Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI, Part 1

794.0221/12–1151

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Charles A. Fraleigh of the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs

secret

[Washington,] December 11, 1951.¹

Subject: The Administrative Agreement with Japan

Participants:	General Hamblen—Department of Defense
	Mr. Earl Johnson—Department of Defense
	Mr. Nash—Department of Defense2
	Mr. Young—Department of Defense3
	Mr. Dean Rusk—FE
	Mr. U. A. Johnson—FE
	Mr. C. A. Fraleigh—NA

Timing

Mr. Rusk proposed that an executive department position on the Administrative Agreement be reached by the end of December, that the first two weeks of January be used for talks with members of Congress on the terms of the Agreement, and that negotiations with the Japanese be commenced in the middle of January. The effort will be made to complete the negotiation before ratification of the Peace Treaty by the Congress. The representatives of the Defense Department had no objection to this time table although they recognized that it was an extremely tight one.

Form of Agreement

Mr. Rusk stated the proposal which he and General Hamblen had discussed with General Ridgway,⁴ for the treatment of “Annex A”.⁵ In view of the fact that requirements of the United States security forces for facilities and areas in Japan would never be static, it was considered desirable to make no attempt to specify in the Administrative Agreement these facilities and areas. Instead it was proposed that Article I of the Agreement provide that specific facilities and areas be determined by the two Governments in consultation through the Joint Committee provided for in the Agreement. There would be a letter of instruction to the Committee—perhaps not to be made public—which would state the principles governing the Committee in determining the facilities and areas to be used. In other words questions of policy affecting the choice of facilities and areas would be handled on a governmental level, while the designation of particular facilities and areas would be determined on a military level by the Committee.

Assumptions on which the Agreement is to be Based

There was a discussion of the question whether the Agreement should be drafted on the assumption that hostilities have terminated in Korea and on the assumption that the strength of our forces in Japan shall be increased to five divisions. The representatives of the Defense Department seemed to think that the continuance of hostilities in Korea could not be disregarded in the planning. In that event, it was the feeling of the State Department representatives, that it would be unrealistic to assume an increased strength of U.S. forces in Japan. It seemed to be generally conceded that perhaps the best approach was merely to assume present conditions and to work out principles for the disposition of the forces now in Japan.

Main Issues between State and Defense

Mr. Rusk stated that the two main issues could be described as “downtown Tokyo and the dependents”.

On the question of dependents Mr. Rusk referred to the estimates from Tokyo that there would be 100,000 dependents in Japan requiring approximately 42,000 housing units. Mr. Nash apparently was strongly opposed to the sending of large numbers of dependents to Japan both on the ground of the cost and on the ground of the problem of evacuation in the event of hostilities. Mr. Earl Johnson, however, emphasized the morale problem and the difficulty of rotating troops fast enough in Japan to make it possible to send military personnel to Japan without their dependents. All agreed that the problem of dependents was world wide and that decisions had not yet been reached on the sending of dependents to the NATO countries.

Principles Applicable to the Determination of the Facilities and Areas to be Used by the United States Forces

Mr. Rusk presented to the representatives of the Defense Department copies of his memorandum on the principles derived from foreign policy considerations applicable to post treaty arrangements for U.S. forces in Japan.⁶ There was a discussion of the following item in the memorandum:

Location of FEC headquarters. It was recognized by both State and Defense representatives that this was one of the difficult issues. Mr. U. A. Johnson mentioned the possibility that headquarters might be established in some place like Pershing Heights which was the former Japanese war ministry. The representatives of the Defense Department were shown a map of the downtown Tokyo metropolitan area, on which were indicated all the buildings now held by the occupation forces.

Jurisdiction over United States Forces

Mr. Rusk stated that State was working on a possible addition to its draft of the jurisdictional provision in which Japan would recognize that administrative convenience and cordial relations would be served, in the usual case, if each government undertook to maintain discipline and to punish violations on the part of its own nationals, in consultation with the other.

General Hamblen recalled that in Italy there had been a hard and fast rule that the Italian Government could exercise jurisdiction over American military forces, but that as a matter of practice, offenders were always turned over to U.S. authorities for punishment.

[Other?] Plans for Negotiation of Agreement

General Hamblen stated that he thought that General Ridgway expected to negotiate not only for the designation of specific areas and facilities, but also for the other terms of the Administrative Agreement. The other representatives of the Defense Department thought that it would not be appropriate for General Ridgway to act as negotiator for the general provisions of the Administrative Agreement. Mr. Rusk suggested that during the course of this week State and Defense put together a joint draft of the Administrative Agreement, and forward this agreement to General Ridgway stating that it was the type of agreement which we proposed to negotiate and ask him for his comments.

General Hamblen stated that both Generals Hickey and Ridgway insisted that the military alone negotiate the terms of Annex A, or its equivalent.

Mr. Rusk referred to General Ridgway’s concern that SCAP’s position might be undermined if negotiations were conducted by other representatives of the U.S. Government. In order to preserve SCAP’s position, it was planned that General Ridgway would write a letter to the Japanese Government authorizing that Government to negotiate the administrative agreement with the designated representatives of this Government.

Program for Action

It was agreed that the effort should now be made to compare State and Defense drafts of the Administrative Agreement and to work out a joint draft.⁷ Mr. Young presented a copy of the latest version of the Defense draft.⁸ It was arranged that General Hamblen would get in touch with Mr. Rusk about meetings to work out the joint draft.

1. Memorandum drafted December 12. It bears this marginal note: “OK as amended D[ean] R[usk].”
2. Frank C. Nash, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.
3. Kenneth T. Young, Assistant to the Acting Director, Office of Foreign Military Affairs.
4. Apparently during Mr. Rusk’s visit to Tokyo, November 21–27. Records of these discussions have not been found in Department of State files.
5. No draft list of facilities and areas to be utilized by U.S. forces in Japan has been found attached to any Department of State or Defense draft of the Administrative Agreement made during 1951.
6. Not found in Department of State files.
7. See the draft under date of December 21, p. 1454.
8. Apparently the draft cited in footnote 3, p. 1405.