Supreme Commander

by Seymour Morris, Jr.

  210 “The process of translating”: Harvey, 368.

  210 “I shall be back”: Shigemitsu, 274.

  210 Senso sekinin sha: Takayanagi, 77.

  211 “It must be freely”: Veale, 184–85.

  211 “a scintilla”: Röling and Rüter, 401.

  211 77 percent conviction rate: Piccagallo, 264.

  212 “There is nothing”: Buell, 370–71.

  212 No Hollywood movie: Probably the most the Americans would get to see of Japanese wartime brutality was a 1957 movie about British prisoners of war forced to build a railway in Burma, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

  212 “There is not sufficient evidence”: Röling and Rüter, 464.

  212 FDR refused to meet with Konoe: Observation by Herbert Hoover, in Nash, 270–77, 879.

  213 “The victors are”: Finn, 78.

  213 “I was always convinced”: Röling, 82.

  20: GEORGE KENNAN PAYS A VISIT

  217 “Americans get homesick”: Rau, 3. The ambassador’s daughter, Santha Rama Rau, subsequently married Major Faubion Bowers.

  217 “As far as”: Tracy, 172.

  218 “Atomic Souvenir Shop”: Brines, 32.

  218 “Atom Bowl”: John D. Lukacs, “Nagasaki, 1946: Football Among the Ruins,” New York Times, December 25, 2005, SP9.

  218 “There seems”: Sheldon, 142.

  218 Number of periodicals and magazines: Cohen, 33.

  218 Percentage of Japanese women in favor of love marriage: Ibid., 335.

  218 Okunoshima: Nicholas D. Kristof, “Okunoshima Journal: A Museum to Remind Japanese of Their Own Guilt,” New York Times, August 12, 1995.

  219 purge: These 220,000 people represented little more than a quarter of one percent of the Japanese population, compared to 2.5 percent in Germany. One of the men purged in 1946 was Akio Morita, a teacher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He found a job with a small start-up and eventually made it one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world: Sony.

  219 “If one machine gun”: Gunther, 147.

  219 “Japan might have won”: Braw, 10.

  219 “disturbs the public tranquility”: Hellegers, 427.

  220 “news must adhere”: Harvey, 365.

  220 “Why, that man knows”: Manchester, 481.

  220 “My God, how does”: Bowers, 93.

  220 “What a man!”: Whitney, 306.

  221 “further left . . . fiasco”: Schaller, 45.

  221 “The time has now . . . If the United Nations . . . No weapon, not even”: “MacArthur Favors Japan Treaty Now to End Occupation,” New York Times, March 18, 1947, 1, 20; van Aduard, 63; Hall, 45.

  222 “economic disaster, inflation”: Schaller, 145.

  222 “really amounted to”: Ibid.

  222 “morgue”: Schonberger, 185.

  222 “far to the left”: James Lee Kauffman, “A Lawyer’s Report on Japan Attacks Plan to Run Occupation,” Newsweek, December 1, 1947, 36–40.

  222 “assume any responsibility”: Whitney, 267.

  224 “military occupations serve”: February 20, 1947, letter to U.S. Congress, “In Support of Appropriations for Occupation Purposes,” PRJ, Sept. 1945–Sept. 1948, vol. 2, 764.

  224 “the men who . . . serve as a deterrent”: Twenty-seventh paragraph and final paragraph.

  224 “We should cease”: Takemae, 555.

  224 “democracy must be abandoned”: Harvey, 386.

  224 Marshall to Kennan advice: Memorandum of conversation between Marshall and Kennan, Feb. 19, 1948, PPS Records, Box 33.

  225 “America’s Global Planner”: New York Times Magazine, July 13, 1947, 9, 32–33.

  225 “I’ll have him briefed”: Kennan, 383.

  225 “a civilian David”: Ibid., 382.

  225 “the only other”: Ibid., 384.

  225 “fundamentally alter”: Gaddis, 301.

  225 “thirsting”: Kennan, 384; Kennan memorandum, “General MacArthur’s Remarks at Lunch,” March 1, 1948, FRUS (1948), vol. 6, 697.

  225 Yoshida on MacArthur as a pacing lion: Finn, 23.

  225 Kennan on MacArthur as a horse: Gaddis, 301.

  225 “an envoy charged”: Kennan, 382.

  226 “to inquire”: Kennan to MacArthur, March 2, 1948, MacArthur Archives, RG 5, Box 32.

  226 Kennan-MacArthur private dinner: Kennan, 393; Gaddis 302.

  226 $8million/month black market: Wildes, 36.

  226 “The personal enrichment”: Kennan, 387.

  227 “We have probably got”: Ibid., 390.

