chapter one

Reformulating the US-Japan Alliance

THE EVENTS OF JUNE 1960 in Japan caused an uproar in the United States. The protests in Japan made the front page of newspapers across the nation for several days in a row, with particular attention paid to the attack on James Hagerty’s car and, above all, the cancellation of President Eisenhower’s visit on June 16. Renowned Associated Press political reporter John M. Hightower declared the cancellation a “diplomatic catastrophe” that “threatens the future of the United States–Japan Alliance,” and James Reston, the respected New York Times political columnist, declared that “at best the United States has lost ‘Face’ in the Far East; at worst it has lost Japan”—a serious charge just a few years after Senator Joseph McCarthy had pilloried US government officials for “losing” China. Letters poured into newspapers around the country decrying the “insult” to America’s national pride and Republican congressman Craig Hosmer of California called for a nationwide boycott of Japanese goods.1
Eisenhower himself was reportedly outraged by Kishi’s cancellation of his invitation to Japan. According to a Washington Post reporter sitting close to Eisenhower at a parade in his honor in Manila, when the news of the cancellation was whispered to him, Eisenhower paled with rage, “clenched his teeth, thrust out his jaw, and uttered … a bit of Army language.” After all, Eisenhower had gambled on Kishi’s promise that the visit would be carried out without incident, despite months of mounting pressure from congressional Democrats to consider calling it off in light of the growing protest movement. Eisenhower had been determined to press on with the visit at all costs because he had touted becoming the first sitting US president to ever visit Japan as the replacement for his canceled trip to Moscow. As the new centerpiece of his “goodwill tour” of Asia, it was to have been the crowning achievement of his presidency and his final chance to burnish his legacy before leaving office.
Eisenhower’s political enemies sought to use the stunning turn of events to their own advantage. Senator Hubert Humphrey, Democrat of Minnesota, questioned why it had been necessary to rush through the ratification of the Security Treaty at a time of heightened Cold War tensions, and condemned the administration’s “lack of coordination on foreign and military policies.” Senate Majority Whip Mike Mansfield of Montana gave a speech on the Senate floor, calling for calm and counseling against a boycott of Japanese imports, but blaming Eisenhower’s lack of attention to foreign policy and mishandling of the U-2 crisis for fanning the flames of anti-Americanism in Japan. Meanwhile, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson pointedly reminded the press that “there have been serious reservations about the trip [to Japan] from the beginning” and declared, “It is evident that this is a time to re-examine our policies and to determine whether they are effective.”2 However, with just a few months remaining in his presidency, Eisenhower was in no position to reexamine policies or make major changes to the structure of the US-Japan relationship, and even less so was Kishi, having promised to resign by July 15. Accordingly, it would be up to the incoming John F. Kennedy administration to work with the newly installed Ikeda Hayato cabinet to reevaluate and rearticulate the fundamental compromises undergirding the US-Japan alliance.
US-Japan relations during the Kennedy and Ikeda administrations have been largely ignored by historians, thanks to a perception that nothing of great import happened between the two nations in the early 1960s.3 Both Kennedy and Ikeda had their time in power cut short by their untimely deaths, and the general historical consensus has been that both leaders rather uneventfully continued the policies they had inherited from Eisenhower and Kishi, which were in turn inherited and duly continued by their successors, President Lyndon Johnson and Prime Minister Satō Eisaku (Kishi’s younger brother). As one historian summarizes, these years
were not crucial years for Japanese-American relations; both parties were preoccupied with other affairs; the Japanese accented the building of their economy and the expansion of their [trade] connections.… The United States was involved in domestic turmoil related to civil rights and a presidential assassination and in foreign matters with the traumatic Cuban missile crisis, a deepening preoccupation with Vietnam, and assorted international issues like the nuclear test ban treaty.4
Under this interpretation, efforts by the two nations to repair the rift caused by the 1960 Security Treaty crisis, such as Kennedy’s unorthodox nomination of Harvard scholar Edwin O. Reischauer as ambassador to Japan, Ikeda’s 1961 visit to the United States, and the slogan of “equal partnership,” have typically been portrayed as merely rhetorical and symbolic gestures, smoothing over hurt feelings in a relationship that was otherwise fundamentally sound. A historian of Japan has written that “the prevailing image of Ikeda as being different from his predecessor does not square with the facts.… Taking into account not image but actual policies, Ikeda … did not differ so much from Kishi.” According to another historian, the Kennedy-Ikeda period could best be summarized by the phrase “Nothing of consequence transpired,” a phrase that described “not only … Reischauer’s five years in Tokyo, but … Kennedy’s foreign policy toward Japan. In the brief age of Camelot, Japan did not rate highly in American foreign policy,” and insofar as anything was accomplished with regard to US-Japan relations, “success was stylistic, not substantive.”5
This kind of assessment, despite its widespread acceptance, underestimates the transformative impact of the 1960 crisis. In fact, Kennedy and Ikeda oversaw a significant readjustment of the US-Japan relationship in response to the protests, achieving a foundational compromise whereby Japan staunchly supported US foreign policies throughout the world in exchange for protection of its economic access to US markets. This compromise moved the US-Japan alliance in the direction of much greater mutuality, and thus marked a fundamental shift from how it had functioned in the eight years since the end of the Occupation, under President Eisenhower.

