Transcripts For CSPAN3 U.S. Japanese Perspectives On World War II 20240713

I am the host of todays discussion. Since 2003, the director of the Hauenstein Center for president ial studies named after colonel ralph hauenstein, whom we will be speaking of. I am joined on stage by two individuals for whom world war ii is no abstraction. Two your right is the daughter of the late ambassador. Her father is remembered as the envoy who tried to negotiate peace with america while the , Japanese Military was secretly trying to attack pearl harbor. 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 her life in the grand rapids area. One of her greatgrandchildren , garrett, is in the audience. Is a candidate in the Cook Leadership Academy. To your farright is the youngest grandson of colonel ralph hauenstein. Brians grandfather is pressed is best known as eisenhowers u. S. Army officer who liberated paris and places of unbelievable horror. After the war, ralph discovered his vocation as an entrepreneur and recognized as the father of goldfish crackers. [laughter] throughout his career in the private sector, he also became one of west michigans lead philanthropists. I will say later and brian will it is more than the fact that also his name is on buildings. ,a lot more. His grandson has spent most of his adult life in west michigan. He works with oasis Senior Advisors he is the , where he is the organizations Senior Advisor and serves on the Hauenstein Centers cabinet. Brians daughter, lily, is also in the audience, a recent graduate of the Hauenstein Center Cook Leadership Academy and she is soon going to be taking a job in tokyo. Congratulations, by the way. On a personal note, two things. One of the highlights of my life of my time at the Hauenstein Center is when i introduced them over lunch and to listen to them share stories of their 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 ralph became more than the , centers figurehead. In the 12 years i knew ralph, he was a wise advisor, a faithful mentor, and a terrific and treasured friend. We met for lunch every wednesday in town. We met on saturday mornings over a cup of coffee. I not only learned history, not the kind of history you get in textbooks 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 soladies and gentlemen, please, welcome. Hite and Brian Hauenstein [applause] to begin our conversation, we should get to know your people better. If we could take four or five minutes each. Pia, tell us what you think we ought to know about your father, the famous ambassador. Pia he was primarily known as a person who signed the tripartite act, not a good idea according to my father, but the ranking japanese ambassador in europe. Although he had no part in negotiating pact, was ordered to sign the agreement. The architect on the japanese side of the pact was unable to come to europe. They did not have the flights they do now. [laughter] 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 envoy 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, tell us more about your grandfather colonel hauenstein. Brian he was eisenhowers chief of intelligence. That is where his world turned around in many ways. Leading up to that point, he was stationed in iceland. He was there well ahead of the troops in europe. [indiscernible] sorry. Hello, everybody. [laughter] so, if you want to start. Brian maybe i can start over. Most notably, he was eisenhowers chief of intelligence. He was for a couple of years in iceland. Backing up further, he was editor of the grand rapids herald. That led his path. He was a lieutenant in the civil conservation corps, the ccc. All of this expertise in being a reporter and military experience, all of those things culminate into the perfect person to work in an intelligence division. In iceland he was assigned to the intelligence division. He was an aide de camp to a general. While there, most people dont know this, but we were already actively engaging with the germans. They were sinking merchant ships. We were shooting down planes. It was one of those planes they had shot down that they noticed a codebook was amidst the wreckage. There might be an image of that here. He took that codebook to the to bletchley park. Many know the story where they were decoding the german enigma. Code breaking was in part took place because of the codebook recovered during that time. He was in such turning points of the war throughout. One story, he arrived into paris. And of course he was the first , to arrive. And as he is coming into town, they had landed on the outskirts of town and he is coming into town and all of a sudden, boom, bomb goes off. He is thinking he is under attack. Well it was actually the vehicle he was in backfired, [laughter] so he was ok. [laughter] there are so many Great Stories to tell about the war. I could go on forever. But maybe i will save them for the after war experiences. Thank you. Both of your relatives involved in the war had a distinguished career of Public Service. It is interesting how they got to Public Service, because it was not a linear path. I think for the young people present, it would be interesting how your father ended up in that diplomatic corps when no one in his family expected that. Pia 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 Diplomatic 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. Pia it was difficult because my mother believed if you want to learn to swim, you put them in the water. 