NOTE: This transcript is based upon a recording of the symposium which includes the simulataneous English-translation of the Japanese-speaking participants. Some editing has been made to clarify this translation without in any way altering the original meaning. Dr. Wampler would like to acknowledge the services of Mary Ellison and Professional Word Processing in preparing the draft transcription.
MODERATOR: And now, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for waiting. Now we're going to commence the Japan-U.S. Symposium entitled the Internationalization of Japan and Open Government. This symposium is organized by the Japanese Association for American Studies, the National Security Archive, and the Yomiuri Shimbun, and with sponsorship from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission. We will be discussing open government, and also the people's right to know. We will have the very first full-scale discussion and symposium on this issue.
In the first session, the morning session, we will be deliberating upon democracy and freedom of information, and in the afternoon session we will be talking about the obstacles to reform and proposed agenda for change. First of all, let us invite Mr. Yoshinori Horikawa, the General Manager and Editor, to make an opening address on behalf of the organizers. Well, as a matter of fact, we were supposed to have him make an opening speech, but due to the traffic jam we would like to immediately start the first session. May we invite the Professor Igarashi from the University of Tokyo to take the moderatorship, please.
PROFESSOR TAKESHI IGARASHI: Good, morning, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to begin the first session. As he introduced me, my name is Igarashi from the University of Tokyo, and I happen to be the Executive Director of the Japanese Association for American Studies. I specialize in the diplomatic history of the United States myself, but today we are going to talk about the issue of the Internationalization of Japan and Open Government. That is our title in English.
With regard to the diplomatic documentation and the declassification for us who are studying diplomatic history, it is vital that this information is being published. However, looking at the situation of Japan and the United States respectively, for the sake of democracy, the publication of the information is, of course, important, needless to say. Also, in view of the international issues faced by Japan, and in order for Japan to become an open society to the rest of the world, it does have a very grave bearing. The Japanese government's publication of government information is very important. The U.S. current situation in various senses gives us a rich source of information, thus I would like to ask the speakers to refer to those points. That is how I have organized the sequence of the presentation. First of all, we will receive a presentation from Mr. Thomas Blanton, who is the Executive Director of the National Security Archive. Mr. Blanton, please.
MR. THOMAS BLANTON: Thank you, Professor Igarashi. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here today, on my first trip to Japan among such a distinguished gathering of scholars and policy-makers, journalists. I have many debts of gratitude, here, I should say thank you to the Yomiuri Shimbum, which has made this event possible, and has so strongly supported the work of the National Security Archive in the United States in documenting U.S.-Japan relations. I should thank the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, which has also been a generous supporter, both of the Archive's work and of this event. I should thank the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, for its strong support of this event, and, of course, the Japanese Association for American Studies, which has carried out so excellently the preparatory work for this event, as well as all my fellow panelists, and you the audience. Thank you for being with us today.
I am very much honored to be asked to make this talk about the history of the idea of freedom of information, and the work of the National Security Archive as a tangible expression of that idea. Our hosts and all of those involved in the event have been very generous in their praise of the National Security Archive's work, and I understand that the appropriate Japanese response to such flattery is to say, "Not at all," and to deflect the praise. This is a very attractive trait. I will give you an example of a more typically American response by Dr. Henry Kissinger.
During the 1970s, while engaged in his shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, Dr. Kissinger was approached at an embassy party by a wealthy patroness of the arts and international affairs, who gripped both of his hands in hers and said breathlessly, "Oh, Dr. Kissinger, I simply wanted to thank you for saving the world." Never at a loss for words, Dr. Kissinger replied, "You're very welcome." Needless to say, the National Security Archive -- we have not yet saved the world. But then, neither has Dr. Kissinger.
In my talk today, I would like to avoid the missionary approach so often taken by us Americans. Instead, I would like to emulate the approach of one of my teachers at Harvard, the noted scholar of Asia John King Fairbank, who first came to this part of the world as the child of missionaries, spreading Christianity in Asia, but who spent his life trying, not to convert, but trying to understand the peoples of Asia. I am at the very beginning of my own understanding of Japan, and therefore I would like my talk today to be understood not as prescription, recommending what to do, but as description, how it has been done elsewhere.
My talk is in three parts. First, a brief history of the idea of freedom of information. Second, a discussion of how the idea is actually implemented, and the particular political conditions in which freedom of information becomes law. Third, the history of the National Security Archive as a tangible expression of freedom of information in action.
First, the history. In my research for this presentation, I came across what was, for me, a very surprising statement from a very highly placed Japanese source on the subject of open government and the need for open government, and I'll discuss that in a moment. And the reason I was surprised by that statement is that, up until now, I have always understood the idea of freedom of information to be a product of the rationalism and liberalism of the enlightenment, and particularly the ideological trend from the French Revolution on the rights of man, and the American Revolution on the checks and balances against government power. And I came today with a number of quotations from those thinkers -- liberal thinkers, utilitarian thinkers, rationalist thinkers -- who focused on the power of knowledge. For example, Cardinal Newman said about rationalism, liberty, and liberalism that, quote, "Virtue is the child of knowledge, and vice is the child of ignorance."
Or Jeremy Bentham, who said, "Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be a system of regular government." Bentham when on to say, "Everyone knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and we believe that it is a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety."
But the most famous quotation of all in this ideological history, came from James Madison, one of the authors of the American Constitution. He said, and I quote, "A popular government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
Now, as you can see, there are both principled and utilitarian reasons for these notions of freedom of information and open government, but let me return to that surprising quotation from a highly placed Japanese source. In preparation for my trip, I went back to my notes and my books from a course I took twenty years ago at Harvard with the late Edwin O. Reischauer, and I found this quote, which, in the translation I have may not be perfect, but it's what I have. The quote was, "Open deliberation shall be carried out, and all affairs of state shall be disposed of in conformity to public opinion." This was the first of the five imperial oaths uttered by the new Japanese emperor, on 14th March, 1868, at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. Now, is this Meiji freedom of information?
I thought about it, and the words "public opinion" in that quote reminded me of a reference in Professor Chalmers Johnson's brilliant new book, "Japan, Who Governs?" and I went back to that book and found the reference on page 110. A distinction between public opinion politics or, excuse my pronunciation, seiron seiji, versus hidden politics, ura seiji. From Professor Johnson I learned there are many such dualities: kagemusha, or dummy general, versus kuromaku, a wire-puller. Or, in the largest sense, tatamae, the principal formality face pretense, versus honne, or reality -- actual practice -- the face without makeup -- the way we do things.
Now, before I lose myself in this conceptual jungle, let me move to the second part of my talk, on the practical implementation of freedom of information, because, in some ways, the practical ways offer us a way out of the conceptual jungle.
I do not know very much about the ways in which the Meiji Restoration conducted what the emperor called "open deliberations." But I do know how many other countries have come to the establishment of formal freedom of information laws and procedures. To put it bluntly, almost every freedom of information law in the world today, came about not because of any sudden conversion to enlightenment philosophy or rationality, but because of specific conditions of competition for political power. Competition between parliaments and administrations, competition between ruling and opposition parties, competition between present and prior regimes, competition between bribe-takers and muck-rakers. And here I will give examples from Sweden, the United States, Canada, Hungary, Germany, and South Africa.
The first freedom of information law in the world actually pre-dates, came before, both the French and the American Revolutions, so so much for all that philosophical history I just gave you.
Sweden, in 1766, passed a Freedom of the Press Act, which legalized the publication of government documents, and provided for public access to government documents. 1766. The reason was not Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The reason was real politik. Sweden enjoyed an extended period of parliamentary rule between about 1718 and 1772. And the new majority party in 1766 wanted to see the documents which the previous government had kept secret. Two hundred years later the United States passed its Freedom of Information Act for very similar reasons. Even though 1966, when the FOIA was passed, was the height of President Johnson's Great Society legislation, the Freedom of Information Act in the United States was really based on ten years of previous hearings in the Congress that began with pressure from Democratic legislators trying to open up the deliberations of the Republican government under President Eisenhower. The FOIA which we know today in the United States, with broad coverage and narrow exemptions and powerful court judicial judges review of government decisions to withhold information, this is an amended version of the 1966 Act which was passed by a Democratic Congress over a Republican veto by President Gerald Ford in 1974 in the wake of Watergate. And here we see the role of scandal, the very dramatic role, in catalyzing open government reforms. Ironically, the White House tapes and the other Watergate documents show that President Nixon was not only a pathological liar, but also a serious open-government reformer.
President Nixon ordered the massive declassification of literally millions of previously secret U.S. government documents, ranging back to World War II. He set up new limitations on the amount of government secrecy. He reduced the number of government officials who were allowed to stamp a document secret. And he criticized national security classification in very dramatic terms. Now, I won't give you the precise quote, but I think looking at the Watergate tapes we can see Nixon's real motivations in these secrecy reforms -- I think. He was trying to bring the bureaucracy under White House control. By reducing the secrecy in the bureaucracy, while also increasing White House secrecy. All we have to do is think of the China Diplomacy, or the notorious "Plumbers Group," whose job it was to stop up leaks within the government. Nixon was attempting to reduce the power of the permanent bureaucracy, and enhance his own power. This is a very interesting lesson. This was not idealism at work, this was real politik.
Another example: In Canada, scandals relating to police surveillance and to government regulation of industry, led to passage of the Canadian Freedom of Information Law, together with a significant privacy law, in 1983. A major component of the Canadian law tried to avoid the law suits, the litigation, that was so common in the U.S. system. While the Canadians did guarantee ultimate court review of government decisions over secrecy, over access and privacy, the Canadians also created an Information Commissioner, who investigates and makes recommendations on these decisions before anyone goes to court. Now, the Commissioners recommendations are not binding on the ministries, but they're quite powerful nonetheless, both because of the media exposure and by the Commissioner's direct reporting to the Parliament. In many ways, the Information Commissioner role resembles the Scandinavian ombudsman concept, which is also very important in Poland and Eastern Europe, or, in a much less formal comparison, perhaps, to the Japanese tradition of go-betweens, mediators between two opposing parties.
