Supreme Commander (17 page)

No sooner had the March 6 draft appeared than MacArthur found himself in a fight over it. The State Department and the FEC, kept out of the loop by MacArthur, demanded to know what was going on and why they had not been consulted. The State Department was particularly frustrated: Because SCAP was a military operation, the only way to send an inquiry to MacArthur was through the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the army chief of staff, who didn't always move with the alacrity normally reserved for generals speaking to generals. This bureaucratic setup ensured delays, which was exactly what MacArthur wanted. The FEC, concerned that there was not enough time before the election for the Japanese people to “express their fully instructed, intelligent and authoritative views on their political future,” sent a letter suggesting a postponement of the election. MacArthur responded with a lengthy essay pointing out that women had been given the right to vote, that the voting age had been lowered, that reactionary personnel had been purged from government, that Japan had several political parties in strong competition, and that there was no need for any special declaration, plus it probably wouldn't pass legal scrutiny. What else was there to discuss? The letter was so thorough and devastating, said one observer, that anyone reading it “began to suffer from spells of dizziness.”

The truth of the matter, of course, was that MacArthur and conservative members of the Japanese government like Yoshida wanted the constitution put in place as quickly as possible before the liberals and especially the Communists got their hands on it. This was not an idle threat. Having freed the prisoners and the labor unions, MacArthur knew the dangers on the street and he was in a delicate position, but he could hardly admit this to Washington. Instead he resorted to legalisms, delays, and plain outright arrogance—of which he was a master. Like a general on the march, he would simply steamroll over anybody in his way. In war this wins plaudits; in peacetime politics it makes enemies.

On March 20 the Far Eastern Commission demanded that the April 10 election be postponed. MacArthur refused. Giving the FEC power to review and approve the constitution in advance of an election would “prejudice many Japanese people against the instrument itself” because they would “look upon it as a thing forced upon Japan at the point of Allied bayonets.” MacArthur went on to demonstrate his propensity for mingling fiction with truth. The FEC had no executive power, he said. Speaking of himself as if he were another person, he reminded the FEC that such power was “reserved exclusively to the Supreme Commander.” To cover himself with the U.S. secretary of state, who had gone on record that the responsibility of managing Japan rested with the FEC, MacArthur explained to Byrnes that the FEC's function in matters of constitutional reform was “limited to the formulation of guiding policy.”

The supreme commander surely must have baffled Byrnes with his blubbery phrase. This was only typical of MacArthur. He could soar to Olympian heights with his majestic oratory; he could easily drown his listeners in vacuous and avuncular phraseology. Marveled one of his aides at the boss's ability to baffle the opposition and escape unscathed: “How do you fight someone you can't get your hands on?” MacArthur was in his element. He went on to tell the secretary of state that “in the absence of any such policy statement from the Far Eastern Commission, the Supreme Commander is clearly unrestricted in his authority to proceed.”

“I have acted meticulously,” he opined—lest the secretary of state think differently.

The FEC, getting tired of MacArthur's repeated evasions and tergiversations, asked him on April 10—the day of the Japanese election, when the constitution was voted on and passed—to send a representative to Washington right away: “The Commission, in its concern that any constitution adopted by the Japanese should embody the ‘freely expressed will of the Japanese people,' is particularly interested in the procedures by which it is contemplated a new constitution will be adopted.” One can only imagine the supreme commander's reaction to such pretentious language when he was in a race against time and there was mounting political ferment in the streets. At the end of April a massive Communist-inspired labor demonstration electrified Tokyo. It attracted more than 400,000 people, giving General Eichelberger heart palpitations.

A month later, MacArthur deigned to respond to the FEC. In a twenty-page letter that was more like a thesis than a memo—the man liked to write!—he said he welcomed a closer working relationship but did not think dispatching an officer from his staff to confer with the commission would accomplish anything. In a repeat of his tactics with President Truman, where he said he was indispensable and could not leave Tokyo, he wrote: “As Supreme Commander, I have given my personal attention to the matter of constitutional reform, and there is no other officer in a position to express in detail my views on that subject.”

How do you deal with a man like this? The State Department diplomatically held back on MacArthur's missive, and sent another directive. Again no response. The Department of the Army then jumped in and sent a telegram stating how essential it was for the Far Eastern Commission to be afforded an opportunity to examine the new constitution before it took effect. MacArthur responded with a soothing put-down: “This draft provides one of the most liberal constitutions in the world—far more liberal than is that of Russia or China, and certainly no less liberal than that of the United States or England.”

