740.00119 Control (Japan)/9–1745
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
At the request of Assistant Secretry of War McCloy, I called the President and directed his attention to the statement97 in today’s paper attributed to General MacArthur to the effect that he thought that it would be possible to garrison Japan with 200,000 regular troops and that hence it would be possible and would be the policy to return the soldiers taken from civilian life to the United States. The statement also quoted General MacArthur as saying that this was possible [Page 717] because he was going to use the Japanese Government to carry out the purposes of the occupation. The President broke in to say that he thought the statement was incorrect, would do a great deal of damage and was wholly uncalled for. I went on to say to the President that the War Department was sending a cable to General MacArthur ascertaining the facts regarding this statement. It wished to say in the cable that no such statements should be made by General MacArthur or any of his officers in the theater, that in the judgment of the War Department we could not rely upon garrisoning Japan with the number of troops stated and that the statement itself would greatly impair the efforts of the War Department to bring about an orderly replacement program through the continuation of the draft. It was stating also as a result of prior conversations with me that the State Department was much disturbed at this statement both because it gave a wholly erroneous impression of our policy in the occupation and would lead to the general belief throughout the East that American power in the Far East was being liquidated and that we intended to rely solely on Japanese good faith. I asked the President whether the War Department could add that this statement also caused him great concern and did not correctly reflect his policies.
The President replied that we could say this and make it as strong as we could. He stated that this was not his policy and that he intended to use as many men as were necessary to assure the complete carrying out of the surrender and the adoption of the policies which we had already outlined to General MacArthur. He added that he intended to see that the Army authorities in the theater carried out these policies.
I reported this conversation to Mr. McCloy who will draft the cable along the lines indicated. We agreed that neither the War Department nor the State Department should make any comment on this reported statement of General MacArthur until we had had a reply to this cable. We also agreed that upon receipt of such a reply we would consider what statement the War Department should make since that seemed to be the appropriate source of the statement unless the President wished to make it himself.
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