  227 “From that moment”: Memo of conversation between Kennan and MacArthur, March 5, 1948, FRUS (1948), vol. 6, 699–706.

  227 “They deserved the respect”: Kennan, 371; biographer John Lukacs calls this paragraph the kind of mellifluous prose “we are unlikely to see in a thousand years” (Lukacs, 67).

  227 “We parted”: Kennan, 386; see memo of conversation between Kennan and MacArthur, March 5, 1948, FRUS (1948), vol. 6, 699–706.

  228 “the most significant constructive . . . on no other”: Kennan, 393.

  228 “Reverse course” invented by Japanese scholars: Bailey, 52; see also Perry, 122, and Tsutsui, 119. Many historians display a certain lack of rigor when they interpret the past and make judgments based on what we now know. In his book about Kennan and American foreign policy, Wilson Miscamble says: “One must avoid reading history backwards and imposing an artificial coherence” (Miscamble, xiii).

  228 “a major shift”: Schaller, 104.

  228 “The emphasis should shift”: Kennan, 391.

  228 “immediate shift”: Schaller, 117.

  229 “appropriate shift”: “Statement of U.S. Policy toward Economic Recovery of Japan,” November 1947, Stimson Papers, Yale University.

  229 “more emphasis”: FRUS (1948), vol. 6, 854–56.

  229 “SCAP was to shift”: Ibid., 857–62.

  229 “The effect”: Kennan, 393.

  229 Kennan’s seven specific recommendations: Ibid., 391.

  229 “control of”: “General of the Army Douglas MacArthur’s New Year Message, January 1, 1949,” Documents Concerning the Allied Occupation and Control of Japan, vol. 2, 221.

  21: A SHIFT IN EMPHASIS

  230 “the necessary shift”: Schonberger, 167

  230 “socialism in private hands”: MacArthur to Department of the Army, 24 October 1947, Stimson Papers, Yale University.

  231 Eleanor Hadley on the zaibatsu: “Trust Busting in Japan,” Harvard Business Review vol. 26, no. 4 (July 1948): 429. The reader may note that many of these corporations no longer exist due to divestiture or merger/acquisition. Only General Motors, U.S. Steel, Dole Pineapple, Alcoa, and DuPont still survive, along with two others that have been restructured (National City Bank, now Citibank, and Metropolitan Life, now MetLife). Such is the dynamic of American capitalism. In the late 1940s these eighteen companies were the industry leaders of America.

  231 “Not only”: Report on Japanese Reparations to the President of the United States, 39.

  231 “virtual destruction”: Newsweek, December 1, 1947, 37.

  231 “permitted the family groups”: PRJ, 780–83.

  232 “Decision should be made”: MacArthur March 21 meeting with Draper and Kennan, FRUS (1948), vol. 6, 711.

  232 “merely a camouflage”: Ibid., 710.

  233 “conflict between”: January 6, 1948, speech, quoted in Moore and Robinson, 117.

  233 “more emphasis”: FRUS (1948), vol. 6, 654–56.

  233 “Japan is costing us”: H. Alexander Smith Papers, 1949, Princeton University Library, 393–95; see also U.S. News, March 4, 1949, 24–25.

  234 Harvard Club meeting: Schonberger, “The Japan Library in American Diplomacy, 1947–1952,” Pacific Historical Review (August 1977): 339–44; Takemae, 459.

  235 “elderly incompetents . . . the most effete”: Kennan, 702.

  235 “major shifts”: Eichelberger, 288.

  235 “It has always”: Sugita, 32.


  236 “Stop inflation”: Van Aduard, 93.

  236 “Get Dodge”: New York Times, December 3, 1964, obituary. When Eisenhower became president in 1953, he made Dodge the director of the Bureau of the Budget (now called the Office of Management and Budget [OMB]).

  237 “walking on stilts”: Uchino, 49.

  237 “I’m no colonel”: American National Biography 6, 1999, 690–92.

  237 “an impressive . . . Alice in Wonderland . . . massive failures”: “Two Billion Dollar Failure in Japan,” Fortune, April 1949, 206.

  238 “in effect . . . Until a peace”: Fortune, June 1949, 188, 190. the three directives:

  238 the three directives: the President Directive of September 6, 1945: “It shall be the policy of the Supreme Commander . . . to favor a program for the dissolution of the large industrial and banking combines”; the Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive of November 1, 1945: “You will require this agency to submit, for approval by you, plans for dissolving large Japanese and industrial banking combines, the FEC Directive of June 19, 1947: “It shall be the policy of the Supreme Commander . . . to require a program for the dissolution of the large industrial and banking combines” (Bisson, Zaibatsu Dissolution, Appendixes, 239–40).

  238 “on the United States”: “General MacArthur Replies,” Ibid., 194.

