Q: I am very pleased to have an opportunity to talk with you about education. I requested, through the Mainichi Newspaper, to arrange for a talk. I have been creating private tutoring schools on a franchise basis and have been very successful.

Kissinger: You were nice enough to send me some books. However, they were in Japanese, so I could not read them very well.

Q: You look very, very young.

K: Thank you very much. Unfortunately I'm not.

Q: About twenty years ago I saw you on television and I wanted to have an opportunity to shake hands with you. For the children whom I teach, I have many questions I wish to ask. First when you were 15 years old, you came to USA?

K: Yes.

Q: And, how did you start your study, and how did you get your education?

K: You are talking now about after I came to America, not before?

Q: What is the force by which you have successfully reached your position after coming over when you were 15 years old?

K: Well, When I came to America, I did not speak any English. But at that time you had to go to school in English. There was no other way. So, I went to a public high school. I went one year in the daytime.

Q: I wonder very much how a 15 year old boy became so powerful in the world and have such success in the world.

K: You have to remember, we were all Germans. When I came to I didn't speak English, my parents didn't speak English, and we didn't have any money. So that the idea of becoming powerful never occurred to me. So, I went to high school for one year in the daytime. Then I went to work in a shaving brush factory. And I went to night school. I finished high school at night. Until we came in '38 I finished night high school at '41 in '49 and '41. It

1

takes a little longer at night because you cannot
take so many courses at night. So then, I went to
college at night for two years to study accounting.

Q: Then, you went to Harvard?

K: No. Then, I went into the army, in 1943. And I
served in the army until 1947 in the European
theater.

Q: For two years after World War II ended?

K: I was not eligible for release until May 1946. And then I spent another year in college, as a civilian in a military organization. Then, I came back in 1947.

Q: What was your rank in the army?

K: My rank was very low. I was a staff sergeant. I
later became a reserve lieutenant.

Q: When you were a soldier, what was your goal?

K: Well, I had no political ambitions. Before the army I wanted to become an accountant. Afterwards I wanted to become a professor.

Q: After your army civilian work, did you get into
Harvard?

K: Yes.

Q: Was it very difficult to get into Harvard?

K: Well, I had very good grades, always. So, Harvard gave me a scholarship.

Q: Is it from your academic records in college or high
school?

K: Both. And, one other thing, while I was in the army, the army sent me to college for six months, and I had very good grades there, too.

Q: How about your parents? Were they also good in
study?

K: My father was a teacher, and my mother was a housewife. She was not very intellectual.

Q: How about your ancestors?

2

K: On my father's side, they were all teachers insofar as I remember them. My grandfather was a teacher, and his father was a teacher. Village teachers. In little villages. And on my mother's side, they were all traders. They also lived in little villages, and they traded cows and grain and things like that.

Q: So, you have both backgrounds, a trading background and a scholars background.

K: Yes.

Q: Before I started my tutoring school, I was only a housewife of a man who was running an electric appliance shop.

K: A electric repair shop?

Q: A machinery and equipment shop.

Q: What are your strong impressions about your father and mother?

K: They were both strong personalities, but I was intellectually closer to my father.

Q: Did they scold you very much?

K: In Germany, there was belief in strict discipline of children. But, I think in Japan also. They expected me to have high grades. And when I didn't, and sometimes I didn't, they corrected me.

Q: What was the reason you decided to come to the United States?

K: It was the Nazi persecution.

Q: Did your family come to America earlier than other people?

K: My parents, my brother and I. My grandparents stayed behind, and they were killed.

Q: If you close your eyes, what are the most impressive matters that come to your mind when you think about your past? From your teens, twenties and thirties.

K: In the twenties, what I probably remember best is my military experience. In my thirties, my academic experience.

3

Q: Did you have any culture shock when you came to America?

K: Yes, I was separated from all my friends, and it was difficult to make new friends because I didn't speak the language. But, I'm very grateful to America for giving me the opportunity.

Q: When did you start thinking about going into politics? Is it after you started teaching at Harvard?

K: You know, I never thought of going into politics. That was an accident. I never planned to go into politics.

Q: You wanted to stay in the scholarly field?

K: Yes, it was an accident. Because in 1954, when I was still a graduate student, Nelson Rockefeller asked me to work on a committee. Nelson Rockefeller was then the President's advisor for national security. It wasn't exactly the same but a similar job. And that was the first time I did anything for the Government. And from there, I then became a good friend of Nelson Rockefeller, and he became Governor of New York.

Q: In Japan, graduate school, like where you were studying, is said to be an "ivory tower". It is isolated from the other side of the world. It is very hard for Japanese people to consider that there is possibility for people in graduate school to go into politics.