Now, the Canadian experience also raises, I think, a very important point on the relation of privacy to access. Often, usually, these are seen as competing values, which must be balanced to decide whether or not to open government records. I see these two values -- privacy and access -- instead as complimentary values, in that personal privacy cannot exist without openness in government, because a closed government is free to invade personal privacy without accountability. And likewise, true openness in government cannot exist without privacy protection, because a government which exposes everything it knows about its citizens also abuses its power.
In Hungary, in Eastern Europe, which passed its Freedom of Information Law in 1992, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, after the end of the cold war, the relation of privacy and openness is the key controversy. The 1992 law in many ways was the revenge of the new regime against its Communist predecessors, opening their files and exposing them to accountability. And yet, many of the new rulers were also in these files, not necessarily as dissidents under the old regime, but as effective, non-Communist managers or leaders in those prior years. As a result, the 1992 Hungarian law focused primarily on data protection. Control of the files, not access. And, in my opinion, this law in Hungary has served mainly to strengthen the power of the Hungarian Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry over individuals in the name of privacy protection, without really guaranteeing greater openness.
In Germany, which has some of the most stringent privacy protection laws in the world, we see a counter-example to the Hungarian experience. The notorious Stassi files, of the former East German secret police, are now open by application to individuals seeking their own files, and to scholars seeking documentation for history. But privacy is protected by censoring the names and personal identifiers of individuals, on what amounts to a sliding scale of privacy. That is, the people with the most privacy protection are the victims of the surveillance or the harassment. While the police officers and the informants who performed the harassment received much less privacy protection, and the highest policy makers of all are completely exposed. In fact the archive of the former East German Communist Party --the SED -- is now the most open archive in the entire world today. One can find documents, including the transcripts of Eric Honnecker's talks -- transcripts, verbatim transcripts -- of his talks with foreign leaders. Brezhnev, Castro, others, available all the way up through 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, uncensored. This is a remarkable thing. And that privacy regime to me corresponds in many respects to the standards for libel in the United States, which is that higher rank, higher power, brings less protection and less privacy in terms of libel. A public figure must prove malicious disregard for the truth to win a libel case in the United States. To extend this argument, that's not to say that the President of the United States has no right of personal privacy, but simply that in his official policy-making capacity, privacy provides very little right to withhold official information.
Now, final example of a work in progress, again from a change in a regime. The interim Constitution, under which Nelson Mandela came to power in South Africa, includes a specific provision guaranteeing freedom of information to all South Africans. In many ways this is the strongest guarantee in the world of the right to freedom of information. The U.S. Constitution, in contrast, contains the right only by inferences in several articles in the First Amendment. But yet, because South Africa lacks established administrative procedures and the judiciary is only beginning to be reformed, this Constitutional right is only an idea, not yet an actual practice. So, as you can see from this brief overview, the history of freedom of information in practice in the world is extremely varied and complex. I'm very interested to hear later in the program from experts here in Japan, scholars, members of the citizens' movement seeking a Freedom of Information Act, on the current state of such efforts. Judging only from what little I know of Japanese politics today, given the significant changes in government, public debate about reform of the bureaucracy, and so forth, the conditions may be ripe for a Freedom of Information Law.
But I will finish my talk by describing the experience of the National Security Archive as a tangible expression of freedom of information in action. We are only ten years old this year, but back in 1791, our mission was defined for us. A fellow named Jeremy Belknap, who founded America's first historical society in 1791 in Massachusetts, said this about archives, quote: "There is nothing like having a good repository, and keeping a good lookout, not waiting at home for things to fall into the lap, but prowling about like a wolf for the prey."
We have to prowl at the National Security Archive, because the documents we focus on -- contemporary national security and international relations documents -- inside the United States government, by definition are usually classified at least "Secret." And it takes a real effort to break them loose from the government, even including lawsuits, going to court. We could wait twenty-five to thirty years for these materials to come out, but we think that that delay hurts all of us as citizens of the world, as scholars, as journalists, as teachers, as policy analysts, all of these processes are weaker when based only on oral sources or secondary sources. And there's also the goal of government accountability, for which openness is the only insurance.
Let us remember the early 1980's, to give you the context of the founding of the Archive. Back then there was a renewed Cold War, there was a speedup in the U.S.-Soviet arms race. There was a sense of much greater danger in the world. In Washington, the Reagan Administration went into "fortress mode," pulling up the drawbridges. They reversed a trend from Eisenhower through Carter of attempting to reduce the amount of secrecy in the U.S. Government. During the 1960's there were 60,000 bureaucrats who could classify secrets. By the 1980's, that had dropped to 10,000, and yet the Reagan Administration increased it. President Reagan signed a new executive order which made secrets within the U.S. Government almost immortal, indefinite. President Carter had tried to put a "sunset," a time limit, on each secret -- ten years or fifteen years, so it would be automatically released.
The consequence of this expanded secrecy, combined with heightened issues of war and peace and nuclear danger, was that the major public policy debates in Washington and in the United States, and in the world, for the most part lacked primary source documentation on these contemporary issues. And in the absence of documentation, the debate took place in the press with anonymous sources. And certainly such sources have their role to play, but to the serious researchers they only frustrate ultimate knowledge. They become a moving target and can never really be pinned down.
So the National Security Archive was founded in 1985 to meet this need, to bring out into the public primary documentation in the sphere of national security issues. To their great credit, a group of American foreign policy journalists, led by Scott Armstrong of the Washington Post, Raymond Bonner of the New York Times, Fred Kaplan of the Boston Globe, and others, had a conversion, like Saul on the road to Damascus, from the ethics of journalism, in which one succeeds by scooping one's competitors, to the ethics of a librarian, in which one succeeds by providing information to all comers, without regard for their need. Each of these journalists had amassed thousands of pages of documents through the Freedom of Information Act, and instead of hoarding all this information in their basements, they decided to pool their documents in one central repository -- a non-governmental repository -- for others to use and benefit from the work that had already been done. Now, these Archive founders recruited some of the leading academics of U.S. foreign policy to join them, such as Professor Akira Iriye of Harvard, and many others who donated not only their documents, but often, what was more important, their guidance as to what subjects the Archive should address, because our limited resources meant that we had to pick and choose our topics, and how we should do so. These Archive founders also recruited me. I had been a journalist, I had been a Congressional aide, I had worked in the foundation world, and I became the first Director of Planning and Research at the Archive. I became the Deputy Director in 1986, and I became the Executive Director in 1992. We inherited not only documents that were donated, but we also inherited hundreds of pending Freedom of Information Act requests that were still in the pipeline, many of them years after the researchers had originally made those requests and then gone on to other books, other assignments, even to other worlds. We made it our goal to build on these collections, and to create a sort of living archive, because the originals of what we have, we hope, are still inside the government. But we created a super-archive, if you will, of the most important policy documents. We sought to identify the holes and the gaps in this documentation, to get the advice of former officials and scholars, to file systematic requests, and you'll hear much more about this process this afternoon from Dr. Robert Wampler, who directs our project on U.S.-Japan relationships.
Our annual budget is about a million dollars a year, mostly from foundation grants, private foundation grants, but about twenty percent of our budget comes from our publication royalties -- from our books and our microfiche, our CD-ROM publications. Dr. Wampler's experience is very typical of our projects. We have projects covering the whole world -- the Nuclear Arms Race, the Cold War, Eastern Europe, South Africa, the Phillipines, Central America, Cuba, etc. Solid research, good advice from outside scholars and former officials, targeted requests for documents, persistent follow-up, these pay off with fascinating declassified documents, many of which we have reprinted in the booklet which we handed out today, some of which are as recent as 1987 -- the meeting between Prime Minister Nakasone and President Reagan and Secretary of State George Schultz. Extraordinary, very high-level documentation, essential for an understanding of the relationship between the United States and Japan.
We rarely file a lawsuit. We only have gone to court twenty times out of 14,000 requests under the Freedom of Information Act. But our court cases have provided spectacular results. For example, we obtained, through a court case, the letters between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We obtained the diaries of Oliver North during the Iran-Contra Scandal -- a daily diary of White House activity. We obtained the after-action reports on the failed hostage rescue mission in 1980 in Iran by the U.S. government. We saved the electronic mail computer tapes from the White House itself of the 1980s and 1990s. These successful court cases give us a very important implied threat, which is very useful in the continuous negotiations which we have as outsiders with the bureaucracy which controls the secrets.
One surprise has been the cooperation we've received from former U.S. government officials, often for their own reasons: They are writing their own memoirs, they're seeking greater understanding of their own histories. In some cases they are seeking communication with the officials of other governments who sat on the other side of the table. We have helped organize conferences which put Cyrus Vance, the former Secretary of State, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Advisor, together, and faced them with their Soviet counterparts, such as Dobrynin and Korniyenko. I have to say it was not clear at this conference where the greater hostility lay, between the Americans and the Soviets, or among the Americans. But perhaps the most extraordinary such event in our history was our conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought an American delegation, headed by Robert McNamara, and a Russian delegation, including Khrushchev's son, Sergei, to Havana, Cuba, for a three-day, face-to-face meeting with Fidel Castro.
We of the National Security Archive presented President Castro with the 14,000 page microfiche collection of all of the U.S. government documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis. In response, President Castro reached behind him to a box carried by an aide, pulled out files of his previously secret correspondence between himself and Khrushchev, and threw these letters onto the table in front of us, and said, "What is this declassification? Does it have something to do with the class struggle?" Everyone laughed. But when Fidel Castro declassifies his secret documents, then I think it's fair to say that transparency in government, and freedom of information concept, are really becoming the new world order. Thank you very much.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Thank you very much. Allow me to introduce the other speakers. Sitting next to Mr. Blanton is Mr. Clifford Sloan. He was, up until very recently, part of the staff of the White House. He was in charge of public information access. Later on, I'm sure, Mr. Sloan will be able to explain to us of the very recent Executive Orders as announced by President Clinton. And sitting next to him, I'm sure there is no need for me to introduce him, but Professor Chalmers Johnson, formerly from the University of California, and sitting next to him is the former Vice Minister of MITI, and now the Chairman of Dentsu Research Institute, Mr. Shinju Fukukawa. Seated next to him from Saitama University is Professor Iio, who has been the chief person preparing this conference. He will be here discussing on the major aspects of the situation. And now I ask Mr. Sloan to present his remarks.
