740.00119 Control (Japan)/12–2648: Telegram
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to the Under Secretary of the Army (Draper)
priority
C–66597. Personal for Undersecretary Draper. Reurad War 81792.1 I am in complete accord with your conclusion as to the clearly delineated area of SCAP responsibility and authority in the administrative and executive interpretation and implementation of FEC policies. Indeed such conclusion only recently received striking confirmation in the Attorney General’s opinion and the Supreme Court’s decision in the war criminal appeals. Only very recently has there in fact appeared any tendency to otherwise interpret the situation in Washington. I am furthermore in the most full agreement with the need to exert every possible effort to shape the administration of the occupation to conform to definitive American policy and interests and I have never failed to do so to the utmost limit of my authority and ability when they did not directly traverse FEC policies controlling since the United States surrendered her right of complete unilateral direction at Moscow. My position as you know has consistently been that the United States, being the nation not only contributing most toward victory in the Pacific war, but the one which has carried almost the entire burden of occupation, should firmly insist upon her moral and equitable right to shape controlling policy but that she should do so formally and openly and as you point out within the framework of the Moscow Agreement, just as was done in the matter of the stabilization [Page 938] of the Japanese economy. The United States has no need to take indirect action or an informal approach and should assume full and open responsibility for her policy determinations. I am most grateful for your efforts to insure in American official thinking the proper orientation as to the actual international relationships involved.
- December 24, not attached to file copy.↩