American Medical Association (AMA), to Crawford Sams, Lull expressed his strong
opposition to the Social Security Mission and the promotion of “socialized” medicine in
Japan (Lull 1948). In the ensuing weeks, General MacArthur received letters from
concerned doctors around the United States, urging that he “not support or abet the
socialistic and undemocratic proposal of the Social Security mission to Japan which has
as its purpose the ‘putting over’ of compulsory sickness insurance on this vanquished
nation” (Coon 1947). One doctor from San Diego quoted verbatim from portions of the
Harness subcommittee report and sent MacArthur a copy of Shearon’s “Blueprint for the
Nationalization of Medicine,” which he described as “scientific…authoritative and
thoroughly documented” (Black 1947).
In his reply, MacArthur assured these doctors that “there is no slightest concept at
this headquarters of any socialization of medicine in Japan” (MacArthur 1947b).
However, in a letter to Forest Harness, MacArthur noted that, “Japan…has had extensive
health insurance and various forms of social insurance developed piecemeal over more
than twenty years.” Moreover, MacArthur added that the Japanese government “has
repeatedly asked for the advice and assistance which could be rendered by a group of
American experts in the social security field” (MacArthur 1947a). With MacArthur’s
2
Although it is hard to gauge the extent of this network, in a letter to Ray Smith,
Executive Secretary of the Indiana State Medical Association, Marjorie Shearon (1947)
discusses arrangements to sell 300 copies of the Harness release adding that “There is
great interest in this Mission to Japan story because it shows how high-handed the Social
Security crowd is.”
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Convention