740.00119–Control (Japan)/3–149
Memorandum by Mr. Paul H. Nitze, Deputy to the
Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
(Thorp),
to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern
Affairs (Butterworth)
[Washington,] March 1,
1949.
I suggest that you read the attached memorandum1 on “The Hutchinson Reports on the Japanese
Deconcentration Program” which appears to me to make a great deal of
sense.
[Annex—Extract]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Recommendations
This Department recommends that:
- (1)
- The DRB should be instructed to broaden the principles
which it has adopted for the identification of excessive
concentrations, in order to insure that:
- (a)
- groups of companies related by horizontal ties
are separated, wherever the economic power of the
group is such as to constitute a threat to the
development of competitive enterprise; and
- (b)
- when a single company consisting of a number
of technologically unrelated lines constitutes a
threat to the development of competitive
enterprise because of the cumulative economic
power of these lines, such company is designated
as an excessive concentration.
- (2)
- After such changes are made in the principles of
implementation as are necessitated by (1) above, the DRB
should assist the HCLC and the FTC to assimilate and carry out the program
satisfactorily. It should then promptly withdraw from
any further interference in the decisions of these
Japanese agencies, in accordance with the requirements
of NSC 13/2.
- (3)
- Any revisions in Public Law 54 should be carefully
drafted in the light of the need, not only for the
prevention of restraints on competition in any one field
of industry, but also for the prevention of the regrowth
of the Zaibatsu form of control.
