740.00119 Control (Japan)/10–2748

Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth) to the Acting Secretary of State

secret

Subject: Implementation of NSC 13/2, “Recommendations with Respect to U.S. Policy Toward Japan”.

There is attached for your signature a letter (Tab A) from you to Secretary Royall enclosing a series of telegrams to General MaC–Arthur,1 In the first six of these telegrams General MacArthur is requested to submit as a matter of priority his plans for implementation of the policy decisions coming within his field of responsibility in the NSC Japan policy paper approved by the NSC on October 7 and by the President on October 9. The seventh telegram contains detailed directions for the implementation of paragraph 13 of the NSC paper, the paragraph dealing with the purge. It is considered necessary in view of General MacArthur’s refusal thus far to moderate the purge in any substantial degree, in the face of virtually unanimous opinion in Washington that the purge should be substantially modified, to provide him with an explicit directive clarifying and delineating this section of the NSC policy paper.

As stated in my memorandum to you of September 30,2 many sections of NSC 13/2 to which this Department attaches great importance have been considerably watered down from the State Department’s original proposals in the effort to obtain Army concurrence, and, as passed, represented the minimum which this Department could accept. Accordingly, it is essential that the paper be implemented to the fullest extent. The course of negotiations to date, however, indicates that the Army Department and SCAP may oppose prompt and forceful implementation of certain key sections, and I therefore believe it desirable for you personally to forward to Secretary Royall for transmission to General MacArthur the above-described telegrams.

  1. See letter of November 10, p. 890.
  2. Not printed.