Raphael Green Oral History Interview

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by Raphael Green but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened September 28, 2005
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

JOHNSON: I am going to start out, Mr. Green, as I usually do. I am going to ask you when and where you were born and what your parents’ names were.

GREEN: I was born April 15, 1912. My father’s name was Edwin, and my mother’s
name was Elizabeth.

JOHNSON: And where were you born?

GREEN: Lee, Maine. It was a little town, population of about 200 people.

JOHNSON: What was your father’s occupation?

[2]

GREEN: He was a farmer and lumberman.

JOHNSON: Was this in potato country up there in Maine?

GREEN: No, potatoes are grown further north in Aroostok County.

JOHNSON: So he was in timber and farming. How about your early education? Where did you go to school?

GREEN: I went to elementary school in West Enfield, Maine, which is about twenty miles from Lee. Then I attended Howland High School across the Penobscot River from West Enfield.

JOHNSON: That was a public high school in one of the neighboring towns?

GREEN: Yes, Howland was across the river from West Enfield. It had a public high school.

JOHNSON: Graduated from there?

GREEN: Yes. After I finished Howland High School, I attended Husson College in Bangor, Maine. I trained to be a teacher in business administration, shorthand, typing, business law, and so on. After I graduated from Husson College, I taught for two years in Garland High School, and another two years in the commercial department of Old Orchard Beach High School.

JOHNSON: You were teaching what subjects?

GREEN: All commercial subjects. Accounting, business law, shorthand, and typing.

JOHNSON: So you had a business college education then that you used in teaching.

GREEN: That’s correct.

JOHNSON: So those were your first jobs prior to getting into government. How long did you teach?

GREEN: Four years.

JOHNSON: Just four years. Then what did you do?

GREEN: I went into the service. World War II had started while I was still teaching.

JOHNSON: This would be about what year?

GREEN: I went into the service in December of 1942. There were three months the latter part of 1942 in which they took applicants into the Naval Reserve and the Maritime Service. After those three months they froze the applications. So I went through basic training along with all the other volunteers from Maine. At the end of the training period, I was assigned to be a teacher in the purser’s school for merchant seamen.

[3]

JOHNSON: What school do you call that?

GREEN: It was called a purser training school it was an officer’s training school located in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York.

JOHNSON: That was the Maritime Service, and the Merchant Marine?

GREEN: Yes. The members of Merchant Marine worked on the ships that actually sailed the seas. The Maritime Service was the administrative branch that operated the ships and personnel.

JOHNSON: You didn’t have to go on any convoys then.

GREEN: No. I was at Sheepshead Bay from 1942 until January of 1946 when I was discharged.

JOHNSON: What kind of rank did you have while you were there?

GREEN: I was a Chief Petty Officer Specialist, what they called a T Specialist.

JOHNSON: Did it exploit your knowledge of business subjects?

GREEN: Oh, yes, I had to teach the pursers accounting, how to handle ships’ papers and how to go into port and come out and keep records of everything. Also they had to be able to type, or I had to teach them how to type in 90 days.

JOHNSON: All these fundamentals.

GREEN: At first we didn’t have typewriters so we had to do the exercises with our fingers. Most of these men were adults, grown men and their fingers were stiff.

JOHNSON: At least you had some experience with government bureaucracy and government procedures at this point.

GREEN: That’s true.

JOHNSON: So, what did you do after you were discharged?

GREEN: Looked for a job for about two and a half months in New York City.

JOHNSON: What kind of job were you looking for?

GREEN: Well, I was looking for a job with a magazine, a publishing house, as an office manager, but I wasn’t very successful. There were many GI’s available in the work force by then. From there I went with the [Pauley] mission in 1946.

JOHNSON: Do you remember just when and what the date was that you were hired for this assignment?

[4]

GREEN: It was the latter part of April. I’d have to confirm this with my papers that I have back home, but the approximate date was late April. I believe it was the 4th of May that we left for overseas.

JOHNSON: I do have a few dates here in some of this material. How were you offered this position, or how did you find out about it? Who told you about it?

GREEN: Gail Carter, the chief of the secretariat for the Pauley mission, had a brother who worked on Wall Street in New York City. Gail was in Washington, D. C. I believe he came from the Carolinas originally. Gail had asked his brother if he would keep an ear open for anyone who might fill the bill. They were in a hurry to fill the position because the mission was to be put together in a very short time. They didn’t have much time for research, or for looking around for people. Gail told his brother, “We want a person who can handle shorthand, typing, business papers and so forth.” So he asked his brother in New York, to see what he could find. Gail Carter’s brother knew a friend of mine. His brother called my friend and my friend called me, and he said to phone Carter in Wall Street and I did. We made an appointment for—I don’t remember what day—but around 10 o’clock in the morning. I went down to Wall Street and talked to him rather briefly. He phoned his brother in Washington, D. C. I talked to his brother [Gail Carter] about five minutes, and he said, “Can you come to Washington? I would like to talk to you further.” As I put down the phone, I suddenly realized I didn’t have enough money with me to make the trip to Washington. But Gail’s brother came to the rescue and gave me $20.00. I got in a cab and dashed to Penn Station, made it just in time, and arrived in Washington at 3:30 p.m., I think it was. When I phoned Gail, he said “Just get in a cab and come to the White House.” Today the section I went to is called the West Wing of the White House. I met Gail Carter and talked to him a few minutes. He said, “I’d like to have you meet the man in charge of this mission.” We walked down the corridor to another office and Gail Carter introduced me to Ambassador Pauley. Then Gail said, “This is one of the men I’d like to take with us on our trip to the Orient.” Up to that point, I had no indication that I was hired. Ambassador Pauley asked a few polite questions and that was it! Gail and I went back to his office and he gave me an application to fill out. He said he had to leave early, and he added, “Leave it on the desk when you finish and lock the door behind you.” I also had to fill out a passport application. I think I finished around 5 p.m. and put the forms on Gail’s desk and locked the door.

JOHNSON: And you were already in.

GREEN: That was it.

JOHNSON: That was about as quick a hiring as I’ve heard.

GREEN: Oh, it was the easiest job interview I ever had.

JOHNSON: Had you known anything about Ed Pauley by this time?

GREEN: No. I didn’t know anything about him. I believe I had read about him in the newspaper. I was trying to fix it time-wise as to when he was nominated for Under Secretary of the Navy.

[5]

JOHNSON: It was in 1945-46. That’s when the Harold Ickes thing kind of blew up.

GREEN: Well, we left on the mission in May of 1946 and we were gone for several months.

JOHNSON: At this point you were not aware of Pauley’s involvement with reparations, or had you done any reading on the subject at all?

GREEN: No, I knew nothing about it.

JOHNSON: A new subject for you. I should ask you about Gail Carter. You say he had an office in the White House, in the West Wing?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: What do you know about Gail Carter? How long had he been there in that position then?

GREEN: Well, I don’t know how many months before, they had made a report on Germany. It had to be in 1945, after the war ended. Carter was the chief of the secretariat during the German mission, and so I believe he had been with the government about two years when I was hired.

JOHNSON: He was there on the ground floor, so to speak.

GREEN: Yes. He was a very efficient man.

JOHNSON: Was he a personal friend of Pauley’s do you know, or did he have any personal acquaintance with Pauley?

GREEN: No, but he knew how to cater to Pauley.

JOHNSON: Where was his office? Do you recall where his office was in the West Wing?

GREEN: No I don’t know the exact number. It was on the second floor as I recall.

JOHNSON: Was that the only time you were in the White House, or did you have other occasions to be in the White House?

GREEN: Oh, yes. As I recall, when I went back to New York to pick up my things for the trip, I only had four days. Then I came back and spent, I believe, two or three days in Washington before we took off. Then after the mission finished, after we finished in Manchuria, a group of us came back to Washington D. C. I worked in the office in the White House until, I think it was April of 1947, putting that book together, with the charts and typing and retyping and editing. Oh, it was a . . .

JOHNSON: That was four days that you spent, I guess, with orientation, and you worked out of Gail Carter’s office.

[6]

GREEN: Yes. Mostly acquainting us with what was going to take place; and they gave us directives and I have those at home.

