It takes nothing away from MacArthur to give Washington full credit for the planning it did. In accepting these policies (which he agreed with), MacArthur became responsible for putting them into action—and modifying them where necessary.
Several items relating to overall policy are worth noting:
#2: . . . Unless you deem it necessary, or are instructed to the contrary, you will not establish direct military government, but will exercise your powers so far as compatible with the accomplishment of your mission through the Emperor of Japan or through the Japanese Government.
#3a: . . . The United States desires that the Japanese Government conform as closely as may be to principles of democratic self-government, but it is not the responsibility of the occupation forces to impose on Japan any form of government not supported by the freely expressed will of the people.
#4c: . . . The policy is to use the existing form of government, not to support it. Changes in the direction of modifying the feudal and authoritarian tendencies of the government are to be permitted and favored.
#4e: . . . You will make it clear that military occupation of Japan is effected in the interests of the United Nations and is necessary for the destruction of Japan’s power of aggression and her war potential and for the elimination of militarism and militaristic institutions which have brought disaster on the Japanese.
Other paragraphs dealt with MacArthur’s power:
#4h: Representatives of civilian agencies of the United States Government or of other United Nations governments shall not participate in the occupation or function independently within Japan except upon your approval and subject as to purpose, time and extent, to decisions communicated to you by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
#13a: You will not assume any responsibility for the economic rehabilitation of Japan or the strengthening of the Japanese economy. You will make it clear to the Japanese people that: a) You assume no obligations to maintain, or have maintained, any particular standard of living in Japan, and b) That the standard of living will depend upon the thoroughness with which Japan rids itself of all militaristic ambitions . . . and cooperates with the occupying forces and the governments they represent.
#29a: You will assure that all practicable economic and police measures are taken to achieve the maximum utilization of essential Japanese resources in order that imports into Japan may be strictly limited. Such measures will include production and price controls, rationing, control of black markets, fiscal and financial controls and other measures directed toward full employment of resources, facilities and means available in Japan.
Finally, other paragraphs laid out specific policy directives. Paragraph #25 opened the door for land reform, the formation of labor unions, and the breakup of economic monopolies: “It is the intent of the United States Government to encourage and show favor to a) Policies which permit a wide distribution of income and ownership of the means of production and trade, and b) The development of organizations in labor, industry, and agriculture on an economic basis.”
JCS 1380/15 was almost like a business plan. It became the bible of the occupation. MacArthur chopped up its 179 paragraphs into fragments and assigned them to his fifteen staff sections for implementation. If it provided a ready checklist, it proved even more valuable in reminding SCAP’s senior officers of their purpose for being in Japan: to liberate.
With the occupation’s mission and objectives now in place, MacArthur’s next task was organization and staffing. But first he had to deal with reporting relationships. In an effort to appease its allies, Washington had established a rather confusing organizational structure:
The entity in charge of ruling the Japanese government (JG) was the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (the organization, not the man, though the name was used interchangeably for one or the other—in itself an indication of MacArthur’s extraordinary power).
Above MacArthur was the U.S. government bureaucracy. The supreme commander reported first to the secretary of the army, then to the secretary of war, then to the army chief of staff, then to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and finally to the commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, President Truman. Frequently MacArthur as a five-star general would find himself reporting to lower-ranking generals occupying the positions of secretary of the army, army chief of staff, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, making for an awkward situation. The best way for them to handle this was to let MacArthur do pretty much whatever he wanted.
The occupation of Japan, in duration and in the number of Americans involved, would be the largest foreign policy operation ever undertaken by the United States. The entity running it would be the War Department, not the State Department. To ensure its control and to minimize the role of the State Department, the War Department required all orders to SCAP to go through the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). In a perfect example of how bureaucracies protect their turf, this requirement meant that if the State Department wanted to send a directive and the Joint Chiefs didn’t like it, it was never sent.
To get around this JCS filter and give the State Department a vehicle for exercising influence, Secretary of State Byrnes set up the FEC. The State Department maintained that there could be no lasting peace without the consent of all major powers in the Far East. The War Department and MacArthur thought differently: Had not America been the dominant power winning the war in the Pacific? To the victor belong the spoils, and this victor had a major concern: the USSR, which had already shown its true colors by jumping into the war so quickly and taking over Manchuria. The Pentagon arranged for a critical sentence to be inserted in Washington’s September 6, 1945, directive to SCAP: “Although every effort will be made . . . to establish policies for the conduct of the occupation . . . which will satisfy the principal Allied powers, in the event of any differences of opinion among them, the policies of the United States will govern.”
Protected from above by the Joint Chiefs, and being the only person in the occupation with executive authority, MacArthur was free to do as he wished. When he had to participate in meetings or do things he didn’t want to do, he simply ignore them. When accused of friction with the ACJ or FEC, he would issue a soothing denial: “It is difficult to visualize any serious disagreement.”
