740.00119 Control (Japan)/2–1949: Circular telegram
The Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic Offices 1
Reference recent sensational press reports from Tokyo alleging possible US withdrawal from Japan and statements by Secstate and Actg Sec Army denying any such policy change. If you consider desirable, pls inform orally appropriate officials of govt to which you are accredited of your Govt’s views along fol lines:
“The US on behalf of the Allies accepted immediately following Japan’s capitulation primary responsibility for the military occupation of Japan. The US continues to have important interest in a sound progressive transformation from conditions of war to conditions of peace and order in the Pacific. The US has no intention of relinquishing these military responsibilities or of shirking them in any degree. Neither has it any intention of abdicating the responsibility and leadership which it accepted from the outset for the relief and reform of Japan.
The inability of the Japanese economy to provide even a subsistence level of life for its people occasions yet another demand upon the resources of the US. It is of first importance in understanding US interest in Japanese recovery to bear in mind that unless the Japanese people are enabled to earn a decent livelihood, there can be no solid ground upon which a respectable and peace-loving Japanese society can develop and endure.
It must be remembered, however, that US resources are not unlimited and that in meeting the ever increasing demands on US resources from all over the world those demands must be evaluated in terms of their urgency and of their possible effective contribution to world stability and recovery. A basic factor in that evaluation is, of course, the degree to which the recipients, including the Japanese, exert every effort on their own behalf to regain a self-supporting status at the earliest possible moment and also to aid general world recovery and cooperation.
The US, expecting full measure of Jap self-reliance, has no intention while discharging its obligations under the occupation of allowing Japan to become victim to that type of insidious, concealed aggression and infiltration which thrives upon economic chaos. To abandon Japan in such a manner would be to undo our costly victory in the Pacific.
In the evolution of conditions from war to peace, it is to be expected that Japan will henceforth progress only if given every opportunity to obtain as many as possible of the attributes of a normal government and society with ever increasing responsibility for and initiative in the direct management of its own affairs, both domestic and foreign.
In brief, the US will maintain its leadership in the recovery and reform of Japan and in Japan’s development into a self-reliant, responsible and peace-loving state. At the same time, the US will stand firm in the discharge of its military responsibilities.”
- At Bangkok, Canberra, Karachi, London, Manila, Nanking, New Delhi, Ottawa, Paris, The Hague, and Wellington and repeated in telegram 63, February 21, 7 p. m., to Tokyo.↩