An Inoffensive Rearmament Read Free Page B

forces in Japan to stop the communist aggression. Moreover, anxious examination showed that we could expect no reinforcements from the United States for months. We had the atomic bomb, but we had no ground reserves.
    When the 7th finally embarked for Korea, there would be no ground troops left on Japan to protect the Japanese government and our bases from internal insurrection, let alone an attack from without. A nation of 90 million people had been completely disarmed. Its warships, aircraft, tanks, military transport, artillery, machine guns, and rifles had been committed to junk heaps. Even its officers’ samurai swords had been carted off as souvenirs in the baggage of our officers and enlisted personnel returning to the United States. The country was a military vacuum.
    Japan and America were at a critical crossroads. The situation called for bold and creative action. It was of little value now to debate whether we should have gone into Korea. The decision had been made, despite inadequate militarycapabilities. But the United States has always in its history been blessed with having the right man in the right place at the right time. So it was in June 1950. At this critical moment in our history, America had the only man who could have done what was necessary in Japan. For it is indeed doubtful that there was another man in the service of the United States except General MacArthur with the self-assurance, the self-conceit, and the moral courage to order the rearmament of Japan. This he did, contrary to international agreements at Potsdam, in violation of instructions from the Far Eastern Commission, in contradiction of the noble aspirations of the Japanese constitution, and with little help from his own government. 5

CHAPTER TWO

    JAPAN BEFORE KOREA
    International conflicts, like all violent human events, can result from conscious planning, provocative acts, or miscalculations. In 1950, it was probably that American miscalculations in the Cold War, which was then being waged between the United States and the Soviet Union, influenced a flow of events that precipitated the Korean War. Certainly the communists caught us completely by surprise. Yet if those responsible had been watching events as they unfolded in the world and hardened in Japan, we should not have been surprised.
    The forces that had held communist Russia in alliance with the Western nations were always under severe stress and strain. When Germany surrendered, the alliance came apart. The Cold War in Europe began the day the fighting war with Germany ended. Soviet communism overran Eastern Europe and pushed menacingly toward Greece. For a time, the United States hesitated, then on March 12, 1947, President Harry S Truman, in a bold move, announced what became known as the Truman Doctrine, declaring the determination of the Unites States to block Soviet communist expansion. Three months later, the Marshall Plan gave substance to our declaration. As the months went by, the United States became increasingly committed to using military power to carry out its foreign policy in Europe. Twelve nations, headed by Britain and France, rallied to our support, and on April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty, pledging “collective security of the North Atlantic Area,” was signed in Washington.
    On October 1, 1949, less than six months after the formation of NATO, the Red Chinese drove Chiang Kai-shek’s regime from the mainland of Asia, and Mao Tse-tung established a communist government in China. Herbert C. Hoover, former president of the United States, commenting on the situation in the Far East, posted the score in the Cold War as 400 million to zero, referring, of course, to the loss of 400 million Chinese to communism, a slight underestimation.
    In the months that followed, the Big Three foreign ministers (of the United States, Britain, and France) met to examine and ponder the world situation. With the formation of NATO, Europe seemed secure. In