Envoy who tried who she ate tried to negotiate peace while the Japanese Military was secretly trying to attack pearl harbor. Her mother was american from new york city. She marriedwar ii, an american, worked in commercial real estate, and lived much of her life in the grand rapids area. One of her greatgrandchildren is in the audience. Theour farright is youngest grandson of colonel ralph hauenstein. Brians grandfather is pressed known is best known as s u. S. Army officer and placesed paris of unbelievable horror. After the war, ralph discovered his vocation as an entre nous or and he is an entrepreneur and recognized as the father of goldfish crackers. In the private sector, he also became one of west michigans lead philanthropists. It is more than the fact that his name is on buildings. Spent most ofas 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 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 introduced them over lunch and heard 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. Weant to say that, in life, often seek one thing and find another. Ralph became more than the centers figurehead. In the 12 years i knew ralph, he was a wide as advisor wise advisor and terrific and treasured friend. We met for lunch every wednesday in town. We met on saturday mornings over a cup of coffee. History, notarned only laughed at his 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 welcome them. [applause] to begin our conversation, we should get to know your people better. If we could take four or five minutes each. Tell us what you think we ought to know about your father, the famous ambassador. As a was primarily known person who founded an act, not a good idea according to my father, but the ranking japanese ambassador in europe. Although he had no prior 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. 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. Ost his only son in the war thank you for that introduction. Tell us more about your grandfather colonel hauenstein. 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. Ahead there wellahead of the troops in europe. [indiscernible] hello, everybody. [applause] [laughter] start. F you want to maybe i can start over. Most notably, he was eisenhowers chief of intelligence. He was for a couple of years in iceland. Wasing up further, he editor of the grand rapids herald. That led his path. The civilieutenant in conservation corps. 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. People dontmost 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 park. Many know the story where they were in coding the german enigma. Some rule of thought is that e 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. He was the first to arrive. As he is coming into town, all of a sudden, boom, bomb goes off. He is thinking he is under attack. The vehicle he was in backfired, so he was ok. [laughter] there are so many Great Stories to tell about the war. I could go on forever. I think i will save them for the after war experiences. 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. It would be interesting for heng people to hear how ended up in the diplomatic corps. Owned aather Shipbuilding Company and apparently did some business with people from overseas. Fact,t know if that was a 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 because the service 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] 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 because my mother believed if you want to learn to swim, you put them in the water. 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. Wasy enough, as a child, i 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. His distinct military career was not obvious when he started out. Wasirst, i should say he 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. Age,nk that, from an early 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 rather than 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 on 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. Somewhere around 1961 all the notably,gh and most the first free russian elections, there he was with 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 grace to be able to do that. Bit,nk you teased us a telling us what it was like to be a child of this famous tell us more about what it is like to be the child of somebody who is that highprofile, and right in the middle of so much happening in the world. Burden. Thing it was a somehow, ily age, knew that my behavior would have consequences, not just for my family, but possibly even, heaven forbid, for the country. Something you either adjusted to all the movement and change of countries, or you just had to drown. Mothersly, due to my , if you cannot change it, go with it. Becameer thing is that i older and was aware of things going on in the world. It became fascinating to be allowed, many times, to listen aswhat my father recounted, the result of something that happened. Illustrate, to what a diplomats job was, when i was three years old my father was posted to lima, peru. It was a. It was ainawa time 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. Of time. So quickly in such a short time. It was my fathers job, as the lead up met in the country, to find a solution to this burst, this issue that had arisen. He was able to negotiate with , to haveian government made available a sparsely populated section of peru, since many of the people of okinawa were farmers. To relocate them to that land. They dispersed, the farmers, the okinawans, or doing what they were trained to do. And there was no more economic issue in the city. Thingsre the kinds of that come at the time, i did not realize. I was only three years old. And listening to my father speak, or my family discussed, i became very aware jobhe fact that a diplomats 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 publicwas rather important. To be good. What is so interesting about ralph is that he did not reveal all he had done in world war ii. When you are his grandchild growing up around him, maybe you hear some stories. But it is only in the letter part of the 1990s he starts to reveal who he was. Mentioned the codebook earlier. Lets put it on the table now. Tense bably 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 quebecers could start working on it hurt and churchill would end up saying, nobody could know we had broken that code. Is too precious not to be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies. That was the saying that ralph put tell us. You find out as an adult who he is. 