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. But oddly enough, as a child, i was able to pick it up rather quickly. So, i did not have to look at the children looking at me and saying things that i knew were bad things about me. [laughter] thank you. Brian, tell us how ralph got to Public Service. His distinct military career was not obvious when he started out. Brian first, i should say he was very much a religious man. His path was guided through his faith belief. Between world war i and world war ii, he was smart enough to see we were not going to get out of this next round. I think that, from an early age, and i suppose he was in his early 20s at the time, he realized for the betterment of our country and himself in some ways, it sort of protected him because he went in as an officer versus an enlisted man. There were opportunities that presented themselves. He pushed things along as well. He didnt just let things happen. Public service after the war, the opportunity came to serve on eisenhowers committees. He was in the inner circle of washington. He took advantage of those opportunities. The jamestown foundation, served there for a number of years, ensuring our country would be safe from communism. He was appointed, and somewhere around 1961, all the way through and most notably, the first free russian elections, there he was with gorbachev and the chief of intelligence and the like. His whole life was dedicated to country and family and to building business. All that tied together nicely for him. Go ahead. Both of these individuals had a real sense of what a nation needed. You cant have everybody always in the private sector doing their own thing. They knew the sacrifices Public Service entailed. Both of them were in view with that intelligence and that grace to be able to do that. Pia, i think you teased us a bit, telling us what it was like to be a child of this famous diplomat, someone 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. Pia one thing was a burden. From an early age, somehow, i knew that my behavior would have consequences, not just for my family, but possibly even, heaven forbid, for the country. So, it was something you either adjusted to all the movement and change of countries, or you just had to drown. So, fortunately, due to my mothers attitude toward things if you cannot change it, go with it. The other thing is that i became older and was aware of things going on in the world. It became fascinating to be allowed, many times, to listen to what my father recounted, as the result of something that happened. For instance, to illustrate, what a diplomats job was, when i was three years old my father was posted to lima, peru. It was a period when many okinawa citizens emigrated to peru and it was creating an issue. Economic stresses, and the fact that there were so many who entered in such a short time. So, it was my fathers job, as the lead japanese diplomat in the country, to find a solution to this issue that had arisen. He was able to negotiate with the peruvian government, to have made available a sparsely populated section of peru, since many of the people of okinawa were farmers. To relocate them to that land. The issue just dispersed. The farmers, the okinawans, or doing what they were trained to do. And there was no more economic issue in the city. Those are the kinds of things that, at the time, i did not realize. I was only three years old. In learning and listening to my father speak, or my family discuss, i became very aware of the fact that a diplomats job was not an easy one, but a great opportunity to do good wherever they were posted. Just a followup. Did you feel you are watched, your behavior . Pia yes. I do not recall that anyone ever told me that. But i definitely had a feeling that my behavior and especially in public was rather important. To be good. [laughter] what is so interesting about ralph is that he did not reveal all he had done in world war ii. So, when you are his grandchild, growing up around him, maybe you hear some stories. But it is only in the latter part of the 1990s he starts to reveal who he was. You mentioned the codebook earlier. Lets put it out on the table now. Ralph probably saved tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives to be the first to discover that codebook and get it to the british, so the code breakers could start working on it. Churchill would end up saying, nobody could know we had broken that code. Truth is too precious not to be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies. That was the saying that ralph would tell us, you and me, and the family. You find out as an adult who he is. Brian it was interesting. As family we all knew he was in the military. We knew that he fought in world war ii. We knew his rank. But we really did not understand to what extent he really contributed. Would be five 1985, celebration of dday past, i think it was because washington allowed this thing to happen, to talk about the enigma machine, the coding, and so forth. He started speaking, at the ford museum and there was a piece in the newspaper. Because he operated most of his life in the shadows, he was not very forthcoming with many of the answers we were looking for. But we would still hear stories over the