MR. CLIFFORD SLOAN: -- Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here this morning, I appreciate the opportunity very much. Let me begin by saying that I believe that public access to government information is a very important issue. It raises fundamental questions about the relationship between the citizen and the government, and it has significant effects on the day-to-day operations of government. I have had considerable experience with issues of access to government information from various positions within the United States government. Because these experiences have helped to shape my views, it may be helpful to review them briefly.
As was mentioned, until recently it was my honor to serve in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States. Before assuming that position, I had served in other government posts in each branch of the United States government. I served in the Department of Justice, arguing on behalf of the United States government in cases in our highest court, the Supreme Court. I served as an assistant to a congressmen in the United States House of Representatives. I served as a law clerk on the Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals, and I served as Associate Counsel in the office of the Independent Counsel responsible for investigating and bringing prosecutions in the Iran-Contra affair. I am now a lawyer in private practice, and I want to emphasize that I am here in my own capacity, giving my own views. I am not here in any way as a government representative.
In each of the government positions that I have held, access to government information has emerged as an important issue. It has emerged as an important issue both with regard to the government information produced by the particular government office in which I served, and with regard to government information produced by other government offices. These experiences have convinced me that while there are certain balances which must be struck, a commitment to the principal of public access to government information is vitally important in a democratic society. These experiences have also convinced me that making access to government information a reality, rather than simply a lofty rhetorical aspiration, requires two kinds of actions. First, it requires a structure of rules and procedures which provide public access to government information, and second it requires leadership and commitment by government officials in respecting the importance of public access to government information.
In the United States, several different statutes and other sets of rules address the subject of public access to government information. For example, the Freedom of Information Act allows a member of the public to request and obtain government information subject to certain specific, defined exceptions. Similarly, the Privacy Act allows one to obtain government information about oneself, again, subject to certain exceptions. The Administrative Procedure Act requires that in many cases of major government action, before a proposed government rule becomes final, it must be published, members of the public must be given the opportunity to comment on the proposed rule, and the government must consider the comments before the rule becomes final. This process is known as the Notice and Comment Process, and it is very important in American government.
Today I would like to focus on two recent Executive Orders signed by President Clinton. These orders represent major new reforms in public access to government information. Both of these orders apply to classified information, and I would like to take a moment to discuss classified information.
Classified information is the information designated as "Secret," above and beyond other categories of government information. The information is supposed to have this special secret status, only because of its relationship to national security, or similar interests, which would be harmed by disclosure. Classified information is thus a particular and very important category of government information. The system of classified information has developed entirely by Presidential order, rather than by Congressional statute. In recent years there has been considerable discussion in the United States about whether far too much information is classified and kept from public view. An enormous volume of classified material has accumulated. Some estimates put the total amount at billions of pages, and a great deal of classified information goes back decades. In addition, the end of the Cold War has led to a re-evaluation of government secrets. The current structure for classified information grew up in the early years of the Cold War, and it is being re-evaluated in light of the end of the Cold War. At the same time, however, there is a clear concern for continuing to safeguard information that would compromise national security if disclosed.
President Clinton has addressed this issue with significant reforms. First, in November 1994, he signed an order automatically declassifying almost forty-four million pages of classified documents. Half from World War II and earlier, and half from the post-World War II era. The significance of this Executive Order was that it ordered the declassification of these entire categories of documents, without individual review of every line of every document. This sweeping action was extremely important. If every page of every document in these categories had to be reviewed line by line, it would proceed at a snail's pace. And these pages, of course, are only a fraction of the documents possibly subject to this laborious line-by-line declassification review. This first Executive Order was a significant advance, but it applied only to the particular documents, only to the forty-four million pages. The second most recent Executive Order is especially important, because it reformed the entire system of government information with regard to classification. The order allows for far greater disclosure, while still protecting secrets genuinely necessary for national security.
The philosophy underlying the order was best expressed by President Clinton when he signed the order. President Clinton stated, and I quote: "Today I have signed an Executive Order reforming the government's system of secrecy. The order will lift the veil on millions of existing documents, keep a great many future documents from ever being classified, and still maintain necessary controls over information that legitimately needs to be guarded in the interests of national security. In issuing this order, I am seeking to bring the system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information into line with our vision of American Democracy in the post-cold war world. This order strikes an appropriate balance: on the one hand it will sharply reduce the permitted level of secrecy within our government, making available to the American people and posterity most documents of permanent historical value that were maintained in secrecy until now. On the other hand, the order enables us to safeguard the information that we must hold in confidence to protect our nation and our citizens. This order also will reduce the sizable costs of secrecy, the tangible costs of needlessly guarding documents, and the intangible costs of depriving ourselves of the fullest possible flow of information." That is how President Clinton described the order.
The order takes many important concrete actions. First, with regard to existing records more than twenty-five years old, it requires that all records be declassified automatically, like those in the first Executive Order. This declassification must be accomplished in five years, unless appropriate government officials can show that particular information fits within one of nine specific exceptions, and significant progress must be made each year as these five years progress. The nine specific exceptions concern such factors as revelation of intelligence sources or methods, impairment of weapons systems, and other issues related to national security and national defense. With respect to all of the exceptions, they are tied to a perceived specific harm that would result from disclosure.
The significance of this action, of this new executive order, cannot be overstated. Again, all classified information will be automatically declassified and subject to public access if it is more than twenty-five years old, unless it is shown to be within one of the nine specific exceptions. In a very short time, this action will lead to release of volumes of important information which has been secret until now.
Second, the order takes many significant actions with regard to the designation to new classified information, to ensure that fewer documents will be unnecessarily classified. It requires that information may be classified only if the government official seeking to classify it is able to identify or describe the damage to national security that would result from disclosure, and only if the government official actually provides a precise justification for the classification. The order provides that if there is significant doubt about the need to classify information, the information shall not be classified. Doubts will be resolved against secrecy.
Like prior orders, the order specifically provides that information may not be classified to prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency or to conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error. The order strongly encourages officials who believe that a classification is improper, to challenge the classification under new government procedures. It protects those who do challenge classifications under these procedures, and it sets up specific procedures for challenging the classifications by appeals to a new government board. The order also provides sanctions for government employees who classify information which should not be classified. These provisions will help prevent the unnecessary designation of information as "Secret" in the first place. In addition, the order takes many significant actions with respect to new information that is classified, to ensure that secrets are not kept indefinitely and unnecessarily. Classification of new information may not last for more than ten years, unless the information is demonstrated to fit within one of the exemptions discussed previously. This simple concept, placing a duration on the time of secrets, strikes a blow at the very notion of permanent secrets. The order also requires at the time of classification, an attempt to establish a date or event for declassification that may be before the automatic ten-year limit, and it provides that information should be declassified any time there is no longer a need for classification. The order also specifically permits government officials to determine that the public interest in disclosure outweighs the need for continued secrecy. The order thus takes many significant actions, which go far in changing the entire culture of government secrecy.
As President Clinton's statement made clear, the order is a balance. In addition to the actions providing for far greater disclosure of government information, the order also continues to maintain stringent protections for safeguarding classified information, including sanctions against government employees who fail to observe government classification rules. The order leaves no doubt that rules about protecting classified information and government secrets will be strictly enforced. These are the rules set forth by the new executive order, and they fundamentally change the government system for dealing with government secrets. As I mentioned at the outset, making public access to government information a reality requires leadership and commitment as well as rules. Leadership and commitment matter in two different ways. First, leadership and commitment matter in implementing and administering the rules. President Clinton showed great leadership in formulating and issuing this executive order. His clear commitment to eliminating unnecessary government secrets sets an important standards for the government officials charged with implementing the rules on a daily basis. In addition, leadership and commitment matter in generating creativity and initiative that go beyond the rules.
Let me give you a few brief examples. In December 1993, Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary learned of new information regarding U.S. government experiments exposing members of the public to radiation in the 1950s. She released the information publicly, and announced an openness initiative to release all available information to the American people as soon as possible. President Clinton promptly issued an executive order appointing a high-level commission to investigate the problem and to issue a report on it. Similarly, Attorney General Janet Reno has issued guidance on the Freedom of Information Act, changing government policies to produce greater and prompter disclosures. Her guidance recognizes that government officials have discretion in making decisions about implementing the Freedom of Information Act. And it tries to channel that discretion in the favor of disclosure, where possible and where appropriate.
In other areas, both the White House and Congress have taken significant actions to allow greater electronic access by the public to government information. Indeed, the subject of electronic information will be a major issue in the years ahead, posing numerous questions, the outcome of which will have important consequences for public access to government information. Leadership and commitment will be essential in resolving these questions.
In conclusion, I want to stress that public access to government information has at least three important benefits. First, ensuring public access to government information is an important statement that in a democratic society the government belongs to the people. Second, ensuring public access to government information serves the goal of accountability. The actions of government officials are effected by knowing that their actions will be judged in the sunlight of disclosure, rather than hidden in the shadows of secrecy. And third, public access to government information serves the goal of knowledge and understanding. Free societies share the insight that informed debate of public issues contributes to the public good. Access to government information contributes greatly to a truly informed public debate. Thank you very much.
PROFESSOR JUN IIO: I thank you very much. And I think that the framework of this symposium is very clear. Whenever we have experts here from the United States and from Japan, we always talk about what's going on in the United States, and I think that in the United States the freedom of information is very much advanced, whereas in Japan I think that the freedom of information is very much lagging behind. I don't know what kind of presentations Mr. Fukukawa will be making, but anyway, the scholars and the university professors are requesting for more freedom of information in Japan, whereas the people on the government side will be making excuses, or something like that.
