Supreme Commander (38 page)

243  
$
2
billion aid, $
5
billion reparations
: Perret, 523; Sebald, 72–74; Finn, 37. SCAP officer and historian Richard Finn performed a comprehensive study and concluded: “The best information seems to be that depending on the method of calculation Japan paid between $4.23 and $4.98 billion in occupation costs, while it received $1.95 billion in U.S. economic assistance” (Finn, 332). On a per capita basis, the $1.95 billion received by Japan was one-third the aid that Germany received.

22
: “THE GREATEST PIECE OF DIPLOMACY, EVER”

244  
“What can we do . . . So what are you waiting for”
: Fitts, 3.

245  
Sawamura pitching feat
: American baseball enthusiasts may appreciate an even more impressive Japanese pitching feat: The 1942 marathon in Korakuen Stadium where Hall of Famer Michio Nishizawa pitched a twenty-eight-inning, 311-pitch complete game. (Like Babe Ruth, Nishizawa later switched to the outfield and became a feared hitter, setting a home run record in 1950 and winning the batting title and RBI title in 1952.)

245  
Ruth worth a hundred ambassadors
: Dawidoff, 91.

245  
“To hell with” and plan to use Babe Ruth for radio broadcasts
: Whiting, 46.

246  
Babe Ruth
1947
speech broadcast to Japan
: Ritter and Rucker, 263.

246  
“So many”
: Ritter, 250.

246  
“He made it a point”
: Kelley, 124.

246  
“Gentlemen, there's no”
: Ibid., 114.

246  
“It was not”
: Cohen, 482.

247  “
Go ahead”
: John B. Holway, “Lefty and the Geisha,” http://baseballguru.com/jholway/analysisjholway32.html.

247  
“It's OK”
: Ibid.

247  
“If it is right”
: Bowers, 164.

247  
“When I arrived”
: Ritter, 250.

247  
“The greatest piece”
: http://www.californiapioneers.org/sanfran_seals.html and http://www.dickmeister.com/id135.html.

248  
DiMaggio-Monroe honeymoon in Japan
: For DiMaggio, this turned out to be a grave mistake. The Japanese went absolutely nuts over Marilyn Monroe, leaving her husband in the shadows. Depressed at his comparative obscurity, DiMaggio realized how difficult it would be being married to her.

248  
Japanese newspaper poll and Babe Ruth
: Van Staaveren, 266.

23
: OCCUPIER AS PROTECTOR

249  
“from the stern rigidity”
: MacArthur public message, May 3, 1948.

249  
“A vast centrifugal machine”
: Willoughby, 319.

250  
Number of Japanese prisoners in Soviet territories and Manchuria
: SCAP press release, May 14, 1948,
FRUS
(1948), vol. 6, 757–759; Fearey, 194.

250  
“Contemplating his handiwork”
: Rovere and Schlesinger, 92.

251  
“Go Home Quickly!”
: Takemae, 143.

251  
“convulsions”
:
New York Times
, March 2, 1949, 22.

251  
“the Switzerland of the Pacific”
: Harries, 233.

251  
“Dollar for dollar”
: Ibid., 231.

251  
“Japanese rearmament”
: Ibid., 232–33.

252  
“The pin head”
: March 11, 1950; quoted in Schaller,
Altered States
, 21.

252  
“Communism, no!”
:
FRUS
(1950), vol. 6, 88; see also Hayes, 34.

253  
“Everyone in the Department”
: Allison to Sebald, May 24, 1950,
FRUS
(1950), vol. 6, 1203.

253  1947
push for peace treaty
: As an indicator of how strongly he felt about the issue, MacArthur made it the subject of the one and only press conference of the entire occupation, on March 17, 1947.

253  
“would be disastrous”
: Sebald, 249.