dinner table. I was telling somebody earlier, the first time i brother and i were using chopsticks at his house he said i learned how to use chopsticks in paris, when i had dinner with chiang kai shek. [laughter] the other was corn on the cob, we had at the house. He says, i taught general molotov how to eat corn on the cob. [laughter] ok. The molotov cocktail. Brian right. I dont think those are tied together. [laughter] it was fascinating, as he aged, to hear the stories. Many in the room have heard many of these Great Stories as well. But not those on cspan. He was also called up by the vatican to be a vatican observer. And he was deeply involved with the catholic church. I do not know how many popes he spent private time with. But he was very passionate about his faith, as was grace, his wife. One of the tricks i learned, anyone who learned new ralph, if ralph, if you wanted him to open up and talk, get him a glass of finlandia. On the second when he is ready to start telling his story. He would open up. Let me ask a different question. You grew up in an environment where japan was changing a lot. And you would go to western europe or south america. You had different experience with different kinds of regimes. Im sure that made you think a lot about what it is like to grow up in freedom and have an environment in which you are able to do what you can. Tell us about your experience, though, when you went back to japan, after it and began to change under tojo. Pia we spent three years in europe. We had left japan in 1936, and returned in 1939. Before we left for europe, japan seemed to be a fairly free and normal country. When we returned in 1939, such a dramatic change had taken place in the culture. I remember that apparently fraternization between the sexes was very discouraged for some reason. I know not why. But i had a cousin, a boy, who was the same age as i was. We went to the same school. And we had to go there was a section in tokyo where there was one bookstore after another. They had different specialties. Some specialized in certain countries literature and so on. We needed to go to some bookstore to acquire a text for school. And we passed by the bookstore that specialized in russian literature. So i said to my cousin, i want to go in there and he said no, we do not want to spend the time, lets go look for what we need to look. He started to walk away. So i chased him and grabbed him. Trying to get him to go into this russian literature store. Well, there was a police kiosk nearby. The policeman came out and politely asked us to come into the kiosk. And i thought, oh dear, that is all i need. My parents are going to read the paper and see this, that their daughter was accused of being unethical. [laughter] and my cousin, fortunately, was a fastthinking fellow. He said, we are sorry, this girl is a student from the philippines and she has been here a short time, so she is not aware of the rules. And i really did not want to bring her down, but my mother insisted that i bring her down, to get this book that was necessary for schooling. [laughter] and that was a great thing to happen to me. Anytime i got into trouble, i became a Philippine Exchange student. [laughter] and that took care of of a lot of awkward circumstances. [laughter] the other thing that was interesting. I guess all leaders have things they like to do, that they feel connects them to the people. General tojo was then the Prime Minister of japan and he is the one who developed this very militaristic regime. His thing was to ride his horse every morning in various neighborhoods. If there were people there that he could speak to, he would stop and speak. There were a lot of media people following him. I was waiting for my bus to go to school one morning when i heard this clap, clap. And i looked and thought, oh dear. [laughter] this will not bode well. [laughter] so, i quickly went from where i was sitting on the curb waiting for my bus. And i got up and ran into the front yard of a house nearby. So that i would not have to be interviewed by mr. Tojo. [laughter] but that was how, in the short three years that we were away, the total atmosphere and culture of the country had changed. I found that rather amazing, that it could happen in such a short time. And ralph referred to himself as a kid from the midwest. The prohibition midwest, when he was really young. And he is called to iceland and then europe and he sees the contrast between what is happening in the United States and in the midwest, which had been isolationist. Now hes confronted with tyranny and fortress europe. It changes him. It broadens his outlook. Brian, would you talk about that . Brian certainly. You can imagine, a west michigan native, born in fort wayne, indiana, but at a young age moved to grand rapids. His roots were grand rapids, and very midwestern. To see what he saw with his own eyes and experience that, must have been a tremendous undertaking. He talked about, and you mentioned earlier, dachau concentration camp and the experience he had there with the prisoners. You can imagine. He is on the hunt for hitler. He has been to the eagles nest. He is heading for berlin. As an intelligence officer, you have reports from the field these things are going on. But is is not concrete and so when he saw this firsthand, and the prisoners come up to him and he still had