And so I think that this kind of a framework is in a sense very good. That is to say, in order to contribute to the further promotion of the freedom of information in Japan. But having said that, however, freedom of information is not just a matter of black and white. Well, it doesn't mean that if we actually disclose information just like in the United States, all the problems will be resolved. It's not that simple, and as Mr. Blanton has mentioned, as a matter of fact freedom of information has occurred in various countries. And in some countries, of course, some such systems have defects, whereas some others have good points and so on. But if we focus our attention on only whether freedom of information is to be allowed or not, probably our discussions will be very much limited. As a result, the freedom of information system may not be desirable enough. And so, in my talk I would like to focus my presentation on the following point: in Japan, what kind of elements are actually lacking in the Japanese discussion concerning the freedom of information?
First of all, let me talk a bit about the concept of freedom of information in Japan. I think that there are three problems related to the concept of freedom of information in Japan. The first problem is that the Japanese people's expectations of the Japanese government are not necessarily high enough. Well, usually the Japanese people are relatively satisfied with the current status of the Japanese government. To put it differently, the Japanese people are not necessarily strongly interested in the policy-making process of the Japanese government, and freedom of speech is not advancing in Japan, but it is true that the government actually possesses a variety of information, and some people might say that this should be rectified. But, on the other hand, there are some people who say that probably the government officials are doing a very good job because of such very confidential information. And so, the people might have a very good idea about what's going on in the government. And so this kind of specific interests are actually being shared amongst the Japanese people.
Of course, this is nothing to be criticized, and this is to be welcomed, but in the government what kind of policies are being formulated? In what way are policies being formulated? And if you have no interest in the policy-making process, probably the freedom of information system will be defective. For instance, most typically, what's most frequently published concerns the wrong-doings of government officials. And how much entertainment money has been paid, and has been used by the government officials, and so on. But if you stop at the point, then that's the end of the story. And of course if you say that probably the government officials shouldn't be spending too much entertainment expenses, then probably they will think about some methods not to leave any receipts, or something like that. And so I think it's very important to go into the details and depth of the freedom of information. And so this is the first point. That is to say, not necessarily the output of the process, but in fact the process, the policy-making process would have to be made more public to the people. So that's the first point.
And the second point is that with the changes of government, the information, Freedom of Information Act is being enacted, and in Japan also I think that there is some good examples in the local governments. The local governments are doing a better job, because the dynamics of freedom of information are working better. And I think that the change of the government would provide us with a very good opportunity for the furtherance of the freedom of information. But that's not actually happening in Japan, because, of course, individual people can ask for individual information, but that's not the end of it. That is to say, for the politics itself. It should be a very good option. For instance, Japan is actually adopting the parliamentary government system, and, in this regard, the general public should actually request the information from the government officials. And while at the same time the politicians would have to give them access to the government records, as well.
And so these two parties -- that is to say the general public and also the politicians -- would have to request more freedom of information. But the problem with Japanese society is that the Japanese politicians are not necessarily interested in the freedom of information, and also the general public would have to ask the politicians to further promote the freedom of information, but that is not what is happening in Japan. So that's another problem that I would like to identify.
And as to the third problem, that is, the freedom of information, earlier there was a talk about the declassification. And since we don't have any declassification system in Japan, it seems that all the information is considered to be classified. But as a matter of fact, if you take a look at the vast amount of information held by the governments, for instance the National Security Archive is actually dealing with the national security related classified information, but on the other hand there is information that shouldn't be classified. And so in pursuing the freedom of information, we need to have a large body of information concerning the various types of information that are being classified. So it could be that there is a large amount of information that needs to be [de]classified. The most simple example would be the entertainment costs being spent by the government officials, but probably the more grave type of information may be related with the national security, and so forth. And so there is a wide spectrum of various types of information in terms of the degree of classification. And so we need to identify all of these.
And so now I would like to focus my attention on the need for the release of policy documents. As I mentioned earlier, the government documents have a lot of types -- [one is] what has actually been done. That's one type of information, and another type of information depicts what kind of process has been experienced, and how the decision has been made and so on. There are actually two types of information. But as I mentioned earlier, why has this particular type of decision been made? As a matter of fact, there is a lack of interest in this regard. But if you think about the significance and the importance of the freedom of information, what's the meaning of freedom of information for democracy?
I would like to come back to this issue later on, but I think it's very important to have the information concerning the policy-making process. It's not just enough to get information concerning the output of such policies. And suppose the decision of the policy is undesirable and that we've got to go to the second best. In order for that to be possible, I think that it's very important to evaluate the policy-making process. And so I think that is very important to have policy documents released.
But I think that the situation is different in Japan from that in the United States. That is, the National Security Archive has distributed some documents. In the United States the written documents are very much detailed, and, in fact, such documents depict detailed policy-making process. Whereas, in Japan, I think that the Japanese policy-making process is relatively vague in two aspects. First of all, I think that it is probably due to the unique characteristic of the decision-making system in Japan. In the United States, whenever a decision is made, I think that the boss actually issues some kind of memo or something like that. So there is that kind of written document. Whereas, in Japan, be it the government or be it the corporate environment, I think that everybody gets together to come up with the consensus, and the process of obtaining consensus is not necessarily expressed in the form of the documents. And so it's just that vaguely a consensus is being reached in the Japanese environment. So, even if you ask for the documents to be released, but the Japanese government officials might say that, "Oh, there is no such document," or something like that. And as a matter of fact in Japan we have the ringi system, with all the fields of parties concerned, the person is concerned. But that kind of information is prepared, and that kind of document is prepared only after a decision is made. This kind of document does not depict the policy-making process and so what's lacking in the Japanese system is the decision-making process itself in the written form. And so it is very important to establish a document-control system, and document-preparation system. Probably in the Japanese government the policy-making system would have to be shifted to the written type of policy of decision-making. And so whenever there is somebody who is transferred somewhere else in the same organization, probably the kind of policy-making process would be invisible. I think that society is changing dramatically nowadays, and so the new policies are being introduced at a very rapid pace. And so I think the internal environment of the bureaucracy would have to be changed. That is to say, the policy-making process would have to be written down. And in a precise manner would have to be written down.
But, of course, some kind of documents should be there, for instance, in order to hold conferences. There should be some information materials and discussion materials of some sort, and also there should be a memoranda of some sort. But most of the documents that have been distributed to you are actually the memoranda of government officials in charge. In the United States, that kind of memoranda, or notes, or scribbles, are considered to be the official documents in the United States. That is because those are the documents prepared by the government officials who are paid by the tax money. And so they are considered to be official documents. Whereas in Japan, according to the bureaucratic practice, probably the government officials are thinking that that kind memos or memoranda are actually personal documents or private documents. And of course the space in the office is relatively limited in Japan, and so you cannot necessarily store all that kind of information forever. And so this kind of document is a personal document, so the Japanese government officials might say. And of course there are some officials who are very careful and who are very detailed about leaving documents,..., but if the person is transferred to somewhere else, there is no rule that that kind of information should be preserved.
And so in order to release that kind of documents concerning the policy-making process, first of all, there needs to be established a rule. And so even if [there is a] freedom of information act, unless there is a system to ensure the document control system, that kind of documents wouldn't be actually preserved. So what we actually need are the documents depicting the policy-making process. And so it's not enough to ask for the freedom of information. As a matter of fact, as a prerequisite for the freedom of information, we need to establish the document control system. The document control system would have to be established, and so I think that the freedom of information would have to be pursued and promoted, along with the establishment of the document control system. And, of course, there [is information] which needs to be classified. So, just as Mr. Sloan has introduced some examples, like the U.S. President has been very brave in issuing this executive order, but it could have some problems, so I think that we should distinguish the type of information that requires classification, and the information that does not need classification.
And before concluding my talk I would like to talk about the significance and importance of freedom of information. I have touched on this issue already. I think that the benefits of freedom of information are actually multi-faceted. For instance, the freedom of information for our scholars would have tremendous meaning. I think that many of the Japanese scholars are actually faced with limitations in terms of the accessibility to documents. Without necessary information, without sufficient documents, the Japanese scholars would have to pursue research, and also Japanese scholars and professors would have to teach, on [the basis of] limited knowledge. But this is not good, of course, not only for the researchers, but also for the government officials. I suppose, that is to say, the truth cannot be elucidated.
There is another aspect to that, as has been just pointed out. History is going to judge what you have done. I think this aspect is very important for democracy. In a democratic society, what kind of evaluation will be rendered in the years ahead? I think that's very important. In the long process of history, the activities of the Japanese government would have to be evaluated. In the long-time span, the activities of the Japanese government would have to be evaluated. To put it differently, without any access to information concerning what was done by the Japanese government in the past, without that kind of information, probably it's not possible to actually come up with better policy options. And, on the other hand, what about the benefits for the public officials? You might think that freedom of information may be something that is not welcomed by the public officials, but it's not necessarily the case all the time. I don't think that freedom of information is a one-sided gate, so to speak. It's not just a unilateral or one-way flow of information from the government officials. I think that by disclosing information, official information, the government officials can understand, and can grasp, information and feedback from the general public. That is to say, providing information from the government side, the government officials can also obtain information from the public. And so in trying to come up with better policy options, I think it's very good to actually secure the freedom of information from the standpoint of government officials as well.
And also for the general public -- what are the benefits for the general public of the freedom of information? Well, it may be good, of course, for the general public. Through the newspapers, of course, a lot of information is to be communicated to the general public, and the general public will be able to change. That is to say, earlier I talked about the Japanese people's tendency to ask for only the output of the process, but I think that the Japanese people will have to be changing in the future. That is to say, the Japanese people would have to be more interested in the policy-making process as well. And also this kind of freedom of information will be very beneficial for international exchanges as well, and today we're having the international symposium on the internationalization of Japan, and I think that due to the low level of transparency on the part of the Japanese policy-making, the Japanese government's activities are sort of mystified. I think that what the Japanese is doing is sort of mystified. But on the other hand, some foreign governments might say that the Japanese government can do anything. Well, in the recent trade negotiations between Japan and the United States, there is a lot of demand coming from the United States. But that's partly because the Americans are thinking that the Japanese government will be able to do anything. And, of course, for us insiders that's not the case.