JOHNSON: How many people are you talking about. You say, “Gave us directives.”

GREEN: Well, mostly me, because the rest of the people on the secretariat—there were four of us altogether—had been with the mission previously in Germany. So, I was a new member.

JOHNSON: Were you the only new person?

GREEN: So far as I know, yes.

JOHNSON: In the secretariat we have some names, a list of names.

GREEN: Three or four.

JOHNSON: Well, we might just as well name them briefly, quickly here. You mentioned Gail Carter, chief of the secretariat. Then there was Captain Marlin E. Fenical who was the official photographer; Richard Gaynor is listed only as a member of the secretariat. Do you remember him?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: Charles A. Karl and Benjamin C. Olson were the other secretariat members.

GREEN: Right.

JOHNSON: I think that is it.

GREEN: That’s it.

JOHNSON: They had other people, other specialists, too.

GREEN: Fenical was the official photographer. He took all the pictures, but he wasn’t involved in putting the book together except when it came to the pictures that are in here.

JOHNSON: Apparently he took some risk, taking pictures in North Korea.

GREEN: Yes. He took thousands of pictures and I have a great habit of saving things. We became good friends, and so I saved a lot of the pictures that were not in the book or in the album.

JOHNSON: Yes. We haven’t seen them yet.

GREEN: I’ll give them to you.

JOHNSON: By the way, do you have any other papers relevant . . .

[7]

GREEN: Oh, yes.

JOHNSON: Plus the book?

GREEN: Oh, yes. I have the directive telling us how to behave, how to talk to outsiders. The fact that this was a secret mission and we were not to discuss things with anyone.

JOHNSON: Well, they were pretty thorough maybe. Did you think they were rather thorough in preparing and orienting you for this work?

GREEN: Oh, yes. And when we finished, Fenical, the photographer, made up a personal album, in leather, with each individual’s name stamped in gold. Each member of the mission got one of these albums.

JOHNSON: Well that makes a good souvenir.

GREEN: Which was quite expensive, with lots of pictures and information. I hope to turn it over to you.

JOHNSON: Yes. That would be great. This orientation that you got before you left on the mission, did that include a briefing on what Pauley had already done? He had been over in China in November of 1945 I notice.

GREEN: Oh, that was Japanese reparations, that was another trip. You see, he made three reparations trips, I believe to Germany, Japan and then Manchuria, and North Korea.

JOHNSON: Well, he had been to China and then he came back. He led the reparations mission you were on, in the spring and summer of ‘46. That includes your visits to Korea and Manchuria. Then he goes to Europe and some go with him, and some go the other way.

GREEN: That’s right. The reason for that is the work in Manchuria took longer than expected, so a group of the mission members went on to Germany with Pauley, while the rest stayed in Manchuria and completed the work.

JOHNSON: Yes, and we’ll be getting to that. When they oriented you, briefed you on your mission, did they give you any information about our reparations policy toward Japan? Did they tell you what our intentions were?

GREEN: Yes, I believe I have some material on that.

JOHNSON: For instance, I notice there was a preliminary statement of our reparations policy for Japan that was issued on October 31, 1945. One of the statements there is that “Japan is not to be pauperized, but neither is Japan to be allowed to rehabilitate her economic life in a form which will allow her to gain control or to secure an advantage over her neighbors.” Then it went on to talk about industrial disarmament of Japan, and about allocating Japanese industrial plants to countries that were entitled to reparations to help them round out their own economies. Also, it says Japan was to be left with industries to provide her “with a minimum of export goods for the purpose of obtaining exchange for necessary and approved imports such as food,” then there

[8]

was to be emphasis on diversifying and increasing food production and processing in Japan. Were these some of the points that they emphasized to you or mentioned to you?

GREEN: Not at that point. The directive consisted mostly of what we would be doing over there, what kind of work that I would be involved in.

JOHNSON: They didn’t necessarily give you a briefing on overall policy.

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: In fact, what did they say your work was going to be?

GREEN: I was mostly given directives. My job changed as we got into the work. You see, we had about twenty-five “experts,” who were going to make the surveys and they were told in a directive to make notes, and if possible to write out their field reports. Then we in the secretariat would have to type up the field reports and submit them to the expert concerned, and perhaps retype them and so forth.
As it turned out, most of the experts didn’t dictate to us. They simply wrote out their field reports and we typed them up. That was one of our jobs. We had to be able to take shorthand, and I was a teacher of shorthand, so that wasn’t a problem.
Then when we got to Manchuria, the experts found that there was material that they were able to pick up from the Japanese and Chinese, such as documents, charts, maps and so forth. These had to be kept in a file. We had a lot of native help from both the Chinese and Japanese. We were not sure of their loyalty, so I was assigned to look after the files. In fact, I slept right in the room with the files. The file was locked and somebody was always around.

JOHNSON: This was when you were in Manchuria?

GREEN: Yes, if some of the Chinese or the Communists had gotten hold of some of those testimonies that would have been the end of that informant.

JOHNSON: Sure

GREEN: I don't know if this is the time to go into any of those little incidents there or not.

JOHNSON: Well, we want to go to Korea first. That was before your trip to Manchuria.

GREEN: All right.

JOHNSON: Okay. Let us review that.

GREEN: I would say from a briefing standpoint, it was rather brief. As I think of it now, I didn’t consider it adequate to go on a mission of this type. Everything was done in such a hurry. I don’t know why it had to be.

JOHNSON: They didn’t explain to you why they were in such a rush.

GREEN: No, they didn’t explain why everything had to be done yesterday.

[9]

JOHNSON: Okay. I notice that in a letter of May 20th, 1946, from Pauley to General I, M, Chistiakov, he noted there were 38 people that were members of this mission or party, including the principles or the top people, the technical assistants, the secretariat, and apparently there were six Russian interpreters and five Korean interpreters. I think they weren’t necessarily Russian, but they were interpreters of Russian, and there were five interpreters of Korean. And then, of course, it included you and Carter and Charles Karl, Benjamin Olson and Richard Gaynor.
Now, this diary, the daily diary that Pauley kept, did you contribute to that, or did you just transcribe it, sort of.

GREEN: No. His personal secretary was Richard Gaynor, he did all of Pauley’s typing.

JOHNSON: Okay, but he was also one of the secretariat, wasn’t he?

GREEN: Yes, Richard Gaynor was with the secretariat. We were in Tokyo for about, I believe, one week, and we all had time off. There was one time when everyone was gone except me. Pauley wanted to write a letter to General [Douglas] MacArthur, so I had to take dictation from him. But ordinarily only Dick did the letter writing for Pauley.

JOHNSON: You got pretty well acquainted with Gaynor, did you?

GREEN: Fairly well, yes. He was a very efficient person.

JOHNSON: Was he with Pauley all the way through both Asia and Germany?

GREEN: Yes, he went to Germany. Now, whether or not he was on the German mission the year before, I don’t know, but I have the German book, and in that I’m sure it will tell. [Note by Mr. Green: I checked the German Reparations book, and Richard Gaynor was not listed as being on that mission to Germany]

JOHNSON: In a letter of May 30, 1946, to General Chistiakov, Pauley asked him to provide information on the industrial installations and areas the mission was not able to inspect. Apparently, they kept stalling on this and they hadn’t answered this request even a year later, and so you never did get into those two other regions did you?

GREEN: We traveled on three different trains--the Korean train, the American train, and the Russian train. We went to Wonsan, which is still a port; Sinuiju was another stop. The third one, I don’t remember, but there were some areas into which we did not get. [Note by Mr. Green: See the mission calendar.]

JOHNSON: Were these three separate trains on the same track?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: But separated.

GREEN: Yes. I don’t recall how much the separation was, but I know it was a rather cumbersome arrangement. At one point in Pyongyang, the chef got off to get food and they

[10]

detained him. We didn’t see him until about five days later when we came back through there, and they let him go. He told us he was interrogated extensively, but they did not harm him.

JOHNSON: Did you feel that they felt you people were mostly spying on them?

