The U.S. ambassador to Japan in 1959 pressured Japanese officials to overrule a lower court decision calling the U.S. military presence unconstitutional, according to recently declassified documents.
Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, concerned about the ruling by the Tokyo District Court, pressed Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama to appeal the case directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the high court, and held backroom talks with Kotaro Tanaka, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the documents showed.
MacArthur was a nephew of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who oversaw the Allied Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951.