Shows how General MacArthur, early in February 1946, seized on a “scoop” by the newspaper Mainichi that convinced him that the Japanese cabinet was making little headway toward revising the Constitution. It recounts how a small group of officers at Government Section, under the leadership of General Whitney, Colonel Kades and Commander Hussey, drafted a model constitution for Japan in a week's time. Built on the parliamentary model, it placed sovereignty in the people, kept the emperor as a “symbol” of the nation, banned war and armed forces, and set forth a new bill of rights. The chapter concludes with the dramatic presentation of the draft to stunned representatives of the Japanese cabinet on Wednesday, February 13.
Keywords: bill of rights, emperor as symbol Courtney Whitney, A. Rodman Hussey, Charles Kades, parliamentary model, revised constitution, the Mainichi scoop the SCAP model