GREEN: Yes, some of the Russian and Korean officials felt that way. Well, in the report here, it talks about the mission members who went around to these different factories and plants to inspect them. The official photographer was taking pictures everywhere, and so were members of the mission. Finally, Chistiakov said they had better stop taking pictures because he “might not be able to stop the guards in time.” So that was kind of a warning to take no more pictures. They were very difficult to deal with. At one point we got a gunshot through one of the train windows. We didn’t know where it came from.

JOHNSON: Which one were you on?

GREEN: I was on the American train, with the rest of the Americans. Ambassador Pauley had a whole car just for himself and his office on the American train.

JOHNSON: Well, where were these other two trains?

GREEN: The Korean train, filled with only Koreans, was on the track in front of us.

JOHNSON: These were North Koreans that were on the first train?

GREEN: North Koreans and South Koreans, yes.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Probably Korean soldiers?

GREEN: Yes, I’d say so.

JOHNSON: But these were people selected by the Soviets?

GREEN: I believe, yes.

JOHNSON: Then you were in . . .

GREEN: The American train. It was second in line on the tracks. I believe we had something like five cars.

JOHNSON: Five cars and a locomotive.

GREEN: We were all Americans. We had several bodyguards and they were all over six feet tall.

JOHNSON: These are Americans now?

GREEN: Yes, Americans. They selected them for psychological purposes, so that they would seem overwhelming. Then in the last train was General Chistiakov.

[11]

JOHNSON: So that was the Russian contingent. All Russian?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: On the third train. In other words, you were sort of surrounded.

GREEN: Absolutely.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: They wanted to make sure they didn’t take off, you know, go on down the track.

GREEN: No, we couldn’t take off.

JOHNSON: They only had one track to go on, I suppose.

GREEN: Yes, but there was another thing that I think was planned. We had a dining car, a very lovely dining car, with white linen and waiters all dressed up in black and white. That car stopped right on the station opposite a refugee group of people, and they looked as though they were starving. There we were sitting, and they were peeking in the windows. I lost my appetite; I couldn’t eat. It seemed deliberate that they would place the dining car where hungry people were milling about.

JOHNSON: Even in June of 1946 Pauley was saying that it was clear that the Soviets had no immediate intention of withdrawing from Korea, and they were stalling on a provisional government. Did you understand at this time that this division would be temporary, that there would be a unified Korea, and a democratic Korea? Was that what you were given to understand.

GREEN: No, no, I really didn’t know at that point what was going on. We did not have access to newspapers, and therefore had no way of getting information, except through the members [of the mission]. And of course, they had their discussions.

JOHNSON: How did the leaders of the mission describe the purposes of the trip to you?

GREEN: That they were simply making a survey of the mills and plants of the entire area, a reparations survey, to determine what had been destroyed, what was still available, and how it could be put into use for future development.

JOHNSON: Did they say anything to you about transplanting or taking plants out of Japan and putting them in Korea?

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: Or taking machine tools from Japan? . . .

GREEN: No, I had no information on that.

[12]

JOHNSON: Well, there’s also a comment in one of these two hard-bound reports on the reparations survey, which Pauley’s name is on, in which he says, “Wherever we saw the Soviets and Koreans in contact, the Koreans were being ‘pushed around’ in the most crude and ruthless fashion.” [Edwin W. Pauley, “Report on Japanese assets in Soviet-Occupied Korea to the President of the United States, June 1946.”] Did you notice the Soviet soldiers there being imperious toward the Koreans?

GREEN: I don't know of any of the specific instances, but the Russians have always had an overriding sense of bullying people. From all the dealings I’ve ever had with the Russians since that time, I have found that to be true. I’ve been to Russia eight times.

JOHNSON: Yes, but in 1946, did you feel that a Cold War had already started at that point?

GREEN: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

JOHNSON: What was your understanding of why that was? Did you have any theory at the time as to why that was?

GREEN: No. Although we were partners in World War II, here we were antagonists in the Cold War. But the Cold War, as I recall, hadn’t really developed into the way it developed later. We were not aware that it was a Cold War. I think it was labeled later as a Cold War.

JOHNSON: In 1947 or so. But you still felt at this point that they were not too friendly, that they did not show any gratitude for our help, such as lend-lease in World War II?

GREEN: Oh yes. You know our Liberty ships went with lend-lease material up through Murmansk during World War II. By the way, two years ago, [in 1988] we were in Murmansk, filming a travelogue. I wondered if there was some recognition of our contributions and sacrifices during World War II. I looked all around the city and finally found a memorial in a secluded spot downtown. In a small city park there is a big globe about twelve feet high. In English it says, “In commemoration of the common fight of the anti-Hitler coalition against Fascism.” That’s as near as the Russians could come to recognize our contribution during World War II.

JOHNSON: Was there a feeling that the Soviet Communists did have the intention of spreading Communism around the world, and they believed in the “inevitable war” doctrine and so on?

GREEN: That was the policy we understood was in effect, that they wanted to capture the world. I mean Communism was on the rise then.

JOHNSON: Pauley in his reports seems to still have this notion that Korea would be a unit, wouldn’t be divided indefinitely, that it would be a single country. Did you feel that he had to be diplomatic even though he perhaps felt a different way about the situation?

GREEN: I really don’t know anything on that point.

JOHNSON: His rhetoric does seem to be rather diplomatic; he gives some benefit of the doubt to the Russians. For instance, he appeared to believe the Russians when they said they were not

[13]

dismantling and shipping out facilities from North Korea into the Soviet Union. There was just a little bit of evidence that he was able to see that some of this might be going on, but he said that perhaps they were just transferring equipment from one part of the country to the other.

GREEN: In North Korea they kept the machinery where it was, while in Manchuria the Russians stripped it, they raped it. The Russians followed an entirely different policy in North Korea than they did in Manchuria. As I recall, this report that they were not dismantling factories and plants in North Korea was contrary to popular belief. I think our government felt that they were doing that.

JOHNSON: What did you feel at the time?

GREEN: Well, I really didn’t have any conclusions. I didn’t think about it that deeply. I was just trying to get the reports typed.

JOHNSON: Check the grammar and the spelling and that sort of thing.

GREEN: Oh, yes all members of the secretariat had to make corrections as we typed up the reports.

JOHNSON: You were in Korea from . . .

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: According to this report, it was May 16th that they left for Korea, and they returned on June 3rd.

GREEN: Yes. We flew to Japan, and we were there about a week. Then we went to Seoul, Korea, and we were delayed because the Russians wouldn’t allow us in for some reason. Then Pauley got sick, and went to the hospital.

JOHNSON: Well, he was admitted to the hospital on June 5th in Seoul. And on June 5th, part of his party went to Mukden, Manchuria, on that day, and another group on June 7. At that point, all members had left Seoul except for Pauley and three members of the secretariat. Were you one of the three?

GREEN: Yes, I didn’t go with the advanced group to Mukden.

JOHNSON: On June 14th Pauley and the rest of the group went on to Mukden. Were you with Pauley when he went on to Mukden from Seoul?

GREEN: Yes I was.

JOHNSON: By the way, where did you stay when you were in Seoul?

GREEN: We stayed at the Chosen Hotel.

JOHNSON: What was your impression of Seoul in 1946?

GREEN: It was very, very filthy there, and people were just trying to stay alive.

[14]

JOHNSON: The Japanese occupation had been very difficult.

GREEN: Yes, very difficult.

JOHNSON: Did you see an awful lot of anti-Japanese feeling while you were there in Seoul?

GREEN: No, I didn’t see any there. The Japanese and the Koreans were trying to sell everything, to anybody, especially to Americans.

JOHNSON: The Americans were the only ones that had money, I suppose.

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: Well, before we go to Mukden are there any other comments or recollections about that North Korean venture that may not be in the report that kind of stand out in your mind? Were you ever intimidated or threatened by any Soviet or North Korean Communists?

GREEN: No. We in the secretariat were pretty much confined to the train.

JOHNSON: How about the photographer?

GREEN: Oh, he traveled with all the mission members, and he was always taking pictures. Somewhere in here, I’m quite sure, he talks about how the Russians restricted his picture-taking.

JOHNSON: And yet he took many pictures, you said.

GREEN: Oh, yes, he did. He had so many that he discarded several, so I collected them; I mean I have sticky fingers.