a scar on his hand until the day he died. Sombody squeezed him so hard, they were so happy they were there. To see the stacks of bodies. And the horrific things that he did see. He interrogated that Camp Commander of dachau, and his sergeant next to him, had all he could do to restrain him, from doing the wrong thing he realized that later, to shoot this guy on the spot. But it was an awful experience. All right. That segues into the next question i want to ask. Your father, your grandfather, are really sensitive souls in a lot of ways. For example, your father spent time in his youth in a zen temple, studying. A very spiritual man in addition to having a very sensitive soul. How did he deal with so many of the difficult things that came up in world war ii . The atrocities, the war crimes . Pia he was very saddened. I remember him telling us the story that his first post was in china, a Major Chinese port. It was a period when many navies traveled around the world and this port was one of the stops. Many of the countries had consuls that represent their interests. My father said he was envied by all the rest of the consulates there, because the japanese fleet would come in and the sailors would tie their lunch around their middle and go sightseeing, go back to the ship. And when the ships had left, he had no problems whatsoever. For many of the other consuls, they complained that when their fleet left, they left behind so many issues and complaints by the Chinese Government of misbehavior by the sailors. And my father could not understand how the culture could have changed to the point where japanese soldiers were no longer adhering to the warrior that regulated the samurai, a very strict culture of behavior by warriors. That was prevalent. By the time world war ii occurred, that had totally disintegrated. My father was so saddened to think members of his country, a country he represented for so many years, was capable of doing such awful things. Creating atrocities. Of all the stories you heard from ralph, brian, what is your favorite story ralph told you . Brian there are so many good ones. He had some Great Stories about his time in paris, when he was trying to organize. He was given a tour of the gestapo headquarters. So he saw the headquarters of pure evil. That seared him, when he saw interrogation rooms and found out what really happened in there. He also learned to love the opera, this kid from the midwest. He talked about how much it meant to him to go to the opera and there was one in particular that was his favorite. You remember the story of la boheme . The reason it meant so much to him, he was introduced this opera by a man named puccini. La boheme is about the artist in a garrette, the attic of a cold apartment in paris. Ralph is in paris in winter when there is not enough fuel for people to heat their homes and they were sacrificing. He tells the story of one sunday going to montmartre to mass, being driven up there. We got out of the car he was on the hill with the cathedral, looking down over the landscape of paris around him, and there is no smoke. No one could use the fuel to warm their homes. He understood they were cold. All of a sudden he connected that with going to the opera and seeing this poor, young, parisian, who was freezing in her attic. He felt such compassion. I only saw ralph come to tears a couple of times in all of the stories that he told me. One of them was when he was talking about heroism of the parisians, and their sense of sacrifice, that was necessary to endure that part of the war, knowing that they were cold and suffering. Brian tied to that story, so five years ago my daughter and i went to paris. We were up near montmartre. He had never adapted to technology fully. He had tried, but like many seniors, im not going to learn a darn new thing. He was with my parents at the time. We facetimed him he was staying with my parents and we facetimed with him. He had not been there for many years but you could see him it reminiscing in his own mind about what he saw. He was talking about how he saw people eating out of garbage cans, and the poverty that was right in front of him there. The story about people eating out of the garbage, what struck me about one of those stories, once he was describing a man who who was dressed nattily, in like a tuxedo to us. And the dignity that was injured, that mans dignity, that he had to go through the trash to eat. Ralph was struck by that, that he try to maintain his dignity with his formal suit. Pia, what is your favorite story you love to hear your father tell . Pia actually, it is something he did, which illustrated to us what a soft soul he was. We were in belgium. And the war was imminent. The belgian army was reactivated and disbursed two sections of sections of belgium. So, the trucks and tanks, all kinds of vehicles, as well as soldiers, were going by where our house was. We had a dog named jimmy, a wire haired terrier. Jimmy was entranced by all this activity in the street in front of us, so he jumped the little garden and disappeared. We never found out what happened to him. Garden and disappeared. But we had an idea that some soldier probably picked him up and jimmy was very happy. Well, my father did not usually, to our knowledge, take walks in the evening. But as soon as jimmy disappeared jimmy was primarily his dog. He