Reischauer, Edwin O., November 1, 1979

Edwin O. Reischauer (October 15, 1910 - September 1, 1990) was an author, scholar, diplomat, professor, and leading expert on East Asian affairs. He was born in Tokyo, Japan, to American Presbyterian missionaries. In his youth, Reischauer moved back and forth between Japan and the U.S. with his family. He attended Oberlin College, where he received a BA in 1929, and Harvard College, where he received an MA in 1932 and a PhD in 1939. From September 1943 until the end of the War, Reischauer was a major and then a lieutenant colonel in Army Intelligence, supervising the liaison between G2, the Intelligence Section of the Pentagon, and the work in Arlington Hall, where Japanese radio intercepts were decrypted.

After the war, Reischauer was a member of the State Department's State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC), where he drafted the first policy on Korea and participated in the planning for the occupation of Japan. In the interview, Reischauer describes the training of recruits at Arlington Hall, the conditions in Japan during a four-month Cultural and Social Sciences mission in 1948, and reflects on the roles of the Emperor and of General Douglas MacArthur in postwar Japan, among other topics. Reischauer returned to Harvard, where he taught Far Eastern languages and Japanese history for over 40 years, retiring in 1980. From 1961 to 1966, he served as the United States Ambassador to Japan. Edwin O. Reischauer passed away at the age of 79.