ABSTRACT
The creation of an information regime is often a negotiation between individual and state actors. In 1960, Harvard University professor Edwin O. Reischauer published an essay in Foreign Affairs which ultimately changed American policy in Japan, causing American ambassador Douglas A. MacArthur II to engage with leftist and even Communist activists and intellectuals in an attempt to repair what Reischauer called “the broken dialogue” between American officials in Japan and leftwing opposition figures. The result of this faulty information regime was, according to Reischauer, a flawed American engagement with Japan as a country of diverse political views, a failing which could imperil the American Cold War in East Asia. The MacArthur-Reischauer row went to the heart of America’s diplomacy and Japan’s subordinate position in it, and raised questions about the extent to which the opinions of leftist political parties and intellectuals should be heard. In this chapter, I undertake the first in-depth analysis of the “Broken Dialogue” episode and its ramifications for the crucial US-Japan alliance in the Cold War.