253  
Highly egotistical
: Like MacArthur, Dulles had a habit of misstating the truth to make himself look good. In the course of his work negotiating the peace treaty, Dulles availed himself of three years' worth of government memos, drafts, and position papers on the subject—and studied them carefully as any lawyer would. But that is not what he told the press. In 1951, when a reporter asked if he had started with a blank slate or if he had the benefit of much of the work already done, Dulles responded: “There were, I suppose, a good many drafts of a Japanese peace treaty which had been the product of various stages of thinking over the preceding five years. I will have to admit I never read any of them” (Hoopes, 92).

254  
“American defense perimeter”
: Dean Acheson speech, San Francisco, Jan. 12, 1950,
FRUS, East Asia
(1950), 275; Acheson, 357.

254  
“delivering this speech”
: Perret, 537.

254  
“The Korean attack”
: Kennan, 500.

255  
“Mars' last gift”
: Lauterbach, 61.

255  
“use his prestige”
: Smith, 51.

255  
“I wouldn't put my foot”
: Bowers, 168.

255  
“playing with fire”
: Harries, 229.

255  
“between the upper and lower”
: U.S. Department of State
Bulletin
23 (July 10, 1950), 50.

256  
“This is probably . . . If only”
: Allison, 129.

256  
MacArthur at the airport
: It was an important phone call that Dulles made MacArthur go back to his office and take. MacArthur was informed that Truman had decided to authorize the use of American air and naval power in Korea, to put the Seventh Fleet off Formosa to deter any Chinese attack, and to increase military assistance to the French in Indochina. MacArthur was ordered to make a personal inspection of conditions in Korea and report his findings to the president right away.

257  
“To ensure . . . Events disclose”
: MacArthur letter to Yoshida, July 8, 1950, in Masuda, 253.

257  
“Our great undertaking”
: Ibid., 257.

258  
“This is one. . . . No, no. . . . No, it was none . . . It was Napoleonic”
: Hellegers, vol. 2, 758n.

258  
“stop and dig in”
: Hoover to Bonner Fellers, December 3, 1950, Hoover Papers, Stanford University; see also Best, 359.

259  
“The Russians”
: Lee and Henschel, 206.

259  64
percent public approval
: Gallup, vol. 2, 943.

259  
“Your military objective”
:
FRUS
(1950), vol. 7, 781. Widening the Korean War into a war with China, says Bradley in his memoirs (558–59), would be “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” But Bradley didn't say this during the mid-July 1950 JCS meetings when the decision was being debated, he said it after the fact during the May 1951 “MacArthur Hearings” in Congress. During the decision time he played it both ways: MacArthur could proceed north seeking to destroy North Korean forces “provided there was no indication of Soviet or Chinese intervention.” Fair enough, but what if there
was
an “indication”?

259  
“We want you”
:
FRUS
(1950), vol. 7, 826; Marshall to MacArthur, Sept. 20, 1950, Box 9, Folder 6, RG 6, MacArthur Archives. Here, too, the person giving MacArthur instructions is being coy. The wording is very strange for a military order: “We want you to feel . . . ” What exactly does this mean? Of course the JCS wants the field commander to feel confident! This is not a military instruction but a cover-your-butt memo. Marshall is leaving MacArthur to hang out to dry: If he succeeds, great; if he doesn't, it's his fault for being reckless.

260  
transcript of Wake Island meeting
: Bradley, 575.

260  
“Who was that young whippersnapper”
: Hastings, 6.

260  
“as close as”
: Herring, 642.

261  
“It is difficult”
: Barrett, 94.

261  
Marshall's sarcastic comment about when a general complains
: Acheson, 515.

261  
“incapable of holding”
: Ibid.

262  “
the Winston Churchill of Japan
”: The similarities between the two men are remarkable: Both came from prominent families (though Yoshida was adopted), possessed a quick wit, and were always seen with a cigar. Like Churchill, Yoshida was a man of strong principles who had been thrown out of the government before the war for his unpopular political views. Like Churchill, his return to power was a remarkable feat, and he performed brilliantly. The same debt the United States owes Winston Churchill for helping win World War II, it owes Shigeru Yoshida for helping win postwar Japan.

263  
“very much impressed by”
: John D. Rockefeller III, entry of January 27, 1951, Rockefeller Diaries, Rockefeller Center Archive, Sleepy Hollow, NY.

