Lot 54D423
Memorandum by the Consultant to the Secretary (Dulles) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk)
In connection with the Administrative Agreement to be made pursuant to the United States-Japanese Security Treaty, I have the following observations to make:
(1) The first declaration of the Japanese Peace Treaty reads:
“The Allied Powers and Japan are resolved that henceforth their relations shall be those of nations which, as sovereign equals, cooperate in friendly association to promote their common welfare and maintain international peace and security.”
The task is to implement the Security Treaty in a manner consistent with, and not violative of, that solemn resolve. The Administrative Agreement must in all respects treat Japan as a sovereign equal and put our working relations with the Japanese on such a basis that we shall, thereunder, “cooperate in friendly association”.
(2) To achieve security involves, of necessity, some burdensome and irksome conditions. These necessities must be accepted in good spirit by the Japanese, and I am confident that they will be. But “necessities” must be distinguished from mere convenience or prestige or desire to avoid adjustment to the fact that, when the Treaty comes into force, the Japanese (will properly expect to be treated as sovereign in their own homeland.
(3) Those who think primarily in legalistic terms, or who feel that their particular duty is to spell out, on paper, United States rights adequate to meet all conceivable contingencies may seek an agreement which will concede us elaborate extraterritorial privileges, command relationships and prestige positions. Such an approach could be self-defeating. As between sovereign nations, legal rights are dependable so long as they are a definition of mutuality of interest and desire. Once they cease to be that, they are undependable. And United States position in Japan becomes, in fact, untenable, and a liability rather than an asset, if the Japanese people preponderantly resent it and want it to end, and if it can only be preserved by a show of force [Page 1381] as against the Japanese, The Administrative Agreement should seek to define the rights and obligations of the parties, so as to avoid future misunderstandings and frictions. But it could do more harm than good if it were drawn so as to create a feeling on the part of United States security forces in Japan that they need not feel dependent on constantly cultivating, and always enjoying, Japanese good will.
(4) It will be peculiarly difficult to carry out our treaty resolve “as sovereign equals, [to]1 cooperate in friendly association to … maintain international peace and security” because that is a new relationship, very different from that of the “Supreme Command” to which Japan was subject under the Surrender Terms. Also, that new relationship has to be achieved primarily by soldiers, many of whom, as an incident to war and victory, have gotten into the habit of treating the Japanese as inferiors. To alter that attitude will be immensely difficult. It will require a constant effort of will on the part of Americans in command in Japan and those in the ranks. It will require the kind of concern which can be expected only if there is ever-present consciousness of the fact that unless the land, air and sea forces which the United States maintains in and about Japan actually adapt themseleves to the new relationship foreseen by the Treaty of Peace, they will have squandered the immensely valuable opportunity which has been gained by victory and peace in the Pacific War.
(5) The matter involves not merely our position in Japan but has broad implications as regards all of Asia. The Chinese Communists, using the old Japanese war slogan of “Asia for the Asiatics”, are attempting to rally all of Asia to rise up to eject violently all Western influence. India shows a tendency to move in that direction and in substance India’s refusal to sign the Treaty of Peace was based on its Government’s belief that it will prove impracticable for the United States to develop under the Security Treaty, the kind of “friendly association” with a defeated nation of alien race, which is pledged by the Peace Treaty. If this Indian belief is verified, and if it is demonstrated to all Asia, which is intently watching, that Westerners as represented by the United States find it congenially impossible to deal with Orientals on a basis of respect and equality, that will have grave repercussions throughout all of Asia. It will make it likely that all of the Asiatics will unite, under communist leadership, against the West. Then the situation would be more dangerous to us than when Japan attempted this same result under the same slogan.
(6) I have presented the foregoing views in substance to the President, Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense.
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