An Inoffensive Rearmament (17 page)

Throughout this difficult period, Mr. Masuhara and General Hayashi bore the brunt of these attacks. It was distressing enough for the director general to carry his heavy responsibilities, but he at least was a civilian official performing a political task. General Hayashi, on the other hand, was a civilian converted overnight into a general officer with the title, position, duties, and prerogatives of a military commander. Though he better than anyone else in those formative days appreciated his limitations, he was in fact the top soldier in uniform directly responsible for the command of all the troops. Under those circumstances, most of the senior officers of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy who had lost the war for Japan were now panting on the sidelines waiting to pounce upon him.

I had come to respect the chief of the General Group as an exceptionally competent man, an outstanding executive, and a fine soldier. He was learning his
new trade rapidly, adapting comfortably to the new military organization, and winning the confidence of the American officers of the Advisory Group.

Rumors began to circulate that Mr. Masuhara and General Hayashi were considering resigning their posts. Deeply disturbed, I spent several days talking to General Hayashi, urging him to reconsider. He was unhappy about not only the public criticism of the NPR, but the fact that a severe disagreement had developed between Mr. Masuhara and himself over the question of whether men in uniform would be permitted to appear before committees in the Diet. General Hayashi felt strongly that men in uniform had an obligation to report in person to the Diet. I could not agree with his position, pointing out that the director general or whoever might be the civilian head of a future military establishment must be the responsive official. I agreed that it was desirable for men in uniform, under some circumstances, to appear before the Diet, but that such appearances should be made only with the authority of the director general or the civilian minister of the future defense power. I'm not sure that I convinced General Hayashi, but a very important principle of civilian control over the military was hammered out in the crucible forming the NPR.

Both Mr. Masuhara and General Hayashi were too deeply dedicated to their country to permit personal differences or official disagreements to stand in the way of duty. It was obvious to both that neither could quit his post; nevertheless we were all relieved when both remained at the helm of the NPR.

The fight to disband the NPR nevertheless continued on throughout 1950. It festered in the disappointed breasts of a host of former Imperial officers. It embarrassed friends of the United States and spilled over in debate on the floor of the Diet. The struggle involved the top leaders in the Yoshida cabinet.

The controversy came to an end when Prime Minister Yoshida, in October 1952, ordered the 75,000-man NPR to be expanded to 110,000 troops and changed its name to the National Safety Force (NSF). The first phase of Yoshida's policy of “gradual rearmament” was completed, and the nation moved on to the intermediate step in the quiet amorphism of the Japanese army.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ADVISERS AND OPERATIONS

NPR Headquarters was established in the Japanese Maritime School (Kōtō Shōsen Gakkoō) buildings in Tōkyō in the latter part of July 1950. Actually, at that time only General Shepard and I moved into the building to open the Civil Affairs Section Annex, the cover name by which the U.S. Military Advisory Group was to be known for the next two years. The Japanese director of the NPR was not selected until a fortnight later, and several weeks elapsed before Japanese headquarters personnel began to assemble. In the meantime, General Shepard assumed actual command of both Americans and Japanese. American Army officers were assembled to operate the new NPR in the field. The advisers became operators.

Except for my slight acquaintance at that time with Colonel Albergotti, the key members of the CASA staff were all complete strangers to one another and to me. In order that we might become better acquainted and to coordinate our initial projects, I decided to hold daily staff meetings. I soon found, however, that everyone had so much work to do that the conferences were interfering with the accomplishment of our mission. Daily conferences were accordingly discontinued, and the section chiefs concentrated their attention on the organization and development of their respective offices and operational procedures.

Our early days were especially difficult as none of the initial members of the CASA staff had ever had any experience on a military advisory group. And of course none of us had ever organized an army from ground zero. We proceeded cautiously, feeling our way along. Several weeks elapsed before I was prepared to
publish firm staff procedures. As so much of the organizational work was accomplished in oral discussions with Japanese governmental agencies and individuals, we kept the general and each other informed through brief written summaries covering the major actions taken each day.

Like all chiefs of staff, I had my troubles harmonizing individual members into an effective working team, as freewheelers are occupational hazards of any organization. By virtue of his official proximity and personal relationship with the commanding general, however, the chief is in a powerful position, and the members of the staff are usually quick to cooperate with him. Occasionally, however, there are those members who strive to establish a direct line to the general. I had two such individuals on my staff. At every opportunity, these two tried to bypass me. By riding close herd on them in the formative period, I pulled them under my control and, I am certain, avoided some serious difficulties for all concerned later.