  239 “find their markets”: Ibid., 74.

  239 three hundred billion yen stolen: Dower, 117–18.

  239 “Trucks, wagons”: Costello, 153; Aldous, 98.

  239 “Japan’s war stockpiles”: World Report, January 6, 1948.

  240 “Nobody knows”: Bisson, Prospects for Democracy, 115.

  240 increase in yen from 30 billion to 42 billion: Ibid., 13.

  240 “This statement”: Fortune, June 1949, 198.

  240 “uncorked their champagne bottles”: Montgomery, 106–7.

  241 “The purgees were not”: Fortune, June 1949, 198.

  241 “All the great”: Fortune, April 1949, 71.

  241 “Even in Japan”: Fortune, June 1949, 202.

  241 “road to fascism”: Swearingen and Langer, 162.

  241 Red Purge of 20,997: Braw, 81.

  241 Purge of 210,288 for ties to militarism: Harries, 43.

  242 “co-prosperity sphere”: Baltimore Sun, August 1947.

  242 “the economic situation”: Dodge to Cleveland Thurber, Dec. 13, 1948, Joseph M. Dodge Papers, 1949 Japan Box 1, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

  242 “A nuisance factor”: Sebald to Robert Lovett, Jan. 3, 1949, FRUS (1949), vol. 7, 601–3.

  242 Dean Acheson in agreement with MacArthur: Acheson, 556.

  242 George Kennan in agreement with MacArthur: Kennan, 394.

  242 Acheson on Japan trade with the Far East: Acheson, May 8, 1948, FRUS (1949), vol. 7, 736–37.

  242 “The Japanese couldn’t”: Prestowitz, 67.

  242 “paper napkins”: Dower, 537.

  243 “In no other nation”: Joseph M. Dodge statement to the National Advisory Council Staff Committee, January 12, 1950, The Reports of General MacArthur, 1994 ed., vol. 2, 295.

  243 $2.3 billion: Harvey, 398.

  243 “A gift from the gods”: Weintraub, 353.

  243 “the westernmost outpost”: “MacArthur Pledges Defense of Japan,” New York Times, March 22, 1949, 22. MacArthur in his 1949 statement elaborated on this thought: “Now the Pacific has become an Anglo-Saxon lake and our line of defense runs through the chain of islands fringing the coast of Asia. It starts from the Philippines and continues through the Ryukyu archipelago which includes its broad main bastion, Okinawa. Then it bends back through Japan and the Aleutian Island chain to Alaska” (Ibid.).

  243 $2 billion aid, $5 billion reparations: Perret, 523; Sebald, 72–74; Finn, 37. SCAP officer and historian Richard Finn performed a comprehensive study and concluded: “The best information seems to be that depending on the method of calculation Japan paid between $4.23 and $4.98 billion in occupation costs, while it received $1.95 billion in U.S. economic assistance” (Finn, 332). On a per capita basis, the $1.95 billion received by Japan was one-third the aid that Germany received.

  22: “THE GREATEST PIECE OF DIPLOMACY, EVER”

  244 “What can we do . . . So what are you waiting for”: Fitts, 3.

  245 Sawamura pitching feat: American baseball enthusiasts may appreciate an even more impressive Japanese pitching feat: The 1942 marathon in Korakuen Stadium where Hall of Famer Michio Nishizawa pitched a twenty-eight-inning, 311-pitch complete game. (Like Babe Ruth, Nishizawa later switched to the outfield and became a feared hitter, setting a home run record in 1950 and winning the batting title and RBI title in 1952.)

  245 Ruth worth a hundred ambassadors: Dawidoff, 91.

  245 “To hell with” and plan to use Babe Ruth for radio broadcasts: Whiting, 46.

  246 Babe Ruth 1947 speech broadcast to Japan: Ritter and Rucker, 263.

  246 “So many”: Ritter, 250.

  246 “He made it a point”: Kelley, 124.

  246 “Gentlemen, there’s no”: Ibid., 114.

  246 “It was not”: Cohen, 482.

  247 “Go ahead”: John B. Holway, “Lefty and the Geisha,” http://baseballguru.com/jholway/analysisjholway32.html.

  247 “It’s OK”: Ibid.

  247 “If it is right”: Bowers, 164.

  247 “When I arrived”: Ritter, 250.

  247 “The greatest piece”: http://www.californiapioneers.org/sanfran_seals.html and http://www.dickmeister.com/id135.html.

  248 DiMaggio-Monroe honeymoon in Japan: For DiMaggio, this turned out to be a grave mistake. The Japanese went absolutely nuts over Marilyn Monroe, leaving her husband in the shadows. Depressed at his comparative obscurity, DiMaggio realized how difficult it would be being married to her.

