Douglas MacArthur
Page 75
Altogether MacArthur was supreme commander of almost 1.7 million Americans under arms, and although that number would be sharply reduced before 1945 was out, it made him the undisputed master of an area even larger than the one he had commanded as SWAP, albeit far more populous, and more vitally strategic to the rest of the world.
Only the U.S. Navy remained outside his control. He angrily rebuffed efforts to unify army and navy commands into two separate West Pacific and Central Pacific theaters, a plan urged by both Eisenhower and Chester Nimitz, who became chief of naval operations in Washington in November 1945.16
This was precisely the kind of unification of command in the Pacific that MacArthur had been advocating since 1942, but now he turned it down. In the aftermath of war, he was happy to sacrifice unity to make sure that no one interfered with his power to use the army when, where, and how he and he alone wanted to shape the future of Japan.
That also included America’s erstwhile allies. In MacArthur’s mind, now that the war was over, he owed nothing to the historic alliance that had won it. He fully bowed to the authority of the declaration signed by Truman, Stalin, and Attlee at Potsdam in July—the one to which he owed his supreme position. All the same, this occupation was going to be a United States show, and no one else’s. In 1946 he eventually allowed a token force of 36,000 ANZAC, British, and even Indian troops to join the occupation forces, but they always remained under MacArthur’s operational control and under General Eichelberger’s direct command.17
There was one ally, however, whom MacArthur would never allow to set foot on Japanese soil, and that was Russia.
He had understood the logic of having Russia enter the war against Japan—if events had forced an invasion, Russia would have provided a useful second front. But the fact that Stalin had entered the war only two days before the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and used it to snatch Manchuria, the Kuril Islands, and the Sakhalin peninsula away from Japan, did not in MacArthur’s mind entitle the Soviet Union to any role in shaping the future of a country that so many Americans had sacrificed their lives in order to defeat.
Stalin and his foreign minister, Molotov, saw things differently. They pushed for the kind of joint four-power occupation that was taking place in Germany, and assumed that the joint declaration on the future of Japan made at the Potsdam conference in July would provide the framework for it—including the installation of Soviet occupation forces.18
Although Washington was as suspicious of Stalin’s motives as MacArthur was, it reluctantly conceded the principle of a joint occupation. It even set up a four-power Far Eastern Commission in Washington to oversee the process. MacArthur, however, was adamant. There would be no Soviet troops in Japan, ever.
That led to a head-on confrontation with Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko, the Soviet liaison in Tokyo, who asserted Russia’s right to occupy Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. MacArthur said no. The discussion grew heated and Derevyanko became “abusive,” according to MacArthur’s later account. He began shouting that he would see to it that MacArthur was fired and that Soviet troops would arrive in Hokkaido, whether MacArthur wanted them to or not.
“If a single Russian soldier enters Japan without my permission,” MacArthur thundered, “I will at once throw the entire Russian mission, including yourself, in jail.”
Derevyanko sat back, stunned. Then he muttered, “By God, I believe you would,” and walked out. No Soviet troops ever landed on Hokkaido or anywhere else in Japan, and MacArthur heard nothing more about it.19
Nor did he pay much attention to what the Far Eastern Commission in Washington said or did in the four years of its existence, until the final signature of the peace treaty with Japan brought it to an end. “Not one constructive idea to help with the reorientation and reconstruction of Japan ever came from the Far Eastern Commission,” he later wrote, or its satellite body, the Allied Council, of which he said, “its sole contribution being that of nuisance and defamation.”20
MacArthur intended to be in total charge, and he soon made it clear that he would brook no opposition—even from the highest levels in Washington.
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There the decision to entrust all this power to MacArthur had not been uncontroversial.
Feelings toward MacArthur in the Truman White House and the cabinet ranged from distrust to hatred and contempt. As New Deal Democrats, they were bound to view an unabashed Republican and a conservative with misgiving, but then so had Roosevelt. With Truman the antagonism ran deeper, even though the two of them had never met. Truman minced no words in describing his feelings toward MacArthur, then or later: “Mr. Prima Donna, Brass Hat, Five Star MacArthur. He’s worse than the Cabots and Lodges: they talked with one another before they told God what to do. MacArthur tells God right off.”
Much of the problem was bitter feelings over the Bataan debacle. Most believed the “Dugout Doug” myth: Senator Tom Connolly, the powerful Senate majority leader, referred to MacArthur as “Dugout Doug” even in private conversations. Like Eisenhower, Truman privately bemoaned the fact that it was Wainwright who had been left behind and MacArthur who had been rescued, rather than the other way around. “We’d have had a real General and a fighting man if we had Wainwright,” Truman said, “and not a play actor and a bunco man.”21
Both ignored the fact that no general, no matter how bold or skilled, could have held on in the Philippines or that MacArthur had then proceeded to destroy Japan’s empire in the South Pacific, and liberate the Philippines, with proportionately fewer casualties than his Central Pacific rival, Admiral Nimitz. On the contrary, Truman and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, another MacArthur hater, blamed FDR for having burdened America with “Mr. Prima Donna” in the first place, both by rescuing him from the Philippines and by then putting him in command of the Japan invasion forces. They never wavered in their belief that Roosevelt’s decision to stick with MacArthur had been political rather than strategic, as a way to defuse Republican criticism and to sideline a possible presidential rival.
