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TI: And so now you're in the White House, 1983, and it's kind of gone through this process where, in some ways, this federal commission is coming up with the same ideas that you are, that it was wrong. There was no military necessity, it was, they said, racial prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership, that was in the findings, those three things. And their recommendations were for there to be an apology and reparation payments. And so that's kind of where it is when you walk in to the White House. So you said you kind of knew about it. But as you say, this was not an East Coast Washington D.C. issue. People on the West Coast knew about it.

JS: I have to say, I wasn't even thinking about it when I went into the White House. I mean, I had a plate full of things.

TI: And rightly so. When you talk about your first day, a Korean Airline jetliner gets shot down.

JS: With a U.S. congressman on board.

TI: U.S. congressman on board. So, I mean, these are global issues that you're dealing with on a crisis basis. And here's this issue, which, it was very important to a particular community, is out there floating around. So as busy as you are, how did this come to your attention now?

JS: Oh, well, that's pretty simple. Frank Sato was the Inspector General over at the Veterans Administration, and he came over with a group of gentlemen from the JACL, and they said, "Hey, we've got this problem." I said, "Well, I know about your problem," and they said, "We're going to try and move this bill through Congress, but we're worried that it won't be signed." And I listened to what they had to say. I agreed with what the problem was, and I can't remember how many times we... I think we met twice. I know I met with Frank.

TI: Yeah, I think Frank says he met with you maybe initially, and then maybe brought others. So I think there was only one group meeting that I'm aware of.

JS: There might have been just one person with him or something like that. That's forty years ago. [Laughs]

TI: And so I have to tell you, I interviewed the other gentlemen that were at those meetings. And one in particular, he said -- this is John Tateishi -- he had a career where he spent forty-five years working for the JACL, most of that in Washington, D.C. And he talked about the difficulties in getting access to the White House. And he was kind of saying that up to that point, he said, he would tell people that he would go to the White House. But he says in actuality, that meant going to the old Executive Office Building, generally meeting with lower level staffers about issues. And a sense of frustration, because, as you say, it wasn't an issue that would get elevated high enough for the people who really made decisions to hear things. And he tells me that he was on the West Coast, and he gets a phone call. I don't think it was Frank, it was someone else from the JACL that said, "We have a meeting in the West Wing, in the White House." And so John takes the redeye back to D.C., pulls together some documents to meet with you. Because you kind of mentioned this matter-of-factly, but yeah, you kind of made time, but for a group, an issue to actually meet with you was a very big deal for some of these issues. And I guess the question is, why did you make time for this? Because as you said, you have so many different things, you made time to meet with these folks.

JS: Well, the reason made time was because of Frank Sato, because Frank was a member of the administration.

TI: Yeah, but it wasn't an IG issue from VA, right? So it wasn't, like, official, this was kind of a side issue for you and him in some ways. I mean, it wasn't side in the sense that, this is in your purview, but it's not like if you were to think of your weekly list of priorities, that this probably wouldn't haven't been on there.

JS: Not at that time, no. I'm reminded of when Bill Smith, who was the Attorney General, left the AG's office and went back to Los Angeles, he was giving his departure remarks. And he said, "You know, people ask me about this job, and they ask me what do I think about it." And he said, "You know, I think about that, and I think, well, this morning I made a decision, and it affects a million people, and this afternoon I can't remember what it was." He said, "This job is just one damn thing after another." And I use that in speeches sometimes, because that's what it was. It was this issue, this issue, this issue, and you had to be able to move between all kinds of... it's just, I happened to have a background on this one particular issue. I mean, I felt that an injustice was done and it continued to be an injustice into the '80s, so forty-something years. So from that standpoint, that's why I spent some time on that issue.

TI: Yeah, I love that story. Let me ask this question. If Frank Sato were not the IGVA and had this relationship with you, would this issue have come to your desk or in your office?

JS: It probably would not. I mean, it's hard to say what if, what if, what if? You're not supposed to answer those kind of questions anyway. But I would imagine that it wouldn't have come up at that point in time. When the legislation started moving through Congress, and you got some interest on the Hill, co-sponsors on the Senate side that you were mentioning, then it would be up on people's radar screen.

TI: Yeah, though, that makes sense. So what you're saying is, for sure, it came up to the attention at that level much earlier than it would have in any case, and maybe not even at all.

JS: Yeah, because the issue had been floating around for a long time. It had been floating around since 1942.

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