K: Well, I must tell you, it is very rare in America. If you do it statistically, it happens very rarely but there was a change in America. Before the Kennedy administration, no professor ever was given an operational job. After that, it started, and then I became one of those. But to show you how accidental it was, I had only met President Nixon once for three minutes before he was elected. And, I had always supported Nelson Rockefeller who was his worst opponent. So, if I had planned it, I would not have done it that way.

Q: How did people outside the academic world find your talent in politics?

K: How did they discover me?

K: Well, in 1955, again almost by accident, I wrote an article in *Foreign Affairs*. I say "by accident" because I had run into a friend on the campus of Harvard, who showed me a letter from a friend of his, dealing with strategic issues. I wrote him a comment on that letter. He sent that comment to the editor of *Foreign Affairs*. *Foreign Affairs* then asked me to write an article. On the basis of that, I was asked to do a book, which was called *Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*.

Q: You are very active in addition to what you write. Is it because of your experience in the army?

K: No. First of all I like to work. I'm always doing something. I don't think that the army was all that important. It was not that important in shaping what I did afterwards. The army was very important for me to get to know Americans because I served with a lot of Americans.

Q: Normally, when do you study?

K: I normally read at night, and on weekends.

Q: When you read some thing once, you will not forget?

K: I don't forget the basic ideas. I sometimes forget the details.

Q: You have travelled so much. What countries or places have you liked best, excluding America and Germany?

K: There're many places I like. Really I like so many places. I like France, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Kyoto, and China, Xian and Beijing. Those are some of the places I like best.

Q: You have experienced many things. What do you feel from your experience helped you grow and shaped your character?

K: Well, coming to a foreign country forces you to get to know yourself. The army was very important. Of course, my college education was important. And then, working in the White House. I had to learn many things because that's a different world. It has an atmosphere of an imperial court.

Q: Do you like history?

K: Yes, I'm very fascinated by history.

Q: What era interests you very much?

K: Well, It's different periods in different countries. In American I'm interested in the very beginning, the first 25 years. Then the Civil War, and then the period from World War I on.

Q: How about the ancient era?

K: The ancient era I have only come to know more recently. I've only started to read Chinese in history in some detail. And, Japanese history I have tried to read about the emergence of the Shoguns, and then the period from 1860 onwards. But, there are many parts of Japanese history I do not know very well. But, in fact, now I have a researcher who is doing a paper for me on the subject. What interests me most about Japan is the process by which Japan forms one of the things in the process is the cohesive society.

Q: The Edo era of three hundred years in Japan, when the Tokugawa Shogun took over the Government was the most peaceful period without any war. What do you think is the reason why there was no war?

K: Well, I am no expert on Japanese history. But, I think it marked the establishment of central authority, and then Japan cut itself off all from the outside world, so no foreigners could come in. So, there were no outside, no foreign wars.

Q: How about the American political power? Is it very centralized?

K: No. It's in the Executive branch, the President has very central power, but there are so many branches of the Government. There are checks and balances.

Q: The power of the President is quite separate from the power of the other branches of the American Government?

K: Yes.

Q: When do you think your character was formed?

K: Well, I suppose one's basic character is created in one's family. I think my political character was formed when I was in the army where I met a very

6

remarkable man. He was a very learned man and a very
powerful personality. He told me what I had never
thought of before - that I had a great talent in
political thinking. And therefore he was very
influential with me.

Q: So, you met a very splendid person?

K: Yes.

Q: What was his position then?

K: Well, he was a very complicated man. I had to leave
Germany because of my religion. He didn't. He was
not Jewish. He left Germany out of political
conviction. He did not have a very high office in
the army. He was sort of an assistant to the General
of the division in which I served. But, he was such
a remarkable personality that the General gave him
no specific assignments, and he could do more or less
what he wanted.

Q: In Japan, those people are called a person who showed
you the road or direction. A way to live. How did
he discover the talent that you have?

K: It was very strange. He gave a speech to my [army]
company. And I wrote him a letter saying how
impressed I had been by his speech which I never do
normally. He then came to see me, and we had a
conversation and he said "you are talented, you have
an unusual talent in politics." I don't know why he
came to that idea.

Q: Do you think that he still has your letter?

K: I doubt it.

Q: I guess you wrote a very wonderful letter because he
came to see you.

K: You know, I don't remember exactly what I wrote. This
was [forty years ago. It was forty-five,] forty-
seven years ago.

Q: You never know how you will be meeting people or
have an opportunity to have such a chance.

