Word: reischauer
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With little publicity and no fanfare, Edwin O. Reischauer, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, returned to the States at the end of July for the first time in more than two years. He spent a three-week vacation at his Belmont home, interrupted only by a hurried trip to Washington, and devoted much of his time to working on the manuscript of his new book. Work on it had been stalled since President Kennedy snatched Reischauer from his Harvard professorship of Japanese History in March, 1961, and made him Ambassador to Japan...
Understandably, Reischauer regrets the degree to which his job has curtailed his scholarly pursuits, but he has seized the challenge which the Ambassadorship offers with delight and, in the Kennedy tradition, vigor. In the two years and three months he has been in Japan, Reischauer, who speaks Japanese fluently, reads Chinese, and speaks French and German "to get by with at cocktail parties," has journeyed to 27 of the 46 prefectures in Japan. As if apologizing for his failure to have visited all of them, he points out that trips outside Tokyo involve such gruelling schedules, "you can only stand...
...trips invariably include, therefore, extensive speaking engagements and lectures at local universities. Over the years, he points out, the people have become friendlier as their understanding of the U.S. has increased; Reischauer sees every reason for this to continue, "basically because the truths are all on our side." In spite of this tendency, U.S. defense install-ations remain major sources of irritation, though even here, he claims, the Japanese are gradually realizing that defense may be necessary, after all. Still, it is not uncommon for "throngs of Communists to flatter me by giving me attention and yelling 'Reischauer go home...
...most vocal opposition to the U.S. often emanates from students, and Reischauer's frequent lectures at Japenese universities brings him into regular contact with this articulate group of critics...
Students rarely fail to question him about the political apathy of U.S. students. Reischauer's by now polished answer is simply to reverse the charge: not only is the charge false, he counters, but in fact, U.S. students are actually more politically active than their Japanese counterparts...