<Begin Segment 17>

FA: What was the significance, Jimmie, of that, that last dinner?

JO: Significance of the last dinner was because it was supposedly our last day of freedom.

FA: Can you elaborate again? Can you tell me in a complete sentence?

JO: It's like Christ and his disciples. It was our last dinner.

FA: Before the trial?

JO: Yes.

FA: Okay, so you and your wife came in down the stairs.

JO: Yeah.

FA: Tell me about that.

JO: Well, Paul and his wife and I and my wife came down the stairs. And we hadn't walked more than let's say six paces into the lobby when Sam Horino, one of the leaders, suddenly said to me, "You're a spy." I was taken aback, naturally. And then Guntaro Kubota, another leader, chimes in, "You spy." And this astounded me. I didn't know what, how to take all of this. And then I noticed that Frank Emi was writing a check or something by the office counter. And he, just at that moment, he looked up and all he said was, "Yeah," which I take as approval of my being a spy. Then Paul Nakadate stood up for me. And after he finished, we couldn't see him but Kiyoshi Okamoto was somewhere in the lobby there and we could hear his voice and he stood up real strong for me. And after his statement, everybody shut up. You know, like the voice from God or something you know. [Laughs] They quieted down. But I was so angry, you know. And we backed away toward the steps and I said to Paul, "I think I'll go on back up to my room." And he stopped me and said, I was partway up the stairs, and he stopped me and says, "No," he says, "this is our last supper, so stick it out," he says. And unwillingly I went, followed way in the, toward the end, you know, stragglers, while they went to the restroom. And on the way over I said to my wife, I said, "I've got no appetite for eating." And she says, "I don't either." And when we got there, we have to go to the very end because that was the only vacant table. When it came time for us to order, place our order, my wife says to me, "I think I'll order a hamburger sandwich." And when her time came, why, she ordered hamburger sandwich. [Laughs] When Frank Emi heard her order, why, he suddenly shouted, he laughed, you know, and says, "Coming to a high tone restaurant like this and ordering hamburger sandwich," he says, and he guffawed, everybody else guffawed, you know. And I had to order next and I thought to myself when everybody was jeering and everything else, you know, "I won't give them the satisfaction of jeering at me so I'll order same damn thing," but I was going to do much eating, because I didn't have any appetite. So I ordered the same darn thing which was some type of a beefsteak. I forgot what it was. In those days I could eat steaks.

FA: Can you figure out for me, explain to me what the dynamic was that they would think you were a spy even though you had spoken out on their behalf.

JO: I heard this later. Of course, I didn't know at the time, but I heard this later that they, the possibility -- this is only assumption now, the possibility, they themselves, no member of that group ever told me why. I asked Frank Emi, I never got it clear. The assumption was that they thought that I was there to pick up some information and turn that, their information in to the attorney, the United States attorney in order to get a better deal for myself. That's what they thought, they're suspicious of me. Couldn't understand why they would, would be. But then we're jumping ahead to assumptions. But at the time, after the thing broke up, we went back to the hotel. And on the way back to the hotel I told my wife, I says, "I'm through with them. Clean cut." Not, so that we didn't associate with them anymore during the trial. One week, you know, I never associated with them, never spoke to them. And then as soon as I was acquitted, we took off without saying goodbye or anything, we took off for Denver, because they could stew in their own juice if they thought I was a spy, and then I was real teed off, real teed off. I think I was teed off about them for considerable length of time. I don't remember how long, but for quite a while. Because I, at that, at this time I knew, well, long before that, I knew that the Japanese community had turned against me, and then the Fair Play Committee turned, turning against me, why, you could imagine how a person would feel.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1990, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.