(3 of 4)
In the past four years a whole school of vigorous, militant, aggressive young carp have appropriated the waters of Japanese politics. And none outshines whiskey-drinking, golf-playing, Cadillac-driving Hirosi Saito. Young Carp Saito, still only 48, came into the world the son of an untitled, inconspicuous translator of English at the Japanese Foreign Office.* He leaped his first waterfall when he landed in the Peers' College. There he dovetailed into a group of nationalistic-minded students who are now Japan's bright young leaders in the fighting services and Foreign Office, many holding posts today that were reserved for mossbacks before Japanese expansion entered its latest, most virile phase. Almost by instinct, Carp Saito chose to do most of his career swimming in the U. S. On entering foreign service he was attached to the Washington Embassy from 1911 to 1917, served as Consul in Seattle (1921-23), Consul General in New York (1923-28), Charge d'Affaires in Washington (1932-33).
Saito prides himself on his U. S. ways, his "Americanese" ("made," he jokes, "in Japan"). In Washington he has staffed his Delano & Aldrich, neo-Georgian Embassy with what he believes are the closest Oriental approximations of U. S. "good fellows." His corps of 18 (the British have 15) is more numerous and harder-working than that of any other Embassy. Having observed the lobbying tactics of fellow-Washingtonians, shrewd Hirosi Saito spends most of his Embassy allowance for "representation" not on balls and champagne for Washington socialites but on highballs and beefsteak suppers for the Press. When he makes a speech it gets printed. When hospitable wags of the Kenwood Golf Club gave him a two-ounce bottle of whiskey marked "A Year's Supply," adding the gift of five toy battleships, not only did Washington columnists recount the hilarity at length but even printed that, four of the battleships hav-ing disappeared, Ambassador Saito tucked the last in his pocket, sardonically remarking: "Ah, such is justice in this world." During last year's London Conference, when Japanese delegates were trying to argue Japan up from the inferiority of 5-5-3 to 5-5-5, the Washington Embassy switched to an English brand of cigaret on each of which appears the symbol 5-5-5. Normally Saito smokes Luckies.
But neither Ambassador Saito nor his enterprising staff would deny that their task has been made infinitely easier than that of their predecessors. A prime source of diplomatic boondoggling has been removed. For since Saito has been in the U. S., his great & good friend cocky Japanese Foreign Minister Koki Hirota has torn the mask off Japan's "mission in the Orient," has come out flatly and finally for Asia for the Asiatics, i. e. the Japanese. An illustration of how neatly this mission was progressing was at hand last week. After months of negotiation, Foreign Minister Hirota was about to honor China for its "cooperation" with Japanese aims by elevating Minister Akira Ariyoshi to an Ambassadorship.*