By now the director of the State Department's Office of Far Eastern Affairs was in a state of despair. He informed the secretary of state: “No useful purpose would be served by any further discussion of this matter.” The FEC came to a similar conclusion. With the new constitution now in force, on May 13 it sent MacArthur a memo basically raising the white flag in surrender: “Adequate time and opportunity should be allowed for the full discussion and consideration of the terms of the new Constitution.”

Douglas MacArthur had outmaneuvered, worn down, and flummoxed the opposition. Now all he had to do was make sure the constitution was sufficiently “Japanese.” Everyone knew the Americans had written most of it. There was even a joke going around town: “Have you read the new Constitution yet? . . . No, has it been translated into Japanese?” Yoshida, Shidehara, and Matsumoto worked behind the scenes to line up support and make sure no one questioned the constitution's legitimacy. The Japanese legislative bodies went through the motions of deliberation and ratification. The lower house, working closely with American lawyers from GHQ, made some minor modifications and passed the bill. The Privy Council conducted no fewer than eleven meetings, going into great detail so no one could say the document was being rubber-stamped. It gave its final approval at the end of October. In doing so it displayed one of the most remarkable examples of political courage and unselfishness ever seen in any country at any time: Because there was no place for it under the new constitution, by voting for the constitution it voted itself out of existence.

One must stop here and pause a moment. Yes, it actually happened—the Privy Council voted itself out of existence. How often do we see something like this today where a failed politician or leader of a country voluntarily relinquishes power? And puts aside personal gain for the long-term common good? If ever there was anyone in the occupation who deserved a peacetime Medal of Honor for courage and self-sacrifice, surely it would be the Japanese Privy Council.

As for Hirohito, who by now had become a “symbolic emperor,” he had no problem with the new constitution. As a personal token of appreciation for their work, he sent Whitney and each of his colleagues who had helped draft the constitution a silver chalice bearing the imperial crest.

A constitution is only a written piece of paper: It cannot “give” people freedom any more than toppling a dictator does. In the April 1946 election the Japanese people signaled their participation in the new experiment of democracy. Women, enfranchised by the new constitution, ran for the first time (thirty-nine of eighty-two won). Of the 2,770 candidates competing for the 466 seats in the Diet, 95 percent were running for the first time. Due to the lowering of the voting age from twenty-five to twenty, the inclusion of women, and SCAP's promotion of the importance of the election, the number of people voting skyrocketed from 13.5 million to 37 million.

Going by this voter participation, MacArthur boldly predicted the constitution would last a hundred years. “Probably the single most important accomplishment of the occupation,” he called it. To make sure he got the message across, on May 2, the day before the constitution went into effect, he sent a letter to Shigeru Yoshida, now prime minister, announcing an unexpected present:

To mark this historic ascendancy of democratic freedom which events have made possible, I believe it particularly appropriate that henceforth the Japanese national flag be restored to the people of Japan for unrestricted display within and over the premises which house the National Diet, the Supreme Court, and the Prime Minister, as representative of the three main branches of constitutional government, and within and over the residence of the Emperor, who assumes his constitutional role as symbol of the State and of the unity of the people.

Let this flag fly to signify the advent in Japanese life of a new and enduring era of peace based upon personal liberty, individual dignity, tolerance and justice.

14

His Most Radical Reform

W
HEN MACARTHUR MET
Prime Minister Shidehara for the first time on October 11 and demanded liberalization of the constitution, he also handed him a statement listing five necessary reforms. The fifth was the elimination of economic monopolies; the fourth, the abolition of the secret police; the third, more liberal education in schools; the second was the encouragement of labor unions; and at the top of the list was women's suffrage, “the emancipation of the women of Japan.”

This idea did not originate in Washington but with the supreme commander himself. (Nothing like it was ever done by the American occupiers in Germany.) On the August 30 flight to Atsugi, MacArthur had announced as one of his commands: “Enfranchise the women”—the first time the subject of women ever came up in occupation policy. Just the day before he had received an advance copy of the September 6
Initial Post-Surrender Policy Document for Japan
. All it said about human rights was that “laws, decrees and regulations which establish discrimination on grounds of race, nationality, creed or political opinion will be abrogated. . . . Policies shall be favored which permit a wide distribution of income and the ownership of the means of production and trade.” Not a word was said about gender equality, much less anything about women having any property rights or claim on economic assets. Nor had anything been said about it in the Potsdam Declaration, nor in the detailed JCS 1380/15 memorandum of November 3. These three documents, taken together, presented a veritable laundry list of more than fifty demands and tasks for MacArthur, yet the subject of women was conspicuous in its absence.

Shidehara informed MacArthur that only two days earlier the Japanese cabinet had unanimously agreed with his demand to grant suffrage to women. Excellent, said MacArthur, adding that he hoped the other four reforms could be taken care of in the same manner.