would announce after dinner, that he was going to take a little walk. And he would leave the house and a few minutes later we would hear him call, jimmy, jimmy. Jimmy never appeared. That, to me, illustrated what a kind person he was. Yes. All dog lovers are kind souls. Pia yes. Absolutely. I think we ought to hear about the spouses. Remarkable people themselves. Alice, in your mothers case, and grace, in your grandmother. Grandmothers case. Please tell us about them. Brian my grandmother was born and raised in paris, michigan. Just north of big rapids, an Irish Catholic family. She had several nuns in her family. She was an extremely strong, faithful person. I learned more about her during the war years reading her letters last week. I think there might have been a portion of one up there. My grandfather made me agree with him that i would not share her letters and his letters, but i think that small caption is ok. He is not striking me down. [laughter] they were just an extremely passionate couple. You can kind of see that here in this letter. Brian, in your pause i have to say it, this passage, i got a lump in my throat when i read that. Brian and there are so many like this. In those letters. He was a writer. He was a newspaper guy. But he had a way with words. Would you like to read it out loud . Brian sure. I realize darling, your great need for me, as pointed out in your last letter, and only pray that this thing will soon be over forever. Im sorry. Its hard to follow. [laughter] its up there. Its probably easier for you to read. The way it is angled. Can you in the back read this . Ok good. It is a typewriter so the words are jumbled a little bit. It is very moving. This one passage about, the children miss me and i miss them ever so much, often dreaming by the hour of how i can improve as a father and companion to them. Perhaps we will all be richer by the separation. Surely i love you and them, to so great an end, and realize and feel your devoted love toward me. Does that not get your heart . Brian yes. And repeatedly he would talk about being with the children, iceskating and doing all these things as a family. It was so important to him. He came back after the war and i was having a conversation with my dad. About this, last weekend, we all saw this growing up. As a grandfather, he was so passionate about getting the family together. If we were in the month of february and he had not heard about what are the plans for st. Patricks day and the three birthdays, what is going on . I want to know. We have to have a plan. So he was very loving in that way. And very much everpresent in the moment. He was not a guy who is going to be on the phone even though his business may have required it. He was right there with you. Many in the community, ive heard from many of you. I think i saw hilary snell. He shared a story with me as he was passing through the old hotel one day. And he knew of my grandfather, and said, hey ralph you do not know me but i loved to have lunch with you. Thats the kind of guy he was. He would love to share his stories when he could of them. He loved his community. I think you can see that throughout grand rapids. It is the many things you do not see that he did, that a really special to me. Pia if i remember, your grandfather told me that he was away for five years, without seeing his family. I wondered how hard that must have been. Not just for him, but his family as well. Brian while he repeatedly wrote, and i went through a lot of these letters the last few days. He wrote, i hope i will be home soon. I think that is what kept him going. He did not know what the end of the war would look like. He did not know if it will be was going to be tomorrow or a year from now. So, you know, he wrote letters twice a week. He said im going to make sure to write twice a week. And i think my grandmother wrote every day. There were a lot of letters. That was the face facebook of the time, right . Tell us about this photograph. Brian this, i think, my dad could tell you better because he is in the photo. Brian this, i think, my dad could tell you better because he is in the photo. He had come back when he was stationed in iceland. Hit come to give a debriefing to the president at the time about a sinking of a ship by the germans. There was a lot of controversy over that. They did not want it in the media. So he had a quick time to come back and spend with the family. I think it was over christmas. Right, dad . Yeah, so that was the only time he came back. He was about to head out in this photo. He did not know how many years it would be before he could return home. Like many soldiers, he was not different in that regard. And your grandmother, grace, was a remarkably strong woman. She bought the house for the family and did all that without him. That was hard to do in those days. Brian yes, with the help of his brother, howard, she acquired a home. He wrote in one of the letters, i will be sending back 400 per month so we can get that paid off. He said, that is a smart investment. I am happy that howard, his brother, would help her do that. In fact his parents did not even , own a home, i learned from my dad. They just rented their whole lives. He did not come from a wealthy background but he knew enough to save and to build for a future. And you have to tell us about your mom, alice. She is a remarkable