MacArthur Sought Soviet Entry In War

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27795, 21 October 1955, Page 13

MacArthur Sought Soviet Entry In War

(Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, October 19. The United States Defence Department today issued secret Pacific war reports, which challenged General Douglas MacArthur’s claim that he was opposed to the Soviet Union entering the final phase of the war against Japan. Defence officials said that the reports did not conclusively settle the question of General MacArthur’s <jew on the Soviet entry in the Pacific war. The department said “various aspects” were handled by other agencies. General MacArthur’s views were expressed in formal conferences, which, the Defence Department said, he held with two high United States planning officers while the Big Four allies were planning the end of the European campaign against Germany and reviewing strategy for the final blow against Japan. One of these officers, BrigadierGeneral George Lincoln, was sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Far East to inform General MacArthur of the military results of the Yalta conference, when Soviet participation in the Japanese war was discussed. General Lincoln reported in a memorandum to General George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, that General MacArthur had told him: “From the military standpoint, we should make

every effort to get Russia into the Japanese war before we go into Japan, otherwise we will take the impact of the Jap divisions and reap the losses, while the Russians, in due time, advance into an area free of major resistance.”

In another report to General Marshall, Colonel Paul Freeman, a War Department operations officer, said: “He (General MacArthur) emphatically stated that we must not invade Japan proper unless the Russian Army is previously committed to action in Manchuria. “He said this was essential, and that it should be done without the three months’ delay upon the conclusion of the defeat of Germany, as intimated by Marshal Stalin to the President.

“He said that it was only necessary for action to commence in Manchuria to contain that force of Japanese in order to make possible our invasion of Japan and the rapid conclusion of the war. “He understands Russia’s aims: that they would want all of Manchuria, Korea, and possibly part of North China. This seizure of territory was inevitable, but the United States must insist that Russia pay her way by invading Manchuria at the earliest possible date after the defeat of Germany.” The Defence Department reports said that after the Yalta conference, increased Soviet co-operation in plan-,

ning strategy for the Far East did not materialise. In addition, serious difficulties with the Soviet Union were met in Europe about the governments of liberated nations in Eastern Europe, and other problems. It was in this atmosphere that the Joint Chiefs of Staff themselves concluded that “Soviet entry into the war was no longer considered necessary” to make an invasion of Japan feasible. There was no record in the reports of any suggestion that General MacArthur had changed his view that a Soviet commitment in the Far East war was essential. The records, released today, dealt at length with the military planning for an invasion of Japan and political and strategic policies in the Far East after the surrender of Nazi Germany in May, 1945. The report noted briefly that atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as an ever-tighten-ing sea and air blockade, led _to Japan’s surrender without an invasion of the homeland.