JOHNSON: Well, was Pauley telling him to go ahead in spite of their objections, to go ahead and photograph?

GREEN: No. But I know he took lots of pictures even though at risk. At one point, General Chistiakov said, “Better be careful because his soldiers may be too quick to carry out his orders.” What he meant was that they might shoot the picture taker.

JOHNSON: Well . . .

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: I can tell you from experience that when a photographer has a camera in his hand he is oblivious of all around him.

JOHNSON: He’s committed to his profession.

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: Did you feel there was hostility by the Soviet soldiers that you saw. Were they just following orders? Or did they have a personal feeling about Americans?

[15]

GREEN: No. We weren’t that close to them. We in the secretariat didn’t have that much contact with them.

JOHNSON: Well, what did you do each night as part of your regular duties?

GREEN: Well, usually we worked during the day. The members of the secretariat didn’t travel with the group of experts as they inspected the plants and factories. The members of the mission would take notes on site. They would come back to the train in Korea, or the hotel in Mukden, and spend most of the evening writing out these notes. The next morning they would give us their notes before going out again, and we in the secretariat would spend the day typing them.

JOHNSON: So you had to decipher a lot of different handwriting.

GREEN: Oh, did we ever. We’d have to check and re-check with them, and they would re-write. It wasn’t an easy assignment from that standpoint. So, during the day we were pretty busy typing up these reports.

JOHNSON: Well, what about those daily reports? What happened to those reports?

GREEN: Well, in here, for instance.

JOHNSON: This is in the published “Report on Japanese Assets in Soviet-occupied Korea to the President of the United States, June 1946”.

GREEN: The notes that they gave us in the written reports would be much longer than this. We had to boil them down. Each report would be several pages. This final report is the result of the re-editing once we got back to Washington.

JOHNSON: Did you do some editing?

GREEN: Only on obviously grammatical errors.

JOHNSON: So it was pretty literal.

GREEN: As far as substance was concerned, we couldn’t touch a thing.

JOHNSON: The published report that we have here is a condensation.

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: How about the first draft?

GREEN: We would type it out as close to their handwriting as possible.

JOHNSON: Where are these drafts? Do you have any idea where those are located?

GREEN: I think they were disposed of, thrown away.

[16]

JOHNSON: They were disposed of?

GREEN: Yes, there was no necessity to keep those early drafts.

JOHNSON: They could be in the National Archives possibly.

GREEN: It’s possible, but I doubt it.

JOHNSON: So your name is not on any of these reports in the finished report.

GREEN: No, just the principal writer who was Carlton Swift.

JOHNSON: This is just an example of one of the pages of the report number 14, on the Chinnampio Graphite Electrode Company, page 53.

GREEN: Yes, that was power and communications.

JOHNSON: It had the Korean name of Hukyen Chun Kuk Kong Jung.

GREEN: Yes. Another thing about Korea was the problem with diarrhea.

JOHNSON: Diarrhea was one of the problems of the drinking water up there?

GREEN: Right.

JOHNSON: You couldn’t . . .

GREEN: Even though they took a lot of precautions of boiling the water, sometimes they didn’t have time for that.

JOHNSON: You had to boil all the water you drank. You had to boil it first?

GREEN: Well, they did in some areas.

JOHNSON: How about the food? Did you bring along your own food?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: So that you didn’t have to rely on . . .

GREEN: It was mostly our own food, although certain things, such as staples we could be sure of, they bought at the native market. I had no problem with food. I think maybe it was because of my background. I was brought up on a hard scrabble farm, and on the farm you eat anything.

JOHNSON: You get inoculated.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Iron stomach, I guess.

[17]

GREEN: Yes, iron stomach.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Ray did mention yesterday that they had special food flown in.

GREEN: Well, it was Army food.

JOHNSON: It actually was flown in while you were in North Korea?

GREEN: No, it was not flown into North Korea, we went by train. We took all the food we needed with us on the train.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: In Manchuria.

GREEN: It wasn’t bad because it was prepared for the mission members, and they weren’t given exactly Army food.

JOHNSON: So on this train car, you were equipped with tables and typewriters.

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: How many of you were doing this. Was it five members of the secretariat?

GREEN: No, only four. The photographer was listed as part of the secretariat, but he didn’t do any typing.

JOHNSON: Gail Carter . . .

GREEN: I never saw Gail Carter type. He had a very loud voice, a very commanding voice. He was a PR man. On the other hand, he was a nice guy.

JOHNSON: Do you recall him getting into any incidents with the locals, with the Soviets, or the Koreans

GREEN: No. No.

JOHNSON: He didn’t get involved in any problems?

GREEN: No. It seemed that he was always involved when pictures were taken. He was always near the front.

JOHNSON: I saw Olsen’s name mentioned once in awhile, Benjamin C. Olsen, in the secretariat. You worked closely with him?

GREEN: Yes, Ben was a veteran [of World War II]. He was on the mission to Japan and Germany. So he knew what was going on. He was a nice guy to work with. So was Charles. Charles was fastidious.

[18]

JOHNSON: This was Charles . . .?

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Charles Karl.

GREEN: Yes. He was older than most of us. I think he was probably in his 40’s.

JOHNSON: He was experienced too.

GREEN: Oh yes.

JOHNSON: You were the greenhorn, but they treated you well.

GREEN: Yes, I was green in name and nature.

JOHNSON: You mentioned that Pauley was ill and had to be in the hospital for a few days in Seoul. By the way, was that an Army hospital, or was that a Korean hospital?

GREEN: I believe it was a U. S. Army hospital, occupied by our forces.

JOHNSON: Did you get any impressions about Syngman Rhee while you were there in South Korea?

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: Then you went with Pauley to Mukden, and there was a group already there by the time you got there, an advance party.

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: There at Mukden, Pauley met with O. Edmund Clubb, U.S. Consul at Mukden.

GREEN: Right.

JOHNSON: And also with Chinese officials. Did you meet Clubb?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: And what were your impressions of Clubb?

GREEN: A very nice person. Yes, a very considerate person. In fact, he put on a cocktail party for us, for everybody. Mrs. Clubb was also very nice.

JOHNSON: Did they talk to you about China, or American policy toward China, or anything official?

GREEN: No, not at my level.

JOHNSON: Did you get the impression he was very knowledgeable about China?

[19]

GREEN: Oh, yes. Yes.

JOHNSON: He was a scholar on China.

GREEN: He certainly was. I believe he has written several books on China. Every now and then I have seen his name crop up.

JOHNSON: How about your recollections of Mukden and the Manchurian mission? First, how long were you there?

GREEN: Six weeks or something like that.

JOHNSON: The report says that most mission members left on June 19 for Tokyo, leaving a staff of technicians to complete the Manchurian survey under John Hurndall. Did you remain behind with that group?

GREEN: Yes. The only member of the secretariat that went on to Germany with Pauley was his personal secretary. [Note by Raphael Green: Gaynor’s name is not listed in the German reparations book.]

JOHNSON: Richard P. Gaynor?

GREEN: Yes. The rest of us stayed. I’m not sure if it’s recorded, but Colonel [William] Mayer was a liaison officer and he went down to Peiping, as they called it then. Now it’s Beijing. He went to set up arrangements for the mission to come down to Beijing and stay a few days. The Colonel invited Charlie Karl and me to join him since he felt we were due a holiday.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: You didn’t go up to Harbin with the others.

GREEN: No, I didn’t go to Harbin. Ben and Gaynor went to Harbin. Charlie and I went to Beijing. We spent three days down there.

JOHNSON: Could you identify just where it was, exactly where it was, that you were in Manchuria?

GREEN: In Mukden.

JOHNSON: Was it just Mukden, or did you get out to other areas?

GREEN: The mission experts went to other areas of Manchuria, but we in the secretariat stayed in Shenyang, or Mukden as it was called then.

JOHNSON: Okay, you were in Mukden all the time that you were in Manchuria?

GREEN: Yes, we were at the Shenyang Railway Hotel.

JOHNSON: Okay. So you got to see what the Soviets had done in Mukden.

