Word: scap
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...SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) has 45 teams traveling through the countryside, doing the occupation's spadework, checking on its effectiveness and on Japanese compliance. But MacArthur himself does not travel. In nearly three years of occupation he has not missed a day, including Sundays, at his desk. Douglas MacArthur, brilliant soldier and administrator, great showman, benevolent dictator, steadfast egoist, is SCAP-although the initials as usually employed refer to the whole apparatus of the occupation...
...MacArthur gave no outward sign. A new advisory commission-known as the Deconcentration Review Board-had just arrived from Washington to study part of the question for him. Their indoctrination had begun at a lunch with MacArthur himself. Now they were being crammed with facts, figures and prophecies by SCAP's bright young men. Their job might keep them in Tokyo for months...
Equal suffrage was introduced, and the voting age was reduced from 25 to 20. In April 1946, SCAP staged a free election. Three-fourths of the 36 million registrants voted. MacArthur's critics feared that the elections would be premature, that the people would not turn out to vote, or that extremists, right or left, would win too much power. But the vast majority of seats went to moderates...
...hodgepodge coalition cabinet headed by Katayama, a Christian whose favorite motto is "Do not overdo," had done a surprising amount in eight months. SCAP-sponsored democratizing legislation, obstructed by previous cabinets, had Katayama's willing acquiescence. The Home Ministry, notorious for its "thought control" hammer lock on the Japanese, had been dissolved; a Labor Ministry had been inaugurated; a new criminal code and a new police system had been established...
With democratizing legislation on the books and the end of the war crimes trials in sight, SCAP officials began to do some hardheaded thinking. Japan's mired economy, which would sink into complete bankruptcy if it were not for American food and raw materials, had to be headed on a new road leading toward economic self-sufficiency. SCAP wanted a balanced budget, which Katayama had not been able to achieve. Heavier taxes, higher government commodity prices would be necessary. Social Democrats boggled. The crisis came at a party convention last month. Left-wingers voted against continued support...