Kevin Maher Disputes Media Reports About His Views on Okinawans
Kevin Maher lost his position as director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Japan Affairs after the the media reported some disparaging remarks he made about Okinawans during a speech to American students. Now that his diplomatic career is over, he’s back in Japan to promote his new book and repeat his denials about the accuracy of the quotes:
The disparaging remarks Maher allegedly made about Okinawa residents were based on notes students made during the meeting that were subsequently obtained by Japanese media.
As news of Maher’s alleged comments made headlines, the State Department scrambled to limit the fallout, saying the remarks did not represent the U.S. government’s views.
Maher was removed from his post March 10, the day before the Great East Japan Earthquake, but was immediately called in to help lead the State Department’s disaster-relief task force.
Maher called for the facts behind the article to be reinvestigated, saying the American University students who gave Ishiyama the notes were on close terms with the reporter, and even stayed at his Tokyo home when they visited Japan in late December.
He also noted that a followup Kyodo article claimed the students gave Ishiyama the notes in mid-February — about 2½ months after Maher’s controversial briefing.
“The main point is, for a journalist to host someone like that and then have them write something and claim that it’s an objective record of something that was said almost three months earlier just doesn’t have credibility, it violates journalistic standards,” Maher told The Japan Times after the news conference.
Shortly after the March 11th earthquake, the ROK Drop blog reported about Maher’s service during the disaster relief efforts. In the comment thread of the post, somebody claiming to be a relative of Kevin Maher wrote that the whole episode was part of a scheme David Vine of American University, an “activist” professor who opposes the existence of overseas American military bases:
His 30 career of service to Japanese-American relations was trashed because an anti-base professor convinced his students to compile “notes” weeks after the actual speech, then take those “notes” to the Japanese press. There is one particularly idiot kid named Tory Miyagi who became the spokesman for the group to get his 15 minutes of fame. The professor from American University has said that all American military bases not on American soil should be shut down. A real moron.
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…the day of the earthquake he had his retirement papers to turn in.His immediate boss defended him, but the next level went into defense mode, not allowing him to defend himself publicly. He could have retired 6 years ago and gotten a much better paying job in the private sector. I doubt that the State Department will let him deal with Japan again in an official capacity. It’s ironic that the Japanese called him racist and his wife is Japanese. He has worked closely with the military on the Okinawa issue and he had to put up with tons of abuse when he was Consul General there.
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Kevin had his reputation trashed by an activist professor, who manipulated his students, and who stayed at the home of the editor of the newspaper who originally published the “transcripts” of Kevin’s speech. That “transcript” was prepared by 4 of the 14 students with the assistance of the Japanese editor and the professor. Kevin has recently resigned and will now be free to defend himself publicly, something he wasn’t allowed to do by the state department, which caved to one editor, one professor, and some students who thought it would be cool to be in the media. I believe Kevin will be in Japan in a couple of weeks to help with the earthquake recovery as a private citizen.
And the same person left this comment on an article by Vine in the Eurasia Review:
David Vine is an anti-base activist and peacenik who used his students to generate press for himself. He is a master of self promotion who appalling used his students to compile a “memo” which he presented to the Japanese press as facts. He has no recording of the speech, yet he continues to claim he can remember verbatim everything that was said based on his “notes” which just amazingly coincide with his opinions about base issues in Okinawa. His agenda and his motives are obvious as are his lack of respect for basic rules of evidence, proof, and attribution. I could attend one of his lectures, create a document containing anything that suited my beliefs, and release it to the press as facts and call his denials “unbelievable” and have just as much credibility as he does in this situation. He and his “memo” are a joke.
As these are just comments on the internet, it’s hard to tell if the comments were really written by a member of Maher’s family. Whoever it is, he/she is taking a very active role in trying to defend Maher’s reputation.
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