textfiles/reports/japan.rpt

  The occupation of Japan was, from start to finish, an American operation.
General Douglans MacArthur, sole supreme commander of the Allied Power was in
charge.  The Americans had insufficient men to make a military government of
Japan possible; so t hey decided to act through the existing Japanese
gobernment.  General Mac Arthur became, except in name, dictator of Japan.  He
imposed his will on Japan.  Demilitarization was speedily carried out,
demobilization of the former imperial forces was complet ed by early 1946.

  Japan was extensively fire bomded during the second world war.  The stench of
sewer gas, rotting garbage, and the acrid smell of ashes and scorched debris
pervaded the air.  The Japanese people had to live in the damp, and col d of
the concrete buildings, because they were the only ones left.  Little remained
of the vulnerable wooden frame, tile roof dwelling lived in by most Japanese.
When the first signs of winter set in, the occupation forces immediately took
over all the s team-heated buildings.  The Japanese were out in the cold in the
first post war winter fuel was very hard to find, a family was considered lucky
if they had a small barely glowing charcoal brazier to huddle around.  That
next summer in random spots new ho uses were built, each house was standardized
at 216 square feet, and required 2400 board feet of material in order to be
built.	A master plan for a modernistic city had been drafted, but it was cast
aside because of the lack of time before the next winte r.  The thousands of
people who lived in railroad stations and public parks needed housing.

  All the Japanese heard was democracy from the Americans.  All they cared
about was food.  General MacAruther asked the government to send food, when
they refus ed he sent another telegram that said, "Send me food, or send me
bullets."

  American troops were forbidden to eat local food, as to keep from cutting
from cutting into the sparse local supply.

  No food was was brought in expressly for the Japanese durning the first six
months after the American presence there.  Herbert Hoover, serving as chairman
of a special presidential advisory committee, recommended minimum imports to
Japan of 870,000 tons of food to be distributed in different urban areas.  Fi
sh, the source of so much of the protein in the Japanese diet, were no longer
available in adequate quantities because the fishing fleet, particularly the
large vessels, had been badly decimated by the war and because the U.S.S.R.
closed off the fishing g rounds in the north.

  The most important aspect of the democratization policy was the adoption of a
new constitution and its supporting legislation.  When the Japanese government
proved too confused or too reluctant to come up with a constitutional r eform
that satisfied MacArthur, he had his own staff draft a new constitution in
February 1946.	This, with only minor changes, was then adopted by the Japanese
government in the form of an imperial amendment to the 1889 constitution and
went into effect on May 3, 1947.  The new Constitution was a perfection of the
British parliamentary form of government that the Japanese had been moving
toward in the 1920s.  Supreme political power was assigned to the Diet.
Cabinets were made responsible to the Diet by having the prime minister elected
by the lower house.  The House of Peers was replaced by an elected House of
Councillors.  The judicial system was made as independent of executive
interference as possible, and a newly created supreme court was given the power
to review the constitutionality of laws.  Local governments were given greatly
increased powers.

  The Emperor was reduced to being a symbol of the unity of the nation.
Japanese began to see him in person.  He went to hospitals, schools, mines,
industrial plants; he broke ground for public buildings and snipped tape at the
opening of gates and highways.	He was steered here and there, shown things,
and kept muttering, "Ah so, ah so." People started to call him "Ah-so-san."
Suddenly the puybli c began to take this shy, ill-at-ease man to their hearts.
They saw in him something of their own conqured selves, force to do what was
alien to them.	In 1948, in a newspaper poll, Emperior Hirohito was voted the
most popular man in Japan.

  Civil li berties were emphasized, women were given full equality with men.
Article 13 and 19 in the new Constitution, prohibits discrimination in
political, economic, and social relations because of race, creed, sex, social
status, or family origen.  This is one of the most explicitly progressive
statements on human rights anywhere in law.  Gerneral Douglas MacArthur emerged
as a radical feminist because he was "convinced that the place of women in
Japan must be brought to a level consistent with that of women in the western
democracies." So the Japanese women got their equal rights amendment long
before a concerted effort was made to obtain one in America.

  Compulsory education was extened to nine years, efforts were made to make
education more a traning in thinking than in rote memory, and the school system
above the six elementary grades was revised to conform to the American pattern.
This last mechanical change produced great confusion and dissatisfaction but
became so entrenched that it could not be re vised even after the Americans
departed.

