Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI, Part 1

102.21/6–2251

The Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk) to the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Johnson)¹

secret

Washington, June 22, 1951.

Dear Mr. Johnson: Pursuant to our conversation of June 20, I wish to give you the latest thinking in the Department of State on the subject of General Ridgway’s desire to de-purge all Japanese career officers commissioned after July 7, 1937.

The first major problem lies in the difficulty of reconciling such sweeping action with existing Far Eastern Commission decisions.² As I indicated to you yesterday, we do not look upon general compliance with Far Eastern Commission decisions as a mere technical or formal consideration. General Ridgway’s entire position as SCAP turns upon the validity of the surrender terms and the post-surrender arrangements. These arrangements and decisions engaged the policies of all of the governments who were actively at war with Japan and who, by international agreement, participate in the control machinery. We believe that undermining Far Eastern Commission decisions unduly or too quickly would in fact undermine General Ridgway’s position as SCAP. Indeed, this process might continue to the point where we could not claim any real international validity for General Ridgway’s, position. He might find himself in the position of an American officer attempting to carry out orders from the American Government with little or no international agreement.

Having said the above, I repeat my assurance to you that we want to do everything we can to strengthen General Ridgway’s hand and to make his task as easy as possible. We fully appreciate the vital importance of the National Police Reserve and sympathize with the desire on his and your part to relax some of the more stringent controls of the occupation.

As you know, as long ago as November, 1948,³ the Department urged that reserve officers whose employment would not be considered by SCAP to harm the cause of peace and security should be depurged. Our letter of May 29, 1951, to General Hamblen⁴ made it clear that we felt SCAP could exempt the majority, if not all, of the reserve officers, except senior reserve officers, from the purge and that it would be reasonable to consider as reserve officers those who might at one time have been commissioned as career officers, but who subsequently left the service and engaged in private pursuits for a substantial time before being called back into service. Our letter also made it clear that we had no objection to depurging any officers below the rank of General or Admiral on the basis of their opposition to Japanese expansionism and totalitarianism.

With respect to General Ridgway’s request that he be authorized to depurge all career officers commissioned after July 7, 1937, I should like to suggest two alternatives:

a. Our first preference would be to carry out the depurge of officers commissioned after July 7, 1937, on the basis of a presumption that the bulk of the officers commissioned after the advent of a major war do not intend to make military service their life-time occupation, and hence are not “career officers”. The use of such a presumption would not be inconsistent with a fair interpretation of the applicable FEC policy decision, so long as the presumption is made rebuttable to cover the cases of actual “career officers” commissioned after July 7, 1937. In other words, when screening individual cases, it could be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that officers commissioned after July 7, 1937, had accepted their commissions with the intent of performing only wartime service and not making the Army their career. However, the screening procedure should provide, in some manner, for the development of any evidence to the contrary so that those officers who actually intended to make a career in the Army would continue under the purge. It could be assumed that the total of such “career officers” did not exceed the number normally being commissioned prior to July 7, 1937. Thus, for example, if prior to July 7, 1937, an average of 100 officers a year were commissioned and after July 7, 1937, 500 officers a year were commissioned, the screening procedure should result in the depurge of approximately 400 officers and the continuation under the purge of approximately 100 officers. Thus, the actual determination should be made on a case-by-case basis. Although this might involve some administrative inconvenience, it would be satisfactory from a political point of view and could be adequately supported as a reasonable application of the Far Eastern Commission decisions and should result in the depurging of the majority of officers commissioned after July 7, 1937.

It should also be noted in this connection that the presumption that officers commissioned prior to July 7, 1937, intended to make the Army a life occupation can be overcome by positive evidence to the contrary. Thus, the application of this principle should permit the depurging of a very limited number of persons commissioned prior to July 7, 1937.

b. Our second preference would be to depurge individual officers needed for service in the National Police Reserve on the basis of a finding that their record, up to the present time, indicates opposition to Japanese “expansionism and totalitarianism”.⁵ In this connection, it may be useful to consider that the actual views of an officer, with reference to “expansionism and totalitarianism” may have had better chance for expression during the five years since the war than during the period of restricted individual freedom preceding and during the war. Although the pertinent Far Eastern Commission policy decision would not support the depurging of an officer who has actually had a change of heart since the surrender, as a matter of administrative handling it would be extremely difficult to distinguish such an officer from one whose real opinions were in a state of suppression during the war.

These alternatives are not necessarily mutually exclusive and may be used in combination with each other in whatever way is administratively most feasible. It should also be noted that the application of the second alternative is also not necessarily confined only to officers commissioned after July 7, 1937, but might, in SCAP’s discretion, be applied to a limited number of officers commissioned prior to that date.

I should be glad to have a chance to talk to you further about this in an effort to find a way to meet General Ridgway’s immediate requirement and at the same time maintain the basis of his position in Japan and reasonable relations with other members of the Far Eastern Commission.⁶

Sincerely yours,

Dean Rusk

1. Letter drafted by both Mr. Rusk and U. Alexis Johnson.
2. Principal apparent reference is to FEC 017/21.
3. See the attachment to the letter of May 16 from U. Alexis Johnson to Mr. Sebald, p. 1048.
4. From U. Alexis Johnson, not printed. (794.00/5–2951)
5. In telegram DA 93011 to SCAP, June 2, the Department of the Army had stated in part: “State and DA have no objection to broad interpretation of para. 13 of FEC 017/21 as applied to de-purging officers on an individual basis, provided substantial case can be made that such individuals have been opponents of Japanese expansionism and totalitarianism.” (794.5/6–251)

6. A memorandum of June 20, from Mr. Rusk to the Secretary, not printed, on which the letter above is based, sets forth the Department’s reasoning in greater detail. (794.5/6–2051)

   For further information on this topic, see Secretary Marshall’s letter of July 13, to Mr. Acheson, p. 1194.