Word: reischauers
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These two works--the first informal, current and American, the second formal, historical, and Japanese--represent distinct poles in Reischauer's career. For he is a scholar constantly concerned with current problems, a former government consultant who remained at all times an "academician" and a thoroughly American varsity tennis player with an almost intuitive understanding of his birthplace, Japan...
...Reischauer's boyhood in Tokyo was neither queer nor quaint. His parents, both educational missionaries still respected throughout Japan, did their best "to make up for the distance from home by being as American as possible." When the 16-year-old Reischauer came to the United States and Oberlin College in 1927, he was therefore prepared for baseball, basketball, and varsity tennis. Whenever his Japanese background did get in the way, he tried to conceal it. "When I hitched rides. I used to make up a lot of false home towns so I wouldn't have to go through...
After an M.A. from Harvard, Reischauer pursued his studies of the Far East under a fellowship from the Harvard-Yenching Institute, first in Paris, and then in China and Japan. The second World War was threatening when he returned to Harvard for his doctorate in 1939, and the U.S. Government soon called him to Washington, for the summer of 1941, as a Senior Research Analyst in the State Department. "I was writing little digests which they evidently liked," Reischauer explains. "Also, with another young fellow, I drew up a grand scheme for avoiding the war, but someone pigeon-holed...
...Reischauer's constant shuttles to and from the capital were almost a commuter's nightmare. After another year back at Harvard, he returned to Washington by direct agreement between President Conant and John J. McCloy of the War Department, where he taught a special language program for a year. It was difficult for a civilian to make his force felt, so that when he again found himself in Washington, he made certain it was as a commissioned officer. He never let military etiquette bother him, though: "I didn't know how to salute, or anything like that. There were always...
...Reischauer's task was to analyze most of the important military intelligence on the Far East, which funneled through him. After the war, he shifted to the State Department, and began planning the occupation of Japan and the peace treaty. He never hesitated to speak out: "As an academician, I felt free to criticize. I acted as much like a professor as I could, since I had no government job to protect...