<Begin Segment 14>

BF: So going back to the commission, this is sort of, probably a hard question because it's been a while. But if you go back and remember some of the first meetings of that group of commissioners, that group of nine, did you have a feeling from the beginning whether this was going to be a group that was fairly open and sympathetic to the cause of redress, or did you have a feeling at all either way?

WM: Oh, I didn't have a feeling whether or not they were going to be sympathetic. I knew that what happened to the Japanese Americans and their parents was wrong. And knowing enough of the facts already, I could not sense that any of these people could disagree with that. You just can't. I mean, how can you, how can you possibly justify what happened to Japanese Americans and their parents as being okay?

BF: So you had a lot of faith in the facts, that the facts would win out and...

WM: Well, I did not come to any decision myself, but someone would have to prove a whole lot of things to me before I would change my mind, knowing what I know. I knew that the people did not commit espionage, sabotage. Our culture is not that kind. Our culture is a commitment to a nation and my commitment was to the United States of America. And people have to understand, that's my only country. A Japanese interviewer for the Nippon Hosokyoku, asked me one time, "How could you" -- I served in the U.S. army -- "how could you have fought against Japan? Seeing a Japanese face." I said, "You've got this wrong. I wasn't fighting against Japan, I was fighting for my country, and my country is the United States of America. And no matter who it was attacking my country, Russians, Germans, Italians, Japanese -- yeah, I'm going to defend it. I was fighting for my country. So the orientation has to be proper. You have to look at what is being done and for whom.

BF: Did you feel that, did you see a process occur while you were on the commission, as the information came out, of then getting an idea of how people felt or...

WM: Yeah, what happened is that... I think, first of all, all the commissioners, tentatively, knew that what had happened to the Issei and Nisei in the United States was wrong. When they began hearing the live testimony of the witnesses, I think their suspicions, tentative conclusions, were confirmed. That was established by the fact, in my mind, that fewer and fewer questions were being asked by the commissioners. 'Cause they heard various different versions of what happened, at different levels, different people, different ways. And there is no point in really asking questions as if you're really seeking out, the truth must be somewhere else. They were hearing the truth and they knew that they were hearing the truth.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.