Her father is remembered now as the envoy who tried to negotiate peace and for the goodwill with america while the Japanese Military was secretly preparing to attack pearl harbor. She is the youngest of ambassador crews three children. Her mother was american from new york city. After world war ii she married an american, worked in commercial real estate, and lived much of for a adult life in the grand rapids area. One of her greatgrandchildren is in the audience. A candidate in the leadership academy. To your farright is the youngestenstein, grandson of colonel ralph hauenstein. Brians grandfather is pressed best known as eisenhowers u. S. Army officer u. S. Army officer who liberated paris and into places of unbelievable horror. After the war, ralph discovered as an entrepreneur and recognized as the father of goldfish crackers. [laughter] in theughout his career private sector, he also became one of mesh west michigans lead philanthropists. I will say later, its more than just the fact that his name is on buildings. A lot more. His grandson brian has spent most of his adult life in west michigan. He is the organizations Senior Advisor and serves on the Hauenstein Centers cabinet. Brians daughter is also in the audience, a recent graduate of our Cook Leadership Academy at the Hauenstein Center and soon will be taking a job in tokyo. Congratulations, by the way. On a personal note, two things. One of the highlights of my life at the Hauenstein Center is when i had the opportunity to introduce them to each other over lunch. And to listen to them share stories of their very different wartime perspectives. Two people who in a previous era might have regarded themselves as enemies, but now met as friends. It was a beautiful event. Finally, i want to say that, in life, we often seek one thing and find another. To me, rolf became much more than the centers figurehead. In the 12 years i knew ralph, he was a wise advisor, a faithful mentor and he was just a terrific at a treasured friend. Lunch every wednesday here and town and we met on saturday morning over a cup of coffee before he told me the story. I not only learned history, not only laughed at his arch sense of humor, not only experienced his gift of friendship, but also by his example understood what it is to become a better man. Ladies and gentlemen, please white and brian hauenstein. [applause] to begin our conversation, we should get to know your people a little bit better. If we could take four or five minutes each. Pia white on you began, tell us what you think we ought to know about your father, the famous ambassador. He was primarily known as a person who founded an act, not a good idea according to my father, but he was a ranking japanese ambassador in europe. Although he had no prior negotiating pact, was ordered to sign the agreement. As the architect on the japanese the pact, unable to come to europe, they did not have the flights they do now. The architect on the japanese side of the pact was unable to come to europe. He wasnt able to attend. My dad was appointed to perform that task. Unfortunately he didnt really care and more or less signed it under duress. The other thing he was possibly known for was he was a special import sent to washington to negotiate some sort of peace, avoiding world war ii. Unfortunately it did not turn out to be successful. He regarded it as the worst part of his career, because it ended then and he wasnt successful in attaining his goal. As a result, the war came and he lost his only son in the war. Thank you for that introduction. Brian, please tell us a little bit more about colonel hauenstein. He was notably eisenhowers chief intelligence. I think thats really where his world sort of turned around in many different ways. But leading up to that point, he was stationed in iceland. He was there well ahead of the troops in europe. Is my microphone on . Hello, everybody. [laughter] so, maybe i can start over. Most notably he was eisenhowers chief of intelligence. , for a up to that he was time, a couple of years in iceland. And backing up, i suppose even further than that, he was editor of the grand rapids herald. That sort of let his path. In the civiltenant conservation corps. Ahead of that. All of his expertises in being and military experience, all of those things started culminating to the perfect person to really working in the intelligence division. When he was in iceland he was assigned to the intelligence division. He was in the camp of the there, but while he was most people dont know this, but we were already actively engaging with the germans. Marching sinking some ships merchant ships. It was one of the planes they had shot down that they noticed a codebook was amidst the wreckage. I think there might be an image of that. If not, he took that codebook and many know that the story of the park where they were encoding the german enigma. So the school thought that code place because of that book that was recovered during that time. He, of course, was ins such turning points of the war. One story he arrived in to paris and he was the first to arrive. As he is coming into town they had mild mounted landed on outskirts of town and then a bomb goes off. He is thinking he is under attack. The vehicle he was in backfired so he was ok. There are so many Great Stories to tell about the war and i could really just go on forever. Save think maybe i will some of the act of war experiences for a little bit. Both of your relatives who were involved in the war had a distinguished career in Public Service. It is interesting how they got to Public Service because it was not a linear, obvious path. I think for the young people present, it would be interesting for them to hear how he ended up in a diplomatic corps when nobody expected him to do that. Can you tell us about that . His father owned a Shipbuilding Company and apparently did some business with people from overseas. I dont know if that was a fact, but i suspect that might have been a factor in my father developing an interest in the rest of the world. Immediately he made up his mind to enter the service because immediately after graduation from university he entered the Japanese Foreign service. He, as a result, we were dragged, the whole family, all over the world. At times, especially when i got to my teenage years, i used to tell my mother, when i grow up, i am going to stay in one place. [laughter] but it was an interesting experience. In retrospect, i would have not missed it for anything. It provided your family with amazing experiences to see the world. It was difficult at times because my mother believed if you want to learn to swim, you put them in the water. And they went under it was time enough to do something. It was whatever country we arrived in, the first thing that was done was to put me in the local schools without knowing a word of the language spoken there. Oddly enough, as a child, i was able to pick it up rather quickly. I did not have to look at the children looking at me and saying things that i knew were bad things about me. Tell us how ralph got to Public Service. And his distinguished military career. It was not obvious when he started out. First of all, i should say that he was very much a religious man. I think sad his path was sort of guided through his faith belief. Back between the great wars, world war i and world war ii, he was smart enough to see that we were not going to get out of this next round. , from a very early age, and i suppose he was in his early 20s at that time, he realized that, for the betterment of our country and the betterment of himself, really, in some ways its sort of protected him because he went in as an officer versus an enlisted man. But there were opportunities. He sort of pushed things along. He did not just let things happen. War,c service after the the opportunity came to serve eisenhowers committees and so forth. He was in the inner circle in washington. He took advantage of all those opportunities. Jamestown foundation serves there for a number of years ensuring that our country would be safe from communism. I know because he was appointed physician somewhere around 61, all the way through and most the first prerussian election, there he was with gorbachev and guys like thefully willfully, chief intelligence and a leg. His whole life was just dedicated really to country and family and to building this. And all of that sort of tied together nicely for him. I was going to say, i think both of these individuals had a real sense of what a nation needed. You cannot have everybody always in the private sector and just doing their own thing. They knew their sacrifices that Public Service entailed. Both of them were in view with that intelligence and that grace to be able to do that. I think you just teased us a little bit. You are telling us a little bit about what it was like to be a child of this famous diplomat, somebody who would become a world figure. Tell us what it is like to be the child of someone that highprofile right in the middle of so much happening in the world
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