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[This book review appeared in the March/April 1994 issue ofConservative Review, pp. 36-37.]

American and Japanese Relocation in World War II; Fact, Fiction and Fallacy

By Lillian BakerMedford, OR: Webb Research Group, 1990

The jappaning of America: Redress & Reparations Demands by Japanese-Americans

By Lillian Baker

Webb Research Group, 1991

Dishonoring America: The Collective Guilt of American Japanese

By Lillian Baker

Webb Research Group: Americans for Historical Accuracy, 1988

Reviewed by Dwight D. Murphey

Readers ofConservative Review will recall that we ran an article entitled Issues inthe American Cultural War: The World War II Relocation of Japanese-Americans, writtenby this reviewer, in the January/February 1993 issue.

When I went to the library to do the research for the article, I found several bookson the subject. All of them, however, shared the same point of view: that America hadstuck the west-coast Japanese-Americans away in concentration camps for the durationof the war, horribly violating our professed ideals. To get the other side of the story, I hadto order copies of typewritten transcripts of the testimony of Col. Karl R. Bendetsen, whohandled the evacuation for the Army prior to the relocations being turned over to civilian

authorities, from the National Archives. It was essential to have that other side if I wasto know how the United States government had perceived the problem of a large Japaneseand Japanese-American population on the west coast at the advent of the war with Japanand how it had perceived its treatment of the evacuees during their relocation.

What I didnt knowbecause the books werent there in the librarywas that aremarkable American author and patriot, Lillian Baker, had been trying to inform theAmerican public on the issue for several years. Indeed, she had written and edited a seriesof books compiling materials on the subject.

Before telling about these books, let me first say a word about Lillian Baker herself.It is a considerable attestation to the value of her work that the Hoover Institution atStanford University has established a Lillian Baker Collection in its archives; and that theFreedoms Foundation at Valley Forge presented her with its 1991 George WashingtonHonor Medal for the first of the books listed above.

And although she has devoted herself extensively for several years to the pursuit ofhistorical accuracy on the Japanese-American relocation issue, she is a woman of highlydiverse interests. She has written extensively on collectible jewelry, including even suchexotic things as hatpins; and I have had the pleasure of reading her novel The CommonDoom (named after a line in Melville), a delightfully introspective insight into the life of ayoung woman from age 10 to her early 30s. Mrs. Baker managed to find time, by the way,


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to serve as the South Bay chairman of the successful U.S. Senate campaign of S. I.Hayakawa. To mention these things is, however, to barely scratch the surface of heractivity.

American and Japanese Relocation

The first of the three books listed above is an excellent source-collection, withenough explanation to lead the reader through the various documents that are set out inappendices. An introduction by Col. Bendetsen and chapters comparing facts with fallaciesabout the relocation are particularly helpful.

Perhaps the most remarkable things about the book, though, is that Mrs. Baker hasincluded, as her first appendix, the entire school yearbook for the high school at theManzanar relocation center in 1943-4. Nothing better refutes the hate-America allegationthat the relocation centers were concentration camps. As with any school yearbook, wesee the students rehearsing a drama; having their pictures taken as members of the LatinClub or Spanish Club or Home Economics Club; taking part in a variety of sports; andstanding, ready for graduation, in cap and gown.

The book gives many details about the relocation and about the military situation,including the deciphered diplomatic cables, code-named MAGIC, that most persuaded theRoosevelt administration of the necessity of evacuation. Some of it, of course, isinformation I didnt have when I wrote my article forConservative Review. One of themore significant additions is the fact that, under the ineptly-named Civil Liberties Act of1988, $20,000 reparation paymentstax-free and accompanied by a letter of apologyhave been going to whole varieties of people who were by no means the typical Japanese-American evacuee. The recipients include, the book tells us, 1,370 enemy aliens whowere interned by the FBI for valid security reasons in Department of Justice InternmentCamps, after having been picked up immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor;3,500 American Japanese who renounced their allegiance to the United States andrequested repatriation to Japan; 160 members of the Black Dragon Society, an anti-American pro-Japan organization; and 18,000 whose adult members declaredallegiance to Japan and refused to take a loyalty oath to the United States, or promise toabide by this nations laws.

Other recipients, with payments still being made in 1994, include 6,000 peoplewho were born in the centers and experienced the war as babies, and 4,300 people whoattended American colleges during the war. The very first 495 checks were sent to peoplewho have long since gone to live in Japan. Isnt it great that these people are receivingpayments out of the pockets of American taxpayers! How genuine is the Americanbudget crisis?

The jappaning of America

The name of this second book is explained in the Preface: For decades past, Japanhas processed coal oil to make a varnish which blackens fabric or metal. The product ofcoal oil is called japan; the process is called jappaning The title of this book, Thejappaning of America, relates directly to the varnishing of truth and blackening ofAmericas honor by dissident Japanese-Americans demanding redress and reparationsbased on a falsification of World War II history.


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As with the first book, this volume consists of explanatory chapters followed byextensive appendices providing documents relevant to the issue. Of especial value is thechapter on Military Necessity in Wartime: U.S. Intelligence and the EvacuationDecision, combined with the following chapter on the deciphered dispatches, MAGIC.Considerable attention is given, too, as before, to refuting the many fallacies that have been

spawned about the relocation; and to how anyone who has sought to defend the UnitedStates actions has been repeatedly squelched. Somehow, for example, the media dontfind a press conference put on by the National American Ex-Prisoners of War newsworthy.

Dishonoring America

The chapter Rewriting Recent U.S. History is a point-by-point refutation of the100-minute documentary entitled The Color of Honorshown at the SmithsonianInstitutions 1987 exhibition A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and theConstitution. The film rewrites history by making folk heroes out of those who refusedto serve the United States in our armed forces; and it exaggerates and falsifies theaccomplishments of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up in large part from the

small percentage of Japanese-American men who were willing to serve. (The 442

nd

didserve valiantly, but Mrs. Baker wants the story told accurately, without the lavishembellishment of propaganda.)

Again, there is information beyond what is available elsewhere. I found fascinatinga letter, set out among the appendices, by a Department of Justice representative in early1945 that analyzed the psychology of the young Japanese-Americans who strutted andparaded to the tune of the Japanese national anthem at the Tule Lake segregation campduring the war. The letter explains that they were largely self-servers: they had left Japan,where they were going to school, shortly before the war to avoid serving in the Japanesearmy; and then when they had returned to this country they put on a great show of Japanesepatriotism. (Infuriatingly, each of these, if still alive, has recently received his $20,000 andletter of apology from the United States government.)

Americans for Historical Accuracy, which Lillian Baker co-founded, sent mecopies of each of these books to place in the library at Wichita State University. The hopeis that future researchers will be able to obtain more than just the one, hatefully alienated,side of the story. I would encourage all interested Americans to purchase copies to place intheir own local libraries. Its the least we can do.

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