Information about Edwin O. Reischauer

Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (Tokyo, October 15, 1910–September 1, 1990) was the leading U.S. educator and noted scholar of the history and culture of Japan, and of East Asia. From 1961–66, he was the U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Education and Academic Life

Growing up in Tokyo, Reischauer attended the American School in Japan. He graduated with a B.A. from Oberlin in 1931 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1939. Most of his teaching career was spent at Harvard, where he was the director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and chairman of the Department of Far Eastern Languages. At Harvard, he was the founder of the Japan Institute, which was renamed the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies in 1985 in his honor.

With George M. McCune, Reischauer developed the McCune-Reischauer romanization of Korean.

Role during World War II

During World War II, Reischauer was the Japan expert for the U.S. Army Intelligence Service, where he is said to have prevented the bombing of Kyoto during the war, as recounted by Robert Jungk in Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A personal history of the atomic scientists, (NY: Harcourt Brace, 1958) page 178:

"On the short list of targets for the atom bomb, in addition to Hiroshima, Kokura and Niigata, was the Japanese city of temples, Kyoto. When the expert on Japan, Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, heard this terrible news, he rushed into the office of his chief, Major Alfred MacCormack, in a department of the Army Intelligence Service. The shock caused him to burst into tears. MacCormack, a cultivated and humane New York lawyer, thereupon managed to persuade Secretary of War Stimson to reprieve Kyoto and have it crossed off the black list."

Reischauer refuted it in his book My Life Between Japan And America, (NY: Harper & Row, 1986) page. 101:

"I probably would have done this if I had ever had the opportunity, but there is not a word of truth to it. As has been amply proved by my friend Otis Cary of Doshisha in Kyoto, the only person deserving credit for saving Kyoto from destruction is Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War at the time, who had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier."

Bibliography (partial)

• The romanization of the Korean language, based upon its phonetic structure, G. M. McCune and E. O. Reischauer, 1939
• Elementary Japanese for university students, 1942 with Elisseeff, Serge
• Ennin's diary : the record of a pilgrimage to China in search of the law, translated from the Chinese by Edwin O. Reischauer. Ronald Press 1955
• Wanted: an Asian policy, 1955
• Japan, Past and Present, Knopf 1956
• The United States and Japan, Viking, 1957
• Our Asian Frontiers of knowledge, 1958
• East Asia, the modern transformation. Houghton Mifflin, 1965 with JK Fairbank, AM Craig
• A history of East Asian civilization, 1965
• Beyond Vietnam: the United States and Asia, Vintage, 1968
• East Asia: The great tradition, [by] Edwin O. Reischauer [and] John K. Fairbank. 1960
• A new look at modern history, Hara Shobo, 1972
• Translations from early Japanese literature, Edwin O. Reischauer and Joseph K. Yamagiwa. Harvard 1972
• Toward the 21st century: education for a changing world, Knopf 1973
• The Japanese, Belknap Press, 1977
• The United States and Japan in 1986 : can the partnership work?, Forward by ER
• My life between Japan and America, Harper and Row, 1986
• The Japanese today : change and continuity, Charles E. Tuttle Co, 1988
• Nihon no kokusaika : Raishaw? Hakushi to no taiwa = The internationalization of Japan : conversations with Dr. Reischauer, Bungei Shunju, 1989
• Japan, tradition and transformation, Houghton Mifflin, 1989
• Japan : the story of a nation, McGraw-Hill 1990
• Study of Dr. Edwin O. Reischauer, by Shoji Goto , Keibunsha 1991

See also

• List of Korea-related topics
• Edwin O. Reischauer Memorial House
• Reference: Minutes of the second meeting of the Target Committee Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945