Harvests became more abundant, as might be expected, but each year there were more small Nipponese to be fed. The lack of effective contraception was one explanation for this. Another was MacArthur’s public-health drives. Fewer people were falling ill; more were living longer. The Japanese had always been an extraordinarily clean race, but they hadn’t mastered modern hygiene. Murderous epidemics had swept through their islands from time to time. They accepted this as fate. SCAP didn’t. He created, first, a public-health section in the Dai Ichi, headed by Dr. Crawford Sams, an army physician, and then a ministry of health and welfare in Yoshida’s government. Sams conducted a national sanitation campaign, followed by a massive immunization and vaccination program. At the end of it, cholera had been wiped out; tuberculosis deaths were down by 88 percent, diphtheria by 86 percent, dysentery by 86 percent, and typhoid by 90 percent. In the first two years of the occupation, Sams estimated, the control of communicable diseases alone had saved 2.1 million Japanese lives—more than the country’s battle deaths during the war, over three times the number of Nipponese civilians killed in the wartime bombings, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The life expectancy of men had been increased by eight years and of women by nearly fourteen years, a phenomenon, in Sams’s words, that has been “unequaled in any country in the world in medical history in a comparable period of time.” Thus Japan joined the family of nations whose population problem has been exacerbated by science. To those still alive because of it, however, it was a pleasant problem to have, and later it would become subject to control by the Pill, IUDs, and abortion.107
Japanese schools taught dietary principles at MacArthur’s direction and served pupils balanced meals. But that represented only a fraction of the General’s educational effort. If the reform of Nippon was to last beyond the occupation, he knew, it must concentrate on the next generation. Gumbatsu indoctrination had reached into every classroom. In the entire country there had not been a single school superintendent, let alone a parent-teacher association. Everything had been controlled by a ministry of education in Tokyo, which had prescribed course schedules and approved all textbooks. MacArthur asked twenty-seven leading American educators, led by Dr. George D. Stoddard, the future president of the University of Illinois, to visit classrooms and make suggestions. He appointed a Marine Corps officer, Donald Nugent, to act upon their recommendations, and he personally drafted a new education bill. The public response provided the most impressive evidence of Japan’s awakening. An astonishing six million letters were mailed to delegates, urging them to support the bill, and another two million, bearing the same message, went to SCAP.108
After the Diet’s passage of the liberalized education law, Nugent and his Japanese advisers approved textbooks from which militaristic propaganda had been removed, and MacArthur established academic freedom as SCAP policy: “Teachers and educational officials who have been dismissed, suspended, or forced to resign for liberal or anti-militaristic opinions or activities will be declared immediately eligible for reappointment. Discrimination against any student, teacher or educational official on grounds of race, nationality, creed, political opinion or social position, will be prohibited. Students, teachers and educational officials will be encouraged in unrestricted discussion of issues involving political, civil and religious liberties. ” About all that was left of the prewar school system was rote learning of the complicated kanji characters. MacArthur seriously considered replacing them with anglicized romaji and then decided that the cultural jolt would be too great. As it was, Japanese parents were dismayed by the change in their children. The first perceptible shift came when a study revealed that fewer and fewer maturing Nipponese sought familial permission before marriage; they now felt free to make their own decisions. Then, eight years after V-J Day, Theodor Geisel (“Dr. Suess”) visited Japan and conducted a survey of pupil attitudes with the help of a hundred Japanese teachers. Children were encouraged to submit drawings of what they wanted to be when they had grown up. They received pictures of doctors, statesmen, teachers, nurses, trolley conductors, and even wrestlers, but only one had drawn a military officer. He wanted to be MacArthur.109
Nugent’s Civil Information and Education Section also kept an eye on the Japanese media. It is too much to expect that the Supreme Commander’s press policy would be wholly permissive, and in fact it was not. In the first months of the occupation a Tokyo daily tested his tolerance by running false stories of Allied atrocities during the war. SCAP struck back swiftly, issuing a code for journalists: “Nothing should be printed which might, directly or indirectly, disturb the public tranquility. . . . There shall be no destructive criticism of the Allied Forces of Occupation and nothing which might invite distrust or resentment of these troops.” That was reasonable then, but the trouble with inhibiting freedom of the press is that once a line has been drawn, excesses always follow. Nugent’s officers, acting as censors, were erratic, slow, and often inept. Inoffensive stories were frequently spiked for days, and then heavily cut; Nipponese reporters asking for explanations were curtly told that there would be none. Eventually controls were relaxed, but by then editors were censoring themselves; when in doubt, they did not publish. Although lèse majesté was no longer a crime, newspapers carefully refrained from running stories which might reflect on the emperor and the imperial court. Controversy, in short, was carefully avoided. American correspondents felt that there was another factor here, that MacArthur’s treatment of the press was being carefully watched by Japanese journalists, who concluded that the General believed authority should be treated with inordinate respect.
