July 17, 1978
Page 21163
AMBASSADOR MIKE MANSFIELD
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, our friend and former majority leader, Mike Mansfield, was the subject of a feature story in this morning's editions of the New York Times. I think my colleagues will find in the story that combination of informality, thoughtful analysis and understanding so familiar to all of us who worked with him over the years.
To share the story with my colleagues, I ask that the story by Andrew H. Malcolm in the New York Times of July 17 be printed in the RECORD.
The article follows:
[From the New York Times, July 17, 1978]
MIKE MANSFIELD, THE ENVOY, IS A WEARY BUT HAPPY MAN
(By Andrew H. Malcolm)
TOKYO, July 15.— Mike Mansfield, once a miner, is pleased to have left the wild winters of Montana behind. Mike Mansfield, once a marine, is glad to be living in the region where he served 57 years ago. Mike Mansfield, once the Senate majority leader, is delighted to be away from Washington. After his first anniversary as a diplomat, Ambassador Mike Mansfield is at ease in his latest profession.
"I don't miss Washington," said the 75-year-old native of New York City who has also been a sailor, a soldier, a mining engineer, a professor and a member of the House. "I don't miss Congress. I don't miss the problems. I'm happy."
He is making his mark, quietly and in typically understated fashion, as one of the most influential and effective postwar American representatives here.
As an observer of his homeland from abroad, the child runaway who became the confidant of the last live Democratic Presidents is concerned over a number of things: young prima donnas in Congress, increasingly powerful lobbies, American preoccupations with Europe and misconceptions of Asia, and the potential for serious misunderstandings between the non-Communist world's largest economic powers — Japan and the United States.
IRRESISTIBLE PRESIDENTIAL CALL
Then there is the health of his wife, Maureen, 73, who is recovering from a heart attack. There is that Florida Gulf Coast beach they could be strolling every morning in a retirement cut short last year after only 10 weeks. "I really enjoyed those weeks," Mr. Mansfield recalled in an interview.
"We walked a lot, slept a little bit in the afternoon, did a lot of reading, some eating and had a chance to do some thinking for the first time in many years." But, he went on, he could not resist President Carter's offer of a job in Asia, an area that has fascinated him since he watched Japanese women load coal in Nagasaki when his troopship called there en route to China in 1921.
Mr. Mansfield's contagious casualness sometimes seems restrained — momentarily — by the
traditions and formalities of diplomatic life in this traditional and formal land. When the Mansfields went for a walk not long ago, they got only 100 yards before being surrounded by protective guards. A squad of servants keeps Mrs. Mansfield from concocting her famous hamburgers and vegetable soup.
But Mr. Mansfield can still continue a learned discourse on Chinese history while raising his hands in mock surrender when he spies a youngster approaching with a toy pistol. In his office, atop the modern nine-story embassy, his table is littered with rural Montana newspapers and he insists on making his guests' coffee himself.
He has startled local social lions by turning down invitations, and people at the few parties he does attend may be even more startled to see the Mansfields arrive promptly and depart five minutes later. "I think people appreciate when you just show up," Mr. Mansfield explained, his ubiquitous pipe in hand. "I'm the greatest party inner-and-outer that Tokyo has ever seen."
TIRING DAYS FOR THE AMBASSADOR
The fact is that Mr. Mansfield, who works from 7:30 A.M. until 4:30 P.M., is tired by late afternoon these days and schedules his heaviest tasks for the mornings. His wife, who at doctor's orders quit smoking, at least briefly, has curtailed her schedule and must spend an hour a day doing rythmic walking exercises around the pond at the embassy residence to regain her strength. Nonetheless, Mr. Mansfield denies that he has decided to leave.
At his sometimes caustic urging, staff meetings that once rambled on are clipped to a minimum. Though his talk can be blunt, the Japanese respect his frankness, his direct access to President Carter and his age and experience and insight into the baffling world of American politics.
The Ambassador's rare interviews and frequent conversations are laced with understanding words about the vulnerability of this crowded, resource-poor nation. Japan, with 114 million people, is 3,000 square miles smaller than his home state, which has 750,000 inhabitants.
"Many Americans think that Japan is Japan Incorporated, and Fukuda just has to press a button and he can get things done," he remarked, referring to the Prime Minister. "It's not a true picture of the Japanese economic system"
He concedes that Japan will be unable to lower its current account trade surplus this year to anywhere near $6 billion, as it promised during talks with American officials in January, but, he maintains, Mr. Fukuda is most serious about spurring an economic growth rate of 7 percent, as promised. Mr. Mansfield noted that the Carter Administration did not deliver on its January pledge to forge a national energy package within 90 days.
JAPANESE TERMED ACCOMMODATING
Moreover, Mr. Mansfield said, Japan has been far more accommodating to and cooperative with the United States on trade and other issues than have such nations as West Germany. Last year, he said, Japan dispatched officials to Washington to head off trouble over steel exports. "But we had no steel policy," he went on, "and the situation got out of hand and the President was forced to step in. But Western Europe and other countries were dumping far more steel into the U.S. than Japan was. But you never heard them mentioned."
Mr. Mansfield, preaching patience, said: "Americans are impetuous. They want things done yesterday. The Japanese, as all Orientals, are more patient." Ingrained insularity, antiquated attitudes and cumbersome distribution systems cannot be changed overnight, he added.
He cited substantial percentage increases in some agricultural imports as proof of progress. "The door is opening; the most difficult steps have been taken," said the consummate compromiser who led the Senate for 16 years. "What I think we ought to do is not shove that door but nudge it all the time, so with the passage of time we can add on to what we've achieved."
Profitable long term business opportunities are available in Asia for Americans, who must become "more export-oriented and less self-satisfied," the Ambassador said. Last year, he said, the return on American overseas investment was 13 percent worldwide and 16 percent in Asia, where the two-way trade with the United States now exceeds American trade with Western Europe.
Asia is "the area of the future," he said, adding: "I think the Administration pays too much attention to Europe, like every Administration before it. But that is changing now.".