It was nerve-wracking, but the two American officials kept their composure. After all, the ambassador had been a prisoner of the Nazis for 16 months and had escaped with his life. And the president's aide was a tough ex-newsman. What were a few rioters to men like them?

The night of June 10, 1960 could hardly have been less hospitable to the state dignitaries. It was a monumental affront to the ambassador, his important visitor and to the president of the U.S. But Tokyo was different then--the nights were often marked by the sound of loud voices and marching feet. In fact, for one month in 1960, throngs of citizens were fighting in the streets. The Diet was the center of a city under siege in the largest mass action Tokyo had ever seen--involving hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, thousands of police, and more thousands of right-wing vigilantes.

When the smoke cleared, the protesters had reason for a subdued celebration. The president's visit was canceled, and the downfall of the Japanese prime minister waited in the wings. It would be many more years before another U.S. president would make his way across the Pacific.

The spark that set off the melee was the Anzen Hosho Joyaku--the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that gave the U.S. the right to maintain armed forces in post-Occupation Japan. It was highly controversial. Seen by many Japanese as a blow to the independence of their fledgling democracy, it was an essential agreement for U.S. authorities desperate to contain the spread of communism. While the action on the streets and in the backrooms was primarily a Japanese drama, the subtext of U.S. involvement is clear from the communications that flew between Tokyo and Washington. The man responsible for helping shepherd the agreement on its protracted journey through the public consciousness to acceptance was the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo.

Douglas MacArthur II was a skilled diplomat, but he would most likely never have reached the heights he did without the famous name of his uncle, General Douglas MacArthur. Soon after the war, he had become Dwight Eisenhower's international adviser in Europe. When Ike became president, he appointed loyal Douglas II to the State Department, where he rose to become consigliere to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Here was a man Dulles could depend on to promote his hard-line, anti-Communist post-war policies without flinching. In 1957, at 48-years-old, with the recommendation of Dulles, Douglas MacArthur II became Ambassador to Japan.

If some believed that he was the scion of the General, there was some basis for the misunderstanding. There was more than a little physical resemblance. And some unflattering British reports spoke of an apparently inherited MacArthur trait of answering questions with one-hour monologues. Said one confidential message to Whitehall: "I was warned . . . that MacArthur tended to address his visitors as if they were at a public meeting but what we got was even worse than I had expected."

Associates of the ex-ambassador refuse to go on the record about him, though one did note that MacArthur was "a strong-minded, conservative, strong-willed, intelligent" man who did not change his mind very often. In other words, the perfect man for Dulles' job. To some, it seemed that he had his mind made up for him. According to former U.S. Ambassador Edwin Reischauer, MacArthur's fortune's in Japan were tied so closely to the faction of then Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi that the U.S. Embassy was essentially a closed shop.

MacArthur doesn't deny his ties to Kishi. He told Dulles in 1957 that, "in Kishi, we have at last an able leader of Japan." And they spent considerable time together. "We had a warm, close, personal relationship," says MacArthur today. "We had regular dinners to which, unlike the Japanese custom, we brought our wives."

The treaty that MacArthur was in charge of was only one of many containment policy treaties for the U.S. There was NATO and SEATO and some agreements with just about anyone else who would countenance an American military presence.

But Japan was of special strategic importance. Japan was the Stopper in the Bottle, the base from which to keep the Soviet Pacific fleet trapped and the Chinese contained. Though the Occupation had formally ended in 1952, Japan had remained in a semi-occupied state under the terms of the Security Treaty of 1951. How else could you explain such provisions as U.S. ownership of Okinawa and the Ryukyus, the right to intervene militarily in Japanese internal matters, and the right to mandate Japan's foreign treaties?

Now the U.S. was desperate to have the new treaty ratified, and it offered several concessions to Japanese integrity, including consultation with the Japanese government before making any military moves in or based out of Japan. But the essential character--American troops, partial occupation and control over foreign treaties--remained unchanged. Fifteen years after hostilities ended, the treaty would uphold the U.S. stance as Japan's big brother and effectively keep Japan off the global political stage.