Gnashing their teeth with infuriation, the committee members could do little; MacArthur kept them on the sidelines by using smooth talk and evasion. He attended the first meeting of the Allied Council, told the members he welcomed their input, and left the meeting, never to be seen again. Without MacArthur’s personal participation, the council accomplished little.
The Far Eastern Commission was a more serious threat. Three of the members—the USSR, China, and Great Britain—along with the United States, held veto power over SCAP policies. MacArthur saw this as a direct maneuver on their part to get their hands on Japan. He wanted none of it, especially when they attacked his urgent requests to Washington for emergency food shipments for the Japanese. Their argument? That the Japanese should not be permitted a higher standard of living than that of the Chinese or Soviet allies. Imagine!
When Secretary of State Byrnes said control of Japan should be an Allied responsibility, MacArthur took great exception and claimed that such responsibility belonged exclusively to him. The FEC was nothing more than “a debating society,” he said, “a policy-making body with no executive powers, functions or responsibilities.” He took care of this nuisance by issuing orders and directives on his own, leaving the FEC to figure out what to do with his fait accompli.
Don’t need your help, thank you.
By effectively muzzling these two organizations and keeping Russia’s influence to a minimum, MacArthur ensured that SCAP’s rule was more about liberation than about punishment. America would run the show. “We do not come in the spirit of conquerors,” he said. This attitude was less a statement of personal generosity than an assessment of the Japanese people. A few weeks before the Japanese surrender, Secretary of War Henry Stimson had informe
d President Truman that the Japanese were an “extremely intelligent people” and their nation building during the eighty years from the late 1850s to the late 1930s had been “one of the most astounding feats of national progress in history.” Something, obviously, had gone terribly wrong. America’s job was to fix it.
Where to begin? How do you free an entire nation from its militaristic past and do it a way that is acceptable and not overbearing for a people dazed by the ignominy of total defeat? How do you instill in them an appreciation of individual liberty? MacArthur knew how he wanted to do it: by being magnanimous. But lofty principles of liberalism still need vigorous executive action to be translated into effective deeds. This called for a man renowned for his administrative skills.
Organization charts rarely appear in history books, but in management consulting studies they play a prominent role. This would be a substantial operation, eventually growing to 2,800 people in 1949, of which nearly 2,450 were civilians.
There is a reason why this chart is so complicated: It depicts a shadow government. Unlike in Germany, the occupation operated as a supervisory superstructure over an existing country and therefore had to monitor all the activities of the Japanese ministries. SCAP was divided into fifteen staff sections. For each of the forty-six prefectures of Japan, General Headquarters (GHQ) provided a team of seven officers, seven civilians, twenty enlisted men, and fifty Japanese. These teams, first called “military government teams,” were soon called “civil affairs teams.” They did no governing per se; rather, they inspected and monitored the subdivisions of the Japanese government to ensure SCAP directives were being properly carried out. These teams helped transmit as much power as possible to the Japanese, giving advice—not orders. To speed up the administration and instill a spirit of camaraderie and partnership, as well as initiative, these suggestions were made in person or by telephone; hardly anything was put in writing. There was to be no paper trail of disagreements or suggestions not followed that might embarrass the Japanese.
The most powerful sections, all headed by members of “the Bataan gang” of generals who had served with MacArthur in the Philippines, were Government, Economic and Scientific, Intelligence, Civil Information and Education, and Public Health and Welfare. Almost all the staffers were provided by Washington. MacArthur loved to complain that Washington had sent him “a boatload of New Dealers,” but he was really speaking in jest. He had nothing but the highest regard for the work done by Charles Kades and Alfred Hussey in constitutional reform, Thomas Bisson in politics, and Theodore Cohen in labor unions. MacArthur, who was held in great esteem by conservatives and right-wingers in America for his fervent anti-Communism, was actually quite liberal in his political reform in Japan. He was essentially a nineteenth-century classical liberal: He believed in free markets, in breaking up the entrenched economic trusts (the zaibatsu), and in providing more equitable opportunities for laborers and small farmers. Though he was a total dictator whose whims and utterances carried more force than the law, he was opposed to absolute rule and wanted to give the country back to the Japanese as quickly as possible. In this regard he was like his idol George Washington: a powerful general who could be trusted with power because he would not abuse it.
He preached the limits of occupation: “After about the third year, any military occupation begins to collapse of its own weight.” This fact, drawn from his vast reading of history, dictated his operating philosophy: “We won’t do for them what they can do for themselves.”
The country was a shambles and people were literally starving. How to structure an organization that was comprehensive yet quick and responsive? MacArthur’s military experience came in handy. In war, where a campaign is organized by territory and communications with headquarters is often impossible, commanders are responsible for their area in battle. In peacetime this structure requires middlemen to provide coordination. To cut out the middlemen and eliminate the bottlenecks, it is necessary to organize by function. This would be done here.