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 did not understand to what extent he really contributed. Breakers could start working on it. Past ddays celebration 40 years. Im not doing the math right. [laughter] im not a banker anymore. I think it was because washington allowed this thing to happen, to talk about the name a machine, the coating and so forth. Coding,tarted the 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 selling 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 kai shek. Ck chiang cob,ther was corn on the we headed at the house. Taught general molotov how to eat corn on the cob. Ok. [laughter] the molotov cocktail. Brian i dont think those are tied together. [laughter] , as he aged,ating to hear the stories. Many in the room have heard many of the 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 you wanted him to open up and talk, get him a glass of for lundy a finlandia. On the second when he is ready to start telling his story. He would open up. Let me ask a different question. Environmentin an where japan was changing a lot. And you would go to western europe or south america. You had 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 an, for dark it had begun 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. Europe, japan for seemed to be a fairly free and normal country. When we returned in 1939, such a dramatic change had taken place in the culture. That apparently fraternization between the sexes was very discouraged for some reason. I know not why. Boy, who wasousin, the same age as i was. We went to the same school. Had to gothere 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. Bookstoresed by the 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. Intog to get him to go this russian literature store. Police kioskas a nearby. Andpoliceman came out politely asked us to come into the kiosk. And i thought, oh dear, that is all i need. Parents are going to read the paper and see this, that their daughter was accused of being unethical. [laughter] cousin, fortunately was ate fast thinking fellow. A fastunately, was thinking 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] thing towas a great happen to me. Anytime i got into trouble, i became a Philippine Exchange student. [laughter] lotthat took care of of a of awkward circumstances. [laughter] wasother thing that leadersing, i guess all have things they like to do, that they feel connects them to the people. General tojo what 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 in the morning when i heard this clap, clap. And i looked and thought, oh dear. [laughter] this will not bode well. Quickly wenti 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] shortat was how, in the three years that we were away, the total atmosphere and culture of the country had changed. Amazing,hat rather that it could happen in such a short time. And ralph for 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 . Imagine, a west michigan native, born in fort wayne, indiana, but at a young age moved to grand rapids. Very midwestern. To see what he saw with his own eyes and experience that, must have been a tremendous undertaking. He talked aboutand you mentioned earlierduck out concentration camp dachau concentration camp and the express he had there with the prisoners. Experience he had with the prisoners. He is on the hunt for hitlers. 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 there is never really any concrete evidence 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, 70 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 and his of dachau, sergeant next to him had all he could do to restrain him from doing the wrong thing and 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 wanted to ask. Your father, your grandfather, or really sensitive souls in a lot of ways. Spentample, your father time in his youth in a zen temple, studying. A very spiritual man in addition to having a very sensitive soul. With so many of the difficult things that came up in world war ii . The atrocities, the war crimes . Pia he was very saddened. Our member him telling us the story that his first post was in which was a Major Chinese port. A. When many it was a time when many navies traveled around the world and this port was one of the stops. Many of the countries had consuls that represent their interest. My father said he was envied by all the rest of the consulates there because the japanese fleet would come in and the sailors lunch aroundir their middle and go sightseeing, go back to the ship. Left he the ships had 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. Understandould not how the culture could have changed to the point where japanese soldiers were no longer thating to the warrior theed the summer i, a very strict code of behavior by warriors. Prevalent. By the time world war ii occurred, that had totally disintegrated. My father was so saddened to aink members of his country, country he represented for so many years, was capable of doing such awful things. Crating atrocities. Creating atrocities. Heard,ll the stories you ralph, what is your brian, what is your favorite story ralph told you . Brian there are some any good ones. Many good ones. Storiesd some great , when he time in paris 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 their. Learned to love the opera, this kid from the midwest. He talked about how much it operato him to go to the and there was one in particular that was his favorite. You remember the story of la boheme . The reason it meant so much to