But, unless the Japanese government actually provides official information, the weaknesses and the strength of Japanese government cannot be actually grasped by the foreign governments nor by the general public. By so doing, probably the misunderstanding might be accelerated. The freedom of information should be able to further reduce the misunderstanding between Japan and the foreign countries. By so doing we'll be able to contribute greatly to the internationalization of Japan. And so I have talked about many things, but it is true that freedom of information has a lot of benefits. And so these are the multi-faceted aspects of freedom of information, and those of us who are interested and are trying to promote the freedom of information in Japan will have to act accordingly. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Thank you very much, Professor Iio. We will now have a discussion from the discussants.
Fortunately Mr. Shiina has just arrived from the House of Counselors. I know how busy he is, and we were afraid that Mr. Shiina won't be able to be with us, but he is here so I am very glad. Professor Johnson, please.
PROFESSOR CHALMERS JOHNSON: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here at this important meeting. My topic for brief discussion this morning is the CIA and Japanese politics. Let me introduce the organization I represent, the Japan Policy Research Institute. It is a non-profit research agency devoted to public education about Japanese-American relations. We have recently completed a special report called "The CIA and Japanese Politics." It will not be released until July ninth, because we are co-publishing it in the August issue of "This is Yomiuri." But I want to indicate what this is about.
In a letter to The New York Times dated March fourth of this year, the acting director of Central Intelligence, Admiral William O. Studemann wrote, and I quote, "We are aware of the importance of an accurate historical record." Nonetheless, he insisted that the CIA has an obligation to, quote, "keep faith," unquote, with foreigners who have, and I quote, "received legally authorized covert support from the United States," unquote.
It is important to state at the outset that an accurate historical record is also what interests the Japan Policy Research Institute. As we search into the history of American payoffs to the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and dirty tricks against its political opponents, we do not wish to compromise in any way the national security of either the United States or Japan. Mr. Kodama Yoshio, 1911 to 1984, probably the CIA's chief asset in Japan, has been dead for more than a decade. And for most Japanese and Americans, the allied occupation, the "M-fund," the mobilization of Yakuza to protect President Eisenhower in 1960, the Lockheed case itself are all ancient history. Our present-day discussion could embarrass some deceased Americans, and some descendants of former prominent politicians in Japan. But it no longer has anything to do with national security.
Our interest is in the foreign manipulation of the Japanese political process during the allied occupation, and its evolution over the more than forty years since the occupation ended. This issue has not merely historical significance. As Jim Mann, who is the Washington correspondent of the Los Angeles Times a regular columnist, as Jim Mann recently put it, and I quote, "Did you ever want to know why the Japanese government behaves the way it does today? Why its politics seem so corrupt, why its political parties are so hopelessly weak? Why Japan never developed a workable two-party system? There are some U.S. government files that could help shed light on those particular questions," wrote Mr. Mann in the Los Angeles Times last March.
Similarly, Professor John Dower, a member of the board of advisors of JPRI, comments in the New York Times, and I quote, "We look at the LDP and say it's corrupt, and it's unfortunate to have a one-party democracy, but we have" -- meaning we, the United States -- "have played a role in creating that misshapen structure."
This is JPRI's interest in this subject. It is historical, but it is also directly connected with day-to-day policy making in Tokyo and Washington now and in the future. Like many Japanese intellectuals, we contend that the failure of Japan to develop a two-party system, comparable to that, for example, in Germany, and the country's persistent reliance on unelected officials for most governmental decisions, was influenced by the United States efforts during the cold war to ensure that Japan did not choose neutralism. These issues re-entered the news last autumn when the New York Times published its article entitled, "CIA Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in the Fifties and Sixties," by three journalists, Tim Weiner, Stephan Engleburg and James Sterngold. This report did not say anything that had not been suspected earlier, but it quoted some important participants, including Alfred C. Olner, Jr., the CIA's Operations Chief for East Asia, from 1955 to 1958; Roger Hilsman, the Head of Intelligence and Research at the State Department in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations; and U. Alexis Johnson, American Ambassador to Japan, from 1966 to 1969. Each acknowledged making or authorizing payoffs to the LDP from approximately 1955 to 1972.
In Tokyo, the Sankei Shimbun reported on October tenth, the day after the New York Times story, that Deputy Prime Minister Kono Yohei, whose father, Kono Ichiro, was one of Kodama's closest associates, had held an emergency meeting with Ambassador Mondale, which the Foreign Ministry later exclaimed was merely a long-scheduled diplomatic appointment. Both the Japanese and the Americans maintained that the Times story concerned old news that had become common knowledge. The real importance, it seems to us, that the Times article came in the middle of an ongoing struggle to get the Central Intelligence Agency to declassify information for the State Department's official histories of U.S. Foreign Policy. Again to quote Jim Mann, the Washington correspondent of the Los Angeles Times in his piece on this, "Right now, the State Department historians are preparing to publish the volume that will cover American policy toward Japan, Korea, and China, during the John F. Kennedy administration. They have found plenty of information about the CIA's operations in Japan, and want to include it in the official history. But the CIA has refused to declassify or allow publication of the files that show what it was doing in Japan in the late 1950s and 1960s. A group of academic historians advising the State Department has recommended that it publish blank pages for the sections dealing with Japan in those cold war years, rather than printing a sanitized version."
While we know a lot today about Kodama Yoshio and his operations, researchers would still like to see the U.S. government's files on him. Other files that would be of great interest are those concerned with the great murder, or suicide, and sabotage cases of 1949. The Shimoyama, Mitaka, and Matsukawa cases. The Japanese have sought out the KGB files on these subjects, and found them unrevealing, but they have long claimed that these incidents were provocations carried out by SCAP, by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, and were intended to justify the reverse course and its so-called Red Purge. Someday we need to know the truth of the matter.
Our message in this paper that we have done is straightforward. The cold war is over. Whatever the United States may have believed was necessary to prosecute the cold war, the cold war itself can no longer be used to justify ignorance about its costs and unintended consequences. The issue today is not whether Japan might veer toward socialism or neutralism, but why the government that evolved from its long period of dependence on the United States, is so corrupt, inept, and weak. At a minimum, these essays should inform unsuspecting scholars that uncritical analyses of democracy in Japan may one day be blind-sided by newly declassified information.
Let me conclude there, the reports that we then append are one, by the former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Norbert Schlei, in the Kennedy administration, on the so-called "M-fund" that was created during the occupation to influence Japanese politics. Another is a very important piece that we believe will soon have the documentation released to substantiate it by Professor Michael Schaller on the American influence on the odyssy of Mr. Kishi Nobusuke from Sugamo Prison to the Prime Ministership.
The reason that I raise these things is simply to suggest the enormous importance of opening archives. That we increasingly appreciate in the United States, that unintended consequences of the American policy during the cold war was to sacrifice, to a certain extent, the political systems of both Japan and Italy. That in both countries the United States feared the strength of, on the one hand, the Japanese Socialist Party, on the other hand, the Italian Communist Party. Both had considerable legitimacy; both could have come to power. The Americans saw it, I believe, in terms of Cold War realities, as something we should try and avoid, and that we used clandestine means to do so. The result is, however, today, as we see in both Italy and Japan with the end of the cold war, rather considerable domestic political chaos, as the old system no longer meets its purpose. And my reason for raising this is simply to stress I strongly applaud the works of this conference. I think that open government is directly related to the achievement of democracy in both Japan and the United States. Thank you very much.
PROESSOR. IGARASHI: Thank you very much, Professor Johnson. May I now ask Mr. Shiina to speak.
MR. MOTOO SHIINA: Thank you for the kind introduction. Since we had the plannery session of the diet, I have been late, and I apologize for that. I have to apologize that I had to miss several presentations at the outset, so I'm rather unprepared. So I will be talking sort of off the cuff as the idea jumps into my head.
Now, there are two important significances to public access to government information. One is something to do with history. That is to say, the recent past history, as well as the more or distant past history. Historic significance, that is to say. In the diet session we are trying to debate on what to do with the resolution at the commemorative year of the fifty years celebration since the ending of the World War. We are not historians, we are not academics, but based upon very poorly collected information, we are trying to think back, to look back at the history and deliberate on that. This is something very strange and perhaps funny to the people outside.
But the final document, the one page paper document, the top priority will be how to maintain the present administration of government. That is the top priority for the people discussing this questoin. Therefore, the content is of insignificance, it seems.
Now, if there is some relevance to this question of public access to the government information, when we look back at the history in Japan, up until fifty years before, that is to say, or ever since after that I'm sure, as Chalmers Johnson is well-versed with that, sometimes people try to explain that we were cornered into it, we were forced into it. So that was the kind of chain reaction we have successively seen by the successive governments. But whenever we take major decisions -- that is to say, not just the domestic question but for international relations, we must think of alternatives. We need to think of the possibility of alternatives. There must have been some alternatives or possibilities. So in managing our government, we can avoid mistakes or errors by thinking of the different alternatives. So looking back at the history from the other perspectives, from other angles of viewpoint would be very important. But for the public, it has always been the case that government will show just the final conclusion, not the process of the debate. And this tendency is still continuing. But in order to bring about a breakthrough in this, the question of scope, or the question of technical aspects, the question of the timing, but I think we need to have more in-depth public access to the information. And without this, the past errors and mistakes would be repeated.
Professor Iio, mentioned earlier that this piece of information will be disclosed, or will be made public at some point in the future if you have that premise. Then the discussion to follow will be different, will be looked at from a very different perspective or point of view. This is something quite distinctive from doing whatever you can do, or that is to say, doing whatever you would like to do -- you want to do as you like without any responsibility. So in this vein as well, I think it is very significant and important to discuss the question of public access to government information.