  Japan's agriculture was the quickest of national activities to recover
because of land reform.  The Australians came up with the best plan.  It was
basis was this:  There were to be no absentee landlards.  A p erson who
actually worked the land could own up to 7.5 arcers.  Anyone living in a
village near by could keep 2.5 acres.  Larger plots of land, exceeding these
limits, were bought up by the government and sold on easy terms to former
tenants.  Within two years 2 million tenants became landowners.  The American
occupation immediately gained not only a large constituency, for the new owners
had a vested interest in preserving the change, but also a psychological
momentum for other changes they wanted to ini tiate.

  The American labor policy in Japan had a double goal:  to encourage the
growth of democratic unions while keeping them free of communists.  Union
organization was used as a balance to the power of management.	To the surprise
of the America n authorties, this movement took a decidedly more radical turn.
In the desperate economic conditions of early postwar Japan, there was little
room for successful bargaining over wages, and many labor unions instead made a
bid to take over industry and o perate it in their own behalf.	Moreover large
numbers of workers in Japan were government employees, such as railroad workers
and teachers, whose wages were set not by management but by the government.
Direct political action therefore seemed more meani ngful to these people than
wage bargaining.  The Japanese unions called for a general strike on February
1, 1947.  MacArthur warned the union leadership that he would not countenace a
nationwide strike.  The strike leaders yieled to MacArthur's will.  The re
after the political appeal of radical labor action appeared to wane.

  The Americans wanted to disband the great Zaibatsu trust as a means of
reducing Japan's war-making potential.  There were about 15 Zaibatsu families
such as - Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Yasuda, and Sumitomo.  The Zaibatsu controled the
industry of Japan.  MacArthur's liaison men pressured the Diet into passing the
Deconcentration Law in December 1947.  In the eyes of most Japanese this law
was designed to cripple Japanese business and i ndustry forever.  The first
step in breaking up the Zaibatsu was to spread their ownership out among the
people and to prevent the old owners from ever again exercising control.  The
stocks of all the key holding companies were to be sold to the public.	Friends
of the old Zaibatsu bought the stock.  In the long run the Zaibatsu were not
exactly destroyed, but a few were weakened and others underwent a considerable
shuffle.

  The initial period of the occupation from 1945 to 1948 was marked by reform,
the second phase was one of stabilization.  Greater attention was given to
improvement of the economy.  Japan was a heavy expense to the United States.
The ordered breakup of the Zaibatsu was slowed down.  The union movement
continued to grow, to the ult imate benefit of the worker.  Unremitting
pressure on employers brought swelling wages, which meant the steady expansion
of Japan domestic consumer market.  This market was a major reason for Japan's
subsequent economic boom.  Another boom to the economy was the Korean War which
proved to be a blessing in disguise.  Japan became the main staging area for
military action in Korea and went on a war boom economy with out having to
fight in or pay for a war.

  The treaty of peace with Japan was signed at San Francisco in September 1951
by Japan, the United States, and forty-seven other nations.  The Soviet Union
refused to sign it.  The treaty went into effect in April 1952, officially
terminating the United States military occupation and restoring full
independence.

  What is extraordinary in the Occupation and its aftermath was the
insignificance of the unpleasant.  For the Japanese, the nobility of American
ideals and the essential benignity of the American presence assuaged much of
the bitterness and anguish of defeat.  For the Americans, the joys of promoting
peace and democracy triumphed over the attendant fustrations and grievances.
Consequently, the Occupation served to lay down a substantial capital of good
will on which both America and Jap an would draw in the years ahead.

			     BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Christopher, Robert C.  /The Japanese Mind/.	New York:  Fawcett Columbine,
1983

  La Cerda, John.  /The Conqueror Comes to Tea/.  New Brunswick:  R utgers
University Press, 1946

  Manchester, William.	/American Caesar/.  New York:  Dell Publishing Company,
Inc., 1978

  Perry, John Curtis.  /Beneath the Eagle's Wings/.  New York:  Dodd, Mead and
Company, 1980

  Reischauer, Edwin O.	/ The Japanese/.  London:  Belknap Press, 1977

  Seth, Ronald.  /Milestones in Japanese History/.  Philadelphia:  Chilton Book
Company, 1969

  Sheldon, Walt.  /The Honorable Conquerors/.  New York:  The Macmillan
Company., 1965