JAPAN

Buchman made a deep impression on most of the Japanese and during their travels and on their return home they frequently quoted words he had said to them. Mayor Hamai of Hiroshima, speaking on a nation-wide radio programme in the United States on the anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb, stated, 'Dr Buchman has said, "Peace is people becoming different." This hits the nail on the head. I for one intend to start this effort from Hiroshima. The one dream and hope left to our surviving citizens is to re-establish the city as a pattern for peace.'

When they visited the United States Senate Vice-President Alben Barkley greeted each of the delegation personally, conducted the Diet members to seats in the chamber and expressed the hope that the long friendship between Japan and America, broken by the war, might be resumed. The senior Japanese representative, Chojiro Kuriyama, said, 'We are sincerely sorry for Japan's big mistake. We broke almost a century-old friendship between the two countries. We ask your forgiveness and help. We have found in Caux the true content of democracy.'13The Senate gave him a standing ovation. The House of Representatives next day was equally responsive.

A New York Times editorial on this occasion noted that it was less than five years since the atomic bombs had fallen on Japan, and wrote, 'The Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were among yesterday's visitors... For a moment one could see out of the present darkness into the years when all men may be brothers.'14 The Saturday Evening Post more colloquially wrote, 'The idea of a nation admitting that it could be mistaken has a refreshing impact...Perhaps even Americans could think up a few past occasions of which it could safely be said, "We certainly fouled things up that time.'"15

On their return home the Japanese initiated fresh approaches between management and workers which bore rich fruit in the years ahead. They also influenced some turbulent debates in the Diet by their moderation and the underlying unity between members of different parties created at Caux.

In July 1951, when the Korean war was still raging and the United States trying to create the mutual defence pact which later became SEATO, an Asian delegation from Japan, China, Malaya, Burma, Ceylon and India formed the nucleus of a conference which Buchman called in Los Angeles with the theme of the reconstruction of Pacific relations. Here he gave the Asians a platform from which to talk to America, and particularly to Washington. Their stories showed how different these lands were, how each had its own pride in its traditions and aspirations, and how, by implication, it would be necessary to respect these if any pact was to function. Anti-Communism and pro-Americanism, the Asians made clear, were not broad enough philosophies to hold together such divergent peoples. Nor was the mere provision of 'hardware' and dollars by the United States adequate. Something positive was needed - an idea which could be lived out by both Americans and Asians, but which Americans would need to experience before they could export it to others. Buchman believed that America's blindness to this ideological factor was America's greatest weakness in her approach to the world, just as the understanding of it was Soviet Russia's greatest strength. He insisted that a new book by Peter Howard and Paul Campbell should be America needs an Ideology.

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