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Robert Kennedy confronts communist hecklers at Waseda University in 1962 Mar. 2 06:30 am JST Mar. 2 | 08:52 pm JST TOKYO On Feb. 4, 1962, 36-year-old U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel stepped off their plane at Haneda International Airport, the start of a six-day trip. During their flight, they’d practiced a welcome speech in Japanese, tutored by U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, who spoke fluent Japanese and had studied the country intensively over the years his book on Japanese history informing Eleanor Roosevelt’s trip to Japan back in 1953. Inside the airport terminal, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy stood before a microphone and delivered their best “arigatou gozaimasu,” with Robert expressing the best wishes of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. Ethel attempted to address the crowd, hundreds of whom were smiling that the Kennedy couple had tried to speak Japanese at all. When Ethel finally ga ....