263  
“I came here”
:
Pacific Stars and Stripes
, February 11, 1951, 1, Dulles Collection.

263  
“As our peace mission”
:
Nippon Times
, February 12, 1951, 1, Dulles Collection.

265  
Yokohama bust of MacArthur
: Sheldon, 232.

265  
Diet resolution . . . “who helped”
: Weintraub, 353.

265  
“shock and sorrow”
: Ibid., 346.

265  
joint meeting
: The Democrats refused to grant MacArthur the more formal, more prestigious venue known as a joint session.

265  
Two hundred thousand Japanese
: MacArthur would claim it was two million, thus exaggerating by a factor of ten. Be that as it may, a turnout of two hundred thousand people—including every important political leader—was a remarkable tribute.

265  
“From the gates”
: Smith, 160; Weintraub, 353.

266  
Southeast Asia following Japan's lead
: See Thomas Friedman,
New York Times
, August 21, 2013, A19: “People in Southeast Asia looked up to Japan—the regional power—as a model: ‘We're behind, what's wrong with us? We need to learn from those who are doing better.' ”

24
: HAD HE DIED AT INCHON

269  
“Well, the German problem . . . like a boy of twelve”
:
“Military Situation in the Far East
,
”
May 5, 1951, part 1, 312.

270  
“I had thought”
: Hiroaki Sato, “Irony of Being in the Company of ‘12-Year-Olds,' ”
Japan Times
, June 25, 2012.

270  
“the child”
: Richie, 20.

271  
“Perhaps someone just forgot”
: MacArthur, 383. Actually MacArthur's presence, in addition to being awkward, would have been inappropriate. The peace delegates were national representatives. MacArthur, even if he had continued to be supreme commander, would have had no proper role. Not even General Ridgway was invited.

271  
Rusk
warning to Sebald
: Sebald, 221–22.

271  
“It is the orders you disobey”
: Karnow, 260; Pearlman,
Truman and MacArthur
, 3.

271  
“Wars are over, White”
: Theodore White, “Episode in Tokyo Bay,”
Atlantic Monthly
, August 1970, 55.

272  
“He could be magnificently right”
: Ibid.

272  
“Show me a hero”
: Fitzgerald, 122.

272  
“The most radical”
: Reischauer, 229.

272  
“Could I have but”
: Pratt, 28.

273  
“U.S. inhibitions”
: Soffer, 118.

273  
“With the President's knowledge”
: Van Aduard, 184.

274  
“I was born when”
:
Military Situation
, 91.

275  
“What has brought about”
: Ibid., 325.

275  
“whether or not . . . No . . . In relation to”
: Ibid., 341.

275  
He did not violate . . . And that . . . and created”
: Ibid., 417.

275  
“the wrong war, in the wrong place”
: Ibid., 732.

275  
“to stop the spread”
: Hanson Baldwin, review of
MacArthur
by Courtney Whitney,
New York Times Book Review
, January 22, 1956, 24.

275  
legacy of the Korean War
: While the Korean War did not result in the decisive victory MacArthur sought, it can be argued that the Korean War was probably America's most successful war. In my previous book,
American History Revised
, I put it this way: “It may seem ironical to call the Korean War—‘the forgotten war'—America's most successful military endeavor, but it achieved its objectives and had the most satisfying long-term results. The purpose of waging war is not just to win battles, but also to secure a political peace. . . . In terms of achieving a stable, long-lasting peace, the Korean War was remarkably fruitful. The country we saved, South Korea, eventually went on to become one of the world's strongest democracies. For more than a half-century, both the U.S. and the Soviets/Chinese have respected the thirty-eighth parallel that physically separates the two countries. Even more significant, both sides refrained from using nuclear weapons or launching massive invasions of a million men, which they easily could have done. By their conduct of the war, all parties—Americans, Koreans, Chinese, and Russians—signaled “limits” to each other. In so doing, they initiated the era of limited war that has characterized warfare to this day” (294).