<Begin Segment 20>

AI: Now, as you mentioned earlier, you did not commit to staying on the staff of the commission for the entire life of the commission, and in fact, you did step down from the position before the writing of the commission's report. Would you explain a little bit about your decision to do that?

PB: Yes. I explained this when I stepped down from my position as the executive director. I said since I was one of the ones put into camp, that myself, personally, my family suffered a great amount of monetary losses, that I didn't feel that personally I should write a report or be part of a report in which I would ask for reparations or apology or anything like that. That I think it should be given to someone that read all of the report, that read all of the testimony, and would write a report which was unbiased, because I would be very biased. I wouldn't maybe ask for $20,000. I'd maybe ask for $100,000 -- [laughs] -- and that wouldn't be right either. So I said that I would not be part of the person or individuals writing the report. And as a result, when they, I said it should be independent, they did hire an independent attorney, Angus Macbeth, who wrote the report, and as a result of it, I think it had lot to do with the awards being given. I think it's only fair that it was given on a nonbiased basis, that the complete report was of people, but the report itself was written from an unbiased situation. So I'm, I still feel that I should not be part of writing a report.

AI: Right. So the report of the commission eventually was published...

PB: Yes.

AI: ...as a book entitled, Personal Justice Denied...

PB: Right.

AI: ...authored by Angus Macbeth, as you mentioned. And then after that, Congress did indeed pass legislation...

PB: Sure.

AI: ...titled, the Civil Rights Act, which was then finally signed by then-president Ronald Reagan in 1988.

PB: Right.

AI: And so from the time that you were executive director in 1980 to 1988, that was quite a number of years there of activity. And it looked for a while as if that legislation might not pass and that there might not be an apology and reparations, even though that was the commission's recommendation. What do you think were some of the main factors in that eventual success and the passing?

PB: Well, you know that any time government acts, it takes time. This particular issue happened to deal with money. And when you're talking about millions of dollars and money which was going to be given to individual citizens, that those things take an awful lot of discussion and determination. And I think that had more to do with it than anything else. I don't know if a lot of people know, but during the time that, in 19-, well, before 1980, there was a lawsuit that was being conducted. I'm sure many of you know and I won't mention names or who it was, but the suit was being brought against, well, what they would do is to, a lawsuit against the federal government to get reparations for individuals. Now, being in government at that time in California and knowing a little bit about it, I did not oppose. But I said, "Very impractical. It doesn't happen. You don't sue a government and get money." All the time that when I was in California government, and this was in the federal government also, if you wanted money for a wrong that the government did or a government agency did, what you would have to do is have legislation, and the legislators would then act upon that particular issue and then determine whether or not money that was the government's, federal or state money, could be paid to an individual or a group of people. So I've always contended that a lawsuit that was at that time saying, "Hey, we were evacuated. You ought to give us money," and the suit was brought. My main thing was that money was being collected by people that didn't know. And so this money that they donated to this cause was, in my estimation something that they should not do. If some individual wanted to do it and sue the government, that's fine. But that was my feeling at that time, and so I didn't come out personally or vocally say that. But I said the only proper way is to have government legislation as it was done and then have the government, the body, Congress say, "All right. We will have hearings," or they didn't have to have hearings. They could say, "We'll give money." But they said in order to verify what we're going to do, we'll have hearings.

So there was two other, two parties, you might say that went into it. And the one party that I say that I was not vehemently opposed, but I didn't, felt was wrong, was trying to sue the government for a wrong that they did. We knew that, but you don't sue the government and try to get money. It's very difficult to do. But it proved that we did it the right way. Anybody that got reparations ought to be thankful, or you might say that the government of the United States, even though they made a mistake, will rectify it by eventually saying, hey, we did make a mistake, and we're sorry. And because of the mistake we're going to give reparations to you regardless of what you lost. Some people, as I say, lost millions of dollars, but they got something back, and that's something.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.