Recently declassified cables reveal that by 1959 the U.S. government saw the signing of the treaty as a public relations problem, not a military or political one. In a December 14, 1959 cable to U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter, MacArthur wrote of a secret meeting with a Foreign Ministry official. The cable read: "If public impression in Japan is created that we would without Japanese consent introduce military weapons or . . . initiate combat . . . there will be immediate defections in LDP, collapse of Kishi government and treaty will be defeated in Diet."

Kishi's cabinet was trying to create the impression that Japan had control of the U.S. military on its soil, a patent untruth. The pretense at sovereignty may have bothered Kishi, but he was a man who knew where the power was. A Class A war criminal, wartime Vice Minister of Munitions, admirer of Nazi Germany--when a U.S. scholar asked Kishi why he changed his mind about Americans, Kishi looked at the man as if he were mad. "Because you won the war, you fool!" he said.

And so on January 19, 1960, Kishi sat in the White House across from Eisenhower and Herter and MacArthur and signed the document. Such a task was ordinarily the work of a foreign minister, but Kishi, wrote MacArthur, was making the "treaty his own personal vehicle and instrument of third-term candidacy." Both parties then issued a bland joint communiqué which: "declared that this close relationship is essential to the achievement of peace in justice and freedom . . ."

Peace, justice and freedom are nice, of course, but Kishi was undoubtedly also moved by a few tangibles. Among other things, the U.S. administration gave him a Y3 billion relief from funds owed for US military costs. That was only the open payoff. As recent revelations have shown, the LDP regularly hit up the Embassy for amounts ranging from $1 million to $15 million that were handled by the CIA.

The "Friendly, Savvy Salesman from Japan," Newsweek called Kishi in their January 25 issue. Time even featured him on their cover. The day following the signing, it was announced that President Eisenhower and Prince Akihito would exchange official visits, and that Ike would arrive in Japan around June 20.

This schedule was a bigger deal than most Americans imagined. No U.S. president had ever visited Japan while in office. Further, the visits were set to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the posting of the first Japanese ambassador to the US. It would be a symbol of the two countries letting bygones be bygones; a show of equality at a time when they had just agreed to be anything but equals.

Detailed messages flew from Tokyo to Washington over matters as large as protocol in the Imperial Palace, and as small as the Stag Dinner for senior staff. Background articles were prepared, the motorcade route was plotted. Even a choreographed visit to the Sony plant was planned, ending with a performance of the company song.

MacArthur himself saw to much of the detail. On April 20, he cabled Herter: "The American-Japan Society has asked Ambassador informally if President Eisenhower would be willing to donate a permanent golf trophy known as `President Eisenhower's Cup.' USIS has funds available to purchase an adequate permanent cup and Ambassador recommends White House concurrence."

MacArthur was to make other critical decisions: "Assumption correct that `white dinner jacket' means white tuxedo of sack coat length as noted in revised briefing book," he wrote in another missive. "Weather may be cool or unseasonable here and it was agreed with advance party that, if so, black dinner jackets would be worn to Imperial banquet and President's dinner."

Luckily, MacArthur found the time to watch the ratification proceedings of the Diet. In February, he met privately with Kishi to discuss the possibility of having to dissolve the Diet and call new elections to guarantee passage. Kishi apparently wasn't entirely sanguine about the idea, but he did agree to do whatever necessary to get the treaty through and ensure "his firm policy of alignment with the U.S. and the free world."

Still, MacArthur seemed to be more annoyed than disturbed by what seemed to be growing opposition to the pact. In a confidential cable to Secretary of State Herter, the ambassador complained that many Japanese wished to steer clear of the Cold War entirely. "This widespread form of latent neutralism," he wrote, "is fed on anti-militarist sentiments, pacifism, fuzzy-mindedness, nuclear neuroses and Marxist bent of Japanese intellectuals and educators."

