740.00119 Control (Japan)/2–1649
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Northeast Asian Affairs (Bishop) to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth)
Subject: Initial Report of Impressions Gathered on my Brief Visit to Japan.
It is my intention to prepare and to forward to you as rapidly as possible more detailed reports and summaries of the conversations which I had and the documents which I collected while in Japan. Because of the importance of timeliness, however, I shall attempt to set forth in this memorandum important impressions which I believe I should present to you immediately. Elaboration of the details and some of the documents supporting these impressions will follow in subsequent memoranda now under preparation.
During my brief stay in Japan I visited only the Tokyo-Yokohama area. I found many evidences of material improvement. There had sprung up during the almost two-year lapse since I was last in Japan more factories, more houses, and there were in evidence more busses, trains and streetcars, and general activities on the part of the people. However, it was still obvious that transportation is woefully inadequate, that housing is a desperate need, and that industrial activity remains a pygmy compared to pre-war days. Although several Americans told me that the Japanese people were happy, the impression I gained from seeing their faces on the street was one of rather quiet seriousness, if not sadness. Perhaps because of the contrast of coming from the United States the Japanese seemed to be more shabby in dress than they were two years ago. I was assured by some American observers [Page 660] that actually the Japanese were noticeably better off than they had been.
I was gratified to find only a feeling, as best I can describe it, of tiredness of the occupation, rather than of bitterness. Nevertheless I could not avoid the impression that the Japanese psychologically were like a steel spring being wound tighter and tighter to recoil the more violently when released. Whereas at the beginning of the occupation the Americans came in, not without welcome, as conquering heroes, they now approach being regarded as perhaps benevolent oppressors with the benevolence wearing rather thin.
It is necessary that I should emphasize, before proceeding further, that while this memorandum will decidedly be critical of the situation in Japan I would not want anyone to gam the impression that I in any sense discount or minimize the astounding accomplishments of the occupation and of the Japanese under the occupation. Such criticism as I make, it is hoped, will be constructive and designed to preserve and protect those accomplishments and in no way to detract from them. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits from the occupation has been the development in the United States of large numbers of Americans who are familiar with and sympathetic to the problems of Japan accompanied by the development in Japan of large numbers of Japanese who have come to know and favorably regard ordinary Americans.
Practically all important Japanese of broad educational background with whom I talked voluntarily expressed what I considered to be genuine gratefulness for the economic assistance which the United States has given Japan and for the real attempt at benevolence on the part of the occupation. Nevertheless there was a strong undercurrent even among these thinking Japanese of irritation at occupation interference in the minutiae of daily life. All Japanese showed a great eagerness to shake loose the tentacles of both American and Japanese bureaucracy and to “get things going again”.
I gathered from both Japanese and Americans with whom I talked that the recent election was a protest vote—protest against the occupation. Mr. Yoshida has become a symbol of Japan’s ability to stand up to the occupation. The Communists openly and violently denounce “American imperialists” and the “imperialistic occupation”. Almost everyone seemed to sense that the present moment is the crisis. Except for SCAP officials, the Americans as well as the Japanese with whom I talked, all on their own initiative, expressed the greatest apprehension over the development of Communist power and influence in Japan. Japan will now either develop a desire for revenge or a sense of independence and willingness to cooperate with the United States. Its economy will either become stabilized, more productive and finally self-sufficient, or collapse into inflation, chaos and revolution. There [Page 661] was an unmistakable feeling that the next few months will be of greatest importance in developing and directing future trends.
In the light of these circumstances I came away with the distinct impression that it is necessary, as you yourself have so aptly put it, for us rapidly to change the character of the occupation in order that we may be always at least one or two jumps ahead of developing Japanese psychology. If we wait until changes in the character of the occupation are forced upon us by world developments or by the actions of the Japanese themselves we shall once again be placed in that uncomfortable position of yielding from weakness and not from strength. We shall become ineffective in defensive maneuvers when we should be effective in leadership.
In the light of the foregoing impressions you will have no difficulty in imagining my amazement when I discovered a deep-rooted sense of complacency and of permanency on the part of American officials of the occupation. As one American newspaper observer who has been in Japan almost from the day of surrender said to me: “These occupation people have got a Philippine complex. They expect to be here for 40 years.” Another American put it that, whereas everyone in the occupation used to be filled with a sense of urgency and impermanency in his position, “five-year plans” are now being devised. I gathered that the lower echelons and working levels, particularly, in the SCAP organization felt almost a smug isolation from the troubled events of the outside world. It became apparent to me that it will require the strongest and most determined action possible on the part of highest officials in Washington to break up the entrenched bureaucracy both in Tokyo and in Washington which has a vested interest in the continuation of the present activities of the occupation. One of the Army members of our party, for example, told me that there are over 70 officials in the Economic, and Scientific Section of SCAP alone who are in the $9,000–$10,000 Civil Service grade. Another American representative of a large oil company in Japan told me that in the last week or so he had over 20 applications from SCAP officials to obtain permanent positions in Japan. He said none of these officials want to leave Japan and return to the United States. A clear indication of the liaison between the entrenched bureaucracy in Washington and in Tokyo was given me by General Marquat (Chief, Economic and Scientific Section of SCAP, and an old friend of mine) in reply to my jocular suggestion at dinner that he should “call off his dogs” and give the Japanese a chance to run their own business under the new principles which he had laid down. He replied that even the Department of State was as eager as ever that SCAP retain close control over all activities in Japan. He added the State Department is still 100 per cent behind FEC–230. When I expressed complete consternation and repeatedly pressed him for evidence of State Department support of [Page 662] FEC–230 he finally said that he had not seen it in any official dispatches but that he had read it in letters from State Department officials to people on his own staff.
I had only a few conversations with the “bums”, as they are called by occupation personnel, or, as we know them, American businessmen, but I believe it is important to record immediately a remark which Mr. Dennis McEvoy, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Tokyo, made to me. In the course of a rather long conversation he said: “Contrary to the British, Indians, French and other businessmen here in Japan, we Americans have no Mission to which we can appeal to have our cause placed before SCAP.” He pointed out that there was no American official organization there which could effectively present, from a biased point of view if you will, American desiderata. On the other hand the British case was being most effectively pleaded by the British Ambassador and his staff.
I gathered from conversations with General MacArthur and with General Whitehead (Commanding General of the Far Eastern Air Forces) that the United States does not require military occupation of Japan for its military security in the Far East, providing Japan is neutralized by stationing sufficient air and naval forces, particularly air, in adjacent areas.
In summary I believe that we are now definitely at a crossroads in the occupation of Japan; that it will require immediate, determined and forceful action by the highest authorities in Washington to bring about a change in the character of the occupation; that we must immediately realize the full implementation of NSC 13/2; that we must regard NSC 13/2 solely as an interim policy to enable us to push on to, and to accomplish within the next 12 to 18 months, the sort of relationship with Japan which will flow from a peace treaty, bilateral or multilateral, preferably the latter; that if we are unable to bring about immediate and obvious beginnings of a change in the character of the occupation, the Department of State would be well advised to bring this impasse to the attention of the President.