740.00119 Control (Japan)/4–1546
Mr. Max W. Bishop, of the Office of the Political Adviser in Japan, to the Secretary of State
for departmental use only
No. 371
[Received April 24.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that at General MacArthur’s direction, I attended the inaugural meeting of the Allied Council for Japan which was held on the morning of April 5 at 10:00 o’clock. This meeting has, of course, been fully reported in the press. Parenthetically, it may be noted that this Office had only two days’ notice of the meeting and of General MacArthur’s desire that I attend.
General Chu Shih-ming, the Member from China, and Mr. W. Macmahon Ball, the Member representing jointly the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and India, had only recently arrived and did not raise important or controversial issues. Lieutenant General Kuzma Nikolaevich Derevyanko, the Member from the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, however, did make several important suggestions.
As is now well-known, General MacArthur urged strongly in his opening remarks that the meetings of the Council be opened to the public and to the press in such numbers as available facilities would permit. In discussing procedural matters General Derevyanko proposed that meetings of the Council should not be open to the press or to the public and that communiqués might be issued to the press after such communiqués had been agreed to by all Members. Mr. Ball, while supporting General MacArthur’s suggestion that all important deliberations of the Council should be available to the public, suggested that certain meetings dealing with detail and with certain aspects of the occupation would be uninteresting to the press; that it might not be desirable to have the press sit in on meetings at which preliminary opinions and differences were aired; and that the Members of the Council might feel more comfortable and have a greater sense of freedom and informality if such meetings were held privately. General Chu remarked that he felt the principle of open meetings was to be supported but that he agreed in part with Mr. Ball and [Page 206] hoped that all of the meetings would not be held under the same glare of lights as those at the first meeting.
In rebutting these arguments, Major General W. F. Marquat, who had been named by General MacArthur as his Deputy immediately after General MacArthur finished his opening address, pointed out that basic United States policy for post-surrender in Japan had been made public by the White House; that paragraph 3, Part 2, of the statement issued by the White House on September 22, 1945,65 read as follows:
“3. … The Japanese people, and the world at large, shall be kept fully informed of the objectives and policies of the occupation, and of the progress made in their fulfillment.”
General Marquat also went on to point out that since that time full publicity has been given to all occupation activities, developments and accomplishments; that the Supreme Commander has from time to time made clear to the Japanese people and to the world at large the policies and progress of the occupation; and that there has never been any withholding of such information from the public. General Marquat also pointed out that there was no restriction on meetings between two or more members of the Council at any time for informal exchanges of information and views and that at such informal meetings or exchanges of ideas the press need not be present. With regard to formal meetings of the Council, however, he urged strongly that the principle of open meetings be upheld. (It was anticipated that there would be objection to open meetings and the foregoing arguments were suggested by this Office informally to General Marquat prior to the meeting.)
It was felt that arrangements for informal meetings satisfactorily met the suggestion made by Mr. Ball, and General Derevyanko withdrew the Soviet suggestion.
General Derevyanko asked permission to make a statement which, although not germane to questions of procedure and the working principles of the Council, was of such urgency that it could not be postponed. He then read a statement castigating “reactionary” elements in Japan and recommending that SCAP should publicly warn the Japanese Government and people that if it should be found, following the election, that a majority of the new members were reactionary, the Diet would be dissolved by SCAP and a new election called. The Soviet suggestion was read into the minutes for forwarding to General MacArthur.
[Page 207]General Derevyanko asked that members of the Council be furnished copies of all documents of every sort exchanged between SCAP and the Japanese Government. He also asked that “projects” of SCAP and of the Japanese Government be notified to the members of the Council and that prospective orders or directives to the Japanese Government be furnished to members of the Council at least seven days in advance of their date of applicability. It was pointed out by the American member that General MacArthur had already stated that instructions had been given to furnish the Council with copies of all directives issued to the Japanese Government, together with such background information as may be appropriate; that undoubtedly it was General MacArthur’s intention to furnish the Council with copies of documents pertaining to matters of substance as early as possible and that it would be undesirable or unnecessary to implement any such procedure as had been suggested. The Soviet Member was satisfied with the explanation offered after the pertinent paragraph from the “Moscow Communiqué” had been read to the Council.
The suggestion put forward by the Soviet Member to appoint three Deputy Secretaries General (one each for the non-United States members) was tabled for consideration at the next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, April 17. Regular meetings will be held every second Wednesday thereafter.
Respectfully yours,
Foreign Service Officer
- Department of State Bulletin, September 23, 1945, p. 423.↩