was vested in the Diet, and three separate branches of government were established. The prime minister, elected by the upper house of the bicameral legislature, would serve for four years; if defeated on an issue, he could either ask the lower house to choose a successor or call for new elections. The most striking provision was what came to be known as the “no-war” clause, Article IX: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation. . . . 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.” Robert E. Ward, writing in the December 1956 issue of the American Political Science Review, concluded that MacArthur himself had “directed the inclusion of a prohibition against going to war in the present Japanese constitution.” The General, sensitive to the charge that he rammed it down Nipponese throats and belatedly aware that the country might need to defend itself against Russia or China, later wrote that the idea had been Shidehara’s and that he had agreed to it, saying, “For years I have believed that war should be abolished as an outmoded means of resolving disputes . . . and my abhorrence reached its height with the perfection of the atom bomb.” Reischauer merely writes that SCAP and the Japanese “happily agreed” to the article. In any event, in the light of what happened afterward, it is worth noting that, on the strength of the no-war clause, American pacifists in the late 1940s regarded the thirty-third President as a hawk and the Supreme Commander as a dove. The Christian Century observed in its April 17, 1946, issue: “Mr. Truman is still living in a departed age which thinks only that if war comes the nation must win it. General MacArthur knows that if war comes there will be no victor.”89

  The final version became known throughout Nippon as “the MacArthur constitution.” The General had made the new constitution “an amendment to the older Meiji one” because “I felt that by using this particular device we could insure a continuity, and continuity is important in Japan.” On March 6 he announced that the final draft had his “full approval.” The cabinet grudgingly ratified it, and so, with equal reluctance, did the handpicked Tojo Diet. Some of them, scandalized, trembled at the thought that Hirohito might feel they had gone too far, but when Shidehara and Foreign Minister Shigeru Yoshida called at the palace and fearfully laid the charter before the emperor, he told them that he supported everything it it, including the repeal of his authority. The text having been published in all Japanese newspapers, the people were invited to offer suggestions. MacArthur wrote: “I know of no similar document that ever received so much attention and open debate, including our own Constitution.” That is absurd. Press criticism of it was suppressed; official radio broadcasts urged support of it. It was hardly likely that a race tightly sheathed in Shinto discipline would reject an instrument sanctioned by their own leaders and the new Man Behind the Bamboo Screen, and they didn’t; in April candidates publicly committed to the new constitution received heavy majorities.90

  Five weeks later the elephantine Far Eastern Commission warned MacArthur that it disapproved of the swiftness with which he was freeing defeated Japan, but by then it was too late. The people of Nippon had spoken; SCAP had congratulated them. The overruling of the Supreme Commander by United Nations’ governments now would amount to reneging on Allied war aims, since most provisions in the new charter had been taken from their own constitutions. So they sulked while Hirohito proclaimed a national holiday to celebrate acceptance of the document. In a ceremony before an entrance to the palatial grounds, the emperor held his own umbrella during a torrential downpour, proclaimed the constitution the law of the land, and called on his ex-subjects to defend and exercise their new rights. Newly enfranchised women wore their best kimonos to local celebrations, men pledged hot sake toasts, and the illiterate American police reporters the General scorned wrote a great deal of mumbo jumbo about temple gongs and throbbing drums echoing through the night.

  Few then could have guessed how well the MacArthur constitution would stand the test of time; how, a third of a century later, it would endure, observed in every particular; how, under it, Japan would become a mighty industrial power, second only to the United States in the non-Communist world. But the General had an inkling. In his memoirs he called it “probably the single most important accomplishment of the occupation, for it brought to the Japanese people freedoms and privileges which they had never known. And I am certain,” he added, “that it would never have been accomplished had the occupation been dependent on the deliberations of the Far Eastern Commission—with the Soviet power of veto!”91

  If MacArthur is to be seen in the round, the magnitude of this viceregal triumph, and those which followed it in Tokyo during the postwar years, must be grasped and understood as expressions of the very hub of his character. During his lifetime, his admirers saw only his victories; his critics saw only his defeats. What neither appreciated was that identical traits led to his winnings and his losses. His hauteur, his willingness to defy his superiors, his fascination with the political process, his contempt for vacillation—these would be his undoing in the end. But along the way they reaped historic fruit. There can be no doubt that they made a great democracy of Japan.

  Even before the first election, SCAP had been reshaping Dai Nippon at tremendous speed. Like his father in the Philippines nearly a half-century before, MacArthur had quickly established habeas corpus. The infamous soshi, the so-called patriotic gangsters whose blackjacks had intimidated opponents of militarism, had been outlawed. The warlords themselves had been forbidden to enter public life. Governors of the country’s forty-six prefectures, who by tradition had been appointed in Tokyo, were being chosen locally. Teams of technicians were being sent out to repair trains and telephones. Public health and agricultural programs were being launched. And “to a considerable extent,” Russell Brines wrote, all this was being accomplished in cubbyholes of the Dai Ichi “by two groups of men speaking in a sign language, each without a ghost of an idea of the other’s thoughts. At first, the Allies and the government between them could muster no more than a relative handful of competent interpreters. Only a small number of the occupation force were specialists in Japanese affairs, and none who could be considered an overall expert had any position of influence.” MacArthur himself, Brines said, was “shadowboxing with intangibles,�
�� yet obviously determined that “the occupation and all its ramifications’ would “become his self-imposed destiny, the crowning event of a distinguished career.”92

  The General was at his most protean in those early months of the occupation. He could be curt with Derevyanko, jovial with a visiting delegation of American businessmen, and elaborately polite in the Japanese way to Shide-hara, all within the space of a few hours. He was covering a remarkable range of issues; in that first January of the occupation he sent Washington a 100,000-word account of his stewardship, covering, among other things, crop yields, foreign policy, urban traffic problems, school textbooks, civil servants, the rights of prisoners, a tenfold increase in the number of magazines, and the debuts of three new Tokyo radio programs: “The Man on the Street,” “The Woman’s Hour,” and “The Voice of the People.” That same month he addressed the Nipponese: “A New Year has come. With it, a new day dawns for Japan. No longer is the future to be settled by the few. . . . The removal of this national enslavement means freedom for the people, but at the same time it imposes on . . . the individual [the] duty to think and act on his own initiative. The masses of Japan now have the power to govern and what is done must be done by themselves. ”93

  He was telling them to vote on the second Wednesday in April. Three out of four did, including fourteen million women. Probably some who stayed away were bewildered by the complicated ballots; 2,781 candidates, representing 257 parties, were campaigning for the 466 seats in the Diet. MPs cruised around the voting places, partly to maintain order but also because there was concern that among the thousands of repatriates from Soviet camps there might be some brainwashed troublemakers. A number of veterans from Manchuria had indeed organized Marxist cells, but there was little bloc voting. When the last ballot had been counted, it was clear that the political complexion of Nippon had been transformed. Only six Tojo men had been returned. The new Diet included forty-nine farmers, thirteen physicians, thirty-two teachers, and twenty-two authors. “Best of all,” MacArthur said, “they included thirty-eight women.” Confusion may have had something to do with that. Many women were under the impression that they could not vote for men. One prostitute, astonishingly, had polled over a quarter-million votes. MacArthur sent a message of congratulation to each of the women, including the whore, and then studied the electoral statistics, searching for patterns. The people had chosen 383 nominees of 33 parties and 83 independents. The big winners were the Liberals, with 140 seats, the Progressives, with 93, and the Social Democrats, with 92. Only 5 Communists had won. The general tinge was conservative. Shigeru Yoshida formed the first of several governments which, constantly goaded by SCAP, passed seven hundred laws.94