Edwin O. Reischauer

81
Edwin O. Reischauer bigraphy, stories - American diplomat

Edwin O. Reischauer : biography

October 15, 1910 – September 1, 1990

Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (October 15, 1910September 1, 1990) was an American educator and professor at Harvard University. He was a leading scholar of the history and culture of Japan and East Asia. From 1961 to 1966, he served as the United States Ambassador to Japan.

Career

Advocacy on U.S. policy

Reischauer advocated both in public and in government policy documents on the framework and attitude of U.S. policy on Japan post-World War II and during the Vietnam War and America’s role in Asia.

Post-World War II

On September 14, 1942—three years before the end of World War II—Reischauer, then an instructor in Far Eastern languages at Harvard University, wrote the "Memorandum on Policy towards Japan" which laid out a plan on how the United States can attain its post-war objective of "winning the peace" in Asia.Rabson, Steve. , The Asia-Pacific Journal, 5-1-10, February 1, 2010Fujitani, T. [Abstract]. Critical Asian Studies, 33: 3 (2001), 379. According to Japanese historian Takashi Fujitani, the memo reveals a "condescension toward Japanese people" and a "purely instrumentalist and manipulative stance". In the abstract to his article, "The Reischauer Memo: Mr. Moto, Hirohito, and Japanese American Soldiers", Fujitani writes:

Already at this early date in the war, Reischauer proposed retention of the Japanese emperor as head of a postwar “puppet regime” that would serve U.S. interests in East Asia. He also argued that Japanese Americans had until then been a “sheer liability” and that the United States could turn them into an “asset” by enlisting them in the U.S. military. He reasoned that Japanese American soldiers would be useful for propaganda purposes – that is, to demonstrate to the world and particularly the “yellow and brown peoples” that the United States was not a racist nation.

U.S. bases in Okinawa

A "secret" memorandum declassified in 1996. July 16, 1965. Record Number 79651 detailing the conversation among top-level U.S. military and civilian officials on July 16, 1965 in Tokyo revealed a plan put forward by Reischauer, then serving as the United States Ambassador to Japan, that would enable the U.S. to keep its military bases and the option to introduce nuclear weapons in Okinawa after the reversion of the U.S.-occupied islands to Japanese sovereignty. Reischauer premised his strategy on the symbolic political importance of reversion for Japan’s conservative ruling party, arguing that the U.S. need not "give Japan any real say in the use of our bases." The conditions he proposed for keeping U.S. bases in Okinawa after reversion—Japan’s "accept[ance of] nuclear weapons on Japanese soil, including Okinawa, and […] assurances guaranteeing our military commanders effective control of the islands in time of military crisis"—were accepted by the Japanese government and "became key elements [of] the 1969 U.S.-Japan Okinawa Reversion Agreement".

The 1969 Reversion Agreement effectively made "U.S. military presence more or less permanent and maintain[ed] the option to introduce nuclear weapons", which Reischauer himself confirmed, as reported in a 1981 article in Time:

Since the 1950s, Japan’s Liberal Democratic government has solemnly and repeatedly affirmed three basic principles about nuclear weapons: not to make them, possess them or allow them into the country. In 1960, with the signing of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, Washington agreed not to "introduce" nuclear weapons into Japan. Two weeks ago, however, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer revealed that the two countries have ever since been living a convenient lie. In an interview with Tokyo’s Mainichi Shimbun, Reischauer asserted that U.S. naval vessels carrying nuclear weapons have routinely visited Japanese ports—with Tokyo’s tacit approval., Time, June 8, 1981

The secret memo also revealed Reischauer’s proposed counter-measures to quell "nationalistic reaction" to continuing U.S. military presence in Okinawa. In his article, "’Secret’ 1965 Memo Reveals Plans to Keep U.S. bases and Nuclear Weapons Options in Okinawa After Reversion", Steve Rabson, former U.S. Army draftee in Okinawa during 1967–68 and now author and lecturer on Okinawan literature, history and culture, writes: