Separate Peace?

For months, the argument had gone on quietly but insistently at Washington's topmost levels. Should the U.S. seek a peace treaty with Japan? Yes, said the State Department; the time had come to bring a sovereign Japan back into the free world. No, the Pentagon protested; the U.S. did not dare withdraw its occupation troops and leave Japan wide open to Communist aggression.

Last week President Truman announced that the argument was over. "It has long been the view of the U.S. Government that the people of Japan were entitled to a peace treaty which would bring them back into the family of nations," said Mr. Truman. ". . . The U.S. Government now believes that an effort should be made ... in this direction . . ."

The President's decision had the backing of General Douglas MacArthur (who holds that any military occupation outlives its usefulness after five years) as well as Republican Adviser John Foster Dulles who had been working on the treaty problem for the past four months. The U.S. would seek a peace treaty without economic or political restrictions or limits on Japan's rearmament for her own defense.

The Pentagon planners had also agreed to the decision on the understanding that the U.S. would negotiate a separate U.S.-Japanese agreement which would let sizable U.S. forces remain in Japan, as they will remain in Western Europe. Thus an independent Japan would continue to serve as the most important anchor of a U.S. Far Pacific defense necklace strung from the Philippines through Okinawa.

As a first step toward an early Japanese peace treaty, U.S. diplomats this week began discussing the subject with the other nations which fought in the Pacific war. One of these was Soviet Russia (one week at war with Japan), which had blocked every move toward a treaty by insisting on a Big Four veto over all proposals. But this time, the U.S. had decided to go around the Soviet roadblock. The word was that if Russia still refused to go along, the other Allies would negotiate a separate peace without Moscow's consent.

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