January 2, 2017
ASIA / PACIFIC
Japan ex-PM Yoshida’s forgotten
Pearl Harbor visit recounted
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
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The Associated Press
OKYO — Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe, who visited Pearl
Harbor with President Barack
Obama last month, wasn’t even born when
one of Japan’s former leaders, Shigeru
Yoshida, went there just six years after the
country’s World War II surrender, by
himself and feeling awkward.
Yoshida is best remembered for signing
the San Francisco peace treaty with the
U.S. and others in 1951, allowing Japan
back into international society after its
war defeat. His Pearl Harbor visit, which
he made on his way home from San
Francisco, was largely eclipsed by the
historic treaty.
Archival writings and photos unearthed
by The Associated Press reconstruct
Yoshida’s visit, from his aim to win U.S.
trust to how he was put at ease by the U.S.
Navy commander’s dog.
Yoshida arrived at Pearl Harbor on Sep-
tember 12, 1951, shortly after requesting a
courtesy visit to the office of Adm. Arthur
W.R. Radford, commander of the U.S.
Pacific fleet. The office overlooked Pearl
Harbor, offering a direct view of the site of
the Japanese attack of December 7, 1941.
Radford recalled that he thought
Yoshida might feel uncomfortable because
of his office’s location. “I could almost see
the wreck of Arizona” out of the window, he
wrote in his memoir, From Pearl Harbor to
Vietnam, referring to a battleship that
sank in the attack.
Yoshida, westernized and fluent in Eng-
lish, showed up in a white suit, wearing his
trademark brimmed hat and carrying a
cane, apparently looking a bit stiff.
Then Radford’s dog broke the ice.
His little Scottish Terrier, which was
stretched out in front of Radford’s desk,
walked slowly to Yoshida to be patted,
while sniffing around his shoes and
ankles.
“That started a dog conversation that
took most of the visit,” Radford wrote.
Yoshida was a dog fancier, and had
bought terrier puppies just before leaving
San Francisco, his grandson Taro Aso,
currently Japan’s finance minister, has
said. Yoshida named the pair “San” and
“Fran” after his successful trip.
Years later, Yoshida told Radford’s wife
how he was embarrassed when he walked
into the office after seeing Pearl Harbor,
and how happy he was that the dog was
able to settle him down.
A Navy archival photo obtained by The
AP shows the two men shaking hands,
with a smiling Yoshida looking up at the
much taller Radford. Yoshida spent about
20 minutes at the office, according to an AP
story from September 13, 1951.
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HISTORIC VISIT. In this September 12, 1951
photo provided by the U.S. Navy, Japanese Prime
Minister Shigeru Yoshida, left, shakes hands with
Adm. Arthur Radford, commander of the U.S. Pacific
fleet, at Radford’s headquarters overlooking Pearl
Harbor in Hawai‘i. Yoshida made the stop in Hawai‘i as
he was travelling back to Japan from a San Francisco
conference that restored Japan’s sovereignty. Yoshida
is best remembered for signing the San Francisco
peace treaty with the U.S. and others in 1951, allow-
ing Japan back into international society after its war
defeat. His Pearl Harbor visit, which he made on his
way home from San Francisco, was largely eclipsed
by the historic treaty. (U.S. Navy via AP)
Yoshida’s visit to Pearl Harbor was
actually on his second Hawai‘i stopover,
having travelled there on his way to San
Francisco as well.
But he was more relaxed the second
time, after completing the important mis-
sion in San Francisco, where he also signed
the original Japan-U.S. security pact.
On his way to California, Yoshida land-
ed in Honolulu on August 31, 1951, when
Japan was still technically an enemy.
During that visit, he laid flowers for the
war dead at Honolulu’s National Memorial
Cemetery of the Pacific, a military ceme-
tery better known as Punchbowl. Three
other Japanese prime ministers have since
followed suit. A local Hawai‘i newspaper
recently reported that two others also had
visited Pearl Harbor later in the 1950s.
Yoshida’s daughter, Kazuko Aso, who
was travelling with him, recalled that
security was extremely tight in Hawai‘i
during his first stopover, before the peace
treaty was signed, and that Yoshida, who
stayed on the top floor of the Royal
Hawaiian Hotel, was instructed not to
leave the hotel for safety reasons.
“But that old man insisted he wanted to
go out ... to pay tribute to the war dead,”
Aso said in an interview published in the
Bungei Shunju monthly magazine weeks
after the trip.
She said the Japanese delegation
unexpectedly received a warm welcome.
Photos in the Japanese newspaper
Continued on page 6
Empty pyramid hotel a sphinx-like North Korean mystery
Continued from page 2
Presumably, they’re still waiting.
Simon Cockerell, general manager of
Koryo Tours, which operates in North
Korea, is one of the few foreigners to have
seen the hotel from the inside.
“When I visited the site first, we had a
meeting with the project director. He
showed us this video of what it was
supposed to look like. Wouldn’t give us a
copy though, or let us film it,” he said of his
visit in 2012. “It showed the hotel as they
imagine it in the future, but he did say
some things from the original plans had
changed — no more external elevators, no
five revolving restaurants, now just three
— and he said they didn’t have the funding
to complete it. Simply a money issue.”
Cockerell said he has not heard of any
significant activity at the Ryugyong since
then.
“I have only heard snippets — various
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claims in the media, really, and some
guesswork from some of the Koreans I
know,” he said. “There [are] clearly not a
lot of vehicles going onto the site, meaning
that major work cannot have been going
on. Perhaps some smaller work, but
nothing on the scale that would have been
needed to get this done properly.”
Others who deal regularly with North
Korean tourism officials were also
cautious.
“As far as we are aware, the situation
officially remains, ‘They are working on
it,’” said Troy Collings, managing director
of another North Korea tourism agency,
Young Pioneer Tours. “We’ve not heard
any mention of it from our partners and I
dare say if the hotel was preparing to open
they’d be very excited to inform us and get
us trying to attract guests.”
In the meantime, the hotel continues to
be the world’s largest unoccupied building.
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