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TI: So moving along, one of the reasons people wanted you involved with the JACL was, in some ways, people you knew, your knowledge of how government worked, what would be an example where because of your knowledge of maybe key players or the process, where you aided the process? You talked about this earlier in terms of when you're trying to do something like redress, it's both an inside and outside game. I mean, you need the community organizers who are out there getting the community excited, raising money, but you also need this inside game. And so tell me more about that, because we don't know so much about what happened inside.

FS: Well, that's really an interesting comment, Tom. The inside game, to me, is as important as the outside game. And I kind of felt that our chapters and all of our people around the country were doing a great job in trying to convince the public about our cause. And I tried to pay more attention to what was going on in Washington to try to steer that process as best I could. And you know, I had friends there that were very friendly to us. Janet Potts, who was one of the key staffers on this whole process, I remember one day she said to me, you know, so-and-so has come by the office. Who is this guy? Type of thing. They were very friendly and open to me, and I could get a sense of where we were progressing. And I would try to use the information that I had and the friendships and the contacts that I had to try to steer us in the right direction as best I could, but that's not an exact science.

TI: Well, and it works both ways. It sounded like people at the White House, you were a trusted source of information, too, I mean, if someone from the community or elsewhere said something or wanted to meet with them, they could go to you and say, "Frank, tell me, is this something that we should pay attention to?" That's something else, so it worked both ways. And you, on the other hand, could sometimes run something by them like, "We're thinking about this, what do you guys think?" So it probably worked both ways.

FS: You're absolutely right, there. The interesting thing is, you take Frank Horton, who was one of the key sponsors of the Commission bill and a sponsor of the redress bill, Frank Horton is from the upper New York state, no Asians, why would he even be involved in anything related to redress? Well, lot of people don't know this, but Ron Ikejiri, our Washington, D.C. rep, had noticed that here is this Chinese person on the staff, Ruby Moy, who was an OCA member. He befriended Roy Moy, and Ruby Moy convinced Frank Horton to get on our bandwagon. It's things like that that happened behind the scenes. Frank Horton I got to know very well, not only on the redress program, but in my normal life, because he was minority chair of House Government Operations. And when I was heading up DoD IG, and later became inspector general, all along, he was a friend of mine and a strong supporter. He's another one of the guys, as was Jack Brooks, those two people have told me privately, "Frank, any time you need help from us, let me know. We're here to help you." Those kinds of help and support in the redress program was good to have, but I never violated that trust or help or support. But let me tell you, those people were great to us and to our cause.

TI: And you didn't really have to do that, right? When you think about, it was through your professional credibility and work that they wanted to work with you. It wasn't like you were arm twisting, they just knew that you were associated with something, and they knew you and who you were professionally, so that gave the movement or the bill credibility going forward.

FS: Yeah, and here's the interesting thing. Congressman Jack Brooks was the senior Democrat on the judiciary committee after Chairman Rodino. Jack Brooks is a man that I got to know very well. And so as we're working on all these redress programs and I go up on the hill, the kind of relationship that I had with Jack Brooks, he's the only guy on the hill that would call me "General." Sometimes he'd call me IG, other times he'd call me, "Hey General." And I'd say, "What?" [Laughs] But he would call me up, or I'd see him at a reception, and he'd say, "Hey, General, call me anytime you need help, you hear?" You know, the old Texas way? That's the type of relationship I had with him and he was very helpful to me. And as we were going through redress, if I ever met with him, quietly, I knew I had his support. Same with Congressman Frank Horton. Frank Horton was with us all the way, I knew it. Those people were good ambassadors of ours. But they were contacts of mine also through work, which is really important, and was really good for us, and I'm just happy I was able to do that.

TI: So what's coming out of this is your personal/professional connections with these key members in Congress were helpful. Not that you had to, again, arm twist or even convince them, they believed in you, and you had access and they knew you, so that was all really helpful. So that's one side. Is there an example, though, because of your connections, you could steer the redress movement maybe away from problems or towards opportunities that, again, through your knowledge, maybe a comment or a question from someone at the White House, you could go back to the JACL and say, "Hey guys, let's not do this," or, "Let's be careful about that." Is there an example of that that you can share?

FS: No. Well, the only thing that I could think about in relation to that... you know, the big question that we had was 1.5 billion dollars, where are we gonna get this money? My immediate reaction was, in the appropriation process at that time, there was about $155 billion in the defense bill. And there was one subpart of that called Claims Defense, which was, I don't remember, but I think it was over 5 billion dollars. So I called up Senator Inouye one day, and just he and I talked. I said, "Senator, we're struggling with this amount and where this money would come out of. What do you think about us maybe attaching that to the Defense Appropriation, and specifically the Claims Defense Appropriation?" Because it lines up with what that Claims Defense is generally used about. Defense Appropriations is a huge, 155 billion dollar appropriation at that time. You know, Senator Inouye looked at me and he thought about it a while, and he shook his head. He said, "No, I don't think it'll work." But he never explained to me why he didn't think it would work, and I wasn't about to ask. So to this day, I don't know why he felt that wouldn't work, but later on, I found out that that's where they actually came out of.

TI: The entitlement program later on? Wasn't, in terms of the redress payments, something in terms of an entitlement program that the senator proposed?

FS: You know, I don't know. It's never been clear to me where that money came out of.

TI: But you think it came out of that pool?

FS: Somebody... I had a discussion one day with somebody -- and I'm trying to think of who it was -- in later years, even after I moved out here. And I understood that it was in fact out of that Defense Appropriation, I don't know.

TI: I'll look into that, it's interesting. Because the issue here was even though the redress bill passed, the question was, yeah, 1.5 billion dollars, to get Congress to pass that amount, probably in annual, kind of, installments, the likelihood of that was pretty unlikely that this would be a bill that was for more, maybe, face saving in terms of, I mean, "face saving" is not the right term, but it would be in almost in name only. That it would pass, but the $20,000 payments wouldn't really happen because Congress wouldn't pass that. So the question was, where could that 1.5 billion dollars come from? And I know the senator was really key because of his influence, and appropriations of finding that money and making it, to my understanding, an entitlement rather than a regular appropriations.

FS: Yeah. Well, and the thing is, as you touch on, Senator Dan Inouye was number two or three on appropriations committee depending upon what time you're talking about. So my discussions with him, I wasn't about to question why he didn't think that would work. But I knew his wheels were turning. He was thinking about how we could best do it, and that was good enough for me.

TI: So you gave another piece of information that he could use.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2017 Densho. All Rights Reserved.