At the next session of the Diet, in December, women's suffrage became the subject of heated discussion. Many members did not share the view of the Shidehara cabinet. Fumimaro Konoe, then the vice prime minister, argued that the enfranchisement of women “would retard the progress of Japanese politics.” Prince Higashikuni, the emperor's uncle, was equally unreceptive. Clearly the Japanese government would not voluntarily grant suffrage; it would have to be imposed by the occupying authorities. Thanks to Beate Sirota and the backing of MacArthur, Whitney, and Kades, this had already been done by constitutional fiat. Still, the battle was not over: The constitution still had to pass the legislature. During the discussion in the Diet, one member of the House of Representatives looked into his crystal ball and found the future threatening: “These laws . . . will enable the son to marry a girl against the will of his parents, change his living place, spend money and other property ignoring the wishes of his parents, divorce a respectable wife without the consent of his parents. I fear the new constitution.”

The British journalist Honor Tracy told the all-too-common story of a Japanese family. A woman whose husband had been killed in the war had a young son. Her family “wished her to marry again, and to send the small boy away to the dead man's people, to whom he legally belonged and by whom he was being repeatedly claimed. It was true that these people were only poor farmers, living in a province a long way off, but the child must go to them.” The woman refused and said she would keep her child. She also said she would not marry the first man who happened to come along; she would be choosy and might never remarry. This made her family very upset: How could she be so unreasonable? Observed Tracy: “Her position seemed natural and straightforward enough; what was strange was only to find that [her older brother] did not think so.”

The status of women in Japan was positively feudal. “Their supreme duty,” observed one Japanese historian, “was to obey—obey their parents in childhood, their husbands in marriage and their sons in old age.” Most women were married by the age of twenty, usually to a man chosen by her parents. It was difficult for a woman to file for divorce, and impossible for her to collect any alimony or make a claim on joint assets.

Under the new constitution pushed by MacArthur, parents were put in their proper place: in the far background. Everything would be different now. There would be no more marital bondage, parental tyranny, or male supremacy.

Once the constitution had been passed and women had the right to vote, SCAP launched a major campaign informing women of their new rights to make sure they took advantage of them. For the new experiment to work, a high turnout was essential, hopefully a lot higher than the anticipated 10 percent. Leading the effort was Lt. Ethel Weed, a public relations specialist sent to Japan by the Women's Army Corps (WAC). Her assignment: to develop “programs for the dissemination of information pertinent to the reorientation and democratization of Japanese women.” Through round-the-clock use of press conferences, displays, radio shows, and motion pictures, Weed and her team of “Weed's Girls” helped generate a stunning 67 percent turnout among eligible female voters in the April 10, 1946, election.

In a gesture that aroused great envy among the male members of the Diet, MacArthur received a delegation of thirty-one of the thirty-nine females elected to this august body for the first time. The purpose of their visit: to express their appreciation to him personally for making women's suffrage possible. In remarks subsequently released to the
Nippon Times
, he said:

Women of Japan are responding magnificently to the challenge of democracy; their record of participation in the general election on 10 April sets an example for the world . . . Japanese women are displaying an increasing interest in political, social and economic affairs which exceeds the most hopeful anticipation of political observers. It attests to the powerful appeal of the democratic idea and to the enthusiasm with which Japanese women are discarding the age-old bonds of convention.

In the informal discussion that followed, he urged the women to work as legislators and not as a women's bloc, that they “meet men on the [Diet] floor in complete equality, giving particular attention to the vital issues confronting the nation and accepting a full share of responsibility for their solution.”

Responding for the female delegation was Kato Shidzue, a former baroness turned socialist, well known for her role in Japan's birth-control movement, who had lectured widely in the United States and had been jailed for her antimilitarist views during the war. The vote was only one step, she told MacArthur. “We are all hungry in Japan now . . . we Japanese women will never vote for the militarists, we shall never have war again.” MacArthur nodded vigorously: In that statement Kato Shidzue had summed up why the supreme commander was such a proponent of women's rights. They were the people he would count on to make sure Japan would never go to war again.

Prodded by SCAP, the Japanese government passed additional regulations and acts. The Local Autonomy Act (October 1946) allowed women to be elected to local assemblies and local governments. In 1947 the Fundamental Law of Education required that nine years of compulsory schooling be available for females as well as males, and the Labor Standards Law mandated equal pay for equal work. In 1948 a special government agency was set up to protect women and children, the Women's and Minors' Bureau.

It was, says Susan Pharr, the former head of the Government Department of Harvard University, “one of the world's most radical experiments with women's rights.” And a story rarely told even to this day: “Extraordinarily little has been written about the U.S. experiment with women's rights in Japan.”