From Brutal Proddings to “Equal Partnership”

In fairness, Eisenhower had long been a strong supporter of pro-Japan policies, albeit within the narrow frame of his Cold War worldview. In the rhetoric of the “domino theory” that became a hallmark of his administration’s foreign policy, Japan was a “mega-domino,” and Eisenhower worried aloud in public statements that “losing Japan” the way China had been “lost” would allow the Pacific Ocean to become a “communist lake.” In fact, Eisenhower’s personal lobbying of protectionist congressmen in his own Republican party was crucial to securing Japan’s entry into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) free trade system. Eisenhower also proved willing to adapt his policies toward Japan over time. In response to the Girard case, he played a key role in pushing for a reduction in US ground forces in Japan, and his support for revising the Security Treaty thereafter proved essential for securing a revision that significantly addressed major Japanese concerns. But despite Eisenhower’s personal record of sporadic but consistent support for Japanese interests, his administration, taken as a whole, tended to make major decisions affecting the course of the US-Japan alliance in a unilateral fashion, with little or no consideration for Japanese feelings or any real effort to seek Japanese input in a genuinely consultative manner. This disinterest reflected a belief, as expressed by Eisenhower’s first ambassador to Japan, John Allison, that “they need us at least as much if not more than we need them.” As a result, the inequalities of the US-Japan relationship were constantly highlighted, and Japanese from across the political spectrum felt increasingly oppressed by American policies and alienated from their own leaders, insofar as they continued to support the American line.6
Part of America’s image problem arose from the fact that Eisenhower preferred to keep his distance from the diplomatic process and leave the majority of face-to-face dealings with the Japanese to his brusque secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Dulles had been Harry Truman’s leading advisor on Japanese affairs during the final years of the US Occupation, and was the primary architect of the “unequal” 1952 Security Treaty that spawned so much resentment in Japan. Dulles therefore retained much of the Occupation mind-set in his dealings with Japan, and also proved staunchly opposed to any revision of the treaty he had designed. When Japanese foreign minister Shigemitsu Mamoru requested a meeting with Dulles in April 1955 to discuss possible revision of the treaty, the secretary of state refused to even meet with him. When Dulles finally consented to a meeting in Washington in August, the American account recorded him bluntly telling Shigemitsu that discussion of treaty revision was “premature” because Japan lacked “the unity, cohesion, and capacity to operate under a new treaty arrangement.” Future prime minister Kishi, who was a member of the delegation and present at the meeting, recalled with bitterness,
Finally, after we had spoken with Secretary of State Dulles about a variety of issues regarding US-Japan relations, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu hesitatingly said, “We feel that the current US-Japan Security Treaty is not very suitable, and we would like to hear your thoughts on the possibility of revising it into a more equal treaty.” In response Secretary Dulles just snorted, “Is the Japan of today powerful enough [to make such a request]?” and rejected Japan’s proposal right there on the spot.7
On a later occasion, when US Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur II cabled Dulles and conveyed now–prime minister Kishi’s overtures on the possibility of treaty revision, Dulles gruffly cabled back his “concern” that humoring Kishi on treaty revision might “build up unwarranted expectations” and advised MacArthur to “consider the desirability of seeking less frequent meetings” with the prime minister. Meanwhile, Dulles was not shy about pressing his own demands on his Japanese counterparts. In particular, he made it a personal crusade of sorts to pressure Japanese leaders into increasing defense spending, constantly lecturing Japanese ambassadors and foreign ministers on the subject using, in his own words, “proddings approaching the brutal.”8
With such a point man, it was no surprise that the course of US-Japan relations did not always run smoothly during the Eisenhower years. The situation was not helped by the fact that Eisenhower had Dulles meet with Japanese delegations even when they came to Washington, D.C., the unavoidable implication being that they were not important enough to be worth the president’s own time. It was Dulles who played the lead role in negotiations with Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru in November 1954 and with Kishi in September 1957, with Eisenhower appearing only briefly for rounds of golf and handshaking. It was not until Kishi’s second trip to Washington in January 1960, with the treaty signing requiring Eisenhower’s presence and Dulles having passed away the year before, that Eisenhower had significant face-to-face discussions with a Japanese prime minister for the first and last time.
