Supreme Commander (15 page)

 

FOLLOWING THESE TWO
directives on civil liberties and Shinto, SCAP issued one on religious corporations, forbidding government control over the organization and activities of religious groups. This caused an unforeseen problem. Japan had some 46,000 temples and 109,000 shrines, most of which sat on state-owned property. Since the state could longer own religious property, it must sell these land parcels back to the temples and shrines. At what valuation? The temples and shrines, now cut off from any state financial support, lacked the money to pay fair-market value for the land. Either they would have to persuade the state to give away the land for free or, more likely, rely on contributions from individuals for the necessary money. However, people were telling SCAP officials that they didn't like being pressured by neighborhood associations to make a contribution, and they wanted MacArthur to “do something about it.” It would take several years for SCAP to help resolve this complicated situation, whereby the state gradually relinquished its ownership of over 100,000 parcels of property.

Some of the Shinto shrines had to be treated with the utmost sensitivity. As pointed out by one of the U.S. naval officers in charge of education reform, the Yasukuni Shrine, alleged to represent the souls of the military dead, was revered “in the same way that Americans look on Arlington Cemetery.” Even more formidable was a shrine honoring the war goddess Amaterasu, the mythical founder of Japan: the Ise Grand Shrine, “a Jerusalem, Mount Vernon and Vatican” all rolled into one.

Who owns Mount Fuji? This turned out to be the strangest dispute of all. The Fujinomiya Shrine claimed ownership of the summit—the last 2,000 feet up to the peak—where it had an inner sanctum for holy worship. Allowing the state to own such a place and let the public wander around, it argued, would be a profanity. The Japanese Ministry of Finance, representing the government, disagreed, claiming that the summit belonged to the Japanese people. The case would eventually be decided by the Japanese courts in 1967 in favor of the shrine; then it would go to the Supreme Court, where once again the government lost.

The Japanese people had an interesting reason to wonder about SCAP's religious policies in December 1945 and the turn of the New Year. It was hardly a festive time for a country still reeling from the war and people freezing in the cold, yet every occupation office building was adorned with bright Christmas lights. Two enormous Christmas trees flanked the entrance of the Dai Ichi Building. MacArthur adopted the position that such decorations were to communicate the festivity of the occasion, and not the religious significance of the Feast of the Nativity. The supreme commander was not a churchman, but he most definitely was religious: In his public utterances he consistently thanked God for divine guidance. In November 1945 he had welcomed four Protestant leaders with great enthusiasm: “Japan is a spiritual vacuum,” he told them. “If you do not fill it with Christianity, it will be filled with Communism. Send me 1,000 missionaries!” He also asked for 10,000 Bibles. His staff members told him this was going too far: What would the Buddhists and Shintoists think? He should speak of “religious principles” rather than “Christian principles.” Taking their advice, he eventually backed off, if only reluctantly. It wasn't until his New Year's Day message of 1948 that he managed to speak of religion only in the abstract. He never made public references to Christianity again.

Shinto as the state religion of Japan had ceased to exist. Shinto as practiced through the shrines could remain. All physical symbols of state Shinto were removed from public buildings, and public money could no longer be used to support the shrines. The Japanese people were freed from any state-sanctioned compulsion to believe in Shinto. Public education and all official propaganda were freed of Shinto teaching, and school textbooks were purged of Shinto-inspired nationalism.

In the spring of 1946 a mission of American educators, the Stoddard Commission, visited Japan. In its report to the supreme commander recommending reforms to Japan's education system, it sought to describe the American approach to reform: to work with the existing system in Japan as much as possible, not tear it all down and start anew. “We believe in the power of every race and every nation to create from its own cultural resources something good for itself and for the whole world. That is the liberal creed,” the commission wrote. “It is the responsibility of all in authority to find out how much can be allowed rather than how much can be forbidden. That is the meaning of liberalism.”

