Supreme Commander

by Seymour Morris, Jr.

  120 “I am not a kami”: Ibid., 255.

  120 “Wasn’t that absurd” . . . “never be”: Ibid., 253–54.

  120 “The ties between Us”: Fifth paragraph; the only change made by the emperor was in the second line, where the word “upon” replaced Henderson’s “only on.”

  121 “That afternoon”: New York Times, January 3, 1946, 2.

  122 “in the same way”: Hall, 75.

  122 “a Jerusalem, Mount Vernon and Vatican”: Ibid.

  123 “Japan is a spiritual vacuum”: Woodard, 243.

  123 “We believe in”: Stoddard Commission, Report of the United States Education Mission to Japan, Submitted to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Tokyo, March 30, 1946, 4–5.

  124 “Pure democracy”: U.S. Department of State Bulletin, June 27, 1946, 1067.

  12: DRAWING UP A UTOPIA

  125 “The Japanese Constitution”: Schoichi, 9.

  126 “Isn’t Shidehara dead?”: Finn, 39.

  126 “a system . . . secret inquisition”: Brines, 48.

  126 “In the achievement”: Statement to the Japanese Government, PRJ 741, Kades, 219.

  128 “unrestricted authority”: Feb. 1, 1946, Whitney to MacArthur memo, “Constitutional Reform,” paragraph #6, http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/shiryo/03/069/069tx.html.

  128 “Ladies and gentlemen”: Gordon, 104.

  128 “There are few students”: Gunther, 128.

  128 “On that date”: Gordon, 105.

  129 Top-secret room for preparing constitution draft: Sirota, 21, 107; Ward, 992.

  130 “Beate, you’re a woman”: Ibid., 106; see “Obituary: Beate Gordon,” The Economist, January 12, 2013, 86.

  131 “My God, you have given”: Stanley Weintraub, “American Proconsul: How Douglas MacArthur Shaped Postwar Japan,” Military History, January 2012, vol. 28, no. 5, 44–51.

  131 “as a Thomas Jefferson”: Wildes, 44.

  132 “totally unacceptable”: Moore and Robinson, 106; Kades, 229.

  132 “as if he had”: Whitney, 251.

  132 “black cloud”: Ibid.

  132 “You think you can make . . . we can try”: Vinacke, 65.

  132 “Not at all”: Whitney, 248.

  132 “The Supreme Commander . . . But, gentlemen”: Kades, 228.

  133 “Court, don’t you know”: Whitney, 251–52; a slightly different, more explicit version of MacArthur’s statement is from Hellegers, 778: “Have you ever known me to repudiate anything that any of my officers has ever done? I might ultimately decide if an officer did it too many times that I would replace him, but I wouldn’t repudiate what he had done.”

  133 “straight and direct”: Kades, 231; Williams, 114; Hellegers, 530.

  133 “too drastic a move”: Kades, 231.

  133 Some of the roses”: Rodney Hussey, “The New Constitution of Japan,” PRJ, vol. 1, 106.

  13: MACARTHUR BREAKS THE IMPASSE

  135 “Turning Japanese”: Harries, 117.

  136 “The way to end war”: Harvey, 185.

  136 “the good of Japan . . . his best . . . I don’t know”: Moore and Robinson, 112–13.

  136 “The enormous sacrifices”: Pratt, 15–16.

  137 “like swallowing”: Hellegers, 534.

  137 “Whitney group . . . scholarship and experience”: Moore and Robinson, 114.

  137 “The revision”: MacArthur, 299.

  138 “comes up from the people”: Hellegers, 535.

  140 “spoken Japanese”: Williams, 117.

  140 “archaic, stilted”: Inoue, 31.

  140 “a layman’s document”: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15459.

  140 The complexity of: Lauterbach, 82; R. Smith, 216–217.

  141 “is the compass”: Schoichi, 218.

  141 “express their fully”: U.S. Department of State, Activities of the Far Eastern Commission, Reported by the Secretary General, 1947, 58–59.

  142 “began to suffer”: Schoichi, 147.

  142 “prejudice many Japanese . . . reserved exclusively”: 13 April 1946 memo, MacArthur Archives, RG 9, 1–6.

  142 “limited to . . . in the absence of . . . I have acted meticulously”: Nishi, 136.

  143 “The Commission”: Memorandum for the State Department Members of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (Hilldring) to the Committee, 12 April 1946, FRUS (1946), vol. 8, 195–96.

  143 “As Supreme Commander”: MacArthur to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 4 May 1946, FRUS (1946), vol. 8, 220.