Now, you mention chaos, that it is now a chaotic situation. The 1955 situation, that is to say, the long time monopoly of the LDP, meant that without any alternative, the godsend declaration or the soothsayer's or the prophet's statement is to be made, a kind of an oracle to be sent out from above. That was the kind of government we had until now. And if we try to avoid this trap in the past, we need to think of trying to bring about the breakthrough in this very complicated and difficult question, so that we will not have to backtrack into the chaotic situation in the past. That is to say, I'm sure you're well aware of many different problems we are faced with when we look at the deliberation within the Diet, when we ask on the floor the question of the government, "What are you going to do about it?" The answer from the government will be "This is a very important question, therefore an advisory council will be created under the Prime Minister, and we're asking dozens of experts and professors to deliberate on this. For instance, the Ministry of Health and Welfare have come up with an advisory council and cautious deliberation will be made, and in two years time a conclusion will be reached, so we will be cautiously watching the process of debate."
That is the only kind of response coming from the government for every successive administration. Which means they know nothing. And if that is clear, let us say if it is clear what they are doing, then it's fine, but what is being deliberated in the advisory council is never made public, is never disclosed, and at the very end something incomprehensive comes out as a recommendation or report. And a very beautifully bound up report is being referred to at the television interviews, by the Prime Minister -- that is to say, the chairman of the advisory council will be submitting this report to the Prime Minister and that is being aired in the television news, but then what is done with the report is that the report will be stored somewhere and forgotten.
People talk about the devolution of power, delegation of power to the local governments, and everybody agrees there is a consensus, but we need to establish a law to promote delegation of power to the local government. Since this is a very important issue you cannot do it on a piecemeal basis, you have to come up with a major vision and proceed with the delegation of power. So you will establish an advisory council and ask seven learned persons together and in three years -- no, I believe it is five years, they are supposed to deliberate for five years -- and this will, in the end, result in a law for delegation of power.
Now, when the law passes through the Diet, what will come after is for the approval in the Diet for the membership of the committee. All of a sudden, this comes up in the Diet. The background material, curriculum vitae, is provided, and this bill comes up to the plannery session all of a sudden, out of the blue. For instance, whether the judges of the Supreme Court are to be maintained or not, it is something like that. It comes so out of the blue. And everybody says, "Oh, I think it's okay, so let us pass this bill." But nobody knows what the advisory council is trying to do. What is the content of what is to be debated?
But perhaps we need one woman on the committee, and if we have one woman, and perhaps the members selected are well-known figures who are members of the other committees as well then it's okay, and that is the only deliberation we have at the plenary session. But we need to reform this. We need to change this, because the final product of the deliberation is just a piece of paper that is handed over to the Prime Minister and then forgotten. Then nothing comes out of it. We need to bring about a reform right from the beginning of the process. So at the time of the approval of the membership of the committee, we need to know the members what kind of messages and statements they are going to make at the committee, so we need to disclose what is being discussed inside the advisory council.
Well, people talk of reforms in many areas. Reform seems to be in fashion these days. But then, all of a sudden, the findings are made public and that's all. Because nobody can know of the process that led to the final recommendation. So I am thinking of ways to try to remedy this. Mr. Fukukawa has been a government official in the past, I do not know what he was doing while he was a government official, but it seems that these days he is very enlightened, so I am sure he would agree to what I am proposing. I have been rather jumping around on many issues, but I would like to end my speech here. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: I thank you very much, Mr. Shina. Then we would like to move on to Mr. Fukukawa please.
MR. SHINJU FUKUKAWA: I thank you very much for the introduction. I am Fukukawa. I listened to the three speakers, and also to the two panelists. I think I've learned a great deal from all of you. I have listened to your presentations with great interest.
As a matter of fact, I think it's of great significance for the organizers and sponsors of this symposium to hold this symposium on the freedom of information, in two respects. First of all, the Japanese government is now very much interested in how to secure freedom of information. To be more specific, there is the freedom of information subcommittee established in the information committee, and next year the deliberations will be concluded, and so we are reviewing various cases in the United States and in other countries, and also various advisors and suggestions have been put forth in this subcommittee. And what kind of documents are to be declassified and also what kind of secrecy should be kept and protected and safeguarded - the national security related secrecy and corporate confidentiality and individual privacy and so on. Indeed, as a matter of fact these are the issues that we are currently deliberating upon. In order to ensure the transparency of the execution administration, and also in order to open the policy options, in order to make the policy options open to the public, I think that it is very timely that we are having this kind of discussion in the government. And so that's the first point.
And the second point is why I am saying this is very important is that in Japan it seems that there is lack of interest in anything, in whatever. But at the same time, [there is] the iron triangle, that is to say the administration, the government, and their politics [politicians?] and the general public. Unless that kind of a system is reviewed carefully, the transparency and the closeness and the lack of interest or apathy, I think that all of these would have to be broken down. And so for that purpose I think that the freedom of information discussion is very important as well. And as Mr. Shiina has just pointed out, it is true that these three entities, that is to say the politics [politicians?] and the administration or government, and the people, and amongst these three entities there is a lot of interplay and interaction, and that's the reason why people are requesting for the reform of the government and the reform of the administration and reform of the business management also. And as Professor Iio has mentioned, what was the policy-making process that has been adopted in the past? And what's the problem with the conventional policy-making process? A 1955 system that's called -- that is to say, during the administration of the LDP, what kind of process was followed to come up with policy options?
Just simply let me mention the following. Back in those days, since 1955, there is a trust relationship established between the politicians and administration, and in fact the political leaders were experienced administrators themselves. And so there is a very good relationship between LDP and administration. And based on the various expertise and knowledge about administration, policy formulation was conducted.
And you formulate a policy, first of all the government officials who come up with policy options listened from time to time to what the people would have to say. And the government officials would present the kind of policy options to the LDP, and also to the committee concerned. For instance, the tribal [zoku] parliamentarians, that's the word that we use for this. And, after that for the budgets the deliberations will be conducted with the Ministry of Finance and so on. And if that kind of suggestions and policy options are approved by the LDP, and of course in the meantime there is the council deliberation, and depending on the case probably in two out of three councils, the suggestions or recommendations made by LDP would be supported by these kind of councils.
And so it is the suggestions and recommendations submitted by the government will be supported. And, of course, there are some controversial issues related with rice prices and so forth, and also there were some problems and controversial issues related with the reforming university management. But, in most of the cases the councils would just endorse the suggestions of the LDP, and then the councils would sort of serve as a PR agent, and the results in the conclusion of such deliberations will be announced in the newspapers, and then the government officials would encourage the news media to advertise that kind of conclusion. And then, on the Diet floor, of course people are most interested in how quickly the budget will be passed, and how to increase their batting average, so to speak, in the Diet deliberations. And so various [namurashi], or the ground work is to be laid down, and so whatever there is the stalemate of the Diet deliberations, that would be very harmful to the ruling party.
And so the LDP, or the ruling party, is very much interested in how to break through any possible stalemates, and so whenever a difficult problem comes out, the response we get from the government would be something like, "Well, this is a very difficult issue, and so we would like to carefully watch how it develops."
And, like in the case of the budget also, everything will be agreed and concluded behind the scene, and so it is true, in actuality, that the policy-making process was relatively closed, was not made open to the public. And of course the conclusion of such deliberations will be introduced to the society, but information is controlled to a large extent in that process. And according to the limited information corporations and consumers would have to act accordingly, and, for instance, if you follow the rules and regulations adopted by the government, and then you can enjoy some kind of incentives or some kinds of benefit from the government. That is to say, during the course of the development stage, I think that this kind of system worked very well in the history of Japan.
And so government officials who were engaged in an administration, or government administration, were very much interested in their own policies, and also whenever a criticism comes out, comes into the society, of course the kind of criticism is not to be welcomed by the government officials. And so, as a result, there is a limitation on the information to be disclosed to the society, for the information that will be helpful to encourage the understanding, good understanding on the part of the public. Of course, that kind of information will be encouraged to be disclosed, but in the other case, of course, information is very much limited.
But as was mentioned earlier, for instance, in the case of the bid-rigging, the public bidding was not functioning well in a fair manner due to the pressures from some interest groups, and so on. And also, the economy is very much globalized, and also the demand is becoming more and more diverse, and so the situation, the social environment and economic environment has been changed, and so the [traditional?] and conventional system shouldn't be able to work. And so it is now high time that we review the relationship between the administration, the politics, and the general public. And in that context it is now high time that we review this issue of freedom of information.
So, what is expected of politics, what is expected of government? And what kind of private sector roles are to be fulfilled? These are the important questions to be addressed. I don't think that presently the political functions are working very well, and so I think it's very important to think about how to improve the political functions at the moment. But the policy packages, and also the policy programs, would have to be made clearer, and in a more clear manner such options and packages would have to be presented to the public, and people are talking about the lack of access, so to speak, of politics. But I think that the political access is actually lacking, and persuasion to the general public and also the actions. As a matter of fact, whether a certain party is capable of doing all of these, the political parties would be evaluated. I think that the political functions concern the very basic administration of the state, but of course if you take a look at the current situation, the actual situation, it's very important to see the politics further revitalized through the course of administrative reform. In the past, much emphasis was placed upon what kind of output comes out of the policy-making process. But I think that the administration should play a role of following the basic rules and basic policies adopted by the politics and also the government should execute budgets and laws in a fair and official manner. And also, based on the observations obtained through the execution of administration, necessary information and necessary policy options would have to be provided to the political functions and also to the general public. If we think that it is now high time for the governments to be changed it is now high time for the administration to be changed, and then we would have to think about this. And what about the situation and what about the government in the U.K., and a what about the situation in Germany? We need to review those foreign cases. The general public would actually be given the policy options, and then based on the freedom of choice and freedom of options the administration would have to fulfill its functions, and the politicians would have to fulfill their functions.
And so, over the next one year, or one year and a half, we would like to deliberate upon how best for these three functions to fulfill their own functions. It is now high time that we establish a new framework conducive to that kind of environment. And I think that there are four expectations that I place out of the movement toward furtherance of freedom of information. In principal, in the parliamentary government system, the government should be responsible for the Diet, but in the case of the freedom of information, as has been pointed out, the execution of the administration should ensure impartiality, neutrality, efficiency and transparency of the execution of highly complicated administration. Secondly, the second expectation that I place is the policy formulation. What's most important at this point in time is to ensure competition in terms of the policy suggestions and policy options. And there is a possibility of change of governments. And based on that assumption, of course, we'll be able to regain the vitality of politics. Keidanren, Nikkeiren, or Keizai Doyukai, or other business circles of Japan, what kind of directions will these organizations take? I'm very much interested in that issue, but be it such business communities or various think tanks --I think that Kasumigaseki is the largest think tank in Japan - and so I think it's very important for the Japanese government and for the business circles to compete in terms of their policy suggestions, so that they can come up with the best possible policy options.
