{"id":13,"date":"2010-10-20T03:24:26","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T03:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/?page_id=13"},"modified":"2010-11-08T02:38:31","modified_gmt":"2010-11-08T02:38:31","slug":"hidenari-terasaki","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/?page_id=13","title":{"rendered":"Hidenari"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Terry at Brown University. \u00a9Mariko T Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

Hidenari Terasaki was born in Tokyo in 1900.\u00a0 He graduated from Ichiko preparatory\u00a0school and earned a degree in law from Tokyo Imperial University. A month after graduation he joined the Foreign Ministry and traveled to the United States for post-graduate work at Brown University, where he studied English literature. He was fluent in Chinese, German, French, Spanish and English.<\/p>\n

In September 1929, Terasaki was assigned to the Japanese embassy in Washington as an attach\u00e9. He met Gwendolyn Harold, a beautiful, engaging twenty-three year old native of East Tennessee, at an embassy reception in 1930. An ardent courtship followed. After overcoming initial resistance from Gwen’s family and the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the couple married in November 1931.<\/p>\n

The foreign ministry posted Terasaki to Shanghai in 1932, where their daughter and only child, Mariko, was born in August.\u00a0 In 1936 Terasaki was appointed Charge de Affaires in Havana, Cuba, where his official mission was to open Cuban markets to direct Japanese imports. That mission failed; imports continued to pass through the United States, where<\/p>\n

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Terry and Mariko on ship bound for Havana \u00a9 Mariko T Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

they were subject to US tariffs. Even before they left China, Terasaki recognized that the mission was\u00a0 doomed to failure, but he took full advantage of the opportunity to establish friendships and indulge his favorite vices, golf and gambling. He was an extremely skillful\u00a0 poker player.<\/p>\n

Terasaki and his family returned to Shanghai in 1938. By that time, the Japanese were in complete control of the city except for the International Settlement and the French Concession. Terasaki strongly opposed the military\u2019s expanding influence and consequent marginalization of foreign ministry officials, and didn\u2019t shy away from physical confrontation with military officers. The abuse of civilians, a staple of military occupations past and present, sickened him. He felt the brutality of the military was \u201cdestroying the Japanese people.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Japanese consul in Shanghai, Terasaki was one of two Japanese appointees to the Shanghai Municipal Council. He was assigned to the committee for the relief of Jews seeking refuge in Shanghai, which maintained the only harbor still open to Jewish immigration. We have tried over the years to flesh out his activities during this period, and would be eager to obtain documents that might help us better understand his role in providing services to Jewish refugees in Shanghai and ensuring that the harbor remained open to immigration.<\/p>\n

In early 1941, Terasaki was appointed head of Japanese intelligence in the Western Hemisphere and transferred to the embassy in Washington, DC. He pursued many avenues to avert war between Japan and the United States, culminating in an effort to arrange for a cable to be sent directly by President Roosevelt to the Emperor appealing for peace. He admired the constitution of the United States, particularly the Bill of Rights, and understood that armed conflict between the two countries would prove catastrophic for Japan.<\/p>\n

The outbreak of war between the two countries was a terrible personal defeat for Terasaki.\u00a0 He showed signs of a minor stroke shortly after Pearl Harbor, and his health deteriorated sharply during the war years.<\/p>\n

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The Terasaki family aboard the Gripsholm on their way to Lorenzo Marquez on the French Ivory Coast, where the exchange of diplomatic personnel took place. \u00a9 Mariko T Miller <\/p><\/div>\n

He urged his wife Gwen to remain in the United States with Mariko. He warned her that returning with him would pose many dangers. “Japan will be destroyed – utterly destroyed,” he said. She answered that her decision had been made when she married him, and insisted upon returning with him to endure the coming catastrophe at his side. The enormous stress was compounded by the fact that if his role in the Roosevelt cable became known to the Japanese secret police, the entire family would be in physical jeopardy.<\/p>\n

As Japan\u2019s defenses crumbled, the family moved a number of times to escape the American bombers, eventually taking refuge in a small mountainside cabin near the village<\/p>\n

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Terry at home in Tokyo in early 1946, not long after he was selected to act as liaison between the imperial court and GHQ. \u00a9 Mariko T Miller <\/p><\/div>\n

of Tateshina. By the Spring of 1945, Japan was completely defenseless. American B-29s flew overhead in formation and released incendiary munitions over Japanese cities, killing or injuring millions of civilians.\u00a0 In August 1945 word reached them that a new and terrifying weapon had obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.<\/p>\n

After the war, Terasaki was appointed adviser to Emperor Hirohito and acted as interpreter in meetings between General Douglas McArthur and the Emperor. His command of language and sophisticated understanding of both cultures played a crucial role in communications between GHQ and the Imperial Court.\u00a0 McArthur\u2019s close aide and confidant, General Bonner Fellers, described Terasaki as \u201cone of the most valuable men in Japan and certainly the most valuable on the staff of the Emperor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already in fragile health, the pressures of his position contributed to a steep decline in Terasaki\u2019s physical condition. He suffered a series of minor heart attacks and strokes, but continued working. In 1949, Gwen took Mariko to the United States, where she had been accepted as a student at East Tennessee State University.\u00a0 Terasaki was anxious for his daughter to escape the privations of life in Japan and resume her education. He never saw them again. He died of a heart attack at the age of 50, two weeks before the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hidenari Terasaki was born in Tokyo in 1900.\u00a0 He graduated from Ichiko preparatory\u00a0school and earned a degree in law from Tokyo Imperial University. A month after graduation he joined the Foreign Ministry and traveled to the United States for post-graduate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetothesun.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}