  143 “This draft provides”: Schoichi, 152.

  144 “No useful purpose”: Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent) to Secretary of State, 19 April 1946, FRUS (1946), vol. 8, 211.

  144 “Adequate time”: Schoichi, 152.

  144 “Have you read”: Lauterbach, 67.

  145 “Probably the single most”: MacArthur, 302.

  145 “To mark this historic”: Letter from Douglas MacArthur to Prime Minister, May 2, 1947, http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/result.html?q=douglas%20macarthur.

  14: HIS MOST RADICAL REFORM

  146 “the emancipation”: “Statement to the Japanese Government Concerning Required Reforms,” October 11, 1945, PRJ, 741.

  146 “laws, decrees and regulations”: http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/

  shiryo/01/022/022tx.html, part 3, item 3, paragraph 4.

  146 “Policies shall be favored”: http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/shiryo/01/022/022tx.html, part 4, item 2, paragraph 1.

  147 “would retard”: Beauchamp, 425.

  147 “These laws”: Ibid., 433.

  147 “wished her”: Tracy, 45.

  147 “Their supreme duty”: Sato, 80.

  148 “programs for the dissemination”: Pharr, “Ethel Weed,” 722.

  148 “Women of Japan”: “Women of Japan Lauded by General MacArthur,” quoted in Koikari, 51, and Beard, 177–78.

  149 “meet men”: Hopper, 185.

  149 “We are all hungry”: PRJ, 752.

  149 “one of the world’s”: Pharr, “The Politics of Women’s Rights,” 222.

  150 “presence in the corridors”: Steinem, quoted in Gordon, back cover.

  150 “a battle of the sexes”: SCAP, Government Section, “Memo 1,” August 17, 1946, Papers of Alfred R. Hussey, Asia Library, University of Michigan.

  151 “no military value”: Treadwell, 12.

  151 “Of all the reforms”: MacArthur, 305.

  152 “Women’s organizations”: Swearingen and Langer, 175.

  153 “If girl students” and story of tea: Van Staaveren, 78–79.

  15: “HE HAS A LETTER FROM GOD”

  154 “whose knowledge is derived”: Livy, “A Roman General’s Opinion of Military Critics,” A History of Rome, book 44, chap. 22.

  155 “MacArthur should move”: Lee and Henschel, 195 (photo caption).

  155 “I never before met . . . seemed to be”: Karnow, 262.

  155 “Five minutes”: Halsey and Bryan, 154–55; Puryear, 116.

  155 “If he hadn’t proposed”: Karnow, 262.

  155 “He has a letter”: Choate, 18.

  156 “General, you don’t have”: Acheson, 424.

  156 desk chair for General MacArthur: Goodman, 42.

  157 “George Washington and Abraham Lincoln”: Vincent Sheean, “MacArthur in Tokyo,” Holiday, December 1949.

  157 “cool as a cucumber”: Harries, 211.

  157 “Youth is not”: Kelley and Ryan, 13. This quotation was based on a poem by one Samuel Ullman, of Birmingham, Alabama.

  159 “Oh, General MacArthur left”: Willoughby, 267.

  159 “Well, what do you say”: Whitney, 236.

  159 “What better fate”: Gunther, 50.

  160 “Sir, the fire chief”: Chase, 149.

  160 “MacArthur has decided”: Karnow, 260.

  161 “Don’t want a fuss”: Bowers, 95.

  161 Compilation of MacArthur’s appointments: James, vol. 3, 693–94.
<
br />   161 “It indicated to them”: Vining, 86.

  162 “most qualified”: Gallup, 550, 582, 584.

  163 “When you leave the Pacific”: Halsey and Bryan, 290.

  163 “Now, now, we don’t”: Sheldon, 46.

  164 “I realize that”: Ibid., 83.

  164 “hard-headed softie”: Kenney, 64.

  164 “They’d think”: Sheldon, 210.

  164 “a target slower”: Bowers, 91.

  164 “I count on the Japanese people”: “Assassination Day,” Newsweek, May 15, 1946.

  16: RUSSIAN TROUBLE

  165 “With the end of World War II”: Ritchie, 87.

  166 “If the Soviets attempt”: Choate, 25–26.

  166 “My God, I believe you would”: MacArthur, 285.

  166 “I have received your note”: Gunther, 22.

  166 “like a piece”: FRUS, vol. 1, 79; T. Cohen, 59.

  166 “He has endeavored”: Atcheson to Byrnes, 10 September 1946, MacArthur Archives, RG 9, Box 146.

  167 “Why, General Derevyanko!”: Whitney, 306.