And so the administration and bureaucratic structure would have to be something flexible, and would have to be provided with more flexibility. And so I think that inter-agency competition should be further promoted in this regard.
There are some people from academia and there are some academicians who wish to become the members of the government councils. And, of course, there are those who don't like to do that. But anyway, good quality information is made available in the course of the deliberations at such councils. And so some university professors are interested in becoming the members of the councils. And so, based on that kind of information, of course, it would be useful for university teachers to pursue their own researches.
But if that is the case, probably the policy options to be adopted in the future will be very much one-sided. And so it is very important to ensure competition amongst various entities in terms of their policy suggestions. The competition could be between the Kasumigaseki and the business circles, and it could be between somebody else.
And the third expectation concerns our relationship with the rest of the world. In Japan -- excuse me -- overseas, the people are saying that Japan is, after all, different. There is the revisionist movement overseas, but this is a very difficult problem to be addressed in the future. That is to say, the evaluation of the future of Japan is being revised. And as Professor Iio has mentioned, I think that this is another difficult problem that needs to be addressed. I think we need to properly cope with this problem. The world is globalized to a great extent, and what kind of discussions will be held at the upcoming summit meeting is of great interest to me.
But anyway, the international economic operation, the integration, the coordination of policies amongst the major players, would be the only way that is possible for us. In the future, and in the years ahead, the structural change would be necessary, and also restructuring will be necessary, and also how to cope with the issue of unemployment. That's another important issue. And so how to coordinate various policies of each of the countries. And if you think about this, the American experiences, the German experiences, and the Japanese experiences would have to be shared in the form of the exchanges of information and views, and also between and amongst the various world-wide think tanks, it's very important to come up with the best possible coordinating policies. WTO should be made full use of in this regard. So under the borderless world economy, it's very important to pursue and promote freedom of information, especially for the global environment, and also the population related issues, and AIDS and so on. So all of these issues would have to be discussed based on the intellectual network which is widespread world-wide. And so in this respect, in this context also I think that freedom of information should be further promoted.
And fourthly, as Mr. Blanton has pointed out, electronic information is going to have a more important role to play in the future. I think that for the world economy, and for the world politics, the electronic information will have a very important role to play in the future. In this respect, the government that possesses a large amount of information would take initiative in formulating a government information system. And also the government should take initiative in disclosing their information. And I think that that would eventually contribute to GII[?] network. And at the same time, on a global basis, we will be able to further deepen the mutual understanding in the world.
And so these are the four points and four benefits that would be conceivable, and of course in pursuing the freedom of information, what to do with the privacy and also the corporate confidentiality, and what to do about the secrecy related with the national security, and diplomacy and so on. And, as Mr. Sloan has pointed out, these are very important issues to be addressed, and these require a long-time discussion, but I think that, as I mentioned earlier, in view of the roles to be played by the government administration, I think that the freedom of information should be further promoted, and in that process there might be some tensions experienced amongst the general public, the politics, and the government administration. But it is very important to secure that the government should be confidently in charge of administration, and new policy suggestions would have to be formulated. And so, to that end, I think that the freedom of information should serve that purpose. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Thank you very much, Mr. Fukukawa. We have received reports from five speakers, but we have not yet started to have a panel discussion amongst the panelists. So we have received five reports and presentations, and if I may summarize, that would be as follows. And afterwards perhaps amongst the panelists we can have a discussion, then to be followed possibly by a discussion with the audience and the floor.
Well, five people have each spoken. As I have listened to them, the order might have not been organized, but the message was very strong. Mr. Blanton talked about the history of the information disclosure in the United States, and what has been the tangible case, particularly at the NSA. And Mr. Sloan followed by saying that under the Clinton administration, the declassification of information is evermore progressing, and to enable that, many fresh and sweeping measures have been taken. And Professor Johnson spoke about the many actions done by CIA in Japan, that after the war, in the process of democratization of Japan, many of the recommendations have come from the United States, but at the same time there might have been some manipulations on the part of the US, and light needs to be shed on this.
And Japanese speakers have come up with the appropriate response to the point made by the American speakers. Mr. Shina referred to history as well as how the Japanese politics should be currently, and he noted the importance of the disclosure of the information and making the information open.
Further, Mr. Fukukawa had mentioned that in the context of the modern-day Japanese politics, and the international situation, the policy option needs to be offered to the Japanese public, in a wider manner, and to invite competition so that the democracy can be re-activated. And also, international coordination is expected in the world, and in that context the need for information disclosure is becoming evermore greater, and government is trying to tackle the declassification of the information issue.
Professor Iio mentioned how the Japanese public are responding to this situation, and in order to institutionalize this information disclosure process, maybe much more effort needs to be done on how to put on record some of the information. And I believe Professor Iio was adept in coming up with a well-organized presentation of the points.
Having listened to your fellow panelists speak, perhaps some of the points were those that you have come to know for the very first time this time, or had a different understanding from yours. So perhaps I could invite the speakers up on the floor to have a talk amongst each other. Anyone who would like to talk to your fellow panelists up on the stage?
MR. BLANTON[?]: I have a question for Shina-son about the advisory council process. Within the United States system of freedom of information, one of the most difficult issues is the degree to which openness should apply to deliberations. The theory of why it should be closed is that if deliberations are open, the advice given is not as honest or as straightforward. And therefore, deliberations often in the American system are closed until the point of the decision. But then after the decision is taken, the deliberations are opened in order to show the basis of this. How does this kind of discussion apply in the case that you raised of the advisory councils and committees, whose deliberations are closed forever, it seems? Is there a balance between the openness and the honesty of the deliberations? Could you comment on that?
MR. SHIINA: Yes, to strike a balance is indeed very important as you say. But the problem with Japan is much more something primitive. Let's say everything is behind the curtains, behind the closed doors, so this is the problem we have in Japan. For instance, when we have ten members of the committee, at the advisory council, who are selected. That is to say, each different government ministry, they have come up with nominations of recommendations, so they have their own reasons to do for selection.
For instance, in Japan we talk of "letting off the steam," so to speak. We have two members for letting off the steam, so to speak, on-board and these five will be the leaders of the discussion, for instance. Those are the kind of reasoning behind the selection of the members, but that is not recorded. Everything goes on without being recorded or documented.
So we should start with that particular point of selection of the members, because even there the intention is clear. I believe in the United States I believe everything is made public. But in Japan everything is closed. We do not know of how they are being selected, for instance. Now, if we open up one hundred percent the discussion of the deliberation, of course, depending on the matter there may be some problems. But for us the problem is by closing the doors, by having the deliberation in camera. Of course, things will differ a degree from ministry to ministry, but even the direction of the discussion will be steered by the officials. And when the paper is presented, such as the item of agenda, for instance, the talking point, for instance, then it will sort of deliberately point to the direction they would like to lead, and the discussion will go along that. Or, perhaps, certain views of the members will be withdrawn immediately. So I think to make everything open would be more beneficial in the case of Japan. That was what I wanted to point out.
Another thing I also found interesting that you talked about earlier was electronic information. I believe electronic information, electronically processed information is very important for Japan. Because, in Japan, people don't like to record in documents, or record something in writing. I, myself, for six years have served as the chairman for one policy group, and I was immersed, if I may say so -- as Mr. Fukukawa has suggested, in that process. Everything is whispered. That is to say, in just five lines, for the top people -- your boss -- you whisper in their ears. And then everything will be decided there. Not preparing papers or documents - whispering is very important.
For instance, there are certain people who give major speeches at the sub-committees, for instance, but this is just for letting off steam purpose. They make grand theatrics, so to speak. For their speeches to be sort of advertised to the public, but for everything important, everything is whispered. But in order to do away with that, I believe you need computerization to write down something into computers. That, I think, is the custom and practice we need in Japan.
There are people who like the screens more. And nowadays the younger generation especially do not like to read the printed letters. But as a sort of custom and practice, to write down something in the form of notes or memos is the kind of practice that we need, because whispers don't remain long. Because everybody would not be able to know why a certain person would have changed one hundred and eighty degrees overnight their position. This is because of whispering, so we need to do away with such strange practices.
I may have said something inconsequential, but thank you.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Professor Johnson, please.
PROFESSOR JOHNSON: Mr. Shiina said that everything was open in the United States and closed in Japan. I'd like to quickly say that's not true. There's a lot of things in the United States that are quite severely closed. It seems to me that recent incidents have drawn attention to how utterly central this issue is to the functioning of democracy. Among the biggest incidents in American politics right now are, for example, the revelations by the former Secretary of Defense, Robert MacNamara, during the Vietnam War, that he was wrong, he had misled the public, leading to a potentially revolutionary situation in the United States [in the 1960s]. And that this is a really intense debate.
It seems to me, similarly, the revolution referred to by my colleagues of the misuse of atomic testing in the 1950s, and the indifference of the government to the health of American citizens -- also, as many of you know here from the Fukuryu Maru [Lucky Dragon] case, [to the health of] some Japanese citizens. Many issues concerned with the evaluation of the USSR, and our growing belief that the Cold War was prolonged much much later than it probably needed to have been because of domestic interest in the military industrial complex.
All I would really like to add here, it seemed to me one major point of difference between Japan and the United States is that freedom of information acts are very important, but I would still want to go further and say that in terms of comparative politics, the enormous importance of the free press, - above all, the functions of the free press are to expose the pretensions and potential illegalities of the state. And it does seem to me that whereas our press in America can quite easily be suborned by political power, and often is, in Japan we have a real problem in the issue of the press clubs, and of the seeming control of the press by the people they're supposed to report on.