Shortly thereafter, in April of that year, the supreme commander spoke of the forthcoming elections where voters, for the first time, would include women and everyone could vote free of any influence from a state-sponsored religion. It was essential for the Japanese to understand the new ideology of democracy. Following the words of the Stoddard Commission, MacArthur sought to describe the opportunity and responsibility facing the Japanese people: “Pure democracy is immediately a spiritual quality which voluntarily must spring from the determined will of the people. It thus, if it is to become firmly rooted, may not be imposed upon a people by force, trickery, or coercion—nor is it a quality for barter or trade.”

12

Drawing Up a Utopia

T
WO WEEKS AFTER
the Americans arrived at Atsugi, the Japanese government sent a senior official to meet the supreme commander. He was Prince Fumimaro Konoe, three-time prime minister and a man who had opposed going to war with the United States. Presumably this was meant as a “peace offering” to get relations off to a good start. Konoe's mission: to sound out MacArthur on his intentions for Japan. The two men met again on October 4, the day MacArthur issued his “Bill of Rights” directive ordering the Japanese government to remove restrictions on political, civil, and religious liberties and to release all political prisoners. Konoe asked if MacArthur had any ideas regarding the organization of the Japanese government and the composition of the Diet. MacArthur gave general responses about his directive issued that day, but on one item he was very specific: “The Japanese Constitution must be revised. It is essential to introduce into government sufficient liberal elements through constitutional revision.” Without such revision, he argued, any reforms would be vulnerable to the whims of future cabinets after the occupation ended.

So startling was MacArthur's pronouncement that George Atcheson, who was at the meeting, immediately sent a telegram to his superiors at the State Department asking if this was new U.S. policy. The State Department was just as surprised as Atcheson and wanted to know what was going on. Two days later MacArthur sent Atcheson to meet again with Konoe to discuss desired changes in the Japanese constitution.

In the meantime the Lord Privy Seal, Marquis Kido, had selected a new prime minister, a man pulled out of retirement and given his new role largely because of his pro-American views and opposition to the war. He was Baron Kijuro Shidehara, a former foreign minister and ambassador to the United States who had appeared on the cover of
Time
in 1931 as “Japan's Man of Peace and War.” His reemergence on the national scene at the age of seventy-five, after being out of the public eye for ten years, caught people by surprise. Some even asked, “Isn't Shidehara dead?” He came to pay his respects to the supreme commander, expecting this to be a courtesy call. No sooner had the gentleman sat down than MacArthur gave him a list of reforms he wanted put into effect. They included women's rights and independence, encouragement of labor unions, a wider distribution of income, an end to monopolies, and public ownership of production and trade. Schools should be liberalized and start teaching “a system under which government becomes the servant rather than the master of the people.” Furthermore, there should be an end to “secret inquisition and abuse” by officials. The elderly diplomat made his way home in a daze: Never in his years in Washington had he met an American so predisposed to executive action.

On October 11, following his meeting with the prime minister, MacArthur issued a “Statement” to the Japanese government: “In the achievement of the Potsdam Declaration, the traditional order . . . will be corrected. This will undoubtedly involve a liberalization of the Constitution.” Shidehara responded by creating a subcommittee with an interesting name, the Committee for the Investigation of Constitutional Problems, subsequently usually referred to as the Matsumoto Committee after its chairman, State Minister Joji Matsumoto.

That was three months ago. During this time the subcommittee had been working behind closed doors and never once sought SCAP advice. SCAP had informed the cabinet, both orally and in writing, that major reforms needed to be undertaken in areas such as parliamentary supremacy, legislative control of the budget, executive branch answerable to the legislature, and civilian control of the military. When no arguments or questions arose, SCAP assumed its suggestions were being followed. So when Matsumoto finally delivered the cabinet's draft of a revised constitution, the package was opened with great anticipation.

MacArthur rarely lost his temper. But on that cold, dreary day in early February 1946, he got very angry. He felt betrayed. For months he had put on the facade that he had taken no part in the deliberations of the Matsumoto Committee, whereas in actual fact he had held several personal conferences with state ministers, as had George Atcheson. And now this! The Japanese were either toying with him or ignoring him. Either way he didn't like it, especially since this was his major priority of the entire occupation.