K: As [Like] what I said before, you couldn't plan it.

Q: Was it the one reason that you had a change or the
start of change in your life?

7

K: Well, I was in the infantry at that point. And he arranged for me to be transferred to intelligence. So, I could do intellectual work.

Q: So, he gave you a change from the infantry to intellectual work?

K: Yes.

Q: One letter opened up your way?

K: Strangely, yes. A letter to a man who I had no reason to believe had all that much influence.

Q: Many people have a feeling of failure. How do you acquire your feeling to further develop yourself.

K: Well, I have found that whenever I planned something it didn't work out all that well, and whenever I just did what I thought was best at any one moment, it was for the best. So, I never have a long-range plan.

Q: On many occasions, people get hurt by others or in connection with losing other people's friendship. How do you recover, yourself, from that?

K: I must tell you, I am fanatical about friendship. I never abandon a friend. And, somebody would really have to do something totally treacherous for me to leave a friend. I stuck to the Shah of Iran when everybody else abandoned him. I supported Nixon to the end and he is still a friend of mine. And you can find out in Japan. Even today, every year I visit the widow of Prime Minister Sato and Prime Minister Ohira. Well, now Mr. Sato's widow has died also. But, when I come to Japan I always visit everybody with whom I ever worked in Japan. I visit at least once a year.

Q: People like you are highly welcomed and treated nicely.

K: Well, I've been treated very nicely by my Japanese friends and acquaintances. Mr. Nakasone was a student of mine at Harvard. I always see him. Mr. Miyazawa is an old friend. Yes, I have many friends in Japan.

Q: How about friends in the business field?

K: I have some friends in the business field. Also, Mr.

8

Morita from Sony is one.

Q: What is the factor that makes you work hard in politics or at anything?

K: It's a very good question. I usually do only those things that interest me. At least since my shaving brush factory days. Those didn't interest me. And, If I do what interests me, then I like to do it. Foreign policy is my profession. It is also my hobby.

Q: What area did you teach?

K: I taught, technically, political science, but I most like to teach history and philosophy.

Q: What area do you still teach?

K: Well, I was particularly interested because it's the only philosophy I really know particularly well is Western philosophy. So I taught what I was interested in... of the general philosophers, Kant, Spinoza, then I was very interested in philosophy of history; Hegel, Spengler and Toynbee.

Also

Q: What is most idealistic policy?

Q: Well, In policy you really need two components. You need ideas, because the art of policy is to take a people from where it is to where it has never been. That is from the present to the future. But secondly, you have to be very practical, because the difference between a professor and a statesman is that the professor only needs to imagine the desirable. But the statesman has to know what is possible. The German statesman Bismarck said politics is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.

Q: May I ask you what you think the trend will be between Iran and Iraq?

K: They don't care so much about what's possible. Their focus is on what's desirable. It will end when one or both of the leaders dies.

Q: Are there any successors who will maintain the fight?

K: I don't think so.

9

Q: In what direction will American policy move from now on?

K: Well, I think we're in a changing world in which many new countries will emerge. Japan will become more powerful, China will become more powerful, India will become more powerful, maybe Europe will become more powerful. So, America has to adjust to these realities.

[Q: What do you think is the best way to have a good friendly relationship between US and Japan.]

K: I will answer this question, but my understanding was we would talk about educational questions. Because I do my political analysis for the Yomiuri, and we made that clear at the beginning.]

Q: For children who will be growing up in the 21st century, what is the best education that should be given by us?

K: Well, of course I'm more qualified to speak of Western [children] than of Japanese children. I believe you can always learn factual education. The facts of the situation are relatively easier to learn. And once you are trained, you can do it almost by yourself. You don't need a professor. What is difficult to learn is how to think. So I believe philosophy, history, economic theory or of course scientific subjects, if you have a talent for it, those you cannot learn by yourself.

Q: If you study philosophy, will it help to understand how to resolve a problem, or how to think or find a way of thinking?

K: I think so. It's not a cook book, it does not give you a direction. You cannot go to a particular philosopher, and say here's the solution. But, the most important thing is the train your mind.

Q: How would you teach what money is?

K: I'm not an economist, but I would try to teach how value is established. Money is just a way to express value.

Q: I would like to know how I should teach children why study is required?

K: In our world, there are so many events, and the

10

events keep multiplying because there are more and
more facts. So, therefore, it is impossible to deal
with each event separately. It leads to total
confusion.

Q: There are many children who hate to study, and many people who say that if you study hard you can contribute to your country or nation.

K: Yes. But they cannot contribute unless they can form some general idea. And they cannot form a general idea unless they study.

