Douglas MacArthur
You probably don’t think about Douglas MacArthur very much, but to the Japanese, he’s quite a figure.
As Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Pacific, he battled the Japanese throughout the region, and his was the hand that officially received the surrender on the USS Missouri, ending the war. But to the Japanese, it was in the postwar period that MacArthur did great things, guiding the rebuilding of Japan as a “kind and loving father” to the nation, not entirely different from the Founding Fathers of the Meiji Restoration 78 years before.
MacArthur brought in many democratic reforms, writing a new anti-war constitution. He broke up the zaibatsu conglomerates and redistributed five million acres of land to individual farmers, which no doubt helped contribute to Japan’s healthy middle class today.
More than anything, I think that MacArthur knew the importance of not “stepping on the face” of the Japanese, to borrow a phrase from their language. They were defeated, but the General took care to protect the Imperial Family from responsibility for the war, which was an important symbol to the people. I can find no evidence of “Abu Ghraib” like events during the Occupation, possibly thanks to the policy of choosing soldiers who had not fought in the Pacific theater, and thus had no special grudges.
A lot of the plans he implemented were undone after the Occupation ended, such as the ban on all forms of martial arts and Kabuki plays, but the important changes stuck. The generation growing up after the war ended has the most reverence for the man. When I asked my wife’s mother what her impression of him was, she practically gushed. “It’s because of MacArthur that Japan is here today.”
I think the reason there was no “abu Ghraib” incidents was because people were so damn relieved that the war was finally over.
Anyways, yeah, MacArthur was an interesting dude. Can’t believe they let the emperor go free, though it was definitely better for the occupation in the long term. There might have actually been rebellion if they had executed the emperor or placed blame on them…though studies a little ways into the occupation showed a lot of lack of respect towards him.
Here’s a couple interesting MacArthur tidbits:
-He never left his HQ area and never talked with any Japanese (except for approx 10 high ranking Japanese officials).
-Never learned a lick of Japanese
-Was against the atomic bombs, and wasn’t even able to give advice on what to do with them, because he didn’t know about them until right before they were going to drop.
All i all, I’d say he did a pretty good job, despite his complete lack of Japan related knowledge, haha.
June 8th, 2008 at 2:53 amHe gave women the right to vote.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:07 amYes, the new constitution of Japan brought by Macarthur was the great democratic reform, except its treatment of emperor system. I have to say he made a deal with it.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:49 amIt was the Emperor announcing Japan’s surrender to the war that ended it. The Emperor also renounced his divinity, which caused the suicide of hundreds, if not thousands of Japanese when he did it. I’ve heard an interesting theory that Japan was about to be occupied by the Russians which may have spurred them to surrender to America rather than Russia. Another interesting tidbit that may be disputed, Japan may have actually tested an atomic bomb shortly before they were hit at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I believe it may have been tested in Korea. There was a documentary on the topic recently (History Channel).
June 8th, 2008 at 4:27 amJapan as a “nation of 12 year olds” has often been attributed to him. I’ve often read about the famous photo of MacArthur’s first meeting with Hirohito.
http://tinyurl.com/48ons
I think it’s hard for us to appreciate how truly shocking it was to see MacArthur - in his casual dress (not even his formal uniform) and (to the Japanese eye) the disrespectful body language, and even just the fact that he towered over the diminutive formerly divine emperor.
Interesting guy. He messed up in the Philippines, got wupped, left and famously returned. He did a lot of good, but then again…
After the war, he absolved Hirohito and the entire Imperial family of war guilt - even though they were obviously deeply involved. He granted immunity to the perpetrators of the awful goings-on of Unit 731 (and other ‘research’ units that practiced human experimentation). One of those guys later founded a blood bank called Green Cross, which later tainted Japan’s blood supply with HIV because they refused to take any precautions - standard everywhere else.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:43 am=
Given MacArthur’s egomania, I’m half convinced that he left the emperor in place because he enjoyed being personally visited by and being in a position authority over an emperor.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:19 pmActually I learned how and when to use the auxiliary verb, “shall” from his famous saying; “I SHALL return” in the Phillipines.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:04 amIt was a good move, though — leave the Emperor in power, reassure the people, provide a base for them to rally around. It probably would have been a good idea to leave the Bath party in Iraq in place, sans the really bad parts, since completely taking any power away from anyone who already possessed it didn’t seem to be such a good idea.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:15 amLeaving the imperial family intact was probably a good move, but Hirohito should have been forced to abdicate at the very least. People often complain that Japan and Japanese haven’t taken responsibility for their actions in the first half of the 20th century. Why should they when the person who held ultimate command responsibility took no responsibility? IIRC, Hirohito was ready to abdicate or even offered to abdicate. The Occupation should have taken him up on it and maybe even put him on trial for command responsibility.
I don’t really even buy that a large revolt would have ensued if Hirohito would have been put on trial or the Imperial Household abolished given the a) widespread devastation and simple struggle for survival for most people and b) the military was devastated and mostly overseas.
Of course, post Occupation he might have been put right back on the throne, much as many of the convicted war criminals were let out of jail.
Leaving the Japanese bureaucracy in place wasn’t a bad idea since the Occupation needed a method of ruling. Besides, many of the reforms the Occupation implemented were ones that Japanese bureaucrats had drawn up previously, but were unable to implement due to wartime conditions and military resistance.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:08 amyes thats all well and good - but as I said.. “He gave women the right to VOTE!”
(*!*)
June 9th, 2008 at 5:07 amAbout that women’s vote thing…
Beate Sirota Gordon…She was 22 years old and she wrote Article 24 of the Japanese constitution. Read “The Only Woman in The Room,” her autobiography.
I just did a little googling and it looks like she was just here:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080606f1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Sirota
The only other woman working on the Japanese Constitution was Eleanor Hadley. I thought she’d written Article 24 - guess not!
June 9th, 2008 at 3:02 pmthanks pat (from Arden)
rem.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:15 pmI love this quote (..furious,sputtering with rage!)
“It was 2 a.m. and we had been negotiating in secret for the entire day. They were furious, sputtering with rage. — Women’s rights? They really objected to that. — they were as angry about women’s rights as they were about changes in the emperor system.” (Newsweek).
http://thegiftfrombeate.wordpress.com/aboutbeate-sirota-gordon/
*I daresay there still are a few that are sputtering*
remora
June 10th, 2008 at 5:23 pmThere were some rather questionable actions taken by the SCAP during the occupation, including using the Yakuza to beat up and intimidate communists and the aforementioned tacit support of the military brothels.
Nonetheless, overall D-Mac did a remarkable job with a peaceful occupation (making sure of it, with severe punishments for slapping Japanese citizens) and its reforms. As RTN mentioned, he was something of egomaniac, but since he was actually in charge here that was okay. Before and after WWII he has a remarkable record of insubordination (blatantly disobeying the orders of two presidents, each time leading or almost leading to military disasters).
But for the occupation there probably wasn’t a better person they could’ve chosen (except maybe Eisenhower). Regarding Japan is where they actually should’ve listened to him to begin with, as he was the first to point out how Japan wouldn’t possibly have accepted the unrealistic “unconditional surrender” terms.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:05 amI wonder if there really was no resistance, no “Saigo Takamori’s Rebellion” that was too small to make it into the history books. Other than the soldiers hanging out in the Philippines and Guam (and in the former case, killing many locals they thought were enemies — oops).
June 12th, 2008 at 11:23 am