Newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, shakes hands with Akitaka Saiki, Japan’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo on Monday. Reuters. By Josh Levs, CNN - November 19, 2013 tinyurl/lkujfz9 (CNN) — Caroline Kennedy on Tuesday stepped before an emperor and into a new global limelight, along a path paved by her father. Arriving at Tokyo’s Imperial Palace in a maroon horse-drawn carriage, the 55-year-old presented Emperor Akihito with her credentials to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Along the route into the palace’s leafy grounds, onlookers waited to catch a glimpse of her in the late autumn sunshine. Some waved small Japanese and U.S. flags. “This appointment has a special significance as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of my father’s presidency,” she told a U.S. Senate committee in September before being confirmed for the post. Her father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated November 22, 1963 — 50 years ago this week. “I am conscious of my responsibility to uphold the ideals he represented — a deep commitment to public service, a more just America and a more peaceful world,” Caroline Kennedy said. For all the pomp of Tuesday’s event, the significance of Caroline Kennedy’s arrival as a historic marker runs deep. John F. Kennedy battled against Japan in World War II. In fact, he said Japan’s success against him was what made him a hero. “It was involuntary,” he once said. “They sank my boat.” His encounter with a Japanese destroyer on the night of August 1, 1943, “may be the most famous small-craft engagement in naval history,” the John F. Kennedy President Library and Museum says. Continuing the legacy Later, he “hoped to be the first sitting President to make a state visit to Japan,” Caroline Kennedy told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John F. Kennedy planned to reunite the crew of his boat, the PT-109, with the crew of the Amagiri that sank it, says Jennifer Lind, government professor at Dartmouth College. It was an effort to calm protests in Japan against renewal of the U.S.-Japan alliance, Lind wrote in a column for CNN. “If confirmed as ambassador, I would be humbled to carry forward his legacy in a small way and represent the powerful bonds that unite our two democratic societies,” Caroline Kennedy told the Senate committee. At a state dinner in the new ambassador’s honor last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, “The daughter of a heroic lieutenant in World War II will be the first woman in the next generation after the war to represent our country in a relationship that symbolizes so much more than just a normal diplomatic relationship. This is a symbol of reconciliation, a symbol of possibilities, a symbol of people who know how to put the past behind them and look to the future and build a future together. “That is, in today’s world, both remarkable and beautiful.”
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 09:38:01 +0000
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