<Begin Segment 15>

TI: But you mentioned him, and I wanted to... because he's in my notes. S.I. Hayakawa. So he was a U.S. Senator from California when all this was going on. So I think he was elected in 1976, and he was a one-term U.S. Senator. Why was he such an important figure during this time? Why did someone like Senator Inouye say that getting Hayakawa on board was important?

RD: Well, it was important for that because it would make it easier to get Republican agreement. What you hope for at a time like this, when you want to get something through, is unanimous consent. That means one guy can dissent, can just say no, and then you've got to go through all the procedures. So if you have bipartisan support, and support of the three Japanese origin members of the Senate...

TI: Which would be Sparky Matsunaga, Daniel Inouye, and S.I. Hayakawa.

RD: Yes, that was it. I met Hayakawa years before that. He'd taught at the University of Wisconsin, and I was very surprised when I went to a history meeting and went to a reception for a fairly distinguished historian from Wisconsin who took me over and introduced me to Hayakawa. He said, "Oh, yes, I know Professor Daniels. He appeals to the worst instincts of the worst members of the Japanese American community here." He said this with a smile. And believe it or not, I had one. I said, "Oh, Senator, you outdo me. You appeal to the worst instincts of the entire American population," and he agreed that I had won that round. And you know, he was a semanticist, so he could use language. He knew how to do that, he knew how to gain attention. But he was a man without morality. You know how he became president of San Francisco State?

TI: I read someplace where he was appointed to be on the panel to decide who the next person, I mean, it was sort of a crisis situation, right? The president had resigned...

RD: He had resigned from a plane thirty thousand feet over Addis Ababa, if you want a bizarre situation.

TI: But that S.I. Hayakawa was appointed to help find a successor.

RD: No, he was on a faculty committee to find a successor. And? What's your story?

TI: And instead of finding a successor, he ended up being the new president, and I wasn't quite sure exactly how that...

RD: Oh, very simple. At that time, the governor of California had the power to do that. And he was on this committee, he's not its chair, he's on the committee. Ronald Reagan, somebody tells Reagan to call him up and offer him the presidency. And he accepted it without saying a word to any of his colleagues. And he was very much against affirmative action and Japanese American studies. And then when things went well eventually, he came to support them.

TI: And that was a very complex individual. I've read a few things about him that are very interesting.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.