Armin Meyer: Tokyo Diplomat

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Armin Meyer, former US Ambassador to Japan, died a few weeks ago. As the article in the link says:

"Meyer's appointment to Tokyo in 1969, was not universally embraced. His predecessor, U. Alexis Johnson, was a career diplomat steeped in Far Eastern diplomacy. Meyer's supporters underscored that his skill in highly sensitive parts of the globe compensated for his lack of direct knowledge of Japan. In 1969, a Japanese man angered over the storage of U.S. nerve gas on Okinawa tried to stab Secretary of State William Rogers with a pointed paint scraper at Tokyo International Airport. However, he got the wrong man, and lunged at Meyer instead, knocking him to the ground.

Police quickly grabbed the attacker and wrenched the 61/2-inch tool from his hand. Neither Meyer nor Rogers was injured. Meyer handled delicate negotiations on the return to Japanese control of Okinawa, the island occupied by the United States since 1945. The Japanese took back Okinawa in 1972. Meyer also tried to smooth relations with the Japanese when it was announced in 1971 that President Nixon would visit Communist China with the intention of rebuilding long-dormant diplomatic relations. He wrote in his 1974 memoir, Assignment Tokyo, that he was as unaware of Nixon's plans as the Japanese. He first heard the news during an Armed Forces Radio broadcast while having his hair trimmed".

There's an interview that Meyer gave on his time in Japan here:

"Togo and I got along nicely, we even composed a song during all of these Okinawa negotiations, we'd sing it at cocktail parties just to take the pressure off. Okinawa here we come, to the land of Yara-san, we want reversion without any nukes, and Hondaname without any flukes, contemplate no B-52s, after 1972, Okinawa we love you, Okinawa here we come. Anyway, that was fun, we got a little sort of friendship involved in the negotiations, Togo and I would get up and sing that with our terrible voices...Before I went to Japan and being a novice, I read a book called Chrysanthemum and the Sword, written by Ruth Benedict, which was the bible for anybody who worked in Japan after World War II"...more...

[Behan]

Was Reischauer knifed, too? I thought I remembered hearing that in school. I couldn't find anything on a cursory search engine search but I thought something happened to him when he was ambassador.

[Mulboyne]

Was Reischauer knifed, too?

A few years earlier in 1964. Frog in a Well quotes an old biography (while also noticing that the incident seems little-mentioned)

On March 24, 1964, as he was leaving his office, Reischauer was attacked and stabbed by a mentally disturbed Japanese youth. He could have gone to a United States Army hospital, but chose instead to go to a Japanese hospital. Unfortunately, a blood transfusion he received there was tainted with hepatitis virus. He suffered irreversible liver damage and felt the ill-effects for the rest of his life. Reischauer was in Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii until July 1 rehabilitating a partially paralyzed leg and recovering from hepatitis. The incident elicited a flood of visits, mail, and gifts from Japanese well-wishers. Upon release from the hospital, he resumed full duties in the Tokyo embassy.

[Behan]

Thanks for that info.
It's kind of overlooked history. In the same decade one US ambassador to Japan actually gets stabbed and another one is nearly stabbed (although the target was the Secretary of State).