Compton Packenham
Founding member of American Council on Japan
Personal details
Born11 May 1893
Kobe, Japan
Died17 August 1957(1957-08-17) (aged 64)

Thomas Compton Packenham, MC (11 May 1893 – 17 August 1957) was a British-American journalist. He served as a British Army officer in the First World War, and worked at the American Council on Japan.

Early life

Packenham was born 11 May 1893 in Kobe, Japan.[1] His father was British and managed a shipyard. He spoke fluent Japanese.[2] He had spent his early childhood in Japan.[3] He served in the Coldstream Guards as a lieutenant colonel, was awarded the Military Cross (MC) and mentioned in despatches.[1][4]

Career

Packenham worked in the New York Times in the 1920s.[2] He was the author of The Rearguard (1930.) [5] He was the Tokyo Correspondent of Newsweek after World War II.[6] In 1946 he was appointed the bureau chief of Newsweek in Japan.[2] He was part of the American Council on Japan.[3] He helped found the council in late June 1948 in Harvard Club in New York City.[7] Upon the recommendation the Emperor of Japan, Packenham helped John Foster Dulles meet Japanese politicians and businessmen.[8] In 1947 he engaged in bitter criticism of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.[9]

He along with others of the American Council on Japan taught Nobusuke Kishi English and helped him improve his image. They helped him become Prime Minister of Japan.[10] In Japan during the occupation period, he helped Japanese government officials communicate with senior US politicians and officials. The Japanese government was able to circumvent MacArthur's communication blockade.[11] Compton Packenham died 17 August 1957.[1]

Personal life

In 1915, Packenham married Phyllis Price. Their daughter, Simona, was born in 1916; she never met her father. They soon separated as "he had taken no time at all to reveal himself as a most unsatisfactory choice".[12]

In January 1918, Packenham was on leave from the Army in London, and he met and began a relationship with Alma Dolling, a war widow. In October 1918, Packenham wrote a letter to his first wife informing her their marriage was over.[12] Alma was cited in the Pcakenham's divorce in 1920, and she married him in 1921.[13] However, once again, his marriage failed and Alma left him to return to her native Canada: their marriage formally ended in divorce in 1925.[13]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Person Page".
  2. 1 2 3 Schonberger, Howard B. (1989). Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952. Kent State University Press. p. 136. ISBN 9780873383820. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  3. 1 2 Schaller, Michael (1997). Altered States: The United States and Japan Since the Occupation. Oxford University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780195069167. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  4. ↑ Finn, Richard B. (1992). Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan. University of California Press. p. 256. ISBN 9780520069091. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  5. ↑ Rearguard. A.A. Knopf. January 1930.
  6. ↑ Schaller, Michael (22 October 1987). The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199878840. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  7. ↑ Takemae, Eiji (2003). Allied Occupation of Japan. A&C Black. p. 459. ISBN 9780826415219. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  8. ↑ Stueck, William (29 September 2010). The Korean War in World History. University Press of Kentucky. p. 162. ISBN 978-0813136950.
  9. ↑ Kataoka, Tetsuya (1991). The Price of a Constitution: The Origin of Japan's Postwar Politics. Taylor & Francis. p. 71. ISBN 9780844817149. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  10. ↑ Seagrave, Sterling; Seagrave, Peggy (2003). Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold. Verso. p. 122. ISBN 9781859845424. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  11. ↑ Davis, Glenn; Roberts, John G. (9 July 2012). An Occupation without Troops: Wall Street's Half-Century Domination of Japanese Politics. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 9781462903702. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  12. 1 2 O'Connor, Sean (2019). The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury. London: Simon & Schuster.
  13. 1 2 Murray, Elizabeth. "Rattenbury [née Wolfe], Alma Victoria (1897/8–1935)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58841. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

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