[20]

GREEN: The Russians stripped everything, and raped Manchuria.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Were the elevators working in the hotel?

GREEN: No. There was no electricity. And the water pumps didn’t work. The Russians took everything that wasn’t nailed down tight. There was a young man there who later became director of foreign affairs, Director Li.

JOHNSON: In the Chinese Government?

GREEN: Yes. He saw the Russians with their tanks, with furniture on the top of them.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Including his family’s furniture. Director Li’s family’s furniture.

GREEN: Later, in the 1980’s—when I was trying to get official permission to go into China to make a documentary film, Director Li gave me the necessary invitation. He gave me a permit to travel in China.

JOHNSON: The man’s name was Li?

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Li. His first name was Xishun, Li Xishun.

JOHNSON: He became an official in the Communist government of China.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Yes. Li became director of the foreign affairs department for Liaoning Province, which was known as Mukden in 1946.

JOHNSON: Director of foreign affairs under Mao Tse-tung?

GREEN: Just director of foreign affairs of Liaoning Province, which is Manchuria.

JOHNSON: What was his position in 1946?

GREEN: Well, he was just a fifteen-year-old boy. I didn’t know him then. But later he told us his family’s story.

JOHNSON: Did you meet any Chinese officials when you were in Mukden?

GREEN: Not at that time, no. There were Chinese officials there, but we in the secretariat didn’t meet them.

JOHNSON: Did you have to remain in your hotel doing this work?

GREEN: Oh, no, we were able to travel about the city.

JOHNSON: You went with the technicians, with the inspectors in Mukden?

[21]

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: Did you take any notes yourself? Or did you just transcribe their notes?

GREEN: Just transcribed theirs. But with the secretariat, we would travel around the city of Mukden (now Shenyang) and go into the market places as tourists. I always went with another member of the secretariat. It was not a good idea to travel alone. We traveled by rickshaw everywhere we went in the city. Charles Karl and I went to the theater one evening; just the two of us. It was a Chinese performance.

JOHNSON: You went in by train, didn’t you? You went in by train to Mukden, or did you fly?

GREEN: We flew. But when they went to the Communist area up north, I believe they went by train.

JOHNSON: Wasn’t Mukden under Communist control at that time?

GREEN: No, not at that time. It was under Chiang Kai-shek. Harbin was under Communist control. We had to get permission to go there, and they gave us permission.

JOHNSON: Did you go to Harbin?

GREEN: No, I didn’t go, but Ben Olsen went.

JOHNSON: I think with hindsight, we can see that this was a huge blunder by the Soviet government, to strip Mukden.

GREEN: Yes, it was. All over, everywhere.

JOHNSON: Was there a reaction, or a feeling among the Chinese at this point, as to their attitude toward the Soviets?

GREEN: Oh, yes. It was very antagonistic. Especially in Anshan, where they have the big steel mill. I have pictures of what the Russians did. It’s where the largest steel mill in China is located. What the Russians did there, they didn’t have time to dismantle everything, and so they put in a spur railroad track. They punched a hole in the brick wall of the steel mill, and put in a spur railroad track. I have pictures of this. And they loaded freight cars and just took the machinery right out. I also have pictures of the Russian soldiers, ripping up the machinery.
In 1981, director Li gave us permission to travel around and they took us back to this same steel mill in Anshan, and showed us the way it looks today. I was able to photograph it.

JOHNSON: What was the rationale, or how did you understand at that point, the rationale for the Soviet Government doing this in Mukden? Could you see any reason at the time for them doing this?

GREEN: It was considered war booty. That was the technicality on which they hinged their actions, but actually from a mechanical standpoint, ripping up machinery that had been in operation literally makes it scrap. To take that machinery back to Siberia or into western

[22]

Russian, and try to reestablish it, would be impossible. So it turned out to be scrap. The Russians were just simply desperate for industry.

JOHNSON: In other words the Japanese had built all these facilities in Mukden?

GREEN: Yes. The Japanese took over sometime around 1932, I believe. It was called the “Mukden incident”. It was a flimsy excuse. Then they occupied the area. Manchuria, or Mukden, was a source of raw material for World War II. At the Yalta Conference the Russians agreed that they would come into the Asian War Theater and help us within 90 days after Germany surrendered. Well, they reneged and dragged their feet. Then three days after the first atomic bomb was dropped, the Russians suddenly sent their paratroopers into North Korea and down to the 38th degree parallel. They got that far; that’s how we got into that situation. Then they occupied all of Manchuria.

JOHNSON: That just happened to be a couple of days before that 90-day period was up.

GREEN: Yes, it was.

JOHNSON: Very convenient for them.

GREEN: They were going to stay there for three months. They stayed for nine months. So, we came in a few days after the Russians left, and . . .

JOHNSON: So they had left by the time you got there.

GREEN: Yes, they had gone.

JOHNSON: Well, doesn’t it also seem that they did not foresee a Communist government in China that would be very upset by this kind of looting?

GREEN: Yes. That was the point that I know was debated and talked about. I mean, how do they balance that? I guess they figured it was to their advantage to take machinery, dismantle it and take it off to Siberia. Manchuria was the richest area of China.

JOHNSON: Regardless of the political consequences? Even if there would be a Communist government in China?

GREEN: That would be the lesser of the two evils.

JOHNSON: What was your feeling? Did they favor a Communist government in China? You know, the Soviets had an agreement with Chiang Kai-shek to respect his government.

GREEN: I don’t think they respected the Communist government in China; they did not see it as very substantial. In a way, I think they expected Chiang Kai-shek to really be the dominant power there.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: One Chinese told us in later years that the Chinese had a great deal of difficulty with the fact that they were told the Russian Communists were their friends, yet they

[23]

were taking all of their machinery from the factories and their family furniture out of their homes and shipping it back to Russia. They were told the United States was their enemy and yet the United States was giving them so much. They were rather confused about that.

JOHNSON: Did you understand it this way, that some Japanese machine tools did get moved to China, moved from Japan under American auspices, more or less, to China? Some went to the Philippines, and some, I believe, to the Netherlands East Indies. That was the substance, virtually the entire reparations bill of the Japanese; it was something like 15 per cent of their machine tools, and all of these tools were out of military arsenals in Japan, and that was all Japan ever had to turn over to countries that they had invaded and looted.

GREEN: Right. Japan paying reparations was just a fiasco.

JOHNSON: Well, did you feel though that Pauley really had come up with some figures and plans that would have meant a major transfer of equipment?

GREEN: About two billion dollars, I think it was. As I understood it at that time, we expected to go into Manchuria and be able to revitalize their country, because Manchuria is the richest area of China. It has vast natural resources, and the infrastructure, was there, along with the machinery and the factories. And we thought they could use that area to revitalize the rest of China. But we found that the Russians had stripped it.

JOHNSON: Well, what were your conclusions then, from this trip?

GREEN: At that point I had no conclusions. I just wanted to go home.

JOHNSON: Did you feel it was sort of a waste of time, to enter into Manchuria?

GREEN: Yes, it seemed a desperate situation. There was no easy solution. As you know Chiang Kai-shek’s army, the Nationalist Army, and the Communists, they were more concerned, so it seemed at times, about fighting among themselves, than defeating the Japanese. How do you resolve something like that? At that time, it seemed to be almost impossible.

JOHNSON: Do you remember Pauley ever commenting about Mao Tse-tung, or Chou En-lai, or expressing opinions about the Communist movement in China?

GREEN: No, not at my level.

JOHNSON: Or about Chiang Kai-shek, his attitude toward Chiang Kai-shek?

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Your trip to Peiping, I think you want to talk about that, flying down there.

JOHNSON: When was that? When did that happen?

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: On July 1st he [Raphael] went to Peiping.

[24]

GREEN: That was with Colonel Mayer. He was a liaison. Col. Mayer went down to Peiping to make arrangements for the arrival of the rest of the mission. He invited us along, so it was just a holiday for us for three days.

JOHNSON: So you’re in Peiping for about three days of making preparations for the rest of the group, Hurndall’s group?

GREEN: Actually, Charlie and I had nothing to do. We were just tourists that time. A friend of mine in New York knew an official at the Peiping hospital and, so when I arrived there, I called him. The official’s wife had a chauffeur and a car, and she took us all around Peiping: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, The Summer Palace, and many other places.