MacArthur would make all the major decisions. These directives—called SCAPINS—went out under his name and signature. The official language of the occupation was English. All new Japanese laws and regulations had to be translated and given to SCAP for approval. The amount of paperwork to be translated was massive. Just in the first full month, September 1945, the number of pages to be translated was 278,594—almost 10,000 a day.
The supreme commander moved quickly. He had to—before armed guerrilla bands started operating in the mountains. He gave himself thirty days to get his organization in place and establish firm control over the country. He did it by extending the art of delegation to an extreme form. He was available only to senior members of his staff; the junior members worked through his chief of staff. Observed his air chief, Gen. George Kenney: “It is by avoiding too much that General MacArthur gets so much done.” One day the phone rang in the office of Ken Dyke, an air force officer in Yokohama. It was a man he had never met on the other end. “I’ve been looking over your record,” said MacArthur, “and I’m putting you in charge of all public information media and the re-education of the Japanese people. Get copies of the material I have received from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and write your own general orders.” Click, end of call. Go write your own job description, and get cracking.
Most of the people MacArthur hired came from the military. When positions became available for which there was no one appropriate in Japan, MacArthur notified Washington. People hired in the United States got a letter from the War Department saying General MacArthur had expressed an urgent need for their services and would they be interested? Overnight these people became celebrities in their hometowns as “advisors of General MacArthur.” Observed one senior SCAP official: “With rare exceptions the closest they ever were to him was when they stood in the crowds that daily watched the General arrive and leave the General Headquarters Building in Tokyo.”
Unfriendly newspaper correspondents accused MacArthur of surrounding himself with sycophants and mediocrities. “Such sophistry has no place in any serious discussion of MacArthur,” wrote Justin Williams, one of SCAP’s top lawyers. Certainly if there were a lot of mediocrities, then a man whose occupation administration accomplished so much would have to be an absolute genius. A more modest appraisal of MacArthur would have to dispute this notion and give significant credit to men like Whitney and Kades in government, Marquat in industry, and William Sebald and George Atcheson in foreign affairs. MacArthur commanded great loyalty from his military men who had served with him in the Philippines. Together they had overcome incredible odds. Experiences like that make for strong bonds. They shared a deep distrust of Washington, especially of George Marshall, who had given priority to the European front and failed to deliver the promised troops and ships needed to defend the Philippines. MacArthur’s General Headquarters (GHQ) thus had a substantial “us vs. them” siege mentality. Men in this mind-set will develop an extreme need for control and view outsiders with suspicion, which many freshly arrived newspapermen could not understand or relate to. They reserved their particular animus for MacArthur’s number two—hatchet man, chief administrator, and public relations man all rolled into one.
He was Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney, head of the Government Section (GS). An American lawyer and investor who made a fortune in the Philippines in the 1930s, Whitney joined the army in 1940 and became close to MacArthur. Physically he was not an impressive man: Five foot four, puffy-faced and overweight, he looked like “a sharp businessman who had become president of his local Kiwanis Club.” “A stuffed pig with a moustache,” another detractor called him.
His staff begged to differ. He told them his door was always open:
I want your reaction to every directive to the Japanese government prepared in this section. The junior officers are as well, if not better, qualified to pass judgment on our moves as the higher-ranking ones, including myself. I mean exactly as I say. And I look forward to the time when a lieutena
nt will barge into my office, bang on my desk and say, “Goddamit, general, such-and-such a proposal directive is preposterous, and you’d be out of your mind to ask General MacArthur to approve it.”
More important, noted Kades, a liberal lawyer from Washington: “Everyone felt, at least after General Whitney took over, that we were in a way carrying [on] a crusade.” To indicate his stature in the organization, Whitney’s office was next to the supreme commander’s, and connected by a private door. Whitney saw MacArthur for sometimes as much as three hours a day. He was as smart as MacArthur, a superb administrator of the SCAP organization, and he shared MacArthur’s political views. He opposed Japanese conservatives and was a strong advocate of demilitarization, the purge of business leaders, and decentralization of the police.
MacArthur had enormous regard for him. When MacArthur’s chief of staff sent a memo announcing that all appointments with the supreme commander would go through him, Whitney went to MacArthur and threatened to quit. MacArthur flashed a big grin, took the aide’s memo, struck a match and set the memo on fire, and dropped it in the wastebasket.
MacArthur deliberately avoided making friends with his staff, believing it would affect his professionalism. Whitney was the opposite. When the staff worked overtime and couldn’t get to the dining room before it closed at 8:00 p.m., Whitney treated them to the swank Imperial Hotel dining room, where the kitchen always had food available for generals. When one of his officers married another GS staffer in 1946, Whitney demonstrated his joie de vivre by drinking champagne from the bride’s slipper.
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