In observing many headquarters, I have noted that all chiefs of staff have their troubles with the special characters on the staff. MacArthur's headquarters was loaded with wheelers and dealers. It was a well-known fact, for example, that Major General Willoughby, the intelligence officer, reported through General Edward M. Almond, MacArthur's chief of staff, when that suited the interests of General Willoughby. Similarly, Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, chief of the SCAP Government Section, as MacArthur's constant luncheon companion, enjoyed a direct line to the commander in chief, which of course he used daily. Even Major General William F. Marquat, chief of the SCAP Economic and Scientific Section, was in the habit of avoiding the chief of staff by slipping into MacArthur's office on Sunday mornings. All military headquarters suffer in varying degrees from these prima donnas. It is indeed some kind of miracle General Almond succeeded as well as he did in coordinating the military and governmental activities of these unique headquarters. General Almond himself was no pushover. A star performer, he was not an easy chief of staff to approach.

The most inaccessible person, however, was the great SCAP himself. He had become so insulated in his ivory tower that except for the three generals mentioned above, he talked only to his chief of staff, conferred occasionally with the Japanese prime minister, and only annually accepted the homage of Emperor Hirohito. He, of course, had no telephone. It is reported that during staff meetings, MacArthur monitored the discussion from an adjoining room. When a decision was necessary
or MacArthur disapproved of staff proceedings, he would surreptitiously signal to the chief of staff, who would jump up from the conference table to receive instructions from the supreme commander. Major generals, such as Major General Shepard, who was MacArthur's chief of the Civil Affairs Section, deputy chief of staff of ROK Headquarters, and the man designated to organize the Japanese army, considered themselves highly honored to be permitted a private audience with the general once during a two- or three-year tour in Japan.

In CASA, the situation was pleasantly different from the rarefied atmosphere of GHQ SCAP. Here General Shepard was so accessible to everyone that my difficulty was to keep people out of his office so that he would have time to handle urgent business. The little people, particularly the coffee
sukoshis
and the stubborn little old Japanese man who delivered ice, must have been especially delivered to plague me.

When Sergeant Ratcliff and I made our office floor plan for the CASA headquarters, naturally we selected a large impressive room for the commanding general. But Shepard was a simple, humble man. Paying no attention to the floor plan, he established himself in what we considered an insignificant room adjacent to the entrance of the building. No arguments or pleading by Sergeant Ratcliff or myself had any influence on the old man. He remained to the last day of his tour with CASA in his little room, watching everyone who entered the building. His door was always open. Shepard was a rare exception among generals.

An embarrassing situation developed when Sergeant Ratcliff liberated a water cooler from an unsuspecting organization and had it moved to CASA. Some days after the installation of the water cooler, I heard a noisy commotion in the hall with the unmistakable voice of Ratcliff shouting, “No go in! No! General busy. I sign. I sign.” I walked out and found the forceful sergeant trying to take some kind of paper away from a wizened little old Japanese man who had delivered ice for the cooler. The little man was holding his own, fending the sergeant off with one hand while he edged himself with determination toward the general's office. When I walked up to the struggling pair, the sergeant had secured a firm grip on the collar of the little ice man. Ratcliff was beaming triumphantly.

“Get a load of this nip, Colonel. He wants the general to sign his ice receipt. He made the general sign the damn poop sheet every day this week, but I caught him today, before he could get in.”

At that moment, General Shepard came out of his office. The iceman darted forward before Ratcliff could stop him and handed the ice receipt to the general,
who dutifully signed it and went back into his room without a word to either of us. Beaming happily, the little fellow bowed politely first to me, then to Ratcliff, and sucking in a loud hiss of air through his toothy mouth, he left the building. In typical Japanese fashion, having his ice receipt signed by General Shepard on the first day he delivered the ice, the old fellow would accept the signature of no one else that summer. On several occasions, when General Shepard was in conference with top Japanese government officials, the ragged little old man would force his way into the general's office, stop the conference, thrust his ice receipt in front of Shepard, get it signed, and then, backing out politely, he would bow and hiss while the Japanese officials looked on in amazement.

As our staff grew, we gave more and more attention to our personal comforts. Everybody liked coffee, so Sergeant Ratcliff hired some Japanese girls to make and serve coffee for the headquarters. The girls were tiny things whom someone promptly christened “coffee
sukoshis
” (literally, coffee “little,” or little coffee girls). The five of them, holding hands, would serve General Shepard coffee in his office amid giggles and embarrassed wigglings. What a pack of trouble they were for me! Every Wednesday, the general gave them a box of Hershey bars. The other days of the week except Sundays, when they did not work, the general listened to their personal troubles. He would call me in to solve the problems. Saturday was my worst day with the little coffee girls. On this day, the medical officer and the administration officer would together inspect the kitchen and coffee. Regularly every Saturday, the medical officer would “skin” the administration officer to bawl out the coffee
sukoshis,
who would promptly start crying, and then all five, holding hands, would run for sympathy to the general. Invariably, the old man would side with the
sukoshis,
and on those days, the administration officer would find himself uncomfortably facing the sarcasm of the medical officer and the unrelenting glare of General Shepard.