JOHNSON: It was still under Chiang Kai-shek’s control.

GREEN: Yes, right.

JOHNSON: Did the city seem to be orderly, or disorderly, at that time?

GREEN: Things were quite normal in Peiping at that time. Well, in some areas there were an awful lot of beggars and then in the evening they’d approach you and they’d try to connect you with prostitutes and that sort of thing.

JOHNSON: Where did you stay when you were in Peiping?

GREEN: We stayed at the Hotel des Wagon-lits [phonetic]. That was a French name, but we were in the American compound. We had a compound there, and this hotel was in that compound. That’s why we stayed there.

JOHNSON: In the embassy area, in embassy row?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: What did you do while you were there, besides touring?

GREEN: We just toured around.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Remember you bought something from some Chinese and gave them your coat in exchange.

GREEN: Oh, well, that was when we first arrived. We had just gotten to our room, and about three minutes later there was a knock upon the door and a guy came and had lots of stuff to sell, cloisonné and little Chinese trinkets and so forth. He also had a piece of, what do you call it, ceremonial fabric.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Ceremonial tablecloth.

GREEN: An embroidered silk tablecloth; it was beautiful. There were two of them. He said he would take my Navy raincoat that I had, in exchange. So, that was great. Then, about three

[25]

hours later, he returned and said, “This is a problem. I can’t take anything from the Navy, because I’d get into trouble.” So I gave him $20 for the two pieces. We returned to Mukden early the morning of July 4th. Colonel Mayer had completed his preparations for the mission to come to Peiping later. That evening, they had a party at the International Club. As members of the secretariat we were not invited. It was a black-tie affair.

JOHNSON: Very formal.

GREEN: As a matter of fact, the three of us in the secretariat, Ben, Charlie and I, were at the International Club playing pool. The party started around 5 o’clock, and we were not aware that it was going to start that early. We were in the back room in our grubbies and here these people were coming in formal attire. We were trying to figure how to get out of there and get back to the hotel. The only exit was through the front door, where all the people were coming in. There was a window in the room where we were playing pool. It was several feet off the ground, but we went out the window. We had no transportation, of course, but we finally convinced the chauffeur for our Chinese general to take us back to the hotel, about three miles away. We convinced him he wouldn’t be missed, and slipped him some American dollars, so he helped us. Even though it wasn’t dark yet, after nightfall it wasn’t wise to be out walking around because of the gunfire. For several weeks while we were there, every night we could hear gunfire of some kind.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: The report says that the “Manchurian part of [the] Mission, under Mr. Hurndall proceeded to Peiping on July 10th.”

GREEN: Well that was the second time we went. It was the second trip for Charlie and me down there. This is only part of the mission now. Pauley has gone on.

JOHNSON: Yes, he had gone to Japan to see MacArthur [on June 20], I think he had a briefing with MacArthur, and then he went to Germany.

GREEN: I wasn’t with him.

JOHNSON: So you stayed in Mukden. You never got to Germany, is that right?

GREEN: Not on that trip. That is true.

JOHNSON: What kind of a meeting did they have in Peiping, the mission, there?

GREEN: I wasn’t in on the meeting. The only thing I know about is the dinner one of the Chinese generals put on for us at his home.

JOHNSON: That’s what you remember. Did you have to do any transcribing or rewriting?

GREEN: No. We had finished our work in China. Actually, I think there was no reason for really stopping in Beijing except the members of the mission wanted to see the city. We didn’t have any work; no surveys were conducted.

JOHNSON: And they didn’t report to Chiang Kai-shek.

[26]

GREEN: They didn’t give us any notes or anything. No, it was really a social stop-over.

JOHNSON: Where did you go from Peiping?

GREEN: From there we returned to Tokyo, then took off across the Pacific to Washington. The other group went around Germany and they arrived in Washington the same day we arrived, I believe. And then we had a dinner, a cocktail dinner, a party for everyone.

JOHNSON: Yes, I noticed on July 19th both groups rejoined each other in Washington, DC. Maybe this is worth mentioning. On June 3rd , 1946 Clark Clifford wrote to a sheep raiser out in Wyoming who had complained that wool was being imported from Japan into the United States as reparations, and Clifford assured her such was not the case. He said that reparations would be in the form of machinery and factory equipment and not commercial products. He also said that only gold and silver had been brought to the United States as reparations. Did you understand that we did get some gold and silver out of Japan?

GREEN: I don't know about that.

JOHNSON: As far as you know, did we ever get reparations out of Japan?

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: Did you ever talk to people on the mission as to why we didn’t claim reparations? Did you ever have any discussions about that?

GREEN: No. As I understood it at the time, it was just to give it to those whose countries had been completely devastated by the war. We didn’t really need it.

JOHNSON: But Pearl Harbor had been pretty well devastated by the Japanese.

GREEN: Well that’s true.

JOHNSON: And they certainly had sunk a lot of our military equipment.

GREEN: Oh, yes.

JOHNSON: But I guess it was part of learning from history—learning from World War I—when the Allies tried to squeeze blood out of defeated Germany and what that brought about.

GREEN: And make it an agricultural country after World War II.

JOHNSON: Were there some that wanted to do that to Japan, to apply the Morgenthau Plan to Japan?

GREEN: Yes. Reduce it so it would never be a threat again. Well, I guess we’ve learned that’s not the thing to do.

[27]

JOHNSON: Did you get the impression that Pauley wanted to be harder on Japan, extract more from Japan, than perhaps other people in the government, like MacArthur, did? For instance, one of the major contentions here in Cohen’s book is that MacArthur publicly agreed with the Pauley reparations policies, American policies on reparations, and Pauley’s recommendations, which were to extract quite a bit of reparations from Japan to give to these other countries, but that he became convinced by the end of 1946 that this would be hurtful to the democratization of Japan. Therefore, he stalled all these efforts by Pauley, and even the President I guess, to carry out these recommendations. It is true, isn’t it, that President Truman agreed almost entirely with Pauley’s recommendations of these reports?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: Did you ever have the feeling that MacArthur was stalling this whole process so that Japan would not have to give up any substantial part of her industry and that he wanted Japan to recover and become an industrial power again, and that he felt that it was necessary for her to rebuild her industry if he wanted to democratize Japan?

GREEN: Yes. MacArthur had a feeling toward Japan that was not shared by Pauley in other words. I think because of his association and being the military commander there, he had maybe a more fatherly feeling toward the Japanese than did Pauley, who simply touched them lightly. Also, I think Pauley was more inclined to help the Chinese than to worry about the Japanese rebuilding and becoming an industrial nation.

JOHNSON: I probably should cite this book for the record here; Theodore Cohen, Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal, and it was published in 1987. Did you get the feeling, as in 1947, that not much was happening and that these recommendations were not being carried out on the part of Japan?

GREEN: That’s right.

JOHNSON: Did you have the feeling then that it was because of MacArthur’s position?

GREEN: Yes, it seemed to be that his policy was being followed more than Pauley’s. As I recall there was another mission sent to Manchuria by Marshall, I believe.

JOHNSON: Well, there was the Marshall mission to China in 1946. Cohen says that Edwin Martin, John Kenneth Galbraith, and General John Hildring were instrumental in setting up an Inter-Allied Reparations Committee under the Far Eastern Commission to carry out the recommendations of the Pauley report. The Inter-Allied Reparations Committee, were you part of that committee? Were you involved with that committee at all?

GREEN: No. No.

JOHNSON: Did you have any briefing about the Far Eastern Commission and what the role of this commission was?

GREEN: No, that was completely out of my area. Martin, I believe, was on the staff there.

JOHNSON: Yes, he was an economist. Yes, he was very much involved.

[28]

GREEN: Right.

JOHNSON: We have an interview with Edwin McCammon Martin. Were you very well acquainted with Martin?

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: Cohen says that Pauley would not even listen when the Navy Department suggested that “Occupation costs, not reparations, should be a first charge,” [see pages 151-152 of the above cited book] that is, on Japan. Do you recall any discussions or decisions regarding what should be the occupation costs or reparations imposed on Japan?

