<Begin Segment 5>

FA: Let's talk about the "loyalty oath," questions twenty-seven and twenty-eight. How fair was it for the government to ask the Nisei about their loyalty? How fair was that? Was it fair?

MW: Utterly unfair. How would you like to be asked, "Are you loyal or disloyal?" I mean, have you ever thought about it? McCarthy. That was the beginning of McCarthyism. He got to the point where he said, "We can't trust the teachers, the professors in the United States. We must get a loyalty oath from each and every one of them." It's a stupid, stupid way, because there is no way you can determine loyalty or disloyalty unless you go and bomb a bridge. That means you're disloyal. But if you think, "Oh God, I'd like to bomb that bridge, I mean, my worst enemy... oh maybe Clinton is about to go over that bridge, you know, it'd be awfully good if some guy would plant a bomb just before he goes over the bridge." Well, the fact that he thinks about it does not make him disloyal. And it, there is no way for one to determine such a thing as loyalty or disloyalty because it depends on what culture you're from. Within the Japanese culture, as in many Asian cultures, loyalty usually begins within the family. The family. You owe your loyalty to your parents. And if you're the eldest son you know where your loyalty lies.

FA: Let me stop you. Can you again tell me, make this distinction for me, between thought and deed. Loyalty, thinking something disloyal or committing a disloyal act. Can you determine loyalty or disloyalty based on a questionnaire?

MW: No. There's no way you can determine loyalty or disloyalty based on a questionnaire because it depends on who has written out that questionnaire; how the questions are slanted. And as I have told you previously, that questionnaire wanted to know exactly what relatives do you have in Japan and what are their positions. I mean, are they a member of the military and what position do they hold? And it very much depended on whether you, who was being asked whether you're loyal or disloyal as to whether you had possibly an uncle who was an admiral in the Japanese navy. That meant, "Oh, here we've got somebody terribly important. We've got to use him for trading purposes."

FC: So the questionnaire actually asked...

MW: Every one of them.

FC: Asked, do you have members of your family in the Japanese military?

MW: Uh-huh, oh yes. I found that out from Sho Onodera. I said, "Why was your mother taken?" Usually it's the father who is taken. He said, "Well, my mother's brother is an admiral."

FA: Michi, who do you think wrote questions twenty-even and twenty-eight?

MW: Well, of course, I think Frank Chin was very perceptive in tying it to something that he picked up as a, as a loyalty pledge among the Seattle group. I think it was... was it Frank Sakamoto?

FA: It was Jimmy Sakamoto.

MW: Jimmy Sakamoto, who wanted to make sure that his Seattle group would not, group's loyalty would not be impugned. And he selected a day or two in which all the members of the JACL were to come to the office and pledge their loyalty to the United States. Unqualified loyalty. And the wording, I must say, is remarkably similar to the "loyalty question" that was ultimately used in twenty-seven and twenty-eight. So I haven't studied it carefully, but I remember that did impress me.

FA: Some people have speculated John Hall wrote...

MW: Oh, John Hall. I've spoken to John Hall because I suspected that even the Hawaiian Japanese were given this questionnaire. John Hall is pretty old. He's still, well, he may be dead now but at the time I called him he was still practicing in Boston and he said that, "I cannot recall for sure, but I do believe that the questionnaire was not used in Hawaii." He said, "I cannot swear to it."

FA: Some have speculated that Karl Bendetsen wrote the two questions.

MW: No. No, I don't think so. Well, I mean, I don't know.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.