Another symbol of the Eisenhower administration’s dismissive approach to Japanese interests was a consistent refusal to even consider repeated requests by the Japanese to establish a joint US-Japan commission to consult on economic issues. Pressured by persistent demands from Japanese business leaders, Yoshida had repeatedly pressed for the creation of such a committee, as did Kishi, but even Kishi, during his final visit to Washington in January 1960, “could not disabuse Eisenhower and his top advisors of the entrenched Republican credo that economic affairs were best handled by private-sector groups.” In a meeting with Kishi on January 19, the new secretary of state, Christian Herter, once again dismissed suggestions for a joint government committee by citing vague concerns about American anti-trust laws, and would only allow for the possibility of private business leaders setting up some sort of committee on their own, outside government control.9
As supercilious as Dulles and Herter could be, Eisenhower’s second ambassador to Japan, Douglas MacArthur II, was possibly even more imperious. In a conversation with Eisenhower toward the end of his tenure, MacArthur told the president that he had come to consider the Japanese a “great people” but even after four years in Japan found them “difficult to understand, being so different from us.” He routinely laced his cables with derogatory language toward his Japanese counterparts and insults directed at various Japanese public figures, such as calling the president of Tokyo University “rodent-like” for voicing support for student protesters, and became infamous for summoning Japanese leaders to the US embassy in Tokyo and subjecting them to lengthy, monological harangues.10
By the end of his stay in Japan, MacArthur’s approach to diplomacy was increasingly viewed by the State Department as a potential liability. In June 1960, Herter telephoned Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs John Steeves to air his concern that “MacArthur might perhaps be going a little too far in telling the Japanese what they ought to do.” Steeves responded that the Far Eastern Affairs Bureau shared Herter’s concerns. The bureau, he said, “had gotten use[d] to MacArthur working in this manner,” but he agreed that “we should keep an eye on this to make sure MacArthur doesn’t get too far out on a limb.”11
An editorial in the leading Japanese news daily Asahi upon the occasion of MacArthur’s final departure from Japan sounded a similar note. While thanking MacArthur for his efforts and conceding he had been ambassador to Japan during a difficult period in US-Japan relations, the editorial concluded on a strongly critical note:
If we had to say which, the Ambassador was the type who, rather than listening to what Japanese people had to say, preferred to lecture them.… Among Japanese people, however, the feeling that “silence is golden, eloquence is silver” is quite strong. Even when your opinion is requested, and especially when the matter at hand does not concern you, the strong tendency is to consider the other person’s feelings and choose one’s words carefully. In order to increase understanding between Japan and America, and especially between individual Japanese and individual Americans, going forward it would seem important to mutually reflect upon this ideal and more cooperatively strive to attain it.12
The Eisenhower administration’s policies, particularly the emphasis on securing Japan’s entry into free trade agreements, had played a significant role in facilitating Japan’s postwar recovery. However, an enduring Occupation mind-set and a resulting dismissive or even imperious attitude in conducting relations with Japan left many Japanese feeling bullied and belittled. Although the vast majority of Japanese were not fundamentally anti-American in outlook, the glaring lack of mutuality in the US-Japan securit...