In undertaking radical change, constitutions and regulations are only a beginning; there must be grassroots involvement. The person normally expected to be involved, Beate Sirota, was no longer around. When her boyfriend, Joseph Gordon, a fellow SCAP officer, was transferred back to America in early 1947, she joined him and they got married. She published her memoir,
The Only Woman in the Room
, in 1997. Her contribution, while vital, was a one-shot achievement made possible only, as Gloria Steinem noted, because she had been fortunate enough to find herself a “presence in the corridors of power.” More lasting power had to be earned through years of hard work.

However, other women were arriving in Japan from America, women older and considerably more experienced in community affairs than the twenty-two-year-old Sirota. They were the Women's Army Corps. The sight of several hundred women, all in army uniform, disembarking from a ship in Yokohama must have stunned the Japanese.

Unlike Sirota, these women didn't speak Japanese (other than six months' training for some), and had a difficult time adjusting to Japanese culture. But through perseverance and relentless energy, they showed Japanese women how to make the most of their new situation where, thanks to MacArthur and his strong position on gender equality, they enjoyed more rights than even women in America had or ever dreamed of. What emerged was one of the most remarkable stories in the history of women's liberation anywhere.

Not that it was easy. Weed, now a recipient of an Army Commendation Ribbon and promoted to be the Women's Information Officer of SCAP, had no real program budget to speak of. Making use of whatever SCAP resources she could round up, she led the women's outreach effort and stayed in Japan until 1952. She was not a radical feminist, but when she ran into the likes of Alfred Hussey, special assistant to the chief of the Government Section, who opposed a separate agency for women and feared it would create “a battle of the sexes,” she let him have it. MacArthur, much to his discomfort, found himself drawn into the controversy, a fundamental one in politics: Do you work from within, or do you form an outside group and try to storm the ramparts? MacArthur believed in the former. He was not a man who liked unnecessary confrontation. But when he seemed to have no choice, he made one. To everyone's surprise he sided with Weed and against Hussey and permitted a separate government agency to serve solely women—an exception to his long-standing view that people with specific social grievances should not act as a bloc. The formation of this agency, the Women's and Minors' Bureau, proved instrumental in preserving the gains of women's rights long after the occupation ended. Many people in the United States howled when it emerged that the newly appointed director was a Marxist. MacArthur let it go through: Even though he disagreed with the lady's politics, she was a proven leader who could be trusted to manage the bureau well.

In the meantime Weed had developed close relations with Margaret Sanger, the pioneer of American birth control and sex education efforts, and Mary Beard, the coauthor with her husband, Charles A. Beard, of the influential history of America,
The Rise of American Civilization
, and author of a book titled
The Force of
Women in History
(and in 1953, another,
The Force of Women in Japanese History
). All three women supported Kato Shidzue's efforts to establish birth-control clinics, arguing that the best way to alleviate the poverty situation in Japan was for Japanese women to bear fewer children. Here, however, MacArthur refused to give his support, and instructed SCAP officers to do likewise, even to the point of denying Sanger a visa to enter the country. In his view abortion and birth control, while desirable, were personal issues best decided by the husbands and wives themselves. Shidzue could go ahead and introduce a bill in the Diet for the Japanese government to legalize abortion and provide contraceptives—unsuccessfully, it turned out—but no way should SCAP get involved in such a contentious issue.

Weed, in addition to helping SCAP's legal experts revise the Civil Code, led speaking groups to discuss women's freedom of choice in marriage, and how to attain equality under the new property, inheritance, and divorce laws. She acted as SCAP's watchdog to make sure the Japanese government kept the Women's and Minors' Bureau fully funded, and organized two major trips initiated by MacArthur for women leaders to visit the United States and meet high-ranking American politicians and women such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Maine's senator Margaret Chase Smith. MacArthur also supported her efforts by hiring a senior female State Department officer and personally inviting the head of the WAC to come to Japan for an official inspection visit. For a man who in 1935 as army chief of staff had eliminated the position of director of women's relations as having “no military value,” this receptivity to women represented a major turnaround. In his memoirs MacArthur stated: “Of all the reforms accomplished by the occupation in Japan, none was more heartwarming to me than [the] change in the status of women.” MacArthur saw in Japanese women the counterweight he needed to help eliminate militarism. In addition to being much less militaristic than men, women were the major victims in the war, many now widows living in desperate economic circumstances. Winning their support and gratitude would be invaluable to the success of the occupation and acceptance of the American ideology of democracy. Recognizing their rights to a fair share and ownership of property would also combat the growing appeal of Communism. The Communists could tout Karl Marx and his definition of emancipation as equality of all citizens before the state, but no way could they match what the Americans had actually done with their article 24 of the new Japanese constitution in terms of “revolution”:

Marriage shall be based on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.