A Letter to Madam Ambassador Kennedy
By OGAWA Eitaro,
Abstract
Mr. OGAWA Eitaro, well-known writer for his best-seller book Day of Promise—Preliminary Essay on Abe Shinzo (Gento-sha Library), wrote an essay “A Letter to Madam Ambassador Kennedy: Over the Issue of Yasukuni and the “suicide attack” Described by Your Cousin --There Are Several Things I Would Like to Convey, As A Japanese, to Madam Ambassador, Who Recognizes the Importance of Honestly Discussing Diverse Points of View,” for a leading political monthly magazine Seiron’s April, 2014 issue.
He explains the reason why Prime Minister Abe paid a visit to Yasukuni from a historical and cultural background, referring to the Japan-America War of the past. In this context he touches on the book entitled Danger’s Hour, written by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Ambassador Kennedy’s cousin. He greatly appreciates Mr. Kennedy’s fair evaluation of the Kamikaze suicide attack pilots in the book. Even though fair in this regard, Mr. OGAWA finds a lot of serious misunderstands regarding Japan and the Japanese in the book.
Mr. OGAWA, however, does not fault Kennedy’s lack of knowledge but blames the Japanese for not having done enough to explain Japan to Western people. Thus, he emphasizes that in order to have Western people understand Japan, we Japanese should exert more effort in this regard.
With Ambassador Kennedy’s appreciation and understanding of the nature of this letter, I believe that the open letter to Ambassador Kennedy will lead to a new horizon of mutual understanding between Japanese and Americans.