<Begin Segment 8>

gky: We hear a lot of stories about General MacArthur, about him being very bombastic and very sort of staged. And yet, it sounds, in some ways, like he's a very, got a lot of compassion for the emperor and for the emperor's situation.

KT: Yeah, that's true. He was -- he liked the emperor personally, individually. He met him a couple times and he felt that he was a man of the center of the whole Japanese feeling in Japan. No matter how you look at it, you know, he's the man that you should know. And he like him personally because of his no political ambition or no other feeling except he being the emperor. He was told to renounce his godly image, and he did. He did everything MacArthur told to do, you know. So, MacArthur always respected him. And when he needed to, he interfered with his staff.

[Interruption]

gky: This is tape three with Kan Tagami on January 5, 2001, in Mililani, Hawai'i. Do you think MacArthur had any appreciation for all that the Nisei did toward rebuilding Japan and working the Occupation of Japan?

KT: You mean...

gky: Did General MacArthur, what kind of appreciation of the Nisei did General MacArthur have?

KT: Well, most of his feeling, probably expressed by General Willoughby with G-2, and most of the Niseis were on that level under him. He realized that Japanese language was important. Without it, GHQ couldn't go too far without being stuck with some misunderstanding, or something like that. So most of the -- General Willoughby has said many, many times how important Nisei effort was. He was talking MacArthur's feeling on that.

gky: Can you describe what it was like to work for General MacArthur?

KT: Well, in the highest office of the occupation, the staff wasn't that busy, you know, because they only dealt in high-level things. For me, it was pretty good because I happen to interpret for him about once a week, and more than twice a week sometimes. The rest were coordinating Japanese requests for visitors and having General Willoughby handle most of the Japanese liaison matters, and I was there to interpret and translate for the emperor, I mean, for MacArthur. So I was pretty much not that busy.

[Interruption]

gky: Okay. Again, you were talking about General MacArthur, describing General MacArthur to me.

KT: Yes. His feeling toward the linguists or Niseis was very appropriately expressed by General Willoughby, who handled most of the linguists. The general, of course, appreciated my effort, but he also understood that Niseis, in general, were very, very necessary for the occupation. Of course, he doesn't come into that every day, but he certainly sees the result of the language work done by the Niseis.

gky: You said that you got some of your first personnel reviews from gen -- your first personnel reviews, you got them from General MacArthur who personally filled them out.

KT: Yeah.

gky: What were those personnel reviews like?

KT: Well, it's like, it's a performance review, and I was first evaluated by the general, my performance together with other generals; the general commanding the Korean 8th Army, and all that sort of thing. I came out quite well being a junior officer. I guess he gave me excellent, superior and all that sort of thing. But that was one time, and after that evaluation was done by the senior aide-de-camp, because he was too busy for fooling around with that. One general, he got a pretty bad one from the general. I was lucky that he appreciated me.

gky: Was this a nine to five job?

KT: No, not necessarily, because whenever the thing is needed, you expect to work 24 hours. In my case, like off-duty hours, like meeting with the emperor, meeting with other Japanese officials, so it's not really a nine to five job. I had to be expected to be available for anything that's later. But normally, it's finished by five. Evening is more reserved for geisha parties. Not geisha party in that sense, but get to know each other kind of party, and good food. But, I tried to keep it down. They keep you too busy doing nothing, yeah.

gky: But also, wasn't General MacArthur a very private person?

KT: Yes. Because of his age, only thing I can remember, he went to one cocktail party, just once, at the beginning of his term. And after that, no parties, just home.

gky: So he didn't socialize with Japanese or didn't socialize with any of the military?

KT: No, no. At first he went to one cocktail party, but he says no more of that. He just stayed with his family.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.