Cablegram Following for the TOKYO, 12 July 1946, 4.55 p.m.
Minister from Macmahon Ball 10 [1]
SECRET IMMEDIATE
The 9th meeting of the Council held on July 10th (see my ACJ.20) in comparison with recent meetings showed distinct degeneration in tone and constructive results achieved. The first indication of this was conveyed in Atcheson’s reaction to my remarks on Item 1, integration of repatriates into the national life of Japan. I tried to make it as clear as possible that I felt this was a problem that could not be considered on its own, that task of finding work for soldiers was only part of the general unemployment problem and that the unemployment problem was only part of the larger economic one and could not be separated from either. But in [case we should appear to be folding] [2] our hands, I did put forward eight specific proposals that any practical, well-trained economist would readily think of to meet such a situation emphasising that they were incomplete measures and could not go to the heart of the problem. During most of the time I was talking Atcheson paid no attention but was turning over papers and talking with his State Department assistant. When I had finished he looked up and said that he could not understand my line of argument and expressed disappointment that no ‘specific and concrete’ proposals had been made. I handed him my list of proposals and asked that I be permitted to go on record as saying that I was surprised and disappointed at his attitude. Placing of [four] item[s] on the agenda on which no one but a technical expert could give acceptable advice and which appeared to raise no questions of vital policy is a move by S.C.A.P. which is difficult to fathom. The intention seems either to bog the Council down in a series of matters [of important] but routine administration in which it could only get further advice from S.C.A.P.’s own officers or by other authorities outside Japan or else to reduce its deliberations to absurdity either of which courses would have the same effect. Third disquieting aspect of the meeting was Atcheson’s revival of the charge that Derevyanko is using the Council for Communist propaganda activities. Programme of industrial reform he put forward was an extremely mild one and it was hard to escape the conclusion that a clumsy attempt was being made again to isolate the Russians at the expense of the Council’s dignity and of diplomatic usage.
_
1 See Volume IX, Document 298, note 1.
2 Material in square brackets has been corrected from the Tokyo copy on file A5104/2, 1/3/2.
_
[AA:A1838/238, 482/1/7]