He slammed his hand on the buzzer bell on his desk, the side door opened, and in scurried his ever-available top aide, Courtney Whitney.

Scanning the document with a legal eye, Whitney was dumbfounded. Here was this important document, and the cabinet had done zilch . . . Not a word to be found about any of the suggested reforms. There was no change in the power of the emperor; he was now “supreme and inviolable” whereas before he had been “sacred and inviolable.” There was no new bill of rights, in fact some of the few rights that already existed had been taken away. Did the Japanese not know that a “suggestion” coming from SCAP was more than a suggestion?

MacArthur's problem was not that the Japanese were stalling or playing games—he could force reforms down their throat if he wanted to—his problem was that he was running out of time. Two threats loomed on the horizon: the Far Eastern Commission, due to start its supervisory function at the end of the month, and a general election coming up in April. Either event could undermine MacArthur's power as the supreme commander and reduce his entire occupation effort to a sideshow. MacArthur, staring at the calendar, knew that if he didn't control events, events would soon control him.

He had no choice, he had to go on an all-out offensive. Anticipating he might have to do this, he had already covered himself legally. Even though he was the supreme commander, and President Truman had told him “Your authority is supreme,” could he go so far as change another country's constitution? This had never been done before, and he was sure the State Department or any of the Allied nations would jump all over him. To protect himself he had requested Whitney, Kades, and three members of SCAP's legal staff to prepare an official memorandum on the subject. He now had it, a lengthy and cogently reasoned memorandum stating he had “unrestricted authority to take any action you deem proper in effectuating changes in the Japanese constitutional structure—the only possible restriction being upon action taken by you toward removal of the Emperor, in which case you are required to consult with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” And, of course, no leaks to Washington. The less said, the better.

First thing next morning, Courtney Whitney called all twenty-five members of the Government Section into the conference room for an emergency meeting. “Ladies and gentlemen, today you have been called here as a constituent assembly. General MacArthur has given us orders to do the historic work of drafting a new constitution for the Japanese people.”

The atmosphere was electric; everyone was stunned. They all knew the Japanese had been working on the constitution, progress was slow, and the supreme commander was known not to be a patient man—but this? Whitney pulled out a memo and started reading. Later dubbed “the MacArthur Note,” the memo contained three principles. One, “The Emperor is the head of state, in accordance with the Constitution and responsible to the basic will of the people.” Two, “War as a sovereign right of the nation is abolished.” Three, “The feudal system of Japan will cease,” meaning there would be no more hereditary rights of title (other than the emperor).

Then came the shocker: “This draft must be finished by February 12.” Nine days. The Founding Fathers in Philadelphia had taken how long? Three months? The twenty-five people were jubilant and exhilarated: Writing a constitution—What heady stuff! “There are few students of political science,” wrote John Gunther about this effort, “who have not wanted, at one time or another, to draw up a Utopia.” Alas, the exhilaration of Utopia quickly dissipated as Whitney warned them what might be coming after February 12:

On that date the foreign minister and other Japanese officials are to have an off-the-record meeting about the new constitution. We expect that the version produced by the Japanese government will have a strong right-wing bias. However, if they hope to protect the Emperor and to maintain political power, they have no choice but to accept a constitution with a progressive approach, namely, the fruits of our current efforts. I expect we'll manage to persuade them. But if it looks as though it might prove impossible, General MacArthur has already authorized both the threat of force and the actual use of force.

Just as they had a deadline, so did the Japanese government. The government should approve the new constitution by February 22, specifically chosen because it was George Washington's birthday. What's more, the government ministers must act and publicly talk as if the constitution was their handiwork. “The complete text will be presented to General MacArthur by the Japanese for his endorsement,” averred Whitney. “General MacArthur will then announce to the world that he recognizes this constitution as the work of the Japanese government.”

This got people buzzing. They all knew presidents and generals rarely wrote their own speeches, but here was a man ordering a constitution written to his exact specifications, only to have it presented to him by the Japanese for his approval as if he'd never seen it!

