Under MacArthur Management

POLICIES & PRINCIPLES

Douglas MacArthur's first detailed account of his stewardship in Japan and Korea ran to some 100,000 words and had the usual MacArthur attributes. It read well; detailed facts punctuated its sweeping perspective. And it boiled down to one basic fact: General MacArthur had done a bang-up job of occupying Japan.

He had also looked the future in the eye. Last month's meeting of the Foreign Secretaries had put an eleven-nation Far Eastern Commission (FEC) and a four-power Allied Council for Japan over the General, at the same time leaving him in operational control. MacArthur, who had worked largely on his own since the surrender, promptly said that, although he did not like it, he would obey orders. His report was calculated to show that he should be allowed to continue with a minimum of outside interference.

The Situation. In September, MacArthur began his job of giving orders to a god (see FOREIGN NEWS) and of occupying a land whose fanatical army of 4,000,000 was undefeated. Four months later, a lone G.I. could travel from one end of Japan to the other without even thinking of danger.

In the meantime, MacArthur had moved firmly toward destroying Japan's war potential; finding ways to sustain an impoverished island economy which had lost its ships, markets and empire; laying plans for punishing war criminals and collecting reparations; limiting industry and science to the bounds of Japan's restricted peacetime needs; removing militaristic and nationalist influences and restoring civil liberties. It was a tall order. No man or nation had ever before attempted, let alone succeeded in, shifting a whole country from totalitarian feudalism to representative democracy, primarily through use of the country's own nationals.

The Report. Though principles had often outrun performance, MacArthur's 19-section report showed this enormous undertaking begun. Items: P: There has been "growing consciousness of Japan's war guilt." P: Schools, teachers and textbooks are being completely reformed. (Last week MacArthur invited 30 leading U.S. educators to visit Japan and make recommendations.) P: Instead of thought control, "the press, radio, cinema and theater are now free to express themselves." P: The number of Japanese magazines has increased from 32 to 306. P: Among the new radio programs: The Man on the Street, The Woman's Hour, The Voice of the People. P: The theater, which during the war was "solely a militarist propaganda medium," has been "given liberal themes from which new educational plays can be drawn." (Added MacArthur sadly: "'Liberal' means saying something, however little, against war or for democracy. No truly liberal scripts have appeared yet.") P: More than 20 political parties have begun campaigning, with no topics barred--but "the participation of the people is being hampered by their anxieties over the problems of living." P: Unless food can be imported, some Japanese will starve this winter. For exports, Japan could provide up to 2,000 tons of tea and 135,000 bales of raw silk. To preserve silk for export, MacArthur has forbidden the Japs to use it themselves. P: After a long ban on unions, workers are now allowed to organize, and "emergence of a strong unified labor movement" is in prospect. P: Businessmen had been under Government control so long they found it hard "to plan and operate independently," hence reconversion has been "slow and unsatisfactory."

For the Patrons. Like a good steward, MacArthur carefully included statements that would interest his patrons. Both Britain and Russia received a tribute: P: Jap laborites, the General reported, are sponsoring the Social Democratic Party in the belief that "political action along lines followed by the British Labor Party is the most certain means of attaining their objectives." P: Japan's Communists have been "keenly felt on the political scene" and have "carried on a vigorous program of activity."

(Less tactful were MacArthur's occupational forces on Hokkaido, who were reported last week to have told striking Japanese miners to get back to work or "we'll get the Russians in, and they'll make you return to the mines.")

On the Farms. That there should be a gap between the General's directives and their implementation was inevitable.

For one thing, MacArthur notably lacked trained supervisors. Said a top U.S. official in Osaka last week: "What can we do about starvation? We have only eight Government officers in a city of nearly three million." In another prefecture, less than half the 250 war plants that wanted to make peacetime products have even been examined--and after each such survey, it takes weeks to divest local Jap authorities of their national aptitude for red tape, graft and apathy, before the factory gets going again.

Nor has MacArthur made much progress with the inscrutable Jap mind, which has found it no trouble at all to evade or "misunderstand" his directives. Large landowners have proved especially skillful at dodging. Instead of breaking up their estates under MacArthur's ordered land reforms, many have just registered part of their holdings under other names.

Last week one ranking American in Japan admitted that nothing practical could be done about land reform until there was a strong farmers' cooperative which could exert pressure on the Jap Government through future Diet representation. Many another MacArthur reform needed similar backing by interested Japs before it would be effective.

Multi-Managed Future. Even in outline, MacArthur's blueprints for Japan shone in comparison with the haphazard and piecemeal planning which Russia, Britain, France and the U.S. have done independently in Germany. His sweeping experiment has had the great virtue of unity. How will it fare under the newborn multi-national Commission and Council?

The Commission was due to visit Tokyo this week, and MacArthur planned to "cooperate fully" with it. But one of his senior officers summed up the prevailing attitude more realistically. The purpose of the Commission's trip, he said, was "a little sightseeing, a little souvenir buying, and some education."

The chief value of both the Commission and its watchdog Council may be psychological. In that case they will serve as an extension of the same role U.S. criticism has already played: keeping MacArthur on his toes. The Commission will sit permanently in Washington, and its policy directives will presumably be as broad as those which MacArthur has hitherto received.

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