An Inoffensive Rearmament (7 page)

While the controversy raged in Japan, the Soviet Union continued to obstruct every effort to reach a multilateral agreement. Suddenly, the United States decided to give Japan a separate peace treaty whether Russians participated or not. On May 18, 1950, the United States accordingly announced that Defense Secretary Louis A.Johnson and General Omar N. Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, planned to discuss with General MacArthur in Tōkyō the military implications of a peace treaty with Japan. On the following day, May 19, President Truman told the press that he hoped a Japanese peace conference could be held soon, and he said he had appointed John Foster Dulles to negotiate the peace treaty. About two weeks later, the Japanese government, in an unprecedented statement for a vanquished state, bluntly declared that Japan was ready to sign a peace treaty with any nation. That opened the way for a separate peace treaty with the United States and shut the Soviet Union out of any negotiations. The first card in the game of “total diplomacy” had been played.

The next two power plays were more direct. In 1950, there were two viable aspects of communism in Japan: the Japan Communist Party and Soviet Union's representatives on the Allied Council of Japan in Tōkyō. These two elements of Soviet influence had to go.

The Japan Communist Party was a legal political organization, permitted by General Headquarters (GHQ) in November 1945 to exist as a political party. It subsequently had several delegates elected to the Japanese Diet. In the depressed
city areas, the party had considerable influence among the unemployed and dispossessed. In Ōsaka, for example, the Communist Party leader, Shiga, had received overwhelming support from the electorate. By 1950, communists were aggressively organizing noisy cells in the universities.

The first blast offensive against communism was fired by General MacArthur. In an elegantly phrased press release, SCAP declared,

[The Japan Communist Party] has cast off the mantle of pretended legitimacy and assumed instead the role of an avowed satellite of an international predatory force and a Japanese pawn of an alien power policy, imperialistic purpose, and subversive propaganda.

That it has done so at once brings into question its right to the further benefits and protection of the country and laws it would subvert and raises doubt as to whether it should longer be regarded as a constitutionally recognized political movement.

The announcement was a pointed invitation to the Japanese government to outlaw the Communist Party. It was not an occupation forces directive, but it left no doubt in anyone's mind what SCAP wanted. The days of good feelings and friendly fellowship were at an end. The cautious prime minister, however, was not eager to stick his neck out. Though he gave General MacArthur's press release customary lip service, he made no overt move against the communists.

Impatient with Japanese reticence to act, SCAP moved directly against the Communist Party. It sent out Dr. Walter C. Eells, an employee of the Civil Information and Education Section, on a one-man campaign against communists in universities and colleges. This was a sudden, unprecedented departure from past occupation policy. Up until the Eells campaign, it had been the accepted procedure for SCAP officials to advise university administrators, professors, and students on educational matters, but Americans customarily avoided politics. Though many officials, of course, spoke out in private against communism, Dr. Eells was the first SCAP emissary to launch a public anticommunist crusade. The reaction at the universities was violent. When he appeared on the platform at Tōhoku University in northeastern Japan, communist-led students raised such a howl that his lecture had to be canceled. This was the first time that a Japanese audience demonstrated directly against someone from SCAP. In Tōkyō, we were
shocked. Dr. Eells made additional attempts to address other university groups, but his appearances were greeted with increasing violence and disorder. Finally, when President Nambara of Tōkyō University joined the students protesting that “[Dr. Eells' views] do not, in some respects, harmonize with the national circumstances of Japan,” the harassed doctor was sent home. The Japanese educators, it would appear, had imbibed so deeply the theory of American democracy that our effort to crush communism in the country was momentarily frustrated by their devotion to our teachings.

On May 30, 1950, events took a new turn. Thousands of Japanese gathered in what was announced as a “People's Rally” on the Imperial Palace Plaza, in full view of the Dai Ichi Building, General MacArthur's GHQ. The rally was called to protest alleged repression of people's rights by the Japanese government. Coming out of the Dai Ichi at noon, I was amazed at the mass of people milling about on the plaza. Enjoying the beautiful day, I crossed the street and walked among the throng. It was a typical Japanese gathering, packed with thousands of young people, mostly students, interspersed with working men and women and the idle curious who were always attracted by such an event. The people were friendly, and as far as I could see, the crowd was orderly. Here and there, small groups were assembled listening to individual speakers who seemed to be answering questions mostly. A few policemen stood quietly observing the crowd.

Suddenly, near some low trees, there was a violent movement in the mass of people. The group seemed to pack in upon itself, then burst like agitated ants. Stones began to fly. I saw the Japanese police rush in. I thought I saw an American captain and two enlisted men join the police as they moved into the mob, but I may have been wrong. It is possible that the Japanese police were trying to rescue the Americans from the mob.

I recall at that time asking my Japanese friend, “What the hell are all the Americans doing there?” He didn't bother to answer but was yelling and pulling at me. “This is bad, Colonel. Let's get out of here.” I didn't have to be urged. This was the first time I had seen a Japanese crowd directly attack Americans. I later learned that the mob threw one of the soldiers into the palace moat and the other two were mauled.

This rough affair created great excitement at the Dai Ichi Building. I was later told that the “People's Rally” was communist-organized, and the sudden riot against the Japanese and the Americans was communist-inspired.

SCAP obviously could not tolerate this affront. Seven days after the gathering on the Imperial Palace Plaza, General MacArthur directed the Japanese government to purge the 221 executive members of the Communist Party Central Committee. The newspapers headlined the event, featuring General MacArthur as the man who knocked the “brains” out of the Communist Party.

Meanwhile the third major offensive of our “total diplomacy,” which was directed at destroying Russian prestige and influence in Japan, was progressing rapidly toward a successful conclusion.