  167 “tell them whatever . . . Well, I had to ask”: Thorpe, 214.

  168 “Japan is in heaven now”: Vining, 265.

  168 twenty-five-mile restriction: T. Cohen, 114.

  169 “does not favor ”: New York Times, May 16, 1946, 1, 15.

  169 70 percent of farmers paying for land in cash: Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, October 1949, in Fearey, 88.

  169 “Japanese national farm debt melted”: Costello, 190.

  170 412 percent inflation: The 1946 price index went from 1,057 to 4,352, Statistical Yearbook of Japan (Tokyo, 1949), 639.

  170 “the use of”: PRJ, 762.

  170 “a strike”: Blaine Hoover, “Address to Civil Service Assembly of the United States and Canada,” Ottawa, 6 October 1948, 5, quoted in Williams, 67.

  171 “a controlled revolution”: Schaller, Altered States, 7.

  171 “the Japanese cannot”: Johnson, 100.

  172 “a national calamity”: T. Cohen, 286.

  172 “ruin the Occupation”: Eichelberger letter to MacArthur, 25 January 1947, Eichelberger Papers, Duke University: Diaries, 22-D, Box 181.

  172 “the impact”: T. Cohen, 295.

  172 “I have informed”: T. Cohen, 294–95.

  172 “undisciplined elements”: Nishi, 66.

  172 “We regret very much”: T. Cohen, 297.

  173 “In one stroke”: Blaine Hoover, “Address to Civil Service Assembly of the United States and Canada,” Ottawa, Canada, 6 October 1948, 5–6.

  173 “seemed, on cursory examination”: Redford, 62.

  173 “I know of nothing”: National Public Service Law Revision Bill, August 18, 1948, MacArthur Archives, RG 9.

  174 “to prescribe with wisdom”: Ibid.

  174 “What happened to our sons?”: Eichelberger, 286.

  175 “would have endangered”: Swearingen and Langer, 232.

  175 “the American imperialists”: Deverall, 35.

  175 “The Japanese and American bloodhounds”: Swearingen and Langer, 251.

  175 “who are in difficult”: Ibid., 374.

  176 Yoshida on MacArthur’s greatest contribution: Finn, 70.

  176 “There being no”: Williams, 272.

  17: “WHERE’S ISHII?”

  178 “Where’s Ishii?”: Barenblatt, 209.

  178 “fantastic experiments”: New York Times, September 3, 1945, 1.

  180 only 18 percent Japanese war fatalities from disease: Seaman, 5.

  181 gas masks for White House personnel: Wilson and Day, 150. This measure was kept secret from the American public lest it cause widespread alarm and panic.

  181 “unmistakably clear”: New York Times, June 6, 1942, 1–2.

  182 “These and other facts”: “Musn’t Touch!,” Newsweek, June 4, 1945, 34–35.

  182 Camp Detrick, Maryland: Renamed Fort Detrick in 1956.

  183 “Germ warfare against”: Warner and Warner, 283; Felton, 283.

  183 “a higher form”: Harris and Paxman, 10–11.

  183 Disease—not bullets—major cause of death in war: The seminal, pioneering work on this subject is Rats, Lice and History (1935) by Hans Zinsser, a member of the U.S. Army Medical Corps who served in France during World War I and was awarded, along with MacArthur, the Distinguished Cross and the French Légion d’Honneur.

  184 “Great results”: Harris, 167; Barenblatt, 188.

  184 “spraying bacterial solutions”: Barenblatt, ibid.

  184 Loucks and Japanese poison gas: Hersh, 10.

  184 Marshall and bacteriological warfare: Lilienthal, 199.

  186 Ishii funeral ceremony: Report by Neal R. Smith, RG 331, Box 1434, 20, Case #330, National Archives.

  187 “We’re not given”: Williams and Wallace, 133.

  187 Nighttime visitor with blueprint and “We need more evidence”: Ibid., 134.

  188 “I have given”: Ibid., 196; Harris, 198.

  188 “My experience”: Barenblatt, 210.

  189 “will endanger”: Williams and Wallace, 207.

  189 “Under present circumstances”: ibid., 185.

  189 “Since it is believed”: August 1, 1947, memo from the SWNCC (State, War, Navy Coordinating Committee), McDermott, 136; Williams and Wallace, 207.

  189 “the only known”: McDermott, 136.

  189 “guarded, concise”: Arvo T. Thompson, “Report on Japanese Biological Warfare Activities, May 31, 1946, Army Service Forces,” Camp Detrick, Frederick, MD, Fort Detrick Library Archives.

