<Begin Segment 23>

MN: Now, Jack and Aiko Herzig provided NCJAR with a lot of documents from the National Archives.

YH: Yeah.

MN: Do you remember how you met them?

YH: Gee, I don't know how we met them.

MN: It's been a long time.

YH: Yeah, because Aiko could probably tell you, but I don't know how we met them, 'cause I do know that Aiko wanted a face to face appraisal of William to see if he was on the up and up.

TI: I think your arm's in the way of the microphone.

YH: Oh, sorry. And that's what I thought. She thought William was okay, that he was, you know, he was the real thing, so I think she made up her mind that she was going to work with him. You could ask her about this.

MN: And you were living in Chicago while your attorneys were in Washington, D.C. How often did you meet them?

YH: At least once every year. It may have been more at the beginning, maybe at the end.

MN: So when you went to go visit your attorneys in D.C., did it come out of the NCJAR fund or out of your own personal pocket?

YH: Well, most of the time when we went to D.C. we stayed with Aiko and Jack at their apartment.

MN: Can you share with us what --

Off camera: Did you drive?

YH: Yeah, we drove.

MN: Share with us your drive to Washington, D.C.

YH: Oh gosh, William would always, would drive to Washington, D.C., but we would make one stop in Pennsylvania overnight.

MN: How early did you start for this trip?

YH: We would start early in the morning, six o'clock, seven o'clock, to get to Pennsylvania by early in the afternoon or late in the afternoon, depending upon gassing up and eating meals along the way.

MN: And then you'd get to D.C. in the evening?

YH: Probably late in the afternoon, if we stopped in Pennsylvania. And when we were in Pennsylvania Aiko always called us 'cause William probably told her we would probably be there at such and such a time, and so when we get to our motel she would always call us. Then when we got to D.C. Aiko and Jack would be waiting for us outdoors.

MN: Then, I guess, the next day you'd meet with the attorneys. Can you share with us a little bit about Ellen Godbey Carson, your attorney?

YH: Oh yes, she was a brilliant attorney, a young attorney, and she was working for the civil rights division and she knew there wasn't going to be very much work for her, because I think it went into the Reagan administration and they're just, they weren't particularly for civil rights. So she was hired by Landis, Cohen, Singman, and Rauh to research NCJAR's lawsuit, and I think she was a graduate of Yale or Harvard, I don't remember which, but she graduated with high honors. And she did a lot of work because sometimes she would be working on Sunday in Boston looking something up, so it wasn't just a nine to five job for her.

MN: Did she come and visit you folks in Chicago?

YH: Yes. She came often to explain the lawsuit and to keep us up to date on what was going on. And she also would go to San Francisco, where we would go and meet with the JACL there and explain the suit to them. And I remember that NCRR had a question and they were asking the question of the JACL representative who was there. He didn't know how to answer the question, so there was this long silence and then Ellen, she knew all about the legislation that was going on, so she not only knew about our case but she knew everything that was going on in the legislation. Their own people didn't know, at that meeting anyway.

MN: You know, this ten-year lawsuit that NCJAR was involved with would have taken a lot of your family time and money. Did you ever tell William to stop pursuing this lawsuit?

YH: No.

MN: Why not?

YH: 'Cause every time the documents came out, you knew how the government had, what's the word, had, not tricked us but didn't tell the truth about what had happened at that time. And this is what the documents revealed, so we were going to pursue this case until the end, whatever that end was.

MN: How about anybody on the NCJAR board? Did anybody there say, "Let's stop this"?

YH: Oh, no. Everyone was right on. No one was about to stop it at any time. I think some of the board was angrier than I was. And there were JACL members on the board.

MN: Now, this lawsuit, the lower court was saying the statute of limitation had expired and the appeals court overturned that.

YH: Yeah.

MN: Then the government appealed that appeals court decision and they were, they cited another procedural argument that the cause had been heard in the wrong appeals court. And so there were all these technical things that had nothing to do with constitutional issues.

YH: Right.

MN: When all this was going on how did you, what did you think about what was going on?

YH: Well, that matter had to be cleared up before we could proceed, even though we knew we were in the right court. Because one of the attorneys or judges had opened up his mouth and it was on the record, so that delayed us for another year. And more money.

MN: So did you feel like the government was just stalling?

YH: No, uh-uh. No, I don't think the government was stalling.

MN: So when this final verdict to dismiss the case came down, when did it come down and how did you feel?

YH: It came down, I think July, no, August, no... it's terrible. It came down on October the thirty-first, Halloween day. And William sent the justices a letter and he said, "Instead of a treat you gave us a trick." We didn't get any response from that letter.

MN: How did you feel about the case when it got dismissed? Were you angry, or --

YH: No. I was disappointed, but I wasn't angry, and I knew that they, the lawyers, the law firm had done its very best and this is the way it was going to end.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.