Q: What is the most important period when children establish their character?

K: Well, Western psychiatrists say at a very early age. I'm not so sure this is true. I think more between the ages of, say, eight and eighteen. But I haven't studied this scientifically.

Q: Mr. Ibuka of Sony says that from zero to three years old is very important.

K: I have never believed it, but they may be right. I don't remember anything from that period.

Q: In Japan, we have a saying that the spirit of three years old is forever.

K: It could be true. I believe more in the conscious
than in the subconscious. Sigmund Freud and modern
psychologists believe more in the subconscious.

Q: How do you define the difference?

K: Well, the modern psychologists, Freudian psychologists, say that which shapes you most, you are not aware of. And that, therefore, if you are engaged in psychiatric discussions, they try to bring out of you an awareness of the subconscious. I do not contest this. I just don't know enough. I can only speak for myself. If I could solve all the problems of which I'm aware, I would be very pleased. So, I have never been very interested in somebody explaining to me what is going on in my subconscious level, because I thought I could spend the time better by dealing with the conscious problems I have.

Q: You are a very wise man!

K: Well, I may be wrong. Tell me, is there psychiatry

11

in the western sense in Japan? It's hard for me to
believe.

Q: In Japan, we always turn to Buddhism.

K: Buddhism? That's different. I understand religious
experience, but I put that in the conscious
experience.

Q: In Japan, to think about yourself very deeply, I think is based upon the religion of the Japanese people, Buddhism.

K: Yes. If you don't become totally preoccupied with
yourself. If you can speak only about yourself, you
become a very boring person. An interesting person
is a person who can establish a relationship between
him or herself and events, not one who can only
examine *their* own personality.

Q: To me, the most impressive point today is that one
letter opened up your way.

K: That was an accident. I didn't plan it.

Q: Although it is invisible, I believe it is effected by
God.

K: That's very possible. I believe that this is
possible, that there is a destiny. That is very
possible.

Q: What do you teach or tell your children?

K: Well, I was brought up in a very disciplined,
hierarchical home, maybe a little bit like Japan.
Parents were superior to the children. I try to
deal with my children more on the basis of equality.
I do not insist that they have to listen to me
because I'm their father. So, I try to give them an
opportunity to express their own views. On the other
hand, I used to tell them when they were younger that
I also do not accept what is often believed in
America that the young are superior to the old. So,
I told them if they have a teenage rebellion, I will
resist and they will have a terrible fight.

Q: Did you start thinking that way when you became the
father of a child?

K: I always thought that even when I was a child.

12

Q: Among historical figures, who most influenced your attitude about education and about your personal or professional goals?

K: Well, when I was a very young student, Spinoza, the
philosopher, influenced me very much. Kant
influenced me very much. Spengler, I'm talking and
Dostoevski, I'm talking about. There were no
political figures. I mean there were many
interesting political figures, but since I didn't
want to be a politician...I mean there were many
romantic political figures. I liked to read about
Alexander the Great, but I never thought I would
become...

Q: How did you overwhelm your change of environment right after you came to America and also as you experienced changes of your environment as you grew up.

K: Well, I have always been very fortunate in being able to do what I always focused on what I wanted to do. And I am very persistent, and I don't accept that the environment can overwhelm me.

Q: How do you rank the following in terms of priority, for education in the 21st century? Cultural literacy, historical knowledge, economic knowledge, technical knowledge, international knowledge?

K: That is a very difficult question to answer because it depends on personality. For example, I have no talent for technical knowledge but I think a society has to have a broad base of technical knowledge, especially of theoretical technical knowledge. So, for me historical knowledge is very important. International knowledge, I think you will learn automatically or never. So, if you ask me about what should be the policy of a government for its people, I would make sure that talented people have an opportunity to get technical knowledge. And I would want to make sure that those who enter government study history, philosophy and theoretical economics, and I wouldn't care so much about whether they know all the practical details that they will learn later. That's how the British educated their governing classes and they did very well.

Q: I am interested to know whether you think that people who go into government should study theoretical economics.

EPSTEIN BECKER & GREEN, P.C.

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JUN 15 1988.

June 14, 1988

BY HAND

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

Enclosed, belatedly, are the English language article which
appeared in the *Mainichi* Daily News (page 4) and the Japanese
language article in the Sunday *Mainichi* (pages 132 et seq.),
based on the interview conducted by Ms. Masako Tabei in late
March. I apologize for delay in transmitting these items to you,
which was occasioned by my being away on business for most of the
past two months.