spouse also. A very strong woman. Pia yes, she was. She was only 19 years old when she married my dad. They met quite by accident. That is a long story, so i will not bore you with it. From the first place, when they were married, that they had to move to, my father was appointed as consul general to chicago. And my grandmother had a fit because she thought that is entering indian country, and it was not even safe. [laughter] but my mother adjusted very well to the frequent changes and always kept busy doing something that was worthwhile. For instance, during the war, my mother and i retreated when the bombing started. The bombings in tokyo, and we moved to our Country House in a small Mountain Town of resort which was founded by american missionaries. It was not a typical resort town. There were golf courses, tennis courts, a church. But no gambling places or anything of that sort. The residents of the town were probably less than 1000 people. It was strictly a summer resort. We were there and my mother was not the type to sit and do nothing. So she decided to speak to the residents of the town. She discovered many ladies who had babies were having trouble nursing them because of the poor diet they were forced to be on. So, my mother decided the kimono sleeve would make an ideal diaper to be used, and so i was sent to all the households in this little resort town to try to round up all the cotton kimonos which were not being used so we can make diapers out of them. She also decided that goats were easy to keep. And goat milk should be healthy for the babies. She also realized that there was no medical facility in this little town, so she negotiated with a doctor in a nearby city, to come on a monthly basis, to form a clinic, to look into the health needs of the people in the town. So anyway, she apparently did not mind that frequent moves and the adjustment to different cultures. One story i would like to tell about my mother, is when we first went to germany, after our stay in brussels. It was 1939. We received a briefing that it would be possible that everything that went on at the embassy would be listened to by the germans. That was a horrible experience, at the age of 13, and practically a magpie who talked all the time, the notion that someone else was going to hear everything that was going on was very traumatic for me. My mother had a secretary who was german but spent many years in london. So she spoke english perfectly. One time, i was in my mothers office and i cannot remember what her name was, but she came in with tears in her eyes, crying because she had just received a summons from the gestapo. [audience ooh] apparently, at the time, to be summoned by the gestapo, was the beginning of the end of your life. My mother said to frau, do not be concerned, i will go with you. Which she did. The gestapo were shocked beyond words. They did not expect an ambassadors wife to accompany somebody they had sent for. So they had some lame excuse and said it was not really important, we just wanted to know who she had worked for in london. But anyway, it was obvious that she would not be safe. So when we left germany, my parents made sure that she was relocated to london so that she would not have to deal with the gestapo again. That was the sort of my mother was, if there was a solution to some problem, she would take care of it. And she was remarkable in the sense that she adjusted so well to any adversity that happened to come our way. What a great story. I want to remind the audience, you will have the opportunity to ask a question or two, so be thinking. I have one more question and then we hope you will step forward and indicate that you would like to ask a question. I would like to know what you think what should the history books say about Saburo Kurusu . I will ask the same of you, brian. How did the text books get it wrong and what should they say . Pia the end of my fathers career was an attempt to negotiate peace in the United States. Unfortunately, the general opinion was that once pearl harbor occurred, that he was really not trying to negotiate for peace, that it was all a smokescreen to enable pearl harbor to happen. And that was a tremendous source of sadness to him, to think that the end of his career, the general opinion was that it was for naught. Not really an effort to negotiate peace. I remember after the war, when the war crimes trials were beginning, and the american judge named was judge keenan. And my dad was called to be interviewed by judge keenan, to establish whether or not he could be considered a war criminal. In this interview, judge keenan mentioned to my dad that one telegram he had sent from washington, d. C. To tokyo indicated that he was fully aware of pearl harbor going to occur. And my dad looked at the supposed cable that judge keenan showed him, and he said, i certainly do not recall ever sending a cable that you are showing me. So my father volunteered that he would go and get the original cable from the Foreign Service that he had sent. And would have the translation at the same time. And he met with judge keenan again. And showed him the cable that he actually had sent and the translation thereof. And it judge keenan said, you know, i did the same thing. And youre right. The translation was totally in error. So a thing like a translation, a difference in language, can