  190 “The utmost secrecy”: SWNCC 351/1, March 5, 1947, Record Group 331, Box 1434.20, Case 330, National Archives.

  190 “Additional data”: Gold, 109.

  18: “CHERRY BLOSSOMS AT NIGHT”

  192 “Information obtained”: Barenblatt, 223.

  192 “special protection”: Triplett, 68.

  193 death of Hirasawa: New York Times obituary, May 11, 1987.

  193 “The United States has primary interest”: John W. Powell, “A Hidden Chapter in History,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 46 (October 1981), 46, exhibit.

  194 “Cherry Blossoms at Night”: Nicholas Kristof, “Unmasking Horror—A Special Report,” New York Times, March 17, 1995, http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.

  194 “would violate every Christian ethic”: Leahy, 440.

  194 “Why has Truman”: Bilainkin, 233.

  195 “the Japanese had done”: New York Times, December 27, 1949, 16.

  195 “If a prisoner”: Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons (Foreign Language Publishing House [Moscow], 1950), 115.

  196 “In the summer of 1945”: Ibid., 290.

  196 “Experts have calculated”: Powell, “A Hidden Chapter,” 49–50.

  197 “Evidence gathered”: McDermott, 137; Williams and Wallace, 215.

  197 “It is hoped”: Barenblatt, 224; Harris, 215.

  197 U.S. scientists unimpressed by Ishii’s information: Regis, 225.

  19: THE NUREMBERG OF THE EAST

  198 “Asia under the Japanese”: Daws, 363.

  198 seventeen million people killed: Newman, 138. The specific breakdown of 17.2 million deaths attributable to the Japanese Empire, 1931–45, is as follows: China, ten million; Java (Dutch Indies), three million; Bengal famine, 1.5 million; Vietnam, one million; Outer Islands, one million; India, 180,000; Philippines, 120,000; Malaya, 100,000; United States, 100,000; Burma-Siam Railway, 83,000; Korea, 70,000; Indonesia, 30,000; Australia, 30,000; New Zealand, 10,000.

  198 POW death rate: In his book on Japanese prison camps, Gavin Daws concludes: “If the war had lasted another year, there would not have been a POW left alive” (Daws, 18).

  199 Homma’s wife and MacArthur: Taylor, 218.

  200 “men landed on Mars”: Ginn, 46.
<
br />   200 “be held responsible . . . in contravention”: Taylor, 53.

  201 “flealike agility”: Kennan, 370.

  201 85,000 troops under Percival: Yamashita thought Percival had 100,000 men. Yet this did not deter him from pulling off probably the greatest military bluff of all time. Back in England, Percival was ostracized, even though he had no air support, very little ammunition, and only one day’s supply of water left. By surrendering when he did, he avoided what would have been massive senseless slaughter of civilians. MacArthur, unlike Winston Churchill and British commander Sir Archibald Wavell, understood this and gave Percival a seat of honor at the surrender ceremonies, along with Wainwright. MacArthur could be very generous to men who may have failed through no fault of their own.

  202 “Yamashita’s Ghost”: Title of book by Allan Ryan.

  202 “Yamashita trial continued today”: Reel, 93.

  203 “legalized lynching”: Finn, 81; Manchester, 487.

  203 “the results are beyond challenge”: Reel, 235; Lyon, 397; Weiner, 204.

  203 “a fair verdict . . . too well”: New York Times, December 8, 1945, 8.

  204 “one of the great”: McCullough, 146.

  204 “There are two”: Barnet, 218.

  205 “Individuals may be punished . . . The personal”: U.S. Department of State, Trial of Japanese War Criminals, publication 2613 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 20, 21.

  205 “perfectly revolutionary . . . it is”: Takayanagi, 59–60, 63; Minear, 45.

  206 “The most interesting questions . . . The Premier”: New York Times, September 20, 1945, 22.

  206 “All the accused . . . all the accused together”: Trial of Japanese War Criminals, 47.

  208 “with prolix equivocations”: Röling and Rüter, 24.

  208 “the trial of the century”: Brackman, 18.

  208 “no more important”: Official Transcript of the Proceedings, 21, in Röling and Rüter, ix.

  209 30,000 American prisoners: A document called Outline for the Disposal of Prisoners of War, introduced at the trial, stated that in the event of an Allied invasion of Japan the prisoners should “be set free.” In Japanese this did not mean being set loose, it meant “set free from earthly concerns” (Brackman, 265).

  209 “None of us”: Minear, 114.

  209 “love and desire”: Buruma, 175; see also Minear, 114–15.