Densho Digital Archive - Sue Kunitomi Embrey Interview (denshovh-esue-02-0004)

<Begin Segment 4>

JA: Tell me about Executive Order 9066 and what that did.

SE: Well, I understand that General DeWitt went to Washington. He had two lieutenants under him who were basically the people who put together the, the whole thing, and they went to Washington. They convinced the Congress, congressional delegation from California and Washington and Oregon and the Attorney General and what they called the War Department, that because we hadn't done anything, there was a possibility that we would do something to sabotage the war effort and that they had to remove us from the coast. And in the meantime, they said that the Japanese submarines had bombed, not bombed but had thrown, had taken shots at the Santa Barbara coast and Alaska and it turned out that they were actually U.S., U.S. ships. And there was a lot of hysteria about that. So the Washington delegation talked to President Roosevelt, and I think only one person, Francis Biddle, who was Attorney General, and the head of the FBI, were opposed to any movement of the Japanese, but the others convinced the President to sign the order.

JA: And what did that order state?

SE: The order stated that the West Coast was to be considered a military area and because of military necessity, persons of... well, originally it was persons of German, Italian, and Japanese ancestry, were to be removed and housed in appropriate areas away from the West Coast. And then by the time General DeWitt put out the order, it became persons who were of Japanese ancestry and it said both alien and non-alien. They used the word "non-alien" because if they had used the word "citizen," they were afraid, he was afraid that they would get sued and that they would lose the case. But they used the term "military necessity." And of course it was later found that there was no military necessity at all.

JA: What can you tell me about the Munson Report?

SE: The Munson Report was, I believe, authorized by the President, and the U.S. Naval Intelligence was asked to study the Japanese community, Japanese American community. And they found that over 90, pretty close to 98 percent of the Japanese would not do anything to sabotage or do espionage against the United States, and that basically we were very loyal to the United States. Roosevelt took the report but he never actually gave orders to any of his cabinet members to check on the report, and so it was never, never used and so it ended up that all of us were sent to camp.

JA: By the time the war was over, how many Japanese or Japanese Americans were found guilty of espionage?

SE: None that I know of.

JA: Tell me that as a whole sentence.

SE: What was that again?

JA: Just repeat my question as a statement to tell me --

SE: Oh, uh-huh. As far as I know, there were, by the end of the war there were no convictions or arrests of any person of Japanese ancestry who was, you know, accused of conspiracy or sabotage or espionage. I believe there were a couple of Germans that were found, arrested and found guilty.