  248 Japanese newspaper poll and Babe Ruth: Van Staaveren, 266.

  23: OCCUPIER AS PROTECTOR

  249 “from the stern rigidity”: MacArthur public message, May 3, 1948.

  249 “A vast centrifugal machine”: Willoughby, 319.

  250 Number of Japanese prisoners in Soviet territories and Manchuria: SCAP press release, May 14, 1948, FRUS (1948), vol. 6, 757–759; Fearey, 194.

  250 “Contemplating his handiwork”: Rovere and Schlesinger, 92.

  251 “Go Home Quickly!”: Takemae, 143.

  251 “convulsions”: New York Times, March 2, 1949, 22.

  251 “the Switzerland of the Pacific”: Harries, 233.

  251 “Dollar for dollar”: Ibid., 231.

  251 “Japanese rearmament”: Ibid., 232–33.

  252 “The pin head”: March 11, 1950; quoted in Schaller, Altered States, 21.

  252 “Communism, no!”: FRUS (1950), vol. 6, 88; see also Hayes, 34.

  253 “Everyone in the Department”: Allison to Sebald, May 24, 1950, FRUS (1950), vol. 6, 1203.

  253 1947 push for peace treaty: As an indicator of how strongly he felt about the issue, MacArthur made it the subject of the one and only press conference of the entire occupation, on March 17, 1947.

  253 “would be disastrous”: Sebald, 249.

  253 Highly egotistical: Like MacArthur, Dulles had a habit of misstating the truth to make himself look good. In the course of his work negotiating the peace treaty, Dulles availed himself of three years’ worth of government memos, drafts, and position papers on the subject—and studied them carefully as any lawyer would. But that is not what he told the press. In 1951, when a reporter asked if he had started with a blank slate or if he had the benefit of much of the work already done, Dulles responded: “There were, I suppose, a good many drafts of a Japanese peace treaty which had been the product of various stages of thinking over the preceding five years. I will have to admit I never read any of them” (Hoopes, 92).

  254 “American defense perimeter”: Dean Acheson speech, San Francisco, Jan. 12, 1950, FRUS, East Asia (1950), 275; Acheson, 357.

  254 “delivering this speech”: Perret, 537.

  254 “The Korean attack
”: Kennan, 500.

  255 “Mars’ last gift”: Lauterbach, 61.

  255 “use his prestige”: Smith, 51.

  255 “I wouldn’t put my foot”: Bowers, 168.

  255 “playing with fire”: Harries, 229.

  255 “between the upper and lower”: U.S. Department of State Bulletin 23 (July 10, 1950), 50.

  256 “This is probably . . . If only”: Allison, 129.

  256 MacArthur at the airport: It was an important phone call that Dulles made MacArthur go back to his office and take. MacArthur was informed that Truman had decided to authorize the use of American air and naval power in Korea, to put the Seventh Fleet off Formosa to deter any Chinese attack, and to increase military assistance to the French in Indochina. MacArthur was ordered to make a personal inspection of conditions in Korea and report his findings to the president right away.

  257 “To ensure . . . Events disclose”: MacArthur letter to Yoshida, July 8, 1950, in Masuda, 253.

  257 “Our great undertaking”: Ibid., 257.

  258 “This is one. . . . No, no. . . . No, it was none . . . It was Napoleonic”: Hellegers, vol. 2, 758n.

  258 “stop and dig in”: Hoover to Bonner Fellers, December 3, 1950, Hoover Papers, Stanford University; see also Best, 359.

  259 “The Russians”: Lee and Henschel, 206.

  259 64 percent public approval: Gallup, vol. 2, 943.

  259 “Your military objective”: FRUS (1950), vol. 7, 781. Widening the Korean War into a war with China, says Bradley in his memoirs (558–59), would be “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” But Bradley didn’t say this during the mid-July 1950 JCS meetings when the decision was being debated, he said it after the fact during the May 1951 “MacArthur Hearings” in Congress. During the decision time he played it both ways: MacArthur could proceed north seeking to destroy North Korean forces “provided there was no indication of Soviet or Chinese intervention.” Fair enough, but what if there was an “indication”?

  259 “We want you”: FRUS (1950), vol. 7, 826; Marshall to MacArthur, Sept. 20, 1950, Box 9, Folder 6, RG 6, MacArthur Archives. Here, too, the person giving MacArthur instructions is being coy. The wording is very strange for a military order: “We want you to feel . . . ” What exactly does this mean? Of course the JCS wants the field commander to feel confident! This is not a military instruction but a cover-your-butt memo. Marshall is leaving MacArthur to hang out to dry: If he succeeds, great; if he doesn’t, it’s his fault for being reckless.