<Begin Segment 5>

EO: To get back to the stockade situation... when you say that you got information about what was happening in Tule Lake that motivated you to go up there, what kind of, what was that information?

EB: We were, I was informed that people were being... when I got up there I was informed that people were being detained in the stockade. Stockade? Stockade was news to me. And this was to the effect that anybody they didn't like, "they" being the administration, didn't like, were put, placed into the stockade. And parents and relatives, children, and so on, were not allowed to visit those who were detained in the stockade. Well, this didn't make any sense to me. If you're accused of some offense, if they had committed some offense, they were entitled to due process of law. So various people came to see us to state their complaints, and Alice Adams took the complaints in shorthand and later she typed her notes and they are the basis for reports that were carried in the ACLU News, the ACLU monthly publication. And you can read 'em today. May I go on to say that complaints were made to not only the local administration, but what is the name of the man who was running all of these camps? Dillon Myer. We presented our complaints to Dillon Myer, and as a result, and with a threat of legal action, this, these, the stockade was dropped, stopped, the people were allowed to leave and to rejoin their families. Wayne Collins went up to the camp and I made a subsequent trip with him, too.

EO: Can you describe when you first arrived there? What were you expecting to see? Or were you surprised at what you saw there? How did the people react?

EB: We're not to allowed to, I wasn't allowed to see the people. I was allowed to see a limited number who had arranged interviews with me, who wanted to see me, but it was just those people I was allowed to see. Otherwise I was allowed to see guards who wanted to keep an eye on me and on Alice Adams. But I wasn't able to get acquainted with the camp itself.

EO: Was it tense? Scary? Were the guards nervous? Were you nervous?

EB: I wasn't nervous. I'm just the foolhardy type who thinks he has certain rights and exerts his rights. They didn't bother me. The fact that they put salt in my, ultimately put salt in my gas tank was a bloody nuisance that I objected to... that made me mad. But I wasn't afraid of anybody. Why should I be afraid?

EO: And you said there were some employees who also got in touch with you. These were non-Japanese employees.

EB: That's right, Caucasians, who were working there, doing clerical work or heavens knows what in the establishment. But my best recollection is that two or three of these individuals got in touch with me.

CO: Were they asking or telling you something?

EB: They were giving me information, and not asking for help for themselves, but telling me about the situation of the detainees.

CO: What did the camp look like? Do you remember?

EB: Since I wasn't in the camp, I can't tell you what it looked like.

CO: So you were... where were you?

EB: I was outside and got into the administration section, which is outside the camp, so to speak. Or which was within the camp, in a sense, but into a section which was remote from where the detainees were.

EO: You mentioned a killing. What was that?

EB: I don't know anything about the killing. I had not, it was supposed to have occurred there, killing occurred, certainly this was something that police action could be undertaken. I'm sorry I can't advise you with respect to the killing. I was told that there had been a killing and that my presence was interfering. I wasn't interfering with any investigation into the killing, or a killing.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.