MacArthur Memorial Library and Archives: Record Group 5: Telegram
The Supreme Commander for Allied Powers (MacArthur) to the Department of the Army
C–68770. Personal for Major General Magruder. Reference your message 031820 Z. My concern over the draft agreement contained in [Page 1345] your message unnumbered of October 30th1 is that it requires surrender of Japan’s sovereign rights to an unnecessary and provocative degree. It has always been my view that the retention of our forces in post-treaty Japan must either rest squarely upon an unfulfilled condition of the surrender terms, thereby making such retention mandatory upon Japan, or it must rest upon a voluntary accord based upon the desire and freely given consent of the Japanese people. The draft agreement appears to be based upon neither. It partakes of a voluntary accord in the sense that it is not a part of the treaty of peace but collateral thereto, and yet it exacts from the Japanese the surrender of fundamental aspects of sovereignty through partial cession to the United States of the right of eminent domain, reserving to the United States the unilateral right to terminate the accord, and subordinating to the United States post-treaty Japanese armed forces. The impingement upon sovereignty reflected in these enumerated conditions, even if accepted by the Japanese in the first blush of a restored national freedom, would provide the basis for such destructive appeals to national sentiment, both from within Japan and without, that a restiveness would inevitably ensue. This would foster in the Japanese mind resentments which could well be fanned by subversive elements into popular Japanese hostility toward our continued presence upon Japanese soil. In such an eventuality we would be confronted with the necessity of decision as to whether to withdraw our troops or to maintain them in Japan by force. Whether we withdrew under pressure or remained by force, our political position would become untenable.
The solution as I see it would be to have Japan committed under the treaty of peace to place full reliance for her future security in the United Nations acting in collaboration with the Government and people of Japan, and to this end to agree to abide by such reasonable and logical terms and conditions as the United Nations or its duly deputized executive agency might determine as essential thereto. That pending development of the necessary security machinery and formulation of such mutual agreements as may be necessary to insure the security objective, existing arrangements under which United States Forces safeguard Japan’s security would continue without modification, other than that the principle of “pay-as-you-go” would be effective insofar as reasonable and practicable, that new facilities for garrison and military exercises would be subject to mutual agreement, and that the security forces, exercising no political power over Japan whatever, would occupy as nearly as possible the relationship vis-à-vis the Japanese people as normally exists between the American Forces stationed within the continental United States and the American people. This [Page 1346] would insure the continuity of existing defense provisions without imposing upon the Japanese politically offensive requirements calculated to generate unrest leading to possible hostility. Signed MacArthur