In 1960, U.S.-Japanese relations were at their lowest postwar ebb. Student demonstrations against their country's security pact with Washington had culminated in the cancellation of a visit to Tokyo by President Eisenhower. In world affairs Japan still labored under the inferiority complex of a conquered nation. That fall, Foreign Affairs ran an essay titled "The Broken Dialogue" by Dr. Edwin Oldfather Reischauer, director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute dealing with Far Eastern studies. In his article Reischauer pointed up the "weakness of communication between the Western democracies and opposition elements in Japan"—and so impressed President-elect Kennedy that he subsequently appointed...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
