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EK: So what do you recall about those early days when you and Bob and a few others were setting up the office? What were you thinking about? What resources or types of people or skills did you think would be involved?

AK: At first it was very hard to tell. We knew we had to have an attorney and that was Valerie O'Brien. We knew we had a lot of study and research to do. We knew we were going to need computer support, and that we were going to need a lot of operational machinery. But the first few days or a month or so was such a steep learning curve. You know, it seemed like, if you looked at it just on the surface, 120,000 people who were interned in camps. And as we learned on that first day when we were at the Archives, that's a piece of cake. That was all recorded meticulously, and it was a matter of locating the people. But then we started to realize there were many, many more issues. And all of us who were initially involved were very concerned that the Justice Department did the right thing. Because after the war, as you know, there was a piece of legislation to compensate the victims. It was handled by the Civil Division and I don't think it was necessarily their fault. But I think it was the legislation, it was an administrative nightmare. And they (former internees) had to produce records they couldn't possibly produce, they had lost everything. How do you have a receipt for anything? You don't even have your high school diploma, you don't have your marriage certificate, and somebody wants a receipt? And so they got paid about ten cents on the dollar.

EK: And as I recall, that was for property only.

AK: Yes. And we didn't want that to happen again. The assistant attorney general was Brad Reynolds, and he was very conservative. And it took some talking to get him to see that this was a broader case, but he eventually went along with it.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.