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: According to Cohen, MacArthur and his staff proposed a reparations plan that was adopted, in which only machine tools in Japanese military arsenals were removed to meet reparations claims. A total of something like 19,000 metal working machines were earmarked for removal to China, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies, and the United Kingdom. This was apparently about 15 per cent of Japan’s machine tools. These removals were completed in 1948, and finally in May of 1949 the U. S. Government announced a formal end to the Japanese reparations program. You went back to Washington in July of 1946?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: And then what was your job?

GREEN: I was in Washington still working on the Pauley reparations report.

JOHNSON: Could you just explain briefly what your job was in those months?

GREEN: Well, it was to arrange those field reports that had been roughly done right on the spot by the experts, and then we in turn had to rewrite them. Then when the drafts came back to Washington, everything had to be checked against the charts.

JOHNSON: Who was involved with this beside yourself?

GREEN: Richard Gaynor, Pauley’s personal secretary, left; he went back to New Jersey I believe. So he wasn’t involved in the work we did in the White House at all. Gail Carter was still the chief of the secretariat and Charlie, Ben and I remained.

JOHNSON: The three of you were the ones that basically got these two reports together, the one on Manchuria and the one on Korea.

GREEN: Right.

JOHNSON: To put it in publishable form.

[29]

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: But, as you said before, you’re not sure what might have happened to the original drafts. They may have been destroyed, those drafts that were used?

GREEN: I really don’t know what happened to them, but I don’t think they were saved.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Do you have any personal notes that you took on the trip?

JOHNSON: You didn’t keep a diary?

GREEN: I wrote a lot of letters to my friends and family back home telling about various things, but I don’t know if that would be of interest to you or not.

JOHNSON: Well, possibly, if you could round those up.

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: The friends saved them and gave them back to him.

JOHNSON: Oh yes. Okay, I’d like to look at them.

GREEN: I did write some notes, but not many.

JOHNSON: So those months were spent putting together these two published reports. In the meantime, as we have mentioned, there was no real reparations transfer going on, removals from Japan.

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: Was there any discussion about why this was not happening?

GREEN: I believe I have some newspaper clippings which hit on that subject, because at that point I was interested in reparations and what was happening to Pauley and so forth.

JOHNSON: Would you agree with Cohen’s statement that “MacArthur’s subtle sabotage of plant reparations turned out to be one of the best-kept secrets of the Occupation, mostly because MacArthur himself kept quiet”? [See above cited book, page 153.)

GREEN: Oh, yes.

JOHNSON: And then he concludes that MacArthur “had successfully defended Japan from America’s allies.”

GREEN: I would agree with that, yes. Oh, yes.

JOHNSON: What was the feeling of these people that were working on this report? Do you feel that was wise or not?

[30]

GREEN: It was frustrating as I recall that nothing was happening. The report was just shelved. After we put all that time and effort into it, they did nothing about it. At that point we didn’t really know why it wasn’t being implemented.

JOHNSON: But having seen the destruction in Manchuria and Korea, all of you were eager to see Japanese reparations given to those countries?

GREEN: Yes. We were sympathetic to the Chinese, since the Japanese had taken over Manchuria on such flimsy reasons.

JOHNSON: In April 1947 it still wasn’t certain I guess that the Communists were going to conquer China.

GREEN: That’s right. Of course, Chiang Kai-shek was still a pretty active force.

JOHNSON: Did you leave the government in April of 1947?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: After this report was completed?

GREEN: Well, after we finished I stayed around and did a lot of work on odd things. Then I had the job of taking these reports to every member of Congress; literally, physically. I delivered the Manchurian report and the Korean report to each Senator and each Representative. I had a chauffeur and a car loaded with these reports, and I went around and personally delivered the books to every one of them

JOHNSON: This would have been in what month, March or April of 1947?

GREEN: I left on April 5, 1947 According to the termination papers I have.

JOHNSON: That was about the last thing you did on this job?

GREEN: Yes. It took about two weeks.

JOHNSON: Where were you stationed there in Washington? Where was your office?

GREEN: Still in the same place, in the West Foyer.

JOHNSON: Oh, you were in the West Wing.

GREEN: Yes. That’s where we were all the time.

JOHNSON: Did you ever meet Harry Truman, President Truman?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: Where did you meet him?

[31]

GREEN: At Christmas time of 1946 President Truman invited us to the living quarters of the mansion.

JOHNSON: Did you ever get into the Oval Office itself?

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: But you were in the living quarters there in the mansion?

GREEN: Yes. He had all of us come in, and shook our hands and wished us Merry Christmas, et cetera, et cetera.

JOHNSON: Was that a party, or did you actually have time to converse and visit at all?

GREEN: I didn’t have a chance to talk to him, no.

JOHNSON: Did they have a Christmas tree up and that sort of thing.

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: So he just had you there for a brief reception?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: And you got to shake his hand and he thanked you?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: You don’t remember exactly what you said.

GREEN: No, that was over fifty years ago. He came over to our office one time. The only thing I can remember is—he was fairly short, and his bodyguards (there were about four or five of them) towered above him and I could see him walking briskly down the corridor. His stride was almost military.

JOHNSON: One hundred and twenty steps a minute.

GREEN: Yes. Then one time I saw him in Seattle. He was there giving a speech. I saw him and heard him. I was out of the government service. I was with the University of Minnesota then.

JOHNSON: You say you met him twice while you were in the government, in December 1946 and then when he came by for a brief meeting.

GREEN: It was in 1947 the second time.

JOHNSON: Did you have the report done by this time? Did he get report number one?

[32]

GREEN: No. It wasn’t finished then

JOHNSON: Number one, that’s the one that went to Harry Truman?

MRS. JOCELYN GREEN: Would this be the one that was handed to Harry Truman?

GREEN: I didn’t hand it to him. I’m sure Pauley gave it to him. The ambassador was at that level.

JOHNSON: After you came back to Washington, did Pauley come back to visit you people?

GREEN: Only at the reception that we had, and I believe from there he went back to California. Also, Ambassador Pauley returned to Washington in February of 1947 to give a speech at the National Press Club. Charlie and I were busy a couple of days before the event, typing and stenciling his speech. It was 14 pages long.

JOHNSON: What were your impressions of Pauley?

GREEN: As far as I was concerned he was a very considerate person. He seemed to have an interest in your well-being, asking questions, “How are you getting along?” “Is everything okay?” Things like that. And when I had to take some dictation from him, he was very considerate, very easy and wasn’t overbearing or anything. His dictation was not machine-gun type, it was rather slow, easy to take.

JOHNSON: A good speaker, was he?

GREEN: He was slow-speaking, yes. That was my impression, but he could be a rather determined, hard person to deal with, I think.

JOHNSON: Did you ever hear him speak about MacArthur or refer to MacArthur and MacArthur’s position on reparations?

GREEN: No.

JOHNSON: Why was it you left the government? Did you have an opportunity to stay in government?

GREEN: If I wanted to go on I could have taken the government civil service test, but after spending a year there, I didn’t feel it was the type of work I wanted to do. It just seemed to be too much of a rat-race, and you know the politics.

JOHNSON: Were you single at that time, by the way?

GREEN: Yes.

JOHNSON: When did you get married?

[33]

GREEN: Oh, quite a few years later—in April 1959. After I left the Government, I joined World Book Encyclopedia in New York City. I was the educational representative, and every day I contacted librarians and school principals. It took me a year to cover the entire city of New York. At one time I had about thirty people on my staff. I did that for three years. However, it was not the type of career I wanted, so I left. As a filler I had a few jobs in radio. Finally I went to Minnesota, and worked with a motion picture company for a year. Then I was offered a position on the staff of the audio-visual department at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. I was there for 11½ years. During that time I became interested in making documentary films, travelogues. In 1964 I resigned from the University and went full time lecturing with travelogues, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. “China” was my most popular travelogue.

JOHNSON: So you are a freelancer, and entrepreneur.

GREEN: Free-lancer. Right.

JOHNSON: Doing audio-visual programs?

GREEN: Documentaries, right.

JOHNSON: Movies in particular.

