<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Yeah, let's talk about your foreign service career. So '51, so you mentioned John was already in the foreign service, and then you joined. Were there other Nikkei or other Japanese Americans...

LH: Oh, yes, very few. You know, just because they're Nikkei among four thousand foreign service officers. You're talking about thirty thousand people. But the foreign service is, if I may say, the elite element, the diplomatic corps, of the foreign service, of the Department of State, does not necessarily mean that you know everyone. Even in the same bureau, Bureau of East Asia Pacific Affairs, I didn't know everybody in there.

TI: Well, let's talk about some of your assignments in the foreign service, and let's do it sort of chronologically.

LH: Yes.

TI: So why don't you start with your first --

LH: Well, I can give you a quick rundown, and then you can ask me certain details if you wish, but '51 I went to Japan, to the embassy in Tokyo, and from there, I made a number of TDYs, Temporary Duty Trips to Korea. So I jokingly say that I served in three wars, because later I went to Vietnam. So in World War II -- I am literally a veteran of World War II. If you served before the end of June 1947, you are legally a veteran of World War II. You know, you got the GI bill, the burial rights, Arlington, all of that. So in and out of Korea during that time, but primarily in Tokyo. I also served, later, a tour in the U.S. embassy in Seoul, and also... let's see, back in Japan again at the embassy in Tokyo, at which time I married Mary Maynard Cooke, whose father was a full admiral and was chief of staff of the navy during World War II. And with the family, lived in mainland China... or maybe we'll go into that later?

TI: Why don't we go into that now, and then we'll come back to your career. This is a good place, so...

LH: Okay. Yeah, mainland China...

TI: So Mary Maynard Cooke, so tell me a little bit about her and her family.

LH: Well, actually, it goes way back. There's a hall in Annapolis named after a relative of hers, and she lived in Cuba when her father was commandant of (the U.S. Naval Fleet, Guantanamo Bay,) Cuba when she was twelve. She was born in 1925, so that makes it 1937. In other words, she was moving around the world while I was still born and brought, being brought up in Seattle.

TI: And she was moving around because her father was a high-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy?

LH: Oh, yes. In fact, interestingly, he was captain of the flagship Pennsylvania, that means the Pacific Fleet, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. And the Japanese aimed for the Pennsylvania, the flagship. But two days before the attack, he moved into dry dock for repairs, and the Utah was placed there, and they sunk the Utah. His battleship was attacked, but it didn't sink, but they thought he died because it was reported all hands of the Pennsylvania went down on December 7th. And it was only three days later did they hear in Sonoma, California, where they had the ranch where I now live, that he was alive, because they had moved his battleship into dry dock.

TI: So the family thought that he had, he had perished during the attack.

LH: Oh yes, oh yes. And she later lived in mainland China, Tsingtao, the headquarters of the 7th Fleet, where her father, as a four-star admiral, was commander of the 7th Fleet. But then she later, on her own, worked for the U.S. government and was working at the embassy in Tokyo, but before she came and I had heard about her, she had heard about me and I had moved to the embassy in Seoul, but I met her during one of my trips, and we got engaged and married there in Japan in 1959.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.