“FDR was always afraid of MacArthur,” Truman told Kenney’s former airfield builder Jack Sverdrup, who was now based in Washington, “and seemed to think he might have tremendous political power.” Now it was Truman’s turn to be nervous about what MacArthur might do, since the war was over and a presidential election was looming in 1948.22
All in all, the consensus within the postwar Democratic Party and the Truman administration was that appointing MacArthur supreme commander of SCAP was a mistake. But as Harold Ickes admitted to Truman, the decision was probably unavoidable. Deny him the appointment, Ickes grumbled, and the GOP would make a martyr out of him and a candidate for president. By sticking him out in Japan and the Pacific, preoccupying him with matters of demobilizing and reforming Japanese society, both men reasoned, MacArthur would be marginalized and have no input about policy where it really counted: dealing with the menacing Soviet presence in Europe. Given MacArthur’s outspoken anti-Communist proclivities, it made sense not to have him casting public pronouncements on how to handle Stalin and his allies.
In any case, strict rules had been drawn up to govern the occupation, in a comprehensive plan from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It had reached MacArthur on August 29 as he was about to leave Okinawa. The plan reflected the agreement that Truman, Churchill, and Stalin had reached at Potsdam, allowing for “the eventual establishment of a peaceful and responsible government” in Japan, but through democratic means by the Japanese people themselves and not by forcible imposition at the point of a bayonet.
The document also dictated the terms for disarmament and demobilization of Japan’s armed forces of 6.9 million men; for disbanding of military and secret police, and trying of Japanese accused of war crimes; the establishment of the rule of law and the freedom of worship; protection of civil liberties and civil rights, including for women; legalization of unions and the reform of Japan’s agriculture; and the breakup of the military-industrial complex that Japan
’s massive zaibatsu corporations had set up and overseen.
MacArthur approved the plan. He already had the basic outline in his head when they left Okinawa for Tokyo; he had recited it to Courtney Whitney on the way over on the plane. But he also took to heart the directive in Part II of the plan, that “the policies of the United States will govern” all matters through the supreme commander, who will be free to exercise “his authority through Japanese governmental machinery and agencies, including the Emperor.”23
The Joint Chiefs instructed MacArthur, “The plight of Japan is the direct outcome of its own behavior, and the Allies will not undertake the burden of repairing the damage.” Instead, “Japan will be expected to provide goods and services to meet the needs of the occupying forces.”24
At the end of the day, MacArthur had all the authority he needed to do as he wished because Washington had given it to him. He would not hesitate to wield his absolute power, even if it meant collision with the administration.
That actually didn’t take long. Just nine days after arriving in Tokyo, MacArthur set off a major explosion revolving around the size of the occupation force itself. What seemed an elementary issue actually had potentially huge political implications, as MacArthur soon discovered.
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Japan’s sudden surrender in August 1945 had caught policymakers at the War Department by surprise. By then there were more than 8 million Americans in army uniform, and while the draft had been sharply curtailed in anticipation of final victory, no one assumed they were going to finish the year with standing forces of anything less than 6.8 million men.25
A week after Nagasaki those numbers looked absurdly high. Even with American forces occupying the two major ex-belligerents, Germany and Japan, the pressure to demobilize as soon as possible was “terrific,” as General Marshall noted to Ike as early as August 14—as was the nation’s desire to end the draft now that peace had finally broken out.26
To the War Department, and to Army Chief of Staff Marshall, however, the future looked less sanguine. They weren’t so eager to shrink U.S. forces by half or even two-thirds, as some were urging. The global situation was still unstable: chaos in Asia, massive devastation across Europe, and above all the looming threat of the Soviet Union. Showing strength through numbers looked attractive.
One way to impress upon the public the need for maintaining American military strength, they decided, would be to call for a big occupation force in Japan. Department planners thought 400,000 troops would be about right; possibly even 500,000. Numbers like that, and similar ones for Europe, would also require maintaining a peacetime draft—another War Department goal that was deeply unpopular with the public. The Pentagon and President Truman were anxious for MacArthur to go along with this strategy, and told him so.
But MacArthur supporter and West Point classmate Robert Wood of Sears, Roebuck, saw something else at work. He warned MacArthur that supporting such a large occupation army would actually make him the target of hostility back in the States. It certainly would “put the burden of blame on you if you should demand a very large army of occupation, which would have to be maintained through a draft….The commander who demands an exorbitant army will later be pilloried, in my opinion, in the eyes of the public.”27
That was what Democrats who were worried about MacArthur’s presidential aspirations in 1948 would prefer, Wood suggested, and why they were proposing the idea in the first place.
