George R. Packard
President, International University of Japan;
Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, President, U.S.-Japan Foundation
George R. Packard was dean of SAIS from 1979 to 1993 and is now director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies as well as professor of East Asian studies at the school. He is also president of the International University of Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. Prior to that, he served as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. In March of 1998, he was appointed president of the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
Packard Report - Sep. 2006
Late August is a time in Washington when very little of significance happens. The media tend to report frothy, boring stories. Top Government officials are away on vacation. Key editors and reporters are away lying on beaches or resting in the cool mountains, and it is rare that a major "scoop" will be released during the hot summer "dog days" of August.
That is why the foreign policy community here was amazed and shocked to read an op-ed contribution on Sunday, August 27, 2006 in the Washington Post. The article was entitled, "The Rise of Japan's Thought Police." It recounted the events starting with Sankei Shimbun's article by Komori Yoshihisa's attacking the article in Commentary by Tamamoto Masaru, and the subsequent apology by President Sato Yukio of the Japan Institute of International Affairs. It detailed a number of other instances where "an increasingly militant group of extreme right-wing activists who yearn to return to 1930's-style militarism, emperor-worship and 'thought control' have begun to move into more mainstream circles - and to attack those who don't see things their way."
The writer, Steven Clemons, is not a particularly respected voice in journalism circles here. He was a close associate and deshi of the radical professor, Chalmers Johnson, earlier in his career.
But the article struck a sensitive nerve here for several reasons. The whole issue of Prime Minister Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine has aroused much discussion and controversy among Japan specialists in Washington. The mainstream view in this small community is that the visits are a mistake - that it is in the American national interest for Japan and China to get along - and that U.S. policy-makers should have communicated this view to the Prime Minister. Even some members of the White House's National Security Council believe President Bush should have taken a strong stand on this point when he met with Prime Minister Koizumi on June 29 - 30.
Another factor adding to the shock waves was the fact that Sato Yukio is widely known and admired in Washington and New York as one of Japan's leading strategic thinkers. Sato made a legion of friends while serving as Ambassador to the United Nations, and that community will share in the general consternation over his humiliating apology.
Further, Tamamoto, the writer of the Commentary article, is a well known Ph.D. graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), which is by no means viewed as a radical or even liberal institution. In fact, SAIS has been a hotbed of pro-Bush "NeoConservatism" ever since Paul Wolfowitz served as its Dean from 1994 - 2001. Washington-based Japan specialists will be amazed that the views in his article were so thoroughly suppressed and repudiated.
This is a story that will not soon disappear. Friends of Japan will be hard-pressed to explain why freedom of speech in a democratically has been curtailed in this instance. The Bush followers often cite Japan as an excellent example of an occupation (1945 - 52) that produced a great democracy as they try to justify their presence today in Iraq. They will be embarrassed by this event.
Japan-watchers here would like to hope that the next Prime Minister (Abe?) will find a way to end the Yasukuni controversy. But they are not optimistic, since Abe has himself spoken in favor of visiting the Shrine.
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