Alumni in Japan
Brief Sketches of Someof the Men Who BroughtJapan to Dartmouth
SHIRO AKAHOSHI '20, shown with his wife and daughter and Mrs. Leo Ungar '20 in the garden of his home in Fujisawa City, is the former golfing champion of Japan and now makes a profession of designing golf courses. He was Tokyo representative of a New York architectural firm and before the war also was the owner of farms in North Korea. Mr. Akahoshi left Dartmouth in 1917 and later attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, obtaining his degree in 1923.
KYOSUKE FUKUDA '29, shown with Mrs. Fukuda, his daughter Ikuko, and his sons Yoshio and Hiro- shi '57s, is Chairman of the Tokyo Shimbun, Japan's largest evening newspaper. The son of a prominent publisher and onetime president of the Yokohama Stock Exchange, Mr. Fukuda has been in newspaper work in Japan ever since graduation from Dartmouth. After editorial and business experience on two other papers, he assumed direction of his father's Tokyo Shimbun and is credited with developing it into one of Japan's major newspapers. Editorial disagreement with his country's war policy forced him to leave Tokyo for a period in 1940.
RYUTARO SHINDO '55, shown in the garden of his home with his wife Set- suko, his five-year-old son Takeshi, and their dog Jupiter, is an executive of the Toyo Spinning Company, Ltd., in Osaka, one of Japan's largest textile firms. He is presently in Hamburg, Germany, as the representative of the Toyo company, with which he has been associated since leaving Dartmouth. After getting his Dartmouth degree, "Taro" did graduate work in business administration at Syracuse University.
EIJI WAJIMA '30S, whose life has been devoted to the Foreign Service of . Japan, is now in Cairo as the Japanese Ambassador to the United Arab Republic. He recalls his special-student days in Topliff Hall, and in 1951, while serving as a special representative to the United Nations, he made a return visit to the College. Before going to Cairo in 1961, Mr. Wajima was his country's Ambassador to Belgium, 1957-60. From Hanover in 1930 he went to Washington to spend four years at the Japanese Embassy, and then was assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo. Most of the war years were spent in China, followed by another period in Tokyo and then a special assignment to Indonesia for the negotiation of a peace treaty.
MASUO IWANAMI '25a of Tokyo, currently president of the Dartmouth Club of Japan, retired last May as Senior Managing Director of the Mitsubishi Trust and Banking Corporation, and now he is Vice President and a Director of the Nippon Kogaku Corporation, makers of the celebrated Nikon cameras and other optical equipment. Mr. Iwanami, an adopted member of the Class of 1927, studied at Dartmouth in 1925 after graduating from Keio University. He did graduate work at Harvard also. During his 36 years with Mitsubishi he made several tours of the United States and Europe, one in 1957-58 on behalf of the Japan Productivity Center.
CHIHARU IGAYA '57, one of Dartmouth's all- time skiing greats, and the foremost name in skiing in Japan, is shown (left) instruct- ing his wife Takayo and (above) attending to business at his office in Tokyo, where he is Director of American International Underwriters. "Chick," as Dartmouth knows him, won six U. S. national titles and skied for Japan in the 1952, 1956 and 1960 Olympics, winning a silver medal in the slalom at Cortina in 1956. After two years at the New York home office of American International Underwriters, he returned to Japan to be manager of the Accident and Health Department of the AIU Tokyo office, and in 1964 he became Director of that office.
CHIHARU IGAYA '57, one of Dartmouth's all- time skiing greats, and the foremost name in skiing in Japan, is shown (left) instructing his wife Takayo and (above) attending to business at his office in Tokyo, where he is Director of American International Underwriters. "Chick," as Dartmouth knows him, won six U. S. national titles and skied for Japan in the 1952, 1956 and 1960 Olympics, winning a silver medal in the slalom at Cortina in 1956. After two years at the New York home office of American International Underwriters, he returned to Japan to be manager of the Accident and Health Department of the AIU Tokyo office, and in 1964 he became Director of that office.
YOJI HIROTA '28a is one of Japan's leading students and participants in international affairs. After leaving Dartmouth in 1929 he was in the Foreign Service for 26 years, holding posts in Washington, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo. He was a defense counsel in the "Tokyo Trial" for war criminals, 1946-49, and then served as Director of the Research Institute of China Affairs and Executive Director of Oa Kyokai, an organization for studying communist countries. Mr. Hirota was prominent in the Japanese movement supporting the Dalai Lama and Tibetans against the Chinese, and in 1959 at New Delhi he helped found the Afro-Asian Council, of which he is now Vice President. He represented Japan at the 1960 and 1962 International Conferences on World Politics, and on the sports side, he is interested in the International Judo Federation.
TAKANOBU MITSUI '43 (standing) is shown at a Dartmouth Club meeting in Tokyo with KISUK CHEUNG '53 (center), a native of Seoul, Korea, and Osamu Yamada, son-in-law of Masuo Iwanami '25a. "Nobu" Mitsui, son of the late Takanaga Mitsui '15 and brother of Mamoru Mitsui '58, an architectural designer in Boulder, Colo., was with the Japanese edition of Reader's Digest for 13 years, 1947-60, and now operates "what I like to call a dude ranch, centered around a golf course on the side of a mountain, some five hours from Tokyo." Cheung, who got his civil engineering degree at Thayer School, is civilian chief of the structural section and assistant chief of the design section for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Far East. His work is done mainly in Japan.
SEIKO ENBUTSU '58, a staff engineer with the Mitsui Miike Machinery Company in Omuta, is shown at the control panel of a new type of plastics extruder, the development of which is his prime assignment in the company's laboratory. Possessor of a Master's degree in mechanical engineering from Thayer School, Mr. Enbutsu joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 1959 as a design engineer in the passenger car division in Nagoya. Three years later he returned to his home town of Omuta to begin his present position. He is a trustee of Omuta Technical High School, founded by his grandfather fifty years ago, and in May 1963 he successfully managed his father's election as Mayor of Omuta. Seiko met his wife Sumiko, a Smith girl, at the 1958 Dartmouth Winter Carnival.
KYOICHIRO TAKEUCHI, M.S. '22, who earned his Dartmouth degree in physics, is President of Sagami Engineering Works, Ltd., manufacturer of construction equipment and air-conditioning units. The company for ten years after the war was contractor for repairing U. S. Army engineering equipment. Mr. Takeuchi was Professor of Electrical Engineering at Yokohama Higher Technical College, 1926-34, and then for the next 15 years was Manager and Director of the Komatsu Manufacturing Company. In 1949 he became General Manager of the Sagami Works, in Sagamihari City, and in 1953 he was named head of the company. He is the nephew of former Premier Yoshida.
HIROSHI FUKUDA '57S, son of Kyosuke Fukuda '29, is following in his father's footsteps as a newspaper man. Beginning as an apprentice in the New York office of Tokyo Shimbun, he covered the United Nations during 1959-60. Upon his return to Tokyo in 1960 he joined the paper's foreign news department and then put in two years as a city news reporter. Since the fall of 1963 he has been writing political news, which was put aside during the Olympic Games so he could cover yachting (sailing is a hobby) and Olympic Village. Hiroshi's wife is Nancy Usui, graduate of Wheaton in 1960.
