San Diego, CA (special) --As John D. Stoessinger looks back upon World War II, he remembers two nations with particular gratitude -- Japan and the United States.

Yes, the two countries were enemies to each other, but for Stoessinger--
a Jewish refugee from nazi-occupied Europe--good men from both
countries were responsible for saving his life and for bringing him to
freedom.

Serving today in a combined position as visiting professor of global
diplomacy at the University of San Diego and the first Inamori professor
at USD's Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, Stoessinger is known
throughout academia as the author of ten books, including what many
consider to be a standard text in the study of international relations: The
Might of Nations, World Politics in Our Time.

However, at a meeting Thursday, June 7, of the Japan Society of San Diego
& Tijuana, Stoessinger received a far-more personal accolade. Dr. Michael
Inoue, the society's president, and Randall Phillips, honorary consul for
Japan in San Diego, joined in conferring upon him the society's Edwin O.
Reischauer Award for his work promoting good relations between the
former enemies.

It was a poignant moment for Stoessinger, who did his doctoral studies
under Reischauer at Harvard University some 50 years ago, and even
served as one of his teaching assistants. 

Reischauer later was appointed by another former student--President
John F. Kennedy--to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Stoessinger
subsequently headed the book review division of the prestigious periodical
Foreign Affairs, and later still became the acting director of the United
Nations' political affairs division.

Born with the name Hans Hirschfeld, the future professor would take the
surname of his stepfather Oskar Stoessinger and Americanize his first
name to John. But he still was listed as Hans Hirschfeld in 1941, when
Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, stopping over in Prague from his post
in Lithuania, issued Japanese visas for the family seeking to escape from
the nazis. The visa enabled them to make their way on the Transiberian
Railroad to Vladivostok, Russia, en route to Shanghai, China. 

On the long railroad trip, which lasted months because the passenger train
had to wait on sidings for Russian military trains to pass by, the
Stoessinger family was befriended by a Japanese diplomat, Ryoichi
Manabe, who was also on the way to Shanghai to become a vice consul.

After Japan entered World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, its
German allies persuaded the Japanese occupiers of Shanghai to force
Jewish refugees from central Europe into a ghetto. Stoessinger's mother,
Irene, remembered the diplomat who had taught her son how to play chess
on the long train ride across the Soviet Union and appealed to him for help. 
He was able to delay by one year the order requiring the family to move
into the ghetto.

Eventually the family did have to go into the ghetto, which, though
crowded and unhealthful, was in no sense set up for the purpose of killing
Jews, such as the ghettoes under nazi control, Stoessinger said.

After the war, when Shanghai was occupied by U.S. forces, young
Stoessinger found work shining the shoes of American GIs. One lieutenant
from Iowa took an interest in him, and suggested that he apply for
admission and a scholarship to Grinnell College. Stoessinger received a
prompt acceptance, and later went on from the midwestern college to post
graduate work at Harvard.

Stoessinger did not identify the lieutenant--telling me later that the
man's family today prefers their privacy. However, he told of honoring his
benefactor publicly, back when he received his doctorate from Harvard. 
When the ceremony concluded he kneeled at the man's feet, and again
shined his shoes in humble tribute.

Many years later, Stoessinger learned the identity of the late Japanese
consul Sugihara, whose aid to Jewish refugees in Lithuania was to become
far better known to the world than his brief role in Prague. Stoessinger
regretted that he was unable to somehow thank Sugihara, the way he had
thanked the lieutenant.

The same Japanese journalist who had told him about Sugihara excitedly
reported in an early morning long distance call to Stoessinger that the
former vice consul Manabe still was living at age 89 with his family in
Japan. Stoessinger said he did not delay: he took a flight from the United
States to Tokyo the next day to spend a week with the man who had helped
his family many times on the Trans-Siberian train, and again in Shanghai.

Being a long-tenured professor, Stoessinger gave his audience a
"homework assignment" at the end of what was at times an emotional
lecture. He pointed out that most people have had someone in their lives
who, like the American lieutenant or the two Japanese consuls, did
something special, perhaps even life-changing, for them. He urged the
people in the audience to telephone such people in their own lives that
very night.

The professor of global diplomacy explained that people on both sides of
such a transaction will feel good -- those who express their appreciation
and those who receive such sentiments.