Radio was another matter. The General took the spoken word less seriously; he thought of the airwaves as vehicles for entertainment. Before the war, Japanese broadcasts had been neither informative nor colorful. Sixty percent of the programs had featured dull government speeches, followed by as much as ten minutes of dead air. MacArthur established the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, modeled after the BBC. The owners of Nippon’s five million radio sets paid a listener’s tax, and no advertising was permitted. Over half the programs were devoted to soap operas and popular music, Japanese and American, but news commentators were alert and impartial. Reports of cabinet changes were on the air three minutes after they had been announced to the Diet, followed by brief biographies. Public affairs were discussed on “Information Please,” “Twenty Questions,” and the “National Radio Forum.” In the beginning, street-corner interviews with passersby were dismal. Shocked Japanese told announcers that they had no opinions on current events, and that they wouldn’t divulge them to broadcasters if they did; it would be vulgar. Then they learned that Americans felt otherwise. Public-opinion polls—another innovation—recorded a shift. Presently men and women on the street were ashamed to be caught without an opinion on anything. “Twenty Questions” was receiving a thousand letters a day from listeners commenting on the views of interviewees and offering suggestions. Some wanted to know if the United States had such programs. It did, but none was as successful as, say, the JBC round table on romantic love versus arranged marriages, which involved millions of listeners and led to the setting up of receivers in public parks for those who didn’t own sets.
Live theater, which had always played a major role in shaping the opinions of the Japanese elite, was pitched at a higher level. Its producers adjusted to SCAP quickly. In the fifth month of his rule, MacArthur observed that the stage, which during the war had been “solely a military propaganda medium,” had now been “given liberal themes from which new educational plays can be drawn.” Most conspicuous by their absence were dramas praising Shinto virtues, though here, as elsewhere, the issue of what the defeated Nipponese were to believe in, what faiths would support them now, confronted the Supreme Commander with momentous questions. The answers were ambiguous, because MacArthur had never resolved his own relationship with God.
He believed in Him. He said: “The more missionaries we can bring out here and the more occupation troops
we can send home, the better.” Ten million Bibles were imported on his recommendation, and he credited SCAP with “the greatest spiritual revolution the world has ever known.” A second reading, however, reveals that he was talking about “the democratic concept.” He had always been evangelical about that, but it was scarcely a religion. Indeed, his objection to Shinto was that it was undemocratic; he didn’t mention its false idols. He said vaguely that “although I was brought up as a Christian and adhere entirely to its teachings, I have always had a sincere admiration for many of the basic principles underlying the Oriental faiths. Christianity does not differ from them as much as one would think. There is little conflict between the two, and each might well be strengthened by a better understanding of the other.”110
No serious theologian could endorse that. It was Rotarianism, Norman Vincent Peale-ism; a man with MacArthur’s intellect should have been reasoning on the level of Reinhold Niebuhr. And his affirmations of piety might have carried greater weight had he joined a congregation. Instead he had celebrated his own secular liturgy on battlefields, and now preached it in the Dai Ichi.