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[Y]

- 1 -

Q: ... Mrs. Tabei to have an opportunity with you to talk about education and she has requested me through Mainichi Newspaper to have some possible arrangement for talk and she has been creating his...her tutoring, private tutoring schools on a franchise basis and has been very successful, and...

Kissinger: Well, you were nice enough to send me some...books which, however, were in Japanese, so I could not read them very well.

Q: You look very, very young.

Q: That was...what she said about twenty years ago when she saw you on a tv she wanted...have an opportunity to shake hands with you.

K: Well...

Q: For children those that she teaches, she has many questions that she wishes to place. When you were 15 years old, you came to USA,

K: Yes.

Q: and how did you start your study and how did you get education?

K: You are talking now, after I came to America, not before?

Q: What is the force what you have successfully reached to this position after coming over when you were 15 years old?

K: Well, when I came to America, I did not speak any English. But, at that time you had to go to school in English. There was no other way. So, I went to a public high school...and...I went one year in the daytime. We did not...

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☑007

So then, I went to college at night for two years...to study accounting.

Q: Then, you went to Harvard?

K: No. Then, I went to the army...in 1943. And I served in the army until 1947 in the European theater. Then...

Q: Two years after World War ending.

K: Well, I spent...I was not eligible for release until May 1946. And then I spent another year in college, ah, in a, as a civilian...in a military organization. Then I came back in 1947.

Q: She is asking what was your rank in the army.

K: My rank was very low. I was a, a staff, a staff sergeant. Then, I became later a reserve lieutenant.

Q: At that time, what is your aim?

K: At that time, before the War?

You see, we were..

Q: When you were a soldier.

Q: After your...the army civilian work, did you get into Harvard?

K: Yes.

Q: Was it very difficult?

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☑008

K: Difficult to get into Harvard? Well, er...I had very good grades, always. So, Harvard gave me a scholarship.

Q: Is it from the records that you obtained in college or high school?

K: In both. And one other thing, while I was in the army, the army sent me to college for six months. And I had very good grades there, too.

Q: How were your parents? Were they also good in study?

K: Er...my father was a teacher, and my mother was a housewife, she was not very intellectual.

Q: How about your ancestor?

K: Well, on my father's side, they were all teachers insofar as I remember them. My grandfather was a teacher, and his father was a teacher. Village teachers. In little villages. And, my, on my mother's side, they were all traders. They also lived in little villages and they traded...er...cows and grain and things like that.

Q: So, you have both background, trading background and scholars background.

K: Yes.

Q: Before she starts her tutoring school she was only a housewife of the man who was running electric apparatus shop.

K: A electric repair shop?

Q: The machinery and equipment shop.

K: Yes.

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- 5 -

Q: What is your strong impression about your father or mother?

K: Scold me? Well...in Germany, there was belief in strict discipline of children. But, I think in Japan, also. They expected me to have high grades. And when I didn't, and sometimes I didn't, they corrected me.

Q: What was the reason that made you decide to come over?

Q: Did you move out earlier than other people? Your family came to America earlier than...?

K: My parents, my brother and I. My grandparents stayed behind and they were killed.

Q: Assume that you close your eye, what is most impressive matters that come to your mind or thinking, when you think about your past?

K: What part of my past? Which...

Q: What is more impressive or that you still strongly remember, clearly remember?

K: From what period?

Q: Teen, twenties and thirties.

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☎010

K: Yes, it was...I was separated from all my friends and it was difficult to make new friends because I didn't speak the language. But, I'm very grateful to America for giving me the opportunity.

Q: When you start think about going into politics? Is it after you start teaching at Harvard?

K: You know, I never thought of going into politics, that was an accident. I never planned to go into politics.

Q: You wanted to stay in the scholarly work?

K: Yes, it was an accident. Because in 1954 when I was still a graduate student, Nelson Rockefeller asked me to work on a committee. Nelson Rockefeller was then the President's advisor for national security. It wasn't exactly the same but a similar job. And that was the first time I did anything for the...for the Government. And from there, I then became a good friend of Nelson Rockefeller and he became Governor of New York.

Q: In Japan, the...the graduate school, like you were studying, is to be said "ivory tower" and it is isolated from other side of the world, but for those people there, why did you go into politics and it is very hard for Japanese people to consider that there is possibility for those people in graduate school.

K: Well, I must tell you, it is very rare in America. If you do it statistically it happens very rarely but there was a change in America. Before the Kennedy administration, no professor ever was given an operational job. After that, it started and then I became one of those. But to show you how accidental it was, I only met...I had only met President Nixon once for three minutes before he was elected. And, er...and, I had always supported Nelson

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- 7 -

Q: Where was...er...or what was the chance that the outside people found your talent in politics? Where or how did people find your talent in politics?