GREEN: Sixteen millimeter films. These are presented to Kiwanis Clubs, educational groups, universities, etc. I was just in Seattle. There we had four shows in the Seattle Opera House. It seats 3,000 people. We had four shows in the same opera house, one right after the other. We had 2,500 people at one show.

JOHNSON: What are the subjects of most of these?

GREEN: “China,” “The Silk Road to China,” “Russia: Murmansk to Mt. Ararat,” “Siberia or Frontier Russia,” “Switzerland,” “Germany,” “The Two Berlins,” “Thailand,” “Israel,” and “Singapore.” I’ve filmed all those countries. For the bicentennial, I filmed “The Spirit of ‘76”

JOHNSON: You photographed these on site? You took all of these trips, and did your own photography?

GREEN: Yes, my wife and I research each country and then we travel overseas, and I photograph and edit a travelogue that can be presented to groups around the United States and in Canada. My motivation is to bring a greater understanding of people to people.

JOHNSON: Thank you. I appreciate your time and the information.

[34]

Appendix A

BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL ON RAPHAEL GREEN
Provided by Raphael Green

After Khrushchev downgraded Stalin and opened the Soviet Union to tourism, Raphael Green dashed in and produced an historic film on a people whose country had been closed to foreigners for decades. That was in 1956. Since then Raphael Green has filmed many times in Europe and Asia.

For many years Raphael Green was director-cameraman on the audio-visual education staff of the University of Minnesota. During that time he filmed heart operations for the world famous Dr. C. Walton Lillehei (LIL-E-HIGH), inventor of the pacemaker and the heart-lung machine. Two of Dr. Lillehei’s students, Drs. Bernard and Shumway made medical history in the field of heart transplants. At the same time, Raphael was the official cameraman for the Minnesota football team, the Golden Gophers.

Many years ago, while on a special White House mission, Raphael Green went to the Far East under the leadership of Ambassador Edwin Pauley for the purpose of making a reparations survey of Korea and Manchuria (Northeast China). As a result of his diplomatic travels, Raphael was the first American to film a travelogue of the People’s Republic of China since Mao Tse-tung came to power. He was also the first American to show a travelogue in China—“Early America.” His educational film “The Faces of China” won a red ribbon award at the prestigious American Film and Video Festival.

Besides other countries in the Middle and Far East, “Ray” has filmed in England, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kaliningrad, and the former Soviet Republics of Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, other parts of Siberia, and well as Russia itself.

Raphael Green is a native of Maine. Combining his early college training and teaching experience with professional skills in the visual and audio arts, he puts together a motion picture that is packed with human interest, subtly informative, and visually appealing.

Over the years he has made nine trips to China, from Manchuria and Inner Mongolia in the north, to Urumqi (oar-oo-moo-chee) and Kashgar in the far west,; from small villages to the major cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Xi’an; along with cruises on the mighty Yangtze River (which divides northern China from southern China), and the majestic River Li with its Karst Mountains that have inspired poets and artists for centuries. He has also made several trips to Hong Kong starting in 1966 just as the Cultural Revolution began in China.

Raphael Green’s underlying motivation has been to bring a greater understanding of people to people. His travel philosophy can best be summed up in a quotation from the late Will Rogers: “A stranger is a friend I haven’t met, yet.”

[35]

Appendix B

Provided by Raphael Green

Calendar for May 1946. Typed at the top it says:” Typed aboard Ambassador Pauley’s special train on a siding in Sinuiji, Korea, across the river from Manchuria.”
May 1 – Washington, D. C. – (Wednesday)
May 2 – Washington, D.C. – (Thursday)
May 3 – Washington, D. C. – (Friday)
May 4 – Washington, D. C. – left by plane at 10:30 PM for L.A., California (Saturday)
May 5 – Los Angles, California, arrived 10:25 A.M. at Hines Field – Pauley Party - 4:00 P. M.
(Sunday)
May 6 – Los Angeles, California - Visit 20th Century Fox in P. M. Left for San Francisco at 8:00
(Monday)
May 7 – San Francisco – drove to town in staff car and saw the sights. Left for Hawaii
9:00 P. M. (Tuesday)
May 8 – Hawaii, TH – Arrived at Hicks Field 10:00 A. M. Left 1:10 P. M. Arr. Johnston Island
4:50 P. M. (Wed.)
May 9 – Leave Johnston Island 5:35 P.M. = 180º - INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE. Lose one
day – (Thursday)
May 10 – Arrive Kwajalein 10:30 P. M. – Leave Kwajalein 12:30 P. M. Arrive Guam 9:10 A. M.
(Friday)
May 11 – Leave Guam 5 A. M. – Arrive Iwo Jima 10:00 A. M. Leave 1:30 P. M. – Arrive Tokyo
5:30 P. M. (Saturday)
May 12 - Tokyo, Japan – Mitsui Hotel (Sunday)
May 13 – Tokyo, Japan – Mitsui Hotel (Monday)
May 14 – Tokyo, Japan – Mitsui Hotel (Tuesday)
May 15 – Tokyo, Japan – Mitsui Hotel (Wednesday
May 16 – Tokyo, Japan – Mitsui Hotel (Thursday)
May 17 – Tokyo, Japan – Mitsui Hotel (Friday)
May 18 – Leave 11:00 A. M., Arrive 4:00 P. M. – Seoul, Korea, Chosen Hotel (Sat.)
May 19 – Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Sunday)
May 20 – Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Monday)
May 21 – Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Tuesday)
May 22 - Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Wednesday)
May 23 - Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Thursday)
May 24 – Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Friday)
May 25 – Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Saturday)
May 26 - Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Sunday)
May 27 – Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel – (Monday)
May 28 – Seoul, Korea – Chosen Hotel - (Tuesday)
May 29 – leave 7:00 A. M. by special train at 3:00 P. M. at P’yongyang (Wednesday)
May 30 – P’yongyang – aboard Pauley’s special train (Thursday)
May 31 - Leave 2:00 A. M. , Arrive 6:00 A. M. Keijo – Leave 9:00 A. M. Arrive Chinnampo via
P’yongyang – Arrive 2:00 Keijo – Leave 6:00 P. M. – Arrive P’yongyang (Friday)

[36]

June 1 – Arrive Sinuiji 10: 00 A. M. (Saturday)

List of Subjects Discussed

Carter, Gail, 4-6, 9, 17, 28
Chistiakov, I. M., 9-10, 14
Clifford, Clark, 26
Clubb, O. Edmund, 18-19

Fenical, Marlin E., 6, 7

Galbraith, John Kenneth, 27
Gaynor, Richard, 6, 9, 19, 28
Green, Edwin, 1
Green, Elizabeth, 1

Hildring, John, 27
Hurndall, John, 19

Ickes, Harold, 4
Inter-Allied Reparations Committee, 27

Kai-shek, Chiang, 21-24, 30
Karl, Charles A., 6, 9, 17, 19, 21-22, 25, 28, 32

Li, Xishun, 20, 21

MacArthur, Douglas, 9, 25-28, 32
Martin, Edwin M., 27-28
Mayer, William, 19, 23-24
Maritime Service, 3
Marshall, George, 27
Martin, Edwin, 27,
Morgenthau Plan, 26
Murmansk Memorial, 12

Olson, Benjamin C., 6, 9, 17, 19, 21, 25, 28

Pauley, Edwin W., 4-7, 9-13, 18, 23, 25, 26-28, 32
Pauley mission, WWII reparations:

• • China, 7, 18-19, 22-24, 30
    Germany, 5, 25
    Japan, 7, 9, 30
    • MacArthur policy, 26-27, 29
      reparations policy, 7, 23-28
    Korea, 7, 9-15, 30
    • food and sanitation, 16-17
      occupation by Japan, 13-15
      occupation by USSR, 9-14, 22
      purpose of mission, 11
      train transportation, 9-11
      work schedule, 15
    Manchuria, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 23, 25, 30
    • Mukden, 18-21
      occupation by Japan, 22
      occupation by USSR, 19-23
      reparation fiasco, 23
• Peiping, 23-25

  Swift, Carlton, 16

  Truman, Harry S. 27, 30-32

  Yalta, 22