The Japanese were confused. They had accepted their new ruler, but couldn’t identify his creed. Therefore they adopted U.S. plastic mass-cult as a substitute, with jeans as cassocks, Tin Pan Alley tunes as hymns, and the almighty yen as their graven image. American salesmen visiting ancient Japanese temples found that a small fee entitled them to a dance by shrine virgins who weaved to the sound of muted flutes and recited interminable prayers for the welfare of General Motors, or United Fruit, or Hoover vacuum cleaners. This was not godly by the canons of any faith. Yet Douglas MacArthur was no worshiper of materialism. He could pray eloquently. On the second anniversary of Hiroshima, when a bell of peace was rung at the very spot where the bomb had exploded, he asked that “the agonies of that fateful day serve as a warning to all men of all races” that nuclear weapons “challenge the reason and the logic and the purpose of man. . . . This,” he said, “is the lesson of Hiroshima. God grant that it not be ignored.” MacArthur acknowledged a higher power. He was even capable of humility in its presence. But he never really came to terms with it. And that, perhaps, is why so many thought that he knelt only before mirrors.111
The wife of the man who emancipated Japanese women took her son to Episcopalian services every Sunday. It was her sole act of independence. Occasionally she would appear in public alone to attend a party, take a trip, or cut a ribbon to celebrate the revival of the silk industry, but only at his request. Even so, she cut short a five-day tour of the countryside with two staff officers after the third day because, she said, “Five days is too long to be away from the General.” She told a woman reporter, “My whole life is the General and our son, and I take care of them as best I can.” When others praised MacArthur she nodded vigorously and said, “You couldn’t be more right. I agree with anyone who says good things about my General.” To Jean marriage was bound by a sacred chain of command. Her husband had the responsibility. He made the decisions, and she obeyed, setting an example for everyone else and stifling any qualms she might have had.112
She had worried about flying into Atsugi with Arthur a few days after the Japanese surrender. MacArthur had been waiting for her at the bottom of the ramp. “Isn’t it dangerous?” she had whispered as he embraced her. He had smiled and said, “Not at all. ” And, of course, he had been right, although afterward she said she wouldn’t care to relive that first week. First they had stayed in the New Grand Hotel, then in a house owned by the Sun Oil Company on the Bluff, a cliff overlooking the capital, where they shared quarters with Dr. Egeberg, an interpreter, and the General’s military secretary. Finally the Supreme Commander took his wife and son to the embassy and told them this was to be their new home. He was delighted to find a portrait of George Washington inside. Coming to attention, he snapped a stiff West Point salute and said crisply: “General, it’s been a long time, but we finally made it.” He immediately jotted down a note to tell the DAR about the incident. (“It moved me more than I can say,” he would write the Daughters. Then he would describe, with precision, exactly how moved he had been.)113
Jean, on the other hand, felt near despair. The portrait appeared to be the only thing intact. Built fifteen years earlier and meant to impress the Japanese, the million-dollar embassy, which had been christened “Hoover’s Folly,” was a huge, white-walled, earthquake-proof structure, half Moorish, half pseudo-colonial. There were wrought-iron gates, a courtyard, a reflecting pool, a swimming pool, a consulate, and, in addition to the main building (the “Big House,” the MacArthur’ called it), two apartment houses for staff. Once it had been stately, but Eichelberger, who had been the first officer to inspect it, had warned them that a bomb had gone “through the roof,” that there was “enough water on the floor to make a wading pool,” and that the furnishings were “ruined.” It seemed almost beyond repair. Every room was stained and pocked with blockbuster fragments. Jean estimated that replacing the drapes in the normal way would cost at least five thousand dollars, and rugs even more. Outside, trees and shrubs in the formal garden had been denuded; even gray rocks had been shattered. The General said cheerily, “Do what you can to fix it up,” but she still felt overwhelmed; it looked so ponderous, so dirty, so barren. The boy, sensing her mood, tugged at her hand and asked, “Do we have to live here?” His father put an arm around him. “Brace up, Arthur,” he said. “Your mother will take care of us.” To Jean he said, “We’ll do simply here. There isn’t time for splendor.”114