MacArthur's downplaying of the leftist threat to his treaty is puzzling. In March, 1959, more than a year prior to the scheduled visits, a coalition called the Ampo Joyaku Soshi Kokumin Kaigi, or People's Council for Preventing Revision of the Security Treaty, had been formed containing every left-of-center group--and then some. It was known to most Japanese as "Ampo."

Ampo included labor, education, peace, women's and Marxist groups. There was the Japan Anarchists' League and the Executive Committee of the Japan Group Singing Association. The largest and most powerful group was Sohyo, the socialist labor federation, and the main support of the Japan Socialist Party. Then there was Japan Communist Party and the leftist arm of the student movement known as Zengakuren. In all there were 137 known groups in the coalition, with regional councils in all 46 prefectures, representing millions of people.

By the early spring of 1960, the anti-treaty forces had been demonstrating for nearly a year and were gathering steam. Historian George Packard III was, he wrote, "impressed less by the intensity of the attacks of the left wing than by the shift of the moderates . . . to the opposition."

But Kishi and MacArthur forged ahead: the former with ratification plans; the latter with presidential visit preparations. Perhaps one reason that both seemed to misjudge the depth of the opposition was the fact that, in the 1950s, labor and the left were often in the streets, on issues ranging from wages to nuclear testing. And, as hard as it is to believe now, the press in 1960 was actually an opposition press, constantly haranguing the government--though with little effect.

On the morning of May 19, 1960, Kishi and the LDP put a plan in motion that would render the Socialists helpless and ratify the treaty. The moves took place in short succession: The Speaker tried to close debate. The Socialists left the room in disgust, returning shortly to stage a sit-in. Sohyo then amassed 15,000 demonstrators outside the Diet building, after which the LDP called the police.

It was a melee. Most of the 128 JSP members, as well as some of the DSP representatives, sat in. Four police converged on each socialist diet member and carried them out of the chambers. Just after midnight, with the Socialists locked out, the remaining LDP members voted to accept the Treaty.

MacArthur today vehemently disagrees with this version of events. "The police were never called," he says. "The JSP members walked out of their own accord. They told the media the police had been called and that's what was written. But then, we knew that 55 percent of Asahi Shimbun's staff were Communist Party members."

Kishi's scheme drove the Ampo coalition, the entire media and much of the public into a rage. The following day, 300 Zengakuren members broke down the gate at Kishi's official residence and battled police while others surrounded his home in Nampeidai. Meanwhile, 20,000 students circled the Diet, chanting "Kill Kishi!" He and his faction had not only violated the cardinal Japanese principle of consensus, but had literally rubbed the opposition's face in it. The Asahi Shimbun called it, "The LDP and Government's Undemocratic Act." Even the conservative papers criticized the PM for his "tyranny of the majority."

But Kishi was not one to let something like public opinion interfere with his work. It was he, after all, who said that the only thing worth reading in Japanese newspapers was the sports pages. Now he had the last laugh; his opponents were left with a fait accompli--and they could do nothing but howl in frustration. There was only one question that remained. Would he be able to pull off the Eisenhower visit in the face of the storm of anger?

Inside the embassy, all was calm. "We were never worried about our personal safety," says MacArthur. "Even demonstrators continued to bow to me when I passed in my limousine, and, of course, I bowed to them."

But by this time MacArthur was unable to deny the increasing vehemence of the opposition. On June 8, he cabled the Secretary of State with his assessment of the situation. "We must expect strong demonstrations against President by pro-Communist groups, including Socialist Party, Sohyo, Nikkoso (sic), and various Communist-front groups in line with Moscow's hard line." But he quickly came to a more optimistic conclusion: "However, overwhelming majority of Japanese people are friendly to US and appreciate great assistance we have given them since end of war which helped them so greatly in the reconstruction."

Two days later in the official limousine, with the windows smashed and the ranting crowd tossing the vehicle like a toy, MacArthur may not have felt so optimistic. He had gone to Haneda to meet Eisenhower's press secretary and close confidant, James Campbell Hagerty, who was on a junket to iron out official details of the presidential visit.

