The Undiplomat

He had been the Japanese ambassador to Iran, Poland and now Argentina, and he had served the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo for 37 impeccable years, but last week 59-year-old Ichiro Kawasaki found himself sacked for that most undiplomatic sin of all--speaking out. Was he guilty of gossiping about the Shah, uncovering the truth behind Polish jokes, or detailing the gaucheness of the gauchos? Not a bit of it. All Kawasaki did was to write a book, Japan Unmasked, about his fellow Japanese.

"The Japanese," he observed, "are perhaps physically the least attractive of all the races of the world with the exception of Pygmies and Hottentots." He lamented the "flat, expressionless faces" of his countrymen, went on to describe their "disproportionately large head, elongated trunk and short, often bowed legs." Japanese tourists, he recalled, often have to pay twice as much as other foreigners for a prostitute's favors in the great cities of the world, and he observed that "Negroes, their pigmentation of skin notwithstanding, are at least taller and straighter than the Japanese and perhaps have a greater sex appeal." All this created waves of giggles among the good-time girls of the Ginza bars, but it was scarcely calculated to win smiles of approval from officials at the Gaimushyo (Foreign Ministry).

After Foreign Minister Kiichi Aichi scanned the book, he erupted. Among other things, Kawasaki had quoted a remark generally attributed to General Charles de Gaulle: just before a formal chat in 1964 with the late Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, he confided that "today I am going to have a little talk with a transistor-radio salesman." Even more annoying to Aichi was Kawasaki's charge that in Japan "there is clearly an absence of leadership at the top, no realization of what is best in the national interest, a shortage of moral courage and discipline." Political parties got short shrift: they "have hardly made a positive contribution; their existence is largely parasitical." He was harsh on Japan's role in the world. "Postwar Japan is not likely to assume political leadership in Asia, let alone of the world. Racially, ideologically and militarily, the present-day Japan is simply not equal to so grandiose a task." True or not, it was hardly the thing for an ambassador to say.

Why did Kawasaki write the book? "It is an attempt," he told Japanese correspondents, "at helping to enhance understanding about Japanese among foreigners." Kawasaki's sort of understanding, however, was not considered desirable by the Tokyo government. Last week Kawasaki was on his way home to begin his retirement somewhat earlier than usual. Would he live in Tokyo? Probably not, since he also observed in his book that "it is one of the ugliest and most disorderly capitals of the world."

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