Whitney announced the leader of the group would be Charles Kades. Heads nodded. It was an obvious choice: Kades, a Wall Street lawyer working for the U.S. Treasury, age thirty-nine, possessed dazzling energy and brilliance. Everyone in the GHQ liked Kades for the same reason they liked Whitney: He was friendly and eminently approachable.

Oh, and one last thing, said Whitney in closing. He told them their work was to be top secret, with no one—especially the Japanese—to know what they were doing. The doors would be locked, they must do all their work in the conference room, and in times of need, they were to bang on the door and a guard would escort them to the restroom. Sandwiches and coffee would be served, and Whitney would be always available. He'd be checking in every couple of hours. Best of luck, he told them.

 

THE SIGHT OF
an American girl driving an army jeep bouncing through the potholed streets of Tokyo must have astonished Japanese pedestrians. They would have been even more astonished had they known she was the most powerful female in Japan. Had they surmised from the determined look on her face that she was a woman on a mission, they would have been correct.

The jeep slammed to a halt in front of a library, she hopped out, vanished into the library, and soon emerged lugging a stack of books. A quick stop at several embassies for more books, and her jeep roared back to the Dai Ichi Building where two army guards scooped up all the books and followed her inside.

In the 1940s, long before it became reasonably common in America, this woman with the unusual name was a true multicultural. Born to Russian Jewish parents in Vienna and raised in Japan, Beate Sirota attended Mills College in California (Phi Beta Kappa) and had two years' work experience for
Time
magazine when she landed a job with MacArthur's Government Section because she spoke Japanese (and five other languages). Only twenty-two years old, she had no interest in public affairs, she had never even voted; she took the job only because she wanted to return to Japan and see her parents, who were still alive. In Tokyo, in the high-pressure atmosphere of MacArthur's administration, she quickly established herself as more than just a translator. It was an environment offering bright young people enormous opportunities. “Beate,” said Kades' aide Lt. Col. Pieter Roest, “you're a woman, why don't you write the woman's rights section?”

What did Miss Sirota know about women's rights? Not much, other than knowing it was a subject dear to the supreme commander, as he had issued a proclamation decreeing the emancipation of women and their right to vote. She loved the story of how MacArthur, warned before issuing this decree that it would upset a lot of Japanese men, had responded with a big grin and the comment that it served them right. In her visits to her parents and her trips through the countryside, she had spoken with many women and learned firsthand what a hard life they had, having no automatic rights to money, marriage, divorce, employment, or inheritance.

As she studied the constitutions of the United States, the Weimar Republic, France, Sweden, Norway, and other countries, Beate Sirota was amazed to find women's rights codified in only one of them: the Soviet Union's. She started writing. When she reviewed the Japanese Civil Code and read article 4—“Women are to be regarded as incompetent”—she resumed writing with passion.

Beate Sirota had stumbled into Utopia.

 

CHARLES KADES REVIEWED
what Beate Sirota wrote and marveled, “My God, you have given Japanese women more rights than in the American Constitution!” Sirota responded dryly, “That's not very difficult to do, because women are not in the American Constitution.”

Touché!

Describing the writing of a constitution does not make for exciting reading. It may be exciting for the lawyers arguing back and forth about the choice of words and whether this phrase or that phrase is redundant; for the outsider, the whole process can be tiresome. Once in a while a little inadvertent humor will emerge where people do things for reasons having nothing to do with thought or logic. When Whitney and Kades thought about the most important assignment of the whole project—writing the clause dealing with the status of the emperor—they assigned it to Ens. Richard Poole because he and the emperor had the same birthday.

Actually the drafters of the Japanese constitution did a very smart thing: They did not base their draft on the American political system. Surprisingly enough—nobody could explain why—it turned out that they based their proposed constitution more on the British parliamentary form of government. Supreme political power would be assigned to the Diet. The cabinet would be responsible to the Diet. The prime minister would be elected not by the people but by the lower house. Anybody looking for similarities to the American Constitution would have to look long and hard.