McCloy, Redux

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I read in disbelief the majority editorial of April 27, 1983, supporting the naming of the new Kennedy School fellowship after former Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy. By concluding that McCloy's accomplishments outweighed his "failings," the majority editorial failed to put proper weight on the latter: It seriously underestimated the gravity of McCloy's denial of requests to bomb Auschwitz, his key role in the removal and internment of the entire West Coast Japanese American population during World War II, and his present outspokenness against redressing the wrongs committed against the internees. McCloy's failings with respect to the internment and redress issue alone argue against honoring him with a fellowship--but it is this very issue which The Crimson editorial and other articles, and the public as a whole, have grossly underrated, showing a lack of genuine understanding of the facts as well as a lack of empathy for the victims.

There is no doubt about McCloy's responsibility for the internment of the Japanese-Americans. He initiated the final push for mass evacuation and had direct responsibility for both supervising the evacuation and overseeing the camps. There was nothing humane about the removal and internment--120,000 men, women. and children, nearly two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were forced from their homes with as little as 48 hours notice, and imprisoned from two to five years in 10 barbed-wire "concentration camps" (the term actually used in the private inter-office government memos) located in some of the least hospitable parts of our nation. The internees were subject to overcrowding, housing in horse stalls and tarpaper shacks, gross lack of privacy, poor sanitation and inadequate food. Dozens of internees were shot and wounded by the armed guards, some committed suicide out of over-whelming despair, and many more died prematurely due to the inadequate medical facilities and the harsh environment. These are just some of the well-documented facts, and fall short of doing justice to describing the magnitude of the internees' ordeal. And as the recent hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians so dramatically showed, the humiliation and the anger still bura deeply, the wounds remain open.

The editorial majority recognizes McCloy's responsibility for "whatever shred" of humaneness the camp may have had--but one must not forget also to recognize his responsibility for the considerable inhumanness that he was in a position to rectify, and failed to. To refer to McCloy's actions and failure to act as a mere "failing" is tragic understatement.

It is clearly false to state that only through historical hindsight could McCloy have understood that the internment was wrong. The facts did exist back in 1942 showing that there was no "military necessity" for the internment--but those in positions of responsibility did not bother to uncover the true facts. Moreover, most of the known facts and exculpatory evidence was ignored Facts showed in 1942 that there was no threat of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast; FBI and Navy intelligence reports, and a special investigatory report ordered by the President, fully documented the fact that the Japanese-American population was no threat; there was a complete absence of factual support for the claims of "fifth column" activity, sabotage, and signalling to Japanese ships. Instead, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had told President Roosevelt that "the necessity for mass evacuation is based primarily upon public and political pressure rather than on factual data." McCloy had no excuses because his were informed decisions. The facts were there, just as they exist now and cannot be ignored by The Crimson or the American public.

But even if the hindsight argument had any legitimate basis, the fact remains that McCloy to this day has no remorse for those unjustly imprisoned. He has made it clear he would not give a dime to any of the internees--to do so would be to "perpetrate injustice," he says. He takes this inexcusable position even with the benefit of hindsight.

Even after all the facts about McCloy's informed decisions have been laid on the table, we must guard against the tendency to be indifferent simply because so much time has passed. It's to easy not to care. It's too easy for McCloy to argue that we should forgive and forget--when he himself wasn't the victim. The internment was such a gross violation of basic human rights a raping of human dignity, that this sorry event should never be forgotten. The honoring of this man is a slap in the face of all Japanese-Americans, an insult to their very identities, telling that even after they've been through, that they still can't get justice.

There is so much more at issue here than simply the naming of the scholarship to honor one man's particular accomplishments, so much more than the Crimson majority editorial has considered. Because of the testimony McCloy gave at the Commission hearings and his recent article in The New York Times, the "McCloy Scholars' Program" will come to stand for his intolerable position supporting the internment and opposing any redress, rather than his accomplishments in Germany 35 years ago.

As the damaging facts become more well-known, it is my hope that those who supported the majority editorial will reevaluate their position. This man's remorselessness and blatant disregard for human rights should never be allowed to be outweighed by his accomplishments, no matter how great. Surely, the Volkswagen Foundation and the Kennedy School could find someone else worthy of the honor, someone who would not be so offensive to the Japanese-American and the Jewish people. Francis X. Mukai   President, Asian Law Students Association