740.00119 Control (Japan)/4–2346
Memorandum by Mr. Robert A. Fearey, of the Office of the Political Adviser in Japan69
Reappraisal of United States Security Interests and Policies in Regard to Japan
Summary …
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Present indications, in short, all point to the maintenance of a friendlier attitude within Japan in future toward the United States than toward any other power. It must be recognized, however, that in changing circumstances offering sufficient provocation current pro-American, pro-democratic and anti-Soviet, anti-communist tendencies could be completely reversed. Persistently adverse economic conditions, particularly if it were felt that the United States through its demilitarization or commercial policies was largely responsible for those conditions, or the withdrawal of American forces from the western Pacific, would be the likeliest causes of such a change. Current resistance to communism is strong, but many of the factors responsible for this resistance are in process of dissolution, and balanced against them are a number of inherent characteristics of the Japanese, their amenability to discipline and centralized authority and the elements of communalism in their present mode of life, which render the adoption of the current Soviet version, a native Japanese version, or some other form of communism entirely possible at some future time in favorable circumstances. But irrespective of whether the Japanese succumb to communism or not, even a confirmedly democratic-capitalistic Japan if impelled by acute economic distress or national insecurity, possibly combined with Soviet pressure, would be likely to forego the friendship of the United States to align itself with a potential enemy of the United States if it believed it might thereby overcome the difficulties facing it.
A number of steps, the greater part for long-range rather than immediate implementation, may be proposed to prevent such an eventuality: (1) a concerted effort to improve the conduct of the misbehaving minority among the occupation forces; (2) readmission at a later stage of the occupation of a significant number of persons scarcely meriting the title “active exponents of militant nationalism”, [Page 210] in a large proportion of cases men of outstanding ability and of pro-American viewpoint, excluded by the January 4 purge directive; (3) development of closer cultural, educational and tourist relationships and exchanges between the United States and Japan; (4) minimum necessary restriction of Japanese peacetime industry; (5) reduction of American-Japanese trade barriers; and (6) the maintenance of American armed forces in the western Pacific and elsewhere of adequate strength, and, necessarily, backed by an adequate popular determination, to prevent the domination of Japan by another power.
American foreign policy today wisely and fortunately is based upon the principles of continuing friendship among the Great Powers and the development of a system of collective security under the UNO. In no circumstances should our Japan policies be of a type to impair the success of these larger aims. The proposed measures if properly implemented, however, would not have that effect, and, pending the establishment of effective security arrangements capable of controlling the great as well as the small powers, would seem a logical and an important element of the United States security planning. End Summary
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- Copy of memorandum transmitted to the Department by the Political Adviser in Japan (Atcheson) in despatch 384, April 23, 1946; received April 30.↩