Guns, gambling, gold, philanthropy

[Mulboyne]

Ryoichi Sasakawa
Hugh Cortazzi, former UK ambassador to Japan writes about UK/Japan ties in today's JT (article here). The final paragraph says

The Japan Society is indebted not only to all the contributors but also to a number of organizations for financial support, in particular the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, the GB-Sasakawa Foundation and the Anglo-Japanese History project

A quick search on FG showed no Sasakawa references so it's probably time for this now-deceased extreme rightist, bankroller of Reverend Sun Myung Moon and gambling monopolist to make an appearance.

[adamukun]

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation was a blatant attempt by the man to get a Nobel Peace Prize, and it worked.

Now, Sasakawa might not be a very palatable character, but his money has done a lot of good. The Foundation takes proceeds earned by yacht racing gambling and puts them to work in pursuit of world peace. They sponsor lots of research and hold lots of seminars.

In the DC area there is a Sasakawa Memorial Library, which is a mostly-academic Japanese language library located in the business district around K Street. There you can read all the latest (serious) Japanese periodicals and take out a large number of books. I go there all the time.

It's not my intention to defend his life, but as far as I can see the Foundation is a positive force.