K: How did they discover me?

Q: Yes.

K: Well, I had written...in 1955, again almost by accident, I wrote an article in *Foreign Affairs*. I say "by accident" because I had run into a friend in...on the campus of Harvard, who showed me a letter by a friend of his, dealing with strategic issues. I wrote him a comment on that letter. He sent that comment to the editor of *Foreign Affairs*. *Foreign Affairs* then asked me to write an article. On the basis of that, I was asked to do a book, which dealt with...it was called *Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*.

Q: You are very active in a movement in addition to what you write. Is it because of your experience as an army?

K: No. I...first of all I like to work. So, I'm always doing something. I don't think that the army was all that important. It was not that important in shaping what I did afterwards. The army was very important for me for getting to know Americans because I served with a lot of Americans.

Q: You will not forget once you heard? When you hear one thing, you will not forget?

K: When I read something? I don't forget the basic ideas, I sometimes forget the details.

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Q: You moved around so much and what is the country or the place you liked best excluding America and Germany?

K: There're many places I like. Really I like most...many places. I like France, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Kyoto, and China, Xian and Beijing. Those are some of the places I like best.

Q: You experienced many things and you feel anything that your experience helped growing for your characterizing yourself?

K: Well, coming to a foreign country forces you to get to know yourself. The army was very important. Of course, my college education was important. And then, working in the White House, I had to learn many things because that's a different world. It has an atmosphere of an imperial court.

Q: Outside army, did you have experience that, you...which made you to pray to the God?

K: Frankly, those are things I don't really like to talk about in an interview. My religious experience...

Q: Telling by herself, about herself, she was impressed that she has some chance to see you some time in future and this has been realized. Therefore, this is her belief.

K: I'm honored.

Q: Do you like history?

K: Do I like history? Yes, I'm very fascinated by history.

Q: What part of age you have interest very much?

K: What part?

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K: Er...well, in America. Well, it's different periods in different countries. In America, I'm interested in the very beginning, the first 25 years. Then the civil war, and then the period from World War I on.

Q: How about ancient era?

K: Ancient era I have only come to know more recently. And I've only started to read Chinese history, in some detail, and Japanese history I have tried to read about the emergence of the Shoguns, and then the period from 1860 onwards. But, there are many parts of Japanese history I do not know very well. But, I'm...I'm...in fact now, I have a researcher who is doing a paper for me on the subject. I'm very...what, what interests me most about Japan or one of things is the process by which Japan forms such a cohesive society.

Q: Edo era of three hundred years is most peaceful years without any war.

K: When?

Q: In Japan, Edo era where Tokugawa Shogun took Government. What do you think the reason why no war?

K: Well, I am no expert on Japanese history. But I think it marked the establishment of central authority, and then Japan cut itself off all from the outside world, so no foreigners could come in. So, there were no outside, no foreign wars.

K: No. It's, well...in the executive branch, the President has very central power but there are so many branches of the Government. If they...the checks and balances.

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Q: The power of the President is quite separate from the power of each authority?

K: Yes.

Q: When do you think your character was established or created?

K: Well, I suppose one's basic character is created in one's family. I think my political character was formed when I was in the army where I met a very remarkable man. He was a very learned man and a very powerful personality. He told me what I had never thought of before that I was...he thought I was a...I had a great talent in political thinking. And therefore he was very influential with...

K: Yes.

Q: What was his position, then?

K: Well, he was a very complicated man. I had to leave Germany because of my religion. He didn't. He left Germany, he was not Jewish, he left Germany out of political conviction. He did not have a very high office in the army. He was sort of an assistant to the general of the division in which I served. But, he was such a remarkable personality that the general gave him specific, gave him no special, no specific assignments and he could do more or less what he wanted.

Q: In Japan, those people are, is defined as a person gave you the road or your way.

K: Yes. Quite correct. I mean they gave me...

Q: How to live, a way to live?

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Q: Why did he find you such talent that you have.

K: It was very strange. He gave the speech to my company. And I wrote him a letter saying I...how impressed I had been by his speech which I never do normally. He then came to see me, and we had one conversation and he said "you are talented, you have an unusual talent in politics." I don't know why he came to that idea.

K: I doubt it.

K: You know I don't remember exactly what I wrote. This was forty years ago. It was forty-five, forty-seven years ago.

Q: You never expect...you never know how you will be seeing the people or have an opportunity to have such chance to...

K: I had no...you know, what I told you, you couldn't plan it.

Q: Was it the one reason that you had some change or start of change in your life?

