MacArthur appeared on the cover of the June 27, 1960, issue of Time magazine, in which he was characterized as "the principal architect of present-day U.S. policy toward Japan.

[11] As the protests grew in size in June 1960, MacArthur summoned the heads of major newspapers and television station NHK to his office and demanded more favorable coverage of the treaty.

[12] Then on June 10, MacArthur deliberately provoked the so-called "Hagerty Incident" (ハガチー事件, Hagachii jiken).

That afternoon, MacArthur was leaving Tokyo's Haneda Airport in a black car carrying himself and President Eisenhower's press secretary James Hagerty, who had just arrived in Japan to prepare for a planned visit by Eisenhower, when MacArthur ordered that the car be deliberately driven into a large crowd of anti-treaty protesters.

However, MacArthur's gambit backfired, as widespread shock at the Hagerty Incident helped force prime minister Nobusuke Kishi to cancel Eisenhower's visit, for fears that his safety could not be guaranteed.

[3] It was also revealed, through documents declassified in the 2000s, that MacArthur pressured the Japanese judiciary, including Chief Justice Kōtarō Tanaka, to uphold the legality of the United States military presence in Japan after a lower court decision found it unconstitutional.

[17][3][8][18] Months later, Iranian military officials sentenced four guerrillas to life imprisonment for their involvement in the attempted kidnapping.