Edwin O. Reischauer

A scholar turned politician may be a contradiction in terms, but for Edwin A. Reischauer, ex-Ambassador to Japan, the combination proved a felicitous one.

Reischauer, who has returned to Harvard as a University Professor after five and a half years as Ambassador, says he doesn't know how any diplomat survives without being a semi-historian. Tokyo-born, an eminent scholar in Japanese history and fluent in the language, Reischauer admits that all of these assets made him a new breed of diplomat.

The transformation from academician to Ambassador appears wrought with difficulties. The problem of changing from an idealist's to a practical realist's approach, while at the same time being forced to accept the White House foreign policy line, has torpedoed many good-willed scholars and kept them from becoming effective politicians.

Often, Reischauer has been asked whether he has gone against his own best judgment in executing diplomat orders, and he has consistently answered that "I couldn't have performed my duties unless I agreed with the fundamentals of our policies." He does, however, feel that his job was to change the emphasis of some of our policies. One of Reischauer's pet points is the importance of cultural exchanges which he feels are responsible for much of the "progress in understanding."

When Reischauer was first sent to Japan it was to mend the "broken dialogue" which had developed between the two nations. Reischauer feels that most of the fundamental work required to breach the gulf in understanding which became most apparent in 1960 has been accomplished.

But Reischauer says that our policies in Vietnam were a source of major difficulties in 1965 when the Japanese were afraid we might escalate the war to include both China and, consequently, Japan. The complexity of the situation, however, has become increasingly clear to a large segment of the Japanese population and many of them realize the difficulty of finding a concrete alternative to our present policy. In spite of this optimism, Reischauer predicts that the presence of Western troops in Asia will continue to cause friction even in nations not directly involved.

In July and August of 1965, Reischauer returned to the U.S. for a brief visit to impress on Americans "that a large number of Japanese have grave fears about our intentions in Asia."

When he returned to his post, the Japanese press, especially the more socialist papers, applauded his "dissension from U.S. policy in Vietnam." Reischauer was quick to put a damper on this kind of talk, and attacked the press as giving a lopsided picture of the situation in Vietnam. The final rebuff came when Reischauer reportedly reiterated his support of Washington's foreign policy in Vietnam.

A great deal has been written about one journalist in particular who caught the brunt of Reischauer's "quite direct criticism." It was rumored that the reporter had been fired because of Reischauer's statement, but the ex-Ambassador catagorically denies it. "The reporter had already [before Reischauer's criticism] made arrangements to work elsewhere," Reischauer explains. But in general, Reischauer believes the Japanese press took his criticisms well and have made great progress in presenting a more balanced view of Vietnam over the last year.

Reischauer feels that another area of "grave misunderstanding" is over the question of relations with China. There is pressure in Japan to have full and friendly relations with China, but many Japanese are convinced that their inability to consumate this relationship is a result of the close ties between Japan and the U.S.

Reischauer sees this problem dwindling because the Japanese are beginning to realize the difficulty of negotiating a satisfactory understanding with Communist China. The Japanese, themselves, are deeply involved in Taiwan, which is a major area of conflict with China; "they are beginning to realize that this is not a problem foisted on the Japanese by the United States, but rather their own problem."

A visiting member of the International Seminar said last summer that Reischauer had practiced a kind of diplomacy Japan had never seen before. Reischauer, he explained, goes over the heads of the Japanese diplomatic hierarchy and talks to the people. According to Reischauer, there is a good deal of truth in this. As Ambassador he made extensive tours of all but seven of Japan's 46 provinces--he would have made it to all of them except that in April of 1964 he was stabbed by a fanatic protesting the lack of government funds to cure myopia in Japan. In addition to his speaking tours, Reischauer was widely published, and appeared on Japanese television a number of times.

There has been much conjecture as to why Reischauer left his post after such a successful term, but when asked bluntly he replies in kind: "The time had come to leave." Elaborating, Reischauer explains that what he had meant to do had been accomplished, and he is convinced he mght be able to make a greater contribution in academics than in diplomacy. "Five and a half years is a long, intense, tiring period, and I thought my intellect needed some refreshing," he says.

When asked whether his successor, U. Alexis Johnson, had been chosen to please the Japanese conservative business interests, Reischauer replies that he doubts Ambassador Johnson will devote any more time to trade negotiation than he did. Reischauer, however, does admit that the conservatives and businessmen in Japan were deeply concerned when he was first appointed. He attributes this anxiety to the "head-in-the-clouds image as a professor" which preceded him. The Japanese businessman's relations with the intellectuals are even more tenuous than they are in this country, Reischauer says.

Disoriented because his term as Ambassador has turned his interest from past to current events, Reischauer will not teach any of his traditional courses this semester and is still uncommitted about the Spring. "All my work used to be in the pre-modern period, and now I just don't know where I fit in," But if he is unsure as to what he will teach, his planned writing on modern Japan, diplomacy, and the Asian scene, should keep him busy. His final job during the year will be to drop by the State Department occasionally to advice our Far Eastern policy makers.

"I also want to read and think a lot," he adds.