Q: So, he gave you a change from infantry to intellectual.

K: Yea.

Q: One letter opened up your way.

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Q: Many people and most people have the feeling of failure and how do you redevelop your feeling to further promote, develop yourself.

K: Well, I'll tell you. I have found that whenever I planned something it didn't work out all that well, and whenever I just did what I thought was best at any one moment, it was for the best. So, I never have a long-range plan.

Q: In many occasion, many people got hurt from others or with, in connection with other people's friendship or losing friendship, how do you recover from, yourself, from that?

K: Losing friendship? I must tell you. I am fanatical about friendship. I never abandon a friend. And, somebody would really have to do something, totally treacherous for me to leave a friend. I stuck to the Shah of Iran when everybody else abandoned him. I supported Nixon to the end and he is still a friend of mine. And you can find out in Japan. Even today, every year I visit the widow of Prime Minister Sato and Prime Minister Ohira. Well, now Sato's widow has died also. But I always visit when I come to Japan...everybody with whom I ever worked in Japan, I visit at least once a year. I'm sure that I will tell you...

Q: The people like you are well, highly welcomed and treated nice.

K: Well, I've been treated very nicely by my Japanese friends and acquaintances. Nakasone was a student of mine at Harvard. I always see him. Miyazawa is an old friend. Yes, I have many friends in Japan.

Q: How about friends in economical field, business field?

K: I have some friends in the business field. Morita from Sony.

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Q: What is the factor that make you work hard in politics or anything?

K: It's a very good question. I usually do only those things that interest me. At least since my shaving brush factory days, those didn't interest me. And if I do what interests me, then I like to do it. Foreign policy is my profession. It is also my hobby.

K: I taught, technically, political science, but I like to teach most, history and philosophy.

Q: What particular philosophy?

K: Well, I was particularly interested because it's the only philosophy I really know particularly well is western philosophy. So I taught, what I was interested in is...of the general philosophers, Kant, Spinoza, then I was very interested in philosophy of history, Hegel, Spengler and Toynbee.

K: What is the most idealistic...

Q: Idealistic policy.

K: Well, in policy you really need two components. You need ideas. Because the art of policy is to take a people from where it is to where it has never been. That is from the present to the future. But secondly, you have to be very practical. Because the difference between a professor and a statesman is that the professor only needs to imagine the desirable. But the statesman has to know what is possible. The German statesman Bismarck said politics is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.

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Q: May I ask you how you feel about how the trend will be between Iran and Iraq?

K: They don't care so much about what's possible. Their focus is on what's desirable. It will end when one, or both of the leaders dies.

Q: Is there any other successors who maintain such a fight?

K: I don't think so.

Q: To which direction the American policy move from now on?

K: Well, I think...we're in a changing world in which many new countries will emerge. Japan will become more powerful, China will become more powerful, India will become more powerful, maybe Europe will become more powerful. So, America has to adjust, adjust to these realities.

Q: What is the best way you think to have a good friendly relationship between US and Japan.

K: I will answer this question but, my understanding was we would talk about educational questions. Because...I do my political analysis for Yomiuri and we made that clear at the beginning.

Q: For children, who will be growing in the 21st century, what is the best education that should be given by us?

K: Well, of course I'm more qualified to speak of western than of Japanese children. I believe you can always learn factual education. The facts of the situation are relatively easier to learn. And once you are trained, you can do it almost by yourself, you don't need a professor. What is difficult to learn is how to think. So, I believe philosophy, history, economic theory or of course scientific subjects, if you have a talent for it, those you

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Q: How to settle a problem or how to think if you study philosophy, will it help for them to, way of thinking? If you have a...

K: Well, I think so. It's not a cook book, it does not give you a direct. You cannot go to a particular philosopher, and say here's the solution. But, the most important thing is to train your mind.

Q: How would you teach what the money is?

K: Money?

Q: Money.

K: How would I teach what money is?

Q: Yes.

K: Of course, I'm not an economist, but I would try to teach how value is established. Money is just a way to express value.

Q: Why study is required, when...she'd like to know how she should teach children why study is required?

K: In our world, there are so many events, and the events keep multi...and they, they keep multiplying because there are more and more facts.

Q: In general.

K: So, therefore, it is impossible to deal with each event separately. It leads to total confusion.

Q: There are many children who hate to study and many people say if you study hard you can contribute to country or the nation.

K: Yes. But, they cannot contribute unless they can form some general

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Q: What is the most important period for children to establish their character?

K: Well, psychiatrists, western psychiatrists say at a very early age. I'm not so sure this is true. I think more between the ages of, say, eight and eighteen. But, I haven't studied this scientifically.