Deliberate trap by his enemies or not, MacArthur was in no mood to fall for it. Wood in his letter suggested that 300,000 or even 200,000 troops might be enough, and MacArthur came to agree. So on September 17 he shocked everyone—including the Japanese—by stating that the occupation would require far fewer than half a million men. By using the Japanese government itself, he said, to help maintain order, reestablish essential services, and prevent possible starvation and outbreaks of epidemics, “Within six months the occupational force, unless unforeseen factors arise, will probably not number more than 200,000 men.” Then once the military phase of occupation was over, MacArthur averred, the full integration of Japan back into the community of nations, with the help of the United Nations, could begin. Either way, he was implying, the timetable was a lot shorter than anyone, especially anyone in the War Department, ever expected. One of his subordinates even stated that the entire occupation might be over in just a year.28
When MacArthur’s words hit the news wires, Washington exploded. Truman raged that the statement was contrary to policy and “was wholly uncalled for” and would do a “great deal of damage.” He had an even more volatile outburst in the presence of his assistant press secretary.
“I’m going to do something about that fellow,” the usually tight-lipped president muttered, “who’s been balling things up. I’m tired of fooling around.” When someone suggested using the crisis as an excuse to fire MacArthur, however, Truman drew back. Instead, his own public statement was supportive: “I’m glad to see the general won’t need as many [troops] as he first thought. He said first 500,000, later 400,000, and now 200,000”—conveniently suggesting that it was MacArthur, not the administration, who had pushed the higher number and was now backing away from it.29
Even so, the diplomatic blowback was considerable. Australia, Great Britain, and the other Allies all wanted reassurance that the changing numbers didn’t reflect a softening on policy toward Japan. Marshall sent a sharp telegram off to MacArthur telling him that the effect of his statement was to “embarrass or prejudice War Department efforts” to handle the postwar situation, including Selective Service, and admonishing him to henceforth “coordinate” all public statements and press releases regarding demobilization and garrison requirements with the War Department.
After catching an earful from the embassies of America’s allies, Truman’s acting secretary of state also issued a statement denying that “anybody can see at this time the number of forces that will be necessary” to keep order and security and adding tartly, “the occupation forces are instruments of policy and not the determinants of policy.”30
MacArthur was completely unruffled. “There was not the slightest thought that my statement…would cause the slightest embarrassment,” he told Marshall. As far as he was concerned, his September 17 statement had been perfectly in line with War Department policy, and he intended for things to stay that way. In MacArthur’s mind, that was the end of it. All the diplomatic upheaval it was causing, and all the gnashing of teeth at the White House, mattered to him as much as doings on the moon.31
As for the acerbic public rebuke from the acting secretary of state, MacArthur never replied, but he would remember the man’s name: Dean Gooderham Acheson. They were never destined to be friends; over the next half decade they would prove to be more than a match for each other in assertiveness, egotism, and pride—and in articulately defending policy preferences that, as time went on, would drift further and further apart.
The result was a clash of wills that would reach a crescendo on Korea’s snow-covered slopes south of the Yalu River.
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For now, however, MacArthur didn’t care. No one in Washington, not even the president, was going to interfere with the role destiny had carved out for him in Japan.
One of his first official visits was to the American embassy in Tokyo, which, considering that the rest of the city had been firebombed into nonexistence, was remarkably intact. Only the chancellery roof had been damaged; the rest of the embassy was almost exactly as Ambassador Joseph Grew had left it in December 1941. There was even a portrait of George Washington still hanging on the wall. MacArthur stopped to look at it, drew himself to full attention, and saluted.
“Sir, they weren’t wearing red coats,” someone heard him say, “but we whipped them just the same.”32
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The stage was now set for the American occupation of Japan, and for MacArthur’s leadership in reshaping that country into a peaceful member of the world community, symbolized by
the newly formed United Nations, as well as molding it into a friend, rather than a foe, of the United States. MacArthur knew that there was one man, and one man only, who would determine whether that goal was realized, and whether his leadership of the occupation proved a success or failure.
That man was Emperor Hirohito, still hidden and aloof in the Imperial Palace. But unbeknownst to MacArthur, he had already made a favorable impression on the Japanese ruler’s consciousness. Even as MacArthur, Acheson, and Truman were arguing over future troop levels, the emperor had pored over a document in Japanese that was lying on his desk. It was Toshikazu Kase’s description of the surrender ceremony, and of the shift in mood from humiliation and despair to optimism and hope, after MacArthur’s words on the deck of the Missouri.
It contained this description of the new commander of SCAP:
“He is a man of peace. Never has the truth of the line ‘peace has her victories no less renowned than war’ been more eloquently demonstrated. He is a man of light. Radiantly, the gathering rays of his magnanimous soul embrace the earth; his footsteps paving the world with light…General MacArthur [is] a shining obelisk in the desert of human endeavor that marks a timeless march onward toward an enduring peace.”33
These were words of praise that were usually reserved for the Tenno himself. Hirohito might have been justified in being miffed. Instead, he was relieved. There might be hope for an opening, after all.