When the war in the Pacific ended, the powers that fought Japan established in Tōkyō an international body known as the Allied Council for Japan. Although the authority of the council was vague, its general purpose was to serve as an advisory council for the Allied supreme commander. It was intended that the council would consult with and help General MacArthur to administer the country, and the council met from time to time, but since SCAP was an American general commanding what essentially was an American occupation headquarters, the council had little influence or impact on the administration of Japan.

The Soviet Union was represented on the council by Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko, who had about fifty Russians on his staff. The offensive to drive the Russians out of Tōkyō was undertaken at the highest level. General Derevyanko found himself under increasing attack from both American and Australian representatives. In every conceivable way, the Russian representatives were shown that they were not welcome in the country. Rumors began to circulate that since Japan was under American occupation anyway, there was no reason to have the Soviet Union tell us how to govern the country, and the Allied Council was to be discontinued. Council meetings became infrequent and finally ceased altogether. The Soviet Union's representatives, always isolated, now lost their reason for being in Japan. On May 28, 1950, without any previous warning, about a month before the North Korean invasion was launched, General Derevyanko and forty-six members of his staff sailed for Russia with their wives and children. The walkout was never explained. In the Western press, the departure was hailed as a great defeat in the Far East for the Russians.

Thus, by early June 1950, only a few weeks before the North Koreans drove south into Seoul, the United States, working closely with the Japanese government, struck three major blows against Soviet prestige in Japan. First, the Russians
were rudely shut out of negotiations for an Allied peace treaty with Japan. Second, General MacArthur decapitated the Soviet-sponsored Japan Communist Party. And third, the Soviet representatives on the Allied Council for Japan were literally driven out of the country. American firmness and power had been clearly demonstrated.

No one can criticize the actions taken. What is bothersome, in retrospect, is that we failed to anticipate any reaction from the other side, or if we did, we failed to do anything about their capabilities. We seemed to be enthralled with our own huge successes. Actually, we should have recognized that the Soviet Union could not take these blows to its national prestige and influence in the Far East, no more than we could have weathered similar defeats. Our counterintelligence agencies should have been especially alert, for international power responds to the same laws of action and reaction as any other human behavior.

What is even more significant is that we failed to understand that international reaction is motivated by self-serving interests and is contained only by power adequate for the situation. Although our actions in Japan had been bold and decisive, we lacked the power needed to contain the Soviet capability for reaction in the Far East.

What were the capabilities of our military forces in Japan? The Pacific War had ended five years before. The Japanese people and government had turned out to be pliable, responsive, and remarkably friendly. For American officers and noncommissiond officers (NCOs), and particularly their families, life in Japan was comfortable. For the soldiers, most of whom were youngsters, entertainment and women were cheap. There was much emphasis on saluting, but military training was not exacting; the men and their officers enjoyed the name and life of
occupationnaires,
a kind of governmental tourists with extended visas in the pleasant clime of Japan.

There were good reasons for this softness. In occupied Japan, soldiering was not a premium. There were other very important tasks assigned to the Army. To begin with, many of our military personnel were helping the Japanese people recover from a devastating war and were carrying out the democratic reforms America was introducing. Our officers and soldiers were engaged in such governmental activities as surveillance of the land reform program, distribution of rice and fish from the farms and fishing villages to the large cities where food was in
short supply, and surveillance of tax collection. All these programs were important not only to Japan but to the United States, for America had to supply Japan with about 15 percent of its food requirements, and delinquent Japanese taxes meant that the United States would have to balance the Japanese budget with American dollars.

As a consequence, our officers and soldiers became more government officials than military fighters. The organized Army units also found it difficult to train because Japan is a land of rugged mountains, and where the terrain permits military training, the land is intensely cultivated. What had been firing ranges and training areas before the war were now farmlands. In addition, because Japan was not suitable for classical armor operations, a decision had been made not to assign tanks to its defense. Accordingly, when Korea exploded, we had no armor in the Far East. All these factors tended to produce in Japan an American Army of barracks soldiers.

General MacArthur, as the supreme commander, was lord of all he surveyed. Only incidentally was he responsible for the supervision of the Far East military force as its overall commander. In the five years of the occupation, MacArthur had mellowed and now lived the life of a retired gentleman soldier, more interested in keeping Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in power than in maintaining the efficiency of his divisions. The great white conqueror had isolated himself completely, living in the spacious American Embassy Chancery and working in his Dai Ichi Building. For years prior to the Korean War, he had disassociated himself from his men. No one knew for sure whether General MacArthur had ever inspected the troops outside of his capital city.

For the Japanese, General MacArthur was the symbol of authority. He filled an emotional void that had been created when the emperor was put in mothballs by our forces. At a time when it was unlawful for the Japanese people to display their national flag, MacArthur was a good substitute. They petitioned him for their rice rations, gratefully accepted his benevolent constitution, marveled at his dignified utterances, paid homage to him each day as he entered and departed from the Dai Ichi Building, and honored him with presents of the most elegant grasshoppers in the land.
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The following story about General MacArthur may have more truth than humor. A new arrival from the United States was being oriented by one of the old Japan hands. They were in a village one day observing the operations of the
newly organized agricultural cooperative. The recently arrived American, admiring the wonders of the occupation, asked his more experienced associate what the farmers thought of MacArthur. “Let's ask one of them,” answered the old hand. Turning to a Japanese in the rice paddy, he asked the graybeard what he thought of the supreme commander for Allied powers. The man listened intently as the interpreter framed the question, then after a long, thoughtful silence he answered very seriously, “The emperor picked a good man to run Japan.”