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gky: This is tape three with Steve Yamamoto. The date is December 13th, the year 2000, in Los Angeles. Steve, can you tell me a little bit about the other things that you did during the Occupation after working on the war crimes trials?

SY: I was back with ATIS for a few years. Of course, we were back at the NYK building, and I was the... a civilian, what's the head of the translation section, and I don't know, but I was captain major. But anyhow, I was the assistant chief of the section and checking the translation done by, of course, ATIS was all Nisei translators there. And I was checking the translation done by the translation team. And after two or three years, ATIS became, was no longer in existence, and the remnants of the ATIS moved out to Camp Drake, the outskirts of Tokyo and became the 500th MIS group. When we moved over to Camp Drake, I was the executive officer for the translation section, not necessarily doing the translation or checking the translation itself, but as an executive officer to make sure that the operation translation work was being done properly and was being administered properly. So my final days in Tokyo was in that capacity, as an executive officer of the translation section.

gky: Did you think that the Americans -- what did you think of what the Americans did in helping the occupation, I mean, being a Nisei or part of the occupying force? What effect do you think that had on Japan?

SY: You mean Niseis or you mean the occupation troops itself?

gky: More the Nisei; what effect did the Nisei have on being part of the occupation?

SY: I think the Niseis did a tremendous job, because in all aspects of the occupation work...

gky: Excuse me. Would you mind putting your hands down...

SY: ...in all phases of the occupation work...

gky: Sorry, would you mind starting over?

SY: Okay. I think Niseis made a major contribution to the occupation work, because whether it be in the economic stages or political, they all needed interpreters and translators. And Niseis were used in all areas of the occupation duties. So I think the Niseis did, I don't whether I can say major work, but certainly they made a major contribution to the occupation duties.

gky: One thing you can't really interpret for people is another culture. Do you think the Nisei had a greater understanding of the Japanese culture?

SY: I believe so. Inherently, I think as far as culture is concerned, even those people that have never been to Japan, the cultures of the Japanese are inherent and in the body or in the soul itself. So in answer to your question, I think yes.

gky: What year did you retire from the army?

SY: I retired from the army in -- getting back from the occupation, may I add one more thing?

gky: Sure.

SY: You know, MacArthur's tenure as supreme commander -- Truman, of course, you know Truman fired him from the scene while he was still over there. And I thought, not because General MacArthur was my boss then, but in the eyes of the Japanese, to cut somebody off from his duties like Truman did to MacArthur, I thought it was a bad gesture on the part of Truman, although Truman probably had his reasons. But the Japanese people, the kind of people they are, to see somebody that had been revered so much to be, what is it, fired from his job, I thought was not very good in the eyes of the Japanese, because the Japanese, as you know, thought he was the second emperor, so to speak. And I think the occupation work, or the occupation went smoothly as it did partly because MacArthur didn't try Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal. You know certain countries wanted Hirohito to be tried just like the rest of the war criminals like Tojo and all that. But MacArthur didn't consent to that, and I think it went a long way insofar as the success of the occupation duties go.

gky: Would you tell me the year that you retired from the military?

SY: I retired from the military in 1961.

gky: So, twenty years?

SY: Twenty years. And I retired lieutenant colonel. And soon, upon retirement, I came back to Los Angeles with my mother-in-law and my wife, of course, and a couple weeks later I get a wire from the Pentagon saying, "We need you. If you want to work in civilian, report back to the Defense Intelligence Agency by the 5th of July of 1961." So before I could unpack my suitcase, I was back in Washington and in the Pentagon. And I was a GS-14, Department of Defense civilian and Chief of the Information Security Program implementing DoD policy, security policy for Defense Intelligence Agency. And so I stayed on that job until 1986, I believe it was, when I retired for the second time after twenty-five years at the Pentagon. So totally, I worked for the government for forty-five years.

gky: Can you think of anything else to, that you want to say or you want to add to what we talked about?

SY: No. I felt that the work I did throughout the war in interrogating prisoners or at the tribunal, well, I felt it was very challenging and I was happy I was able to do my, conduct my duties and, what is it, for the government, so to speak.

gky: What effect do you think that your service and the service of all your comrades had to do with redress?

SY: Let's see, by redress, what do you mean by redress?

gky: The government apologizing and paying the people who were in camp. In other words, the image of Japanese Americans, what effect do you think that the MIS and the MIS accomplishments had to do with, had to do with the American...

SY: I think, from the outset, doing the work, intelligence work against an ancestral country and being very loyal, patriotic, and the work -- with full determination to do what you set out to do, I think it went a long ways. I don't think it was insurmountable. I believe it helped a lot insofar as the redress cause is concerned, because it proved to the people, American people at large as well as the military that the Niseis could be trusted in a situation where things were very challenging insofar as work is concerned and insofar as the spirit is concerned in doing the work that we did. I think it should have helped considerably in the redress movement.

gky: Anything else?

SY: No, I can't think of anything at the moment. I'm hoping that I was able to express myself clearly. I have misgivings sometimes that my communication wasn't as flawless as it should have been.

gky: No, but no one's is. So, yeah, very interesting. Okay. Thank you very much.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.