Photos and film images flashed around the world of the Americans sitting stoically through the attack. Miraculously--perhaps--neither man was touched. "There was no attempt," said one report, "to open the doors or to harm those inside after the first stoning." Hagerty, MacArthur and party survived until police cleared the demonstrators and a U.S. military helicopter arrived to lift the Yanks to safety. However, they still had to elude a crowd of 8,000 demonstrators milling around the U.S. Embassy.

Hagerty lost no time denouncing the demonstrators, most of whom, he said, were "singing the Internationale." At press conferences, he expressed tight-lipped outrage and a sense of betrayal. Recent documents suggest, however, that he was unsurprised--he had deliberately planned to stand up to, if not provoke the crowds. He and other U.S. officials knew perfectly well what lay in store.

For 10 days there had been big, loud demonstrations that verged on mayhem. Two days before his arrival, MacArthur had cabled the Secretary of State to observe: "Zengakuren will make major effort to create unpleasant demonstrations against Hagerty when he arrives here Friday and there will not be restraints on such demonstrations that there would be on similar demonstrations against President."

MacArthur today remembers advising Hagerty to skip the car and take a helicopter, but Hagerty demurred. "I was eventually convinced," he says, "that we had to run the gauntlet as a test of what might happen to Eisenhower."

Afterward, at a press conference, Hagerty was asked, "Were you not warned that the roads were blocked?"

He answered bluntly: "We knew that there were going to be demonstrations. We were told when we got off the airplanes. But again, I remind you that in a democratic country, and as representatives of my country, we were going to go through with the routine if we could . . ." He made his point: the Americans could not and would not back down. (Later, in an unprecedented show of chutzpah, Hagerty charged the Japanese government $1,882.62 for the damage to the helicopter, and Y130,700 for bodywork on the car.)

Kishi was busy with other things, such as surreptitiously--and unconstitutionally--using the army to contain the demonstrations. According to a declassified Secret Navy Department message from Tokyo to the Chief of Naval Operations dated June 15: "Service and support elements GSDF [Ground Self-Defense Forces] reported committed to police effort and wearing police uniforms. JDA [Japan Defense Agency] and SDF officials now confident security measures for Presus [President of the US] visit adequate. . ."

Adequate, perhaps. But even with the army disguised as policemen, it was still possible that something could go wrong. So Kishi called on some very close allies: the rightists and the yakuza. One such rightist group, the New Japan Council, had been organized by Kishi himself in 1958. But for the real fighting in the trenches, the LDP approached the All-Japan Council of Patriotic Organizations, a melange of fire breathing rightists and yakuza. Then Kishi turned to a fellow inmate from his days as an imprisoned war criminal; the former ultranationalist and powerful fixer, Yoshio Kodama.

Kodama organized a joint public-private venture. He would supply 18,000 yakuza, 10,000 tekiya street vendors and 10,000 rightists and veterans to line the parade route. The government, in turn, would provide light spotter aircraft, trucks and cars, medical supplies and food, and Y800 million in operational funds.

MacArthur was evidently given something of a sanitized version of the security precautions, for he cabled Washington saying that, in addition to police, there would be Boy and Girl Scouts as well as friendly adults lining the parade route. These, he said, "will be in sufficiently great numbers to overwhelm any unfriendly demonstration and will ensure that [the] president receives [a] proper welcome."

But if scouts and friendly adults weren't enough, said MacArthur, ". . . 30,000 young men of various athletic organizations strongly opposed to Zengakuren are being issued arm bands for identification and will, if required, assist police."

Was MacArthur privy to the plan to deputize thugs and thieves as presidential security officers? It's hard to believe that the ambassador couldn't tell a yakuza from an athlete or a Boy Scout, but perhaps he was blinded by hope.

Everything exploded on June 15.

