Shigeto Tsuru was a long time friend of Ken Galbraith. He first met
him when Tsuru was doing graduate work at Harvard. In the 1940s when
Ken went to Japan to evaluate the impact of America's military action
during the war, Shigeto was his guide and translator. They kept up a
correspondence to 2005 -- probably a hundred letters providing
insights into Tsuru's work and views about Japan and the world economy
and Ken's response. Ken always cherished his friendship with Tsuru.
There was no doubt of Tsuru interest in Marxian economics and was also
a good friend of Paul Sweezy, but his politics in my view was always
based on his deep humanity rather than association with any particular
political movement or party. Unfortunately because of space I will not
be able to publish all the letters between Ken and Tsuru in the
Cambridge University volume ( which might turn out to be two volumes).
Ric Holt

On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 7:06 AM, 若田部昌澄 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Olav,
>
> Just a couple of comments on Shigeto Tsuru.
>
> First, Shige Tsuru was probably not the first Japanese with American Ph.D.
> in economics. I cannot tell who the first was, but Senjiro Takagi
> (1881-1934) had already received his Ph.D. from Yale under the supervision
> of Irving Fisher in 1910.  I said probably since I am not sure that the
> degree was called Ph.D. "in economics" back then. Dr. Takagi went back to
> Japan to become a professor of economics at Keio university, having
> introduced the quantity theory of money to Japan. Also according to the
> following source (unfortunately written in Japanese), he conceived economics
> as a science of relationship between ends and means,  having written several
> pieces on the economic analysis of war, marriage and suicide.
>
> http://bdke.econ.keio.ac.jp/psninfo.php?sPsnID=11
>
> Second, Tsuru never became a Minister. He was the Deputy Chairman of the
> Sogo Chosei Iiinkai (General Coordination Committee) of the Economic
> Stabilization Board from 1947 to 1948 under the Socialist-led coalition
> government. This roughly corresponded to a position of Deputy Minister,
> although he was probably more famous than the Minister since he wrote the
> first white paper, or government report on the status of the Japanese
> economy. Tsuru worked with Leontieff when he was a lecturer at Harvard
> before he went back to Japan in 1942, and Leontieff got into trouble since
> Tsuru told an FBI officer that he was a Communist while he was in the U.S
> later in the 1950s.
>
> with best,
> Masazumi
>
> On Thu, 7 Aug 2014 13:27:54 +0200
>  Olav Bjerkholt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Wassily Leontief had to go through interrogation at the Bureau of the
>> Budget, for which he worked as a consultant around 1952. But things got
>> worse when he was invited to work as Rand consultant. He had to answer to
>> nine menacing charges, of which (from my memory) one was that Leontief knew
>> Shigeto Tsuru [Tsuru who was the first Japanese iwth American ohd in
>> economics, had by then served as Minister in Japanese government), another
>> that his wife was a member of the Boston Branch of the League of Women
>> Shoppers which had been cited by HUAC as communist front organization, and a
>> third that Leontief had known Dorothy Fox Richardson who later married
>> Solomon Adler, reported to be a member of the Communist Party! [Yes, you
>> ought to pay attention to the future associations of the people you know]
>>
>> It was a humiliating experience for Wassily Leontief but he fought the
>> charges bravely and had them rebutted in the end.
>>
>> olav bjerkholt
>>
>>
>> --
>> Professor Olav Bjerkholt
>> University of Oslo
>> Department of Economics
>> Pb 1095 Blindern
>> 0317 Oslo, NORWAY
>> mobile phone 47 90654957