359. Letter From the Ambassador to Japan (Reischauer) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Harriman)0

Dear Governor Harriman : During his recent brief visit to Tokyo, General Maxwell Taylor startled us by his suggestion in a briefing session with Embassy officers that the value of our bases in Japan might be open to question. General Smart,1 who has mentioned to me his conversation with you in Washington, has now provided me with a brief summary of General Taylor’s report to the President.2 He has also shown me a telegram from Admiral Felt to the Joint Chiefs of Staff3 which makes a forceful and convincing military case for the retention of bases in Japan. I have no doubt that you share Admiral Felt’s misgivings over General Taylor’s thesis, but I thought that it might be of some use to you if your man on the spot provided you with his view of the question.

It seems to me that General Taylor has asked himself the wrong question and has therefore come up with the wrong answer. The question he seems to be asking is. “Disregarding Japan itself, of what value to the United States defense position are our bases in Japan?” Even accepting his question in this form, I would not myself be in agreement with his answer. I have been given to understand by many military authorities, including General Taylor’s immediate predecessor as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,4 that without the Japanese bases our military position in Korea would be quite impossible to maintain and our positions further to the south would be seriously weakened.

The real problem, however, is the nature of the question to which General Taylor has addressed himself. For one thing, are we concerned only with the immediate value of our bases and not with their potential value in the foreseeable future? Even accepting General Taylor’s low estimate of the current value of the bases—and I for one would rate their deterrent value much more highly than he does—should this estimate automatically apply to their value five years or even two years hence? I think not. The outbreak of warfare, whether non-nuclear, limited, or universal, would have its special background, and depending on what that background is and what the public and official reaction to this is in Japan, our bases here may prove to have much greater utility than General Taylor estimates. Moreover, there is good reason to believe that the general drift of Japanese attitudes is in the right direction and that, as a result, [Page 745] two years from now our bases will be of greater value in a war situation than they are today and that five years from now they will be of even greater value.

What basically bothers me, though, is General Taylor’s apparent omission in his calculations of the importance of these bases in the defense of Japan itself and in the developing political situation here. Friendly Japanese cooperation with the United States seems to me central to our whole position—military, political and economic—in the Far East, or, to put it negatively, Japan’s adherence to the Communist bloc or even strict neutralism on its part would play havoc with our whole position in this part of the world. The primary role of our bases in Japan, I feel, is to help insure that this country does not fall or gravitate into Communist hands or into a neutralist position, but General Taylor seems to be judging them solely on their secondary value as bases for the defense of other areas in the Far East.

Even if it were established that our bases are not needed for the defense of Japan—and General Taylor apparently is not even raising this question—there would still be strong political reasons for moving with great caution in reducing their size and number, because any action of this sort would be likely to make the Japanese feel that we were abandoning them and would thus encourage a movement toward neutralism or alignment with the Communist camp. Without doubt such action would seriously damage the position of the present pro-American conservative leadership in Japan, and it probably would set in motion a train of adverse reactions here that could not be easily stopped. Parenthetically, I might add that any drift of the Japanese away from us would have serious repercussions in Okinawa which would, in my opinion, seriously impair the value of our bases there.

I could say a great deal more about the grave political as well as military consequences to Japan and to our whole position in the Far East if any decision were taken to cut down significantly on our bases here. The main point I wish to make, however, is that, if such a decision were taken without due consideration of the military and political bearing of these bases on Japan’s future, it would indeed be a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

In view of the sensitivity of the subject, I have discussed this letter only with John Emmerson,5 who concurs fully in it, but I am sure that there would be no essential disagreement anywhere in the Embassy on the points I have made.

Sincerely,

Ed
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 102.201/8-2261. Top Secret.
  2. General Jacob Smart, USAF, COMUSJAPAN.
  3. See Document 356.
  4. Not found.
  5. General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, USA.
  6. John K. Emmerson succeeded William Leonhart as Counselor of Embassy with the personal rank of Minister in July 1962.