have very difficult consequences. Anyway, as a result of proving that he had not sent that cable, he did not have to suffer as a perspective were criminal. That is good that that was acknowledged. Pia yes. However, apparently this little incident was not sufficient to totally eradicate the notion that he had really come to be a smokescreen to cover for the pearl harbor incident. So his career really ended on a sad note. A lot of that was due to the secretary of state who was poisoned against your father from cables from the 1930s, and did not give your father the benefit of the doubt. Pia yes, so i understand. The victors write history. Brian, tell us what you like to see the text books say about your grandfather. Brian there are two things and the first is, i think we will probably never know what he really did. Through the war, postwar, all the way up until he stopped working for the intelligence division, we really will not know the full story. What we do know is the legacy he created. So, the programs like the Cook Leadership Academy, and the Hauenstein Center for president ial studies, i believe throughout his life, he had this crystal ball to see where the future was going. He believed the greatest leaders will come out of this organization, and its got all the right pieces, and here he is with carter. He was part of the founding of an institute at a major contributor to what has gone on there. He had his hand in so many things that will probably change our lives for many years to come. And we do not have a clue as to what that is right now. It is amazing what he was able to accomplish in his lifetime. I would love to see maybe a book. I know you have a lot of notes. I would love to see a book come out about his postwar. He often told me that the book he wrote, the intelligence was my line, that focused on his war years, he said it is really the story really gets interesting after that. [laughter] that is what he left me with. Pia and one more thing i would like to add is an incident of the tripartite pact. I think a great deal of the suspicion of my fathers intent in negotiating in washington, d. C. , before world war ii, was the fact that he had been the signer to the tripartite pact. Actually, he was deadly against the pact. He did not think it had any but it was pushed by the germans and italians and mr. Matsoka, who happened to be the foreign minister at the time, he was the architect of the pact. But being the senior diplomat in europe at the time, he was ordered to sign it, as i mentioned before. But he immediately resigned after signing that tripartite pact. And he was called back to work. When the attempt at negotiating a peace with the United States occurred. Well, history is frequently rewritten based on archives opening up, and lets hope that as we go along, the truth will out. I think it always does, it just takes time. I want to make sure we open it to the audience. Does somebody have a question for pia or brian . I would like to hear about what happened after pearl harbor for your dad. Did he stay in this country . Did you have transit back to japan . What happened following that . Pia there was an exchange which took place. The american diplomats in japan were put on a ship and the japanese diplomats in washington, d. C. , or put on another ship. And the two ships landed at the southern tip of africa. And the people changed ships and were returned to their own country. It was sort of interesting that there was a group in japan of statesmen and specialized people would get together surreptitiously to try to form a policy that might be taken after the defeat. There was no question in anybodys mind that japan was going to be defeated. I remember that, as cover for these meetings, i would sometimes accompany my father. The meetings were held in private homes, different homes. And i was sometimes asked to accompany my father, so that it appeared we were just visiting some family somewhere. But he was very much involved in the attempt to design some sort of an equitable future after the defeat of japan. We have a question. Thank you very much. What did your father think about general Douglas Macarthur and his time in japan . Did he appreciate him or see problems . Pia i feel, correctly or otherwise, that the perfect person was chosen, because the japanese were not accustomed to officials who would be hale farewell type of people. And possibly, for instance, if general eisenhower had been sent as the supreme commander, he might not have commanded the respect that General Macarthur did. We were used to his type of personality and i think that was a great help. The other thing General Macarthur did which was probably very helpful, and calming the waters in a prewar enemy occupied country, was the fact that he insisted that the emperor position be maintained. Even though apparently there were many theories that he should be removed as the emperor of japan. But General Macarthur wisely decided that was not necessary and did not do it. Another question. I wonder if brian would explain the map here. Brian i was planning to close with that. My mother asked me about the map here. [laughter] she said where did that come from . Interesting story on this. When my grandfather, toward the end of his life, he was down in his office at home and he reached up on the shelf and pulled down this cardboard