Some Final Thoughts On The Internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans In World War II

        Let us return to the internment of some 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. The people taken into custody lost their farms, their homes, their cars and their personal property. When they were released, they all had to start life over again with nothing. Some 40 years later, President Ronald Reagan took up the cause of these Japanese Americans. He got congress to pass a bill giving each detainee $20,000 US dollars. It did not cover their losses, but it was something. By the way, these payments came with an official apology from the US government. (Rarely does the US government give an official apology.)

        I want to give you my analysis of what brought about this tragedy. In simplistic terms, it was racism. After all, Germans and Italian Americans were of Western European Ancestry. At that time, the great majority of US citizens were of Western European ancestry. Japanese Americans had a different skin color and cultural heritage. They were "yellow people."

         I once read an obscure history book called The Imperial Cruise. Here is the link if you want to buy the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Cruise-Secret-History-Empire/dp/0316014001/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MUQC8WZICP67&keywords=the+imperial+cruise+james+bradley&qid=1574763577&sprefix=The+Imperial+Cruise%2Caps%2C187&sr=8-1 

        James Bradley told a fascinating story. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, the people in power in the US considered Chinese, Filipinos, Malaysians, Indonesians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Thais, Cambodians, Burmese, etc. to be (excuse these unkind words) "Asian Niggers." In other words, they were inferior people only useful for physical labor.

        Japan was a different case all together. These same people in power in the US (Graduates of Harvard, Yale, MIT, Dartmouth, Princeton, Colombia, The University of Pennsylvania/Wharton) held Japan in great esteem. They saw it as a country with first-rate academic institutions, great industries, incredible technical skills, culture, and great military traditions and capabilities. Japan became the partner of the US in Asia. They were, as they say in American English "our go to people in Asia."

    As is pointed out in the book, this close relationship started to sour in the early 1920's. The same elites who held Japan in great esteem started to see war with Japan as inevitable. In the 1930's plans were made to occupy Japan after the war to come. (This was later confirmed by a retired CIA officer who gave a speech that I attended.)

    When war did come, the people in power did not hold Japanese in contempt and see them as inferior people. Quite the opposite, they understood their capabilities and were frightened by them. On a personal level they felt about Japanese the way we would feel about a close friend or family member who betrayed us. They were hurt and enraged. They wanted "pay back."

         Before I finish this morning, let me give you a sample of the incredible technical skills of the Japanese. We all know that the US built the first operational atomic bombs in World War II. This was done using the Manhattan Project that spent money on a grand scale. The Japanese Army and Navy went into a contest to develop a nuclear weapon. They spent a tiny fraction of what the US spent. Serious historians believe that they developed a small tactical nuclear weapon. It was detonated in a test on the Korean peninsula before the end of World War II. The Russians were quite aware of this and rushed to capture the site where the device was detonated.