K: Is that what they say?

I...I have never believed it but they may be right. I don't remember anything from that period.

Q: Spirit of three years old forever, we, we have a word saying.

K: It could be true. I...er...I believe, I believe more in the conscious than in the subconscious. Sigmund Freud, and modern psychologists believe more in the subconscious.

K: Well, the modern psychologists, Freudian psychologists say that, that which shapes you most, you're not aware of. And that therefore, if you are engaged in psychiatric discussions, they try to bring out of you an awareness of the subconscious. I do not contest this. I just don't know enough. I can only speak for myself. If I could solve all the problems of which I'm aware, I would be very pleased. So, I have never been very interested in somebody explaining to me what is going on on my subconscious level, because I thought I could spend the time better by dealing with the conscious problems I have.

Q: Very wise man! she said.

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K: Well, I may be wrong.
Tell me. Is there psychiatry in the western sense in Japan? It's
hard to me to believe.

Q: Always return to the Buddhism.

K: Buddhism? Er...but that's not...that's different. No, I...I
understand religious experience but I put that in the conscious
experience.

Q: To think about yourself very deeply which she thinks that that is based upon the religion of Japanese people, Buddhism.

K: Yes. If you don't become totally preoccupied with yourself. When,
if you can speak only about yourself, you become a very boring
person. An interesting person is a person who can establish a
relationship between him or herself and events, not one who can
only examine their own personality.

Q: To her, most impressive words that she received from you today is
that the one piece of letter opened up your way.

K: That was an accident, I didn't plan it.

Q: Although it is invisible, such is effected by God, she said.

Q: What do you teach or what do you talk to your children?

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K: Well, I was brought up in a very disciplined house...very hierarchical...maybe a little bit like Japan. Parents were superior to the children. I try to teach my...to bring...to deal with my children more on the basis of equality. I do not insist that they have to listen to me because I'm their father. So, I try to give them an opportunity to express their own views. On the other hand, I used to tell them when they were younger that I also do not accept what is often believed in America that the young are superior to the old. So, I told them if they have a teenage rebellion, I will resist and they will have a terrible fight.

Q: When you become the father of a child, you start thinking that way?

K: I always thought...thought that even when I was a child.

(break)

Q: She has very basic, two more basic questions. Of historical figures, who most influenced your attitude about education, about your personal or professional goals?

K: You mean among who? Political figures?

Q: Historical figures.

K: Historical figures. Like philosophers, or among statesmen?

Q: Not defining the field just when you think about it.

K: Well, when I was a boy, I was a very young student, Spinoza, the philosopher, influenced me very much. Kant influenced me very much. Spengler, I'm talking Dostoevski, I'm talking about, there were no political figures, I mean there were many interesting political figures but since I didn't want to be a politician...I

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Q: How did you overwhelm the change of environment?

K: When I came to America?

Q: As you...right after you came to America and also you experienced the change of environment as you grow up.

K: Well, I have always been very fortunate in being able to do what, I always focused on what I wanted to do. And, I am very persistent and I don't accept that the environment can overwhelm me.

Q: What she, as a final question, she asks how do you rank the following terms of priority, priority for education? How do you rank priority in the 21st century? Cultural, literacy, historical knowledge, economic knowledge, technical knowledge, international knowledge. How do you rank them?

K: It's a very difficult question to answer because it depends on personality. For example, I have no talent for technical knowledge but I think a society has to have a broad base of technical knowledge, especially of theoretical technical knowledge. So, for me...er...historical knowledge is very important. International knowledge, I think you will learn automatically, or never. So, if you ask me about what should be the policy of a...of a government for its people, I would make sure that talented people have an opportunity to get technical knowledge. And I would want to make sure that those who enter government study history, philosophy and theoretical economics, and I wouldn't care so much about whether they know all the practical details that they will learn later. That's how the British educated their governing classes and they did very well.

Q: Interested to know that you have opinion that people who go into government should study theoretical economics.

K: Theoretical

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Q: Very important factor, you think?

K: Yes. Because economics is such an important factor of our lives.

Q: She believes that she has answers to what she wanted to ask.

K: You did it very nicely. Very gently.
You will publish it in what way? How will it be?

Q: Coordinated with Mainichi Newspaper and will have them issue a book.

K: Oh, it will come out as a little book?

Q: Yes.
So, as we promised that we will send a transcript

K: Very good.

Q: before doing anything.

K: Very good.
Well, I...have you finished? I appreciate this opportunity. Thank you very much.

Q: Thank you very much.