tube. He says, have a look at this. I look and i am like, is this what i think it is . He said i said, is the from the war room in london . The date on this is june 1, 1944. [ wow. ] brian so we know what happened right after that, right . What is fascinating about this, beyond the fact that it is all hand drawn, is the fact that the intelligence that was required to put Something Like this together required an enigma. It required agents on the ground, double agents. It required flyovers. The amount of information here is amazing. To know that in order for them to attack normandy, they really needed all of this information. Otherwise, they would have been completely annihilated. I encourage you to come up and take a look afterwards. A fascinating artefact. Im sure the smithsonian and everyone in the Army War College are after it. Brian yeah. Ok, another question. What one of you tell about the story that ralph used to tell all the time about being stopped by general patton and how he had the card from eisenhower . Brian a great story. He used to love to show this card after the war. He would pull it out and say, this is my pass, no one else has it. Because he had full clearance to interrogate anyone, to go anywhere he wanted, and to do basically anything he wanted. So he was moving through pattons division, and had the curtain drawn in his vehicle. He did not want people knowing his movements. Patton saw this and sent someone to the vehicle and said, that guy has to take the curtains off or draw them back. And he just held his hand out with his pass, and on he went. [laughter] and patton stormed away. Great story. I love that one. That is probably my favorite. Thank you, marybeth. A followup, i invited ralph over one day to watch the movie patton with george c. Scott because i wanted to see how ralph would respond. About 10 minutes in he said, it is just like that s. O. B. [laughter] brian true. Any other questions . Yes. Six months after pearl harbor was the battle of midway. I wonder where your family was at the time and how your father reacted to that . Pia my father was still at tokyo at our home there. But my mother and i were already up in the mountains. All during the war, of course, this group of people, who were of some consequent politically, had access to interesting information that was not publicly available. But it was certainly a very consequential road to defeat after the midway incident. I cannot honestly tell you what my fathers reaction might have been because i was not close to him at the time. We were in the mountains. He was in tokyo. One more question. I think we had a question over peter. What information got to you in tokyo and what was the reaction among the people that you knew to the dropping of the bomb on hiroshima . Pia that was one news that was immediately publicized in the papers, although the media was pretty much controlled by the government. And the immediate result was the disbelief of what that single bomb could do. Of course, invariably, there were people who had relatives or friends, or people who had been at hiroshima when it happened. So the gravity of what it created became very widely known very quickly. And of course, very soon after the emperor officially made the speech of surrender to the allies. But it was one thing that was immediately, the information was dispersed, and all the newsreels, and news radio shows, and everything. So the gravity of what had happened was immediately obvious, i think, to the entire population in japan. I want to thank both of you for bringing your father, your grandfather, out of the printed page of the history books and really putting flesh and bone on and telling who they were as people. How they struggled, how they triumphed, the ways they were interesting people worthy of a studying, and worthy of the students in our Cook Leadership Academy to study. This is exhibit a and b of what leaders have to go through and how tough it is to be a leader. [applause] pia i thank you all for listening. It has been quite a number of years since i tried to live as just jane doe life. [laughter] it has been an interesting experience for me. And i hope i imparted some information you may not have had. Thank you for listening. [applause] we have a reception, so stick around and share stories. Ask questions. We will see you in the back. Thank you. 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When you are dealing with the interface of politics, policy, and medicine, the thing i have found to be effective is, be consistent, be honest, and dont tell people things that you think they might want to hear. Isl them the truth that based on evidence, because even they inoliticians, be the administration or congress, may not be happy with what you tell them because it disappoints them, they will respect you if after a while it is clear to them that you are telling them the truth based on scientific evidence. Dr. Fauci,profile director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases, looking at his personal life, his relationships with past president s, and his career fighting infectious diseases, hiv, sars, h1n1, and now the coronavirus pandemic. What a profile of dr. Fauci tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. This is American History tv. Exploring our nations past on cspan3. 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