<論説>共和党右派とダグラス・マッカーサー大統領候補擁立運動

Abstract

ダクラス・マッカーサーは、政治的野心はあり、特に終戦後の擁立運動では大統領候補になることに関心はあったものの、こうした運動を、自身が直面する軍事的・政治的課題を後押しするための米国政権に対する圧力として利用していったのであった。ここではマッカーサーの信任が厚かったボナー・フェラーズの文書を利用することを中心にここまで述べてきたマッカーサー擁立運動について分析する。フェラーズ文書から判明したことは、一九三〇年代(フィリッピン時代) 以来マッカーサーに大変信頼されていたフェラーズが、前線のマッカーサーと米国内の共和党右派との重要なパイプ役をはたしていたことであった。それから、フェラーズとキャロル・リース下院議員との盟友関係から判明したことは、一九四八年の大統領選にむけたマッカーサー擁立運動は、ドイツ敗戦直後、つまり太平洋戦争末期に始まっていたのであった。このことは、これまでの研究で解明されていないことである。最後に、結論で述べているが、先行研究は、マッカーサーが大統領になる意欲を誇張しており、ロバート・ウッドの文書はその点を裏付けている。

This article examines the political movement among the right-wing Republicans to seek for Douglas MacArthur's nomination as the Republican Presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948. These right-wing Republicans became a minority within their own party during the Great Depression and needed a significant figure to rally around as a leader of their cause. Senator Robert Taft was their general preference but after losing his bid to secure nomination in the 1940 Republican convention, Taft chose to seek reelection in the 1944 Senatorial race. Therefore, the right-wing Republicans, many of them former America First supporters oy sympathizers, focused their attention on a war hero in the Pacific, Douglas MacArthur. During the Republican Presidential nomination race of 1943-1944 and 1947-1948, the right-wing Republicans and MacArthur used each other to advance their causes; the former needed the latter to boost their political weight within the internationalist-dominated Republican party and the latter needed the former for maintaining a political clout in the pursuit of American war in the Pacific and afterwards the occupation of Japan. Using previously untapped primary sources in the Bonner Fellers Papers deposited at the MacArthur Memorial Library and the Hoover Institute Archives, this article shows the importance of the personal ties between MacArthur and Fellers in their relations to Dwight Eisenhower and the movement among the right-wing Republicans to push for MacArthur's Republican presidential nomination. Fellers acted as the major link between MacArthur and those right-wing Republicans on the home front who supported MacArthur. This article shows that the movement within the Republican party to possibly pursue the MacArthur option in 1948 began shortly after the German surrender. In examining the postwar MacArthur-for-President movement, this article shows that MacArthur was from the start not actively seeking the nomination and was willing to accept Republican presidential nomination only if the Republican convention turned to him as their candidate. MacArthur revealed that stance shortly after the occupation of Japan, much earlier than the previous works have indicated. Fellers's contacts with Carroll Reece, who in 1946 became the Republican National Committee chairman, are crucial in understanding this point. Furthermore, the long friendship between these two men and Reece's enthusiasm for MacArthur are also very important in understanding and examining the MacArthur-for-President movement. This article also reviews the letters between MacArthur and Robert Wood, the leading figure in the MacArthur-for-President movement. Previous works have tended to overlook the fact that Wood emphasized the fact that MacArthur was their choice in case of a deadlock among Republicans and that Wood and the right-wing Republicans tended to prefer Taft as their first choice. While MacArthur probably desired privately to be the U.S. President, he was very realistic about priorities as a professional soldier in America' frontier in the Pacific.