Hellegers, Dale M. Papers

Historian; author of We, the Japanese People: World War II and the Origins of the Japanese Constitution (2001)

The papers of Dale M. Hellegers mostly consist of copies of correspondence, memoranda, reports, and minutes of meetings relating to the U.S. military occupation of Japan after World War II and the creation of the postwar Japanese Constitution. The collection also includes transcripts of interviews conducted by Hellegers and others, printed materials, typed and handwritten notes, sound recordings, and other items. Hellegers compiled these materials in the course of research for her book, We, the Japanese People.

Size: 13 linear feet, 7 linear inches (about 24,800 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor has given to the United States of America her copyrights in these materials and in any of her writings that may be included among other collections of papers in the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration. Documents created by U.S. government officials in the course of their duties are also in the public domain. Copyrights in other documents presumably belong to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Randy Sowell, Sharie Simon, and Janice Davis (2005, 2006).

Dale M. Hellegers, an independent scholar, began work in the early 1970s on an historical study of the origins of the 1946 Japanese Constitution. Her research focused on how the creation of the new Constitution was affected by World War II and the postwar military occupation of Japan by the United States. Hellegers interviewed many persons who had been involved in the military government of Japan and the drafting of the Constitution. She also engaged in extensive research at the National Archives in Washington and at other archival repositories. Her book, We, the Japanese People: World War II and the Origins of the Japanese Constitution, was published in two volumes by Stanford University Press in 2001. Hellegers donated her research materials to the Harry S. Truman Library in 2002.

The papers of Dale M. Hellegers consist mostly of copies of correspondence, memoranda, reports, and minutes of meetings relating to the U.S. military occupation of Japan after World War II and the creation of the postwar Japanese Constitution. Hellegers made these copies during her research at the National Archives and other archival repositories. The collection also contains transcripts of oral history interviews conducted by Hellegers and others, printed materials, typed and handwritten research notes, sound recordings, and other items. Hellegers compiled these materials during the course of her historical research, which resulted in her book, We, the Japanese People (2001).

The collection is arranged in five series. The first series, the Interviews and Biographical Notes File, contains interview transcripts, correspondence, notes, and printed materials concerning persons who were involved in the U.S. occupation of Japan and the drafting of the Japanese Constitution after World War II. During the 1970s, Hellegers corresponded with and interviewed many ex-officials who had participated in the war against Japan, the postwar administration of the country, and the development of its 1946 Constitution. In addition to interview transcripts and notes, this series includes biographical information about these and other individuals.

The second series, the Numerical Research File, comprises more than half of the collection. It contains correspondence, memoranda, reports, minutes of meetings, agendas, and other documents from the holdings of the National Archives and other repositories, copied by Hellegers during the course of her research. Many of the materials from the National Archives were copied from Record Group (RG) 38 (Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations), RG 165 (Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs), RG 218 (Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff), and RG 331 (Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II). The series also contains typed and handwritten notes made by Hellegers during her research.

The materials in the Numerical Research File were arranged by Hellegers according to her own numerical filing system. A list of the numbers and files in this system is included in the first folder in the series. The numerical headings in Hellegers’s filing system are: (1) Government Section: Constitutional Reform; (2) Government Section: Reforms (Miscellaneous); (3) Government Section: General; (4) SCAP: GHQ; (5) POLAD (Political Adviser’s Office); (11) State Department: Postwar Planning; (12) State Department: Occupation of Japan; (13) War Department: Planning; (14) War Department: Occupation; (15) Allies; (16) Navy Department: Planning; (17) Office of War Information; and (18) Office of Strategic Services. Hellegers did not use numbers 6-10.

The materials copied by Hellegers and included in the Numerical Research File relate to such topics as U.S. plans for the invasion of Japan and its postwar administration; the events leading to the Japanese surrender; the status of the Emperor; economic and political reforms; the drafting of the 1946 Constitution; the Communist movement in postwar Japan; and relations between the Government Section of SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers), other SCAP divisions, and the Japanese government.

The third series, the English-Language Research Materials File, contains printed materials, reports, and research notes in English concerning such topics as the use of the atomic bomb, psychological warfare, postwar planning, and Japanese constitutional development. In addition to more documents copied from the National Archives, this series includes excerpts from books, journal articles, and newspaper clippings pertaining to Japan during and after World War II.

The fourth series, the Japanese-Language Research Materials File, contains printed materials and a small amount of correspondence relating to Hellegers’s research. With a few exceptions, all of the writings in this series are in Japanese.

The fifth and final series, the General File, is mostly made up of cards with research notes compiled by Hellegers. Some of the cards are arranged chronologically; others are arranged alphabetically, employing such abbreviations as “GS” (Government Section), “SD” (State Department), and “WD” (War Department). The series also contains cross reference sheets for sound recordings of the interviews Hellegers conducted, and for microfilm copies of SCAP records and other materials from the National Archives.

Further information concerning Japan after World War II can be found at the Truman Library in the Student Research File, "Creating a Pluralistic Democracy in Japan: The Occupation Government, 1945-52," and in the papers of Harry S. Truman, W. Kenneth Bunce, Myron M. Cowen, and John D. Sumner.