That summer evening, approximately 20,000 demonstrators charged the 5000 police defending the Diet building. The protesters were armed with sticks and stones, and the police beat them back with tear gas and fire hoses. A number of rightists, many of them followers of ultranationalist Bin Akao, joined in the melee. It was the most serious clash so far, and by the time the two sides pulled back to lick their wounds, nearly a thousand people had been injured and a Tokyo University student named Michiko Kanba was dead. The casualties were attributed not to police, but to the organized rightists. The next day, June 16, an estimated 70,000 students and unionists snake danced through the Ginza at rush hour, carrying red flags with black mourning streamers attached. On June 17, Kishi backed down. Fearing more deaths and even greater embarrassment, he withdrew his invitation to the U.S. president.

Eisenhower, who was on the cruiser USS St. Paul in the Philippine Sea headed for Taiwan and then on to Japan, was said to be "deeply shocked," and the presidential party "plunged into gloom" by the turn of events. MacArthur disagrees, saying that Eisenhower took it very well.

In any event, it was not a great day in U.S.-Japanese relations, but U.S. officials were quick to search for a scapegoat. A cable from MacArthur to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow read: "We need soonest repeat soonest appropriate quotations from Pravda, Izvestia or any other Soviet sources . . . indicating that Communists are at heart of demonstrations in Tokyo . . . Appropriate quotations which we can discreetly place with certain Japanese sources will be very helpful in fixing responsibility on Communists."

Hagerty was eager to help, laying the blame on "a small, organized minority led by professional Communist agitators acting under external direction and control."

The day after the invitation was withdrawn, 300,000 Ampo members and supporters marched through Tokyo shouting "Kishi Taose!" (Kishi resign) and "Ampo Hantai!," (Down with the Treaty). The die, however, was cast. Though Eisenhower would not be the first acting U.S. president to visit Japan, the country would remain under limited American occupation.

The cancellation was a major foreign policy defeat for Eisenhower which, in turn, helped undermine his Vice President, Richard Nixon, in the presidential elections later that year. Kishi's political fate was even swifter and surer. Having enraged the opposition, the press and half the business community, and being on the outs with other ambitious members of the LDP, he departed office before the end of the month--though he continued in a fixer role until his death in 1987.

As for MacArthur, his inability to forecast the storm in which he was engulfed was to draw criticism from public and press. Immediately after the drama ended, Honolulu Star-Bulletin Managing Editor William H. Ewing, who had witnessed some of the rioting, wrote to Eisenhower chiding the president for relying on his Kishi-friendly ambassador. Said Ewing: "In this struggle, when direction is coming, not from the top but from vigorous forces thrusting up from the lower levels of the people, Douglas MacArthur II is an anachronism." Ewing's conclusion was even more damning: "I believe he is incapable of understanding what is happening in Japan, much less dealing with it."

Professor Edwin O. Reischauer concurred. In the prestigious Journal of Foreign Affairs he wrote: "The shocking misestimate of the situation in May and June on the part of the American government and embassy in Tokyo reveals how small is our contact with the Japanese opposition." This infuriated MacArthur, who called Reischauer to the embassy and showed him telegrams to refute the charges. Reischauer was barely moved.

Despite the criticism, MacArthur did not exactly fade away. Although President Kennedy replaced him in 1961 with Reischauer, ironically his biggest public critic, MacArthur went on to serve as ambassador to Belgium, Austria and Iran and, after retirement, became a business consultant. He lives today in Washington, D.C.

The Ampo struggle was the largest popular movement in postwar Japan, and came close to a social revolution. Official statistics show that some 4,500,000 participated in rallies; over four million participated in demonstrations and a staggering seven million took part in related strikes.

Perhaps it was the frightening momentum of Ampo which sobered the temporarily impassioned public. Says Chalmers Johnson, one of the U.S.'s leading Japan-watchers, "After 1960, Japanese on both sides decided to put politics on hold and devote themselves to the economic sphere. Incoming Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda instituted the income doubling plan, and left international politics to the Americans."

So the Americans got what they wanted: military bases and a compliant LDP. In return, though, the Americans gave Japan continued access to the U.S. market, and relieved the nation of much of its defense burden. The fact remains that Ampo was, for many Japanese, a short-lived step--although an emotional and often irrational one--away from their American protectors, and toward their own identity. No one who lived through that spring of 1960 in Japan is likely to forget it.