<Begin Segment 12>

CK: Could you clarify how Senator Inouye was at the very beginning of the redress, when it first, the concept first started? He was resistant at that time, too.

GU: I think he was resistant and maybe he had good reason to be resistant. He... in fact, he told me this once. I think, like a lot of vets early on, he didn't like the idea. And he didn't like the idea for two reasons. Number one, this asking for money cheapens the contribution of the veterans. And it cheapens what all the people went through in camp, because you've got your hand out and you've got a number on this experience, a dollar figure on the experience, okay? That's kind of tacky. I think he felt that way. And the other thing he said to me at one point is, "Grant, a lot of my buddies are over in France and Italy pushing up daisies, what are they getting out of this?" And in certain terms, the answer was nothing.

BF: Was that rather demoralizing?

GU: No, I don't think it's demoralizing because we knew that, when push came to shove, Dan is going to be with us. It, it did mean that Spark had to, to carry it. And, and Spark was entirely willing to be out front, carrying it, win, lose or draw. In fact, another, another meeting that I had... this is a meeting that I talked about in the Harvard paper right after I talked to Barney. And Barney said we're going to move it, we're going to cut it down from 250 to 50 million on the trust fund, but otherwise, we're going. And I was thrilled after all these years of Hall, and Glickman, and others. And I went right on, and my next meeting was with Dan, and this was in his capitol building in the Senate hideaway office, not in his, not in the Hart office building. So, I sat down and I said, "Hey Dan, you know, I was just talking to Barney Frank, we're finally going to get, we were finally going to get movement on the House side." And he looks at me and he says, "How many co-sponsors does Spark have, Grant?" And I said, "Well, I think, I think he's got about twenty-seven." And he says to me, "I think it's about thirty-five, thirty-six max, don't you, Grant?" And I said, "I don't think so." But two days later -- I talked to Mike about this -- and then, two days later we went to see Spark, who indeed had twenty-seven. And, Dan's a little bit smarter, intellectually. He can play mental games better than Spark. So I think Dan used to play some mental games on Spark. I don't know if this is ever going to become public, but I'm telling you some of the things that maybe I shouldn't be talking about. So Mike and I and Grayce went into see Spark, and I relayed the story, and I said, "Hey, I saw Dan two days ago and he's saying you're going to max out at thirty-five." And he said, "I am not going to max out at thirty-five." And he went from twenty-seven to seventy-one.

BF: Right.

GU: So maybe he, maybe Dan did us a favor, because he got Spark pissed off.

BF: Kind of motivated him.

GU: Yeah.

CK: Would you say that was the reason it went through two sessions, and it was not 'til the 100th that Spark really went at it and got the seventy-one?

GU: Maybe, I don't know. I can't remember what the sequence was. But I initially talked to, to Barney. When Barney got, assumed the chair, was that '86? Had to be '86, right?

CK: Yeah.

GU: So that's '86, and then the two... five minutes after I saw Barney, I saw Dan and so this was '86 when Dan said, "We're gonna max out at thirty-five." So, two days later I saw Spark.

CK: That ties in.

GU: So, that ties in.

BF: Yeah.

CK: Yeah, that's a 100 session there, '86 to '88.

GU: Yeah, right. That's some of the stuff that maybe shouldn't come out until everybody's dead, but it's on film now.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.