But then Jean decided to make it splendid. She felt she had no choice. If you are going to live in a monument, she thought, you must live monumentally. She began by filling empty niches with Japanese obis, colorful sashes. Curtains were improvised, using bright native materials. Nipponese workmen laid carpeting. Linens were ordered from Hawaii. Nooks and crannies held jeweled cigarette boxes, lacquered fans, and hand-beaten silver; walls were hung with paintings and delicately painted screens. A red wicker rocker the General had liked was shipped from Brisbane. A round table in front of a fireplace, “Arthur’s whatnot,” held his toys, his wood-carving set, a little silver pipe like his father’s, his collection of tiny ivory figures, and another collection of porcelain animals. Japanese servants with names like Kuni-san and Kiyo-san were hired and outfitted with chocolate-brown kimonos bearing the Great Seal of the United States. One day the family’s Filipino houseboy identified a newspaper picture as that of a Japanese officer who had looted MacArthur’s Manila penthouse. He and Huff jeeped to Sugamo Prison, questioned the man, and recovered a hundred books. By Christmas the embassy was beginning to look like a home. Then Senator Homer Ferguson arrived on a fact-finding mission. Suspecting that taxpayers’ dollars were being wasted, he asked slyly, “Who owns this magnificent palace?” Sebald explained its history. “Well,” the senator sniffed, “it still looks pretty ritzy to me.” Jean didn’t know whether to be indignant or proud.115
Sid Huff and his new Australian wife, Keira, were installed in one of the apartments; Bowers, Bunker, and other aides in the rest. Jean set up household accounts and began doing the family banking. Like a monarch’s wife she reviewed parades on patriotic holidays, represented her husband as head of the Girl Scouts and Red Cross, and, occasionally, threw out the first ball at baseball games. At home, surrounded by roses, she would receive visiting dignitaries in the drawing room, pouring coffee from a large silver pot and slicing slabs of cake. Many left with the impression that she had little else to do. Actually she led an extremely busy life. Each day she had to supervise six meals, three for the General and herself and three for Arthur. She spent a lot of time standing in line at the bank and the post exchange. Others, recognizing her pert figure and a little felt hat she had liberated from the embassy attic, waved her to the front, but she always insisted on waiting her turn. She wouldn’t reserve items, and once, when she forgot her ID card, she went home to get it. “Mrs. MacArthur,” the PX manager told her, “you are
almost the only general’s wife in Japan who has never asked for special privileges.”116
Every evening she struggled over Arthur’s bath, and most days she found time for a game of Chinese checkers with Ah Cheu, who, being illiterate, had few diversions. But Jean’s duty to the General always came first. Because he hated telephoning, she would make most of his morning calls. She clipped newspapers and magazines for him. He never carried money; aides would pay and Jean would reimburse them. She awakened him at the end of his afternoon siesta, chose the six weekly films that were shown after dinner in the drawing room, Monday through Saturday, and, every evening, sat up yawning, sometimes as late as 1:00 A.M., while the General paced the hundred-foot hall, thinking out loud. Her final ritual each night was to check Arthur and, literally, tuck her husband in.117
She never adjusted to her celebrity status. Once while shopping she came upon a crowd waiting outside a building. An aisle had been left open from the doorway to the street; clearly someone important was about to emerge. Curious, she joined the throng and waited. Nothing happened. Because she was so small, smaller even than most Japanese, she was thrust to the front. There she spotted one of MacArthur’s officers. She asked who they were waiting for. He didn’t know, but said he’d find out. Presently he returned and whispered, “The people are expecting General MacArthur’s wife to come out.” Eyes twinkling, she went to the back of the building and came out the front, bowing as the confused spectators bowed back.118