I'm thinking simply of a case well known to me. The bureau chief here of the Los Angeles Times commented on the case in which the U.S. ambassador, Mr. Reischauer, was stabbed in Tokyo, and he couldn't obtain admission to the press conference where this was being discussed, because he wasn't a member of the press club. Now, we know that in Japan there are ways around this. That's the whole function of shookai zasshi [?], and magazines, and things of this sort. But I think that this is an area of -- that is, we need continued attention to allow the press to play its function of informing the public as reasonably as it can about what its government is doing, and allow it to make up its own mind as to whether it is pleased with those.
My reason for raising earlier the CIA is that whatever one may think of American policy toward Japan during the Cold War, assuredly it was not a democratic policy. The American public did not know anything about it. It was hidden from us, and it's only today slowly being revealed, both in the case of Italy and of Japan.
So I think that one of the things I'd like to hear from Professor Iio, for example, is what do you think about the role of the press in Japan, as an agency for holding the government responsible?
MR. SHIINA: I would like to make one correction. I'm not thinking that everything is open in the United States, but the option is there, to make it public or not. The option is there. That is what I wanted to emphasize. Because the problem with Japan is you would like to open up, but there is nothing to be opened up. No memos, nothing in writing. That is the problem with Japan. That is the big difference between Japan and the U.S. I believe that is the problem for Japan. Mr. Iio, please.
PROFESSOR JUN IIO: I think this is a very important issue, that is to say the press issue, and so it may be rather difficult to respond for my side. But I would like to talk about three or two points.
From a standpoint of the freedom of information, by controlling the press, that is to say that even if the information is provided to the press, that information is not communicated to the general public. That is to say, the press is the friend of the government officials. But on the other hand as I have mentioned, and also as Mr. Shina mentioned, it is true that the Japanese people do not prepare documents in their policy-making process. And so probably the information and the documents submitted to the press might be o f some reference. It might be of some help. But judging from the mainstay of the discussion on the press, the press club, I think that this stands in the way of the freedom of information, that's for sure, and so along the movement toward the freedom of information, the press club system in Japan would have to be rectified. But what's the most important problem behind all of this is that in Japan the parliamentary government system is employed, and as was mentioned earlier, first of all, the government is accountable to the politicians first of all, in the first place. And also the government is responsible for the general public through politicians. But as was pointed out by Mr. Shina, the problem with the press club is that for the politicians the information is not disclosed, even. That is to say, the press can be controlled because there is no binding power, and so I think it's very important for politicians to pursue information. And I think that politicians are eligible to request information, of course, and so even if press club is controlled to a certain extent, the information available in the part of the Diet might be different, and also every entity should have the right to request freedom of information, be it politicians or be it press.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Thank you. Anyone else? Mr. Sloan, please.
MR. SLOAN: I just wanted to make a point that these issues about the rules for access to government information always involve difficult questions of drawing lines. Even if you agree on the principle, how the balance should be struck is a very difficult process, and many different factors and different opinions enter into the process. When I was describing the executive orders before, especially the second broader executive order, it was the result of a long process with great discussion about where lines should be drawn. It ends up as an executive order issued by the President, but it was effected not only by a debate within the government, but by a public debate about those issues, including the National Security Archive, and I think that an organization like the National Security Archive is very important and very helpful in focusing attention on these issues. And also including a great deal of attention by the press.
And Congress frequently enters into these discussions, not only through statutes, but also through the process of hearings, through the process of particular interests of individual congressmen and senators. And there are not magic answers. The Executive Order that was issued, which goes very far in the direction of disclosure was welcomed by many in the press, but many in the press also thought that it did not go far enough. There were others in the press and other commentators who would have drawn the line differently and maybe not gone as far as it did. So there are no magic nswers with these. It's always a question of a difficult process of drawing lines and reaching judgments.
But one point in talking about the role of Congress and the secrecy of the advisory council, one question that I wanted to raise, and maybe this relates to the parliamentary system that Professor Iio was just raising, is whether in the Diet there is an opportunity to have government officials come forward and to ask them questions about the types of issues that you are raising, because in the American system the opportunity for Congressional committees to hold hearings and ask government officials for their positions and obtain information through the Congressional process, is a very important instrument of access to public information, and I'm wondering whether that is possible in the diet, as well.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Professor Iio, please.
PROFESSOR IIO: Well, in the case of the government, in each of the committees, what we call the government committee members are there -- that is to say, the ministers, and also the Director General of the bureaus, and so forth, and all of these people are the information sources for various information. But that's in the frame of the committee deliberations, not in the form of the public hearing. And, of course, anybody can attend that kind of deliberations.
And so, in this respect it is not called the public hearing like the one in the United States, but it is open to gallery, and so, in this forum, the Diet-men can receive information from the government officials. But is it really effective enough? And as to the details of the contents of the information derived in this approach, I'm not sure whether that's enough or not.
And in the case of the delicate and subtle problems, and subtle issues, probably the government officials would like to avoid the kind of subtle problems and delicate problems in that kind of forum. So I'm not sure to what extent this kind of forum would be effective for the freedom of information. I think it all depends on the contents of the questions, of the questioner, how adequate the question is or not.
And also the government officials are providing replies, but on the other hand, the government officials are not allowed to ask questions to the general public. And so this is a one-way communication, and so in this respect probably the quality of the deliberation is not sufficient and is not satisfactory. And so in the course of the committee deliberations, of course it is possible to get information from government officials, but of course it all depends on the adequacy and sufficiency of the questions to be raised. And also another problem that I would like to mention is that it is just one-way communication, not two ways.
MR. SHIINA[?]: If I may add one word, yes, those are the two problems as mentioned by Mr. Fukukawa. Those problems do exist.
Now, to ask questions of the government, on the previous day, the list of questions are asked to be submitted, are required to be submitted. This is a procedure we have to go through. And if the questions are embarrassing for the officials, they ask us to withdraw such questions. There are very strict censure, if I may say so, of the government officials. And the politicians tend to withdraw, if they are asked to do so, their questions. So to formulate the questions, the ability on the part of the politicians are rather poor, if I may say so. So that is one brake put on the politicians, and the other is that there will be stop coming from the government officials. So the question then becomes blurred, so the truth does not come out of the questioning on the floor.
I would like to add one more point, that is, why is it so? It may sound very paradoxical, but in the Japanese Diet, governmental officials and politicians -- the meaning and significance of the responses coming from the government officials is that disclosure of information and -- well, as a matter of fact it is not for the sake of disclosure of information, it is not for the better understanding of the Diet men, but in fact the consistency in terms of the government position, that is to say, the government officials think that they shouldn't make mistakes. And so if you try to avoid any mistake, the best way is to express your opinions in a very vague way. And also, as in cases they might say that it's not decided yet, it's not finalized yet, and so I cannot give you any specific answers, something like that.
I think that the problem with the Japanese freedom of information in this regard is that even if it's in the interim process of deliberations, the government officials should disclose that kind of interim information. But according to the long-standing Japanese practices, that is not the case in Japan.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Okay, Mr. Fukukawa.
MR. FUKUKAWA: I would like to ask this question to Mr. Sloan. While in the deliberations, be it committee or advisory council, who says what? There are some cases where that kind of information would be better made public, but also there are those cases where if the deliberations are made public, then the people would not make honest statements. And in Japan, also, suppose a president of a shop or supermarket says that the liberalization of rice [imports] would not be a good idea. And then the Japanese people might go into boycott. And if the name of the president is actually disclosed in that information, then he wouldn't say that in the committee deliberation.
And there is another issue related with the large retail store law. Whether that is to be approved or not, and for the deliberations on this issue, who actually said yes for this law, and who actually said no to this law, and if the kind of information is disclosed to the public, and then probably there will be much pressure exerted upon the committee members outside of the floor of the deliberations. And in order to secure impartial and fair deliberations, probably in some cases it may not be a good idea to disclose the information as to who said what, and so on.
So in this respect, how to make rules and so on, there is a reference to that effect, and what kind of information is to be published, and what kind of information should be kept confidential? And concerning this issue I would like you to make a comment on the American situation based on your experiences, please.
MR. SLOAN: Certainly. I'd like to make a couple of comments about that. There are some clear rules about that in many instances right now, and there is also an active debate about whether additional rules are necessary.
In terms of the rules that come to mind that are in effect now -- as I mentioned in my talk, the notice and comment procedure requires that when the government is going to take an action, issue a rule in many instances, it has to publish the proposed rule, and then there is an opportunity for public comment, and then the government agency has an obligation to respond to those comments and to address them, and to say why it either finds them persuasive or not, and if somebody doesn't like the rule, they can challenge it in court, and one of the things that the court will review is whether the government agency was reasonable in the extent to which it took into account those factors. The court will defer to the agency to some extent, but it will look at that.
And in that system of public comment, the identity of the commentor is fully public. It's on the record, it's part of the administrative record. And trade associations regularly issue extensive comments, individual corporations regularly issue extensive comments, labor unions, public interest groups, it's very very common, and in fact it's expected that if a rule is going to effect an industry or a corporation, it will, as part of the notice and comment process, put in public comments and the government agency has to take those into account. So in that sense it's part of the existing system.
Now that's the formal process, and one area where there's currently a debate is whether additional laws are necessary for disclosure on lobbying with the Executive Branch. Disclosure on individual companies, or trade associations, or any other interest, hiring people to try to informally talk to people in the government and achieve a change in policy that way. And there is lobbying reform legislation, which has been in Congress, and which has been stalled. President Clinton has supported it, it's an active issue of political controversy, whether and when it is going to be passed. So in that sense it's a very live issue, whether additional rules are necessary.
PROFESSOR IGARASHI: Thank you very much. Anyone else? Well, we originally intended to receive questions from the floor, but because of my inadept chairmanship we have come to the time to close this session. But we do have ample time during this afternoon today, so after the afternoon presentations are over, I believe we can take some time for discussions with the floor. During that time you will be welcome to refer to the points which were referred to this morning, if you like, and ask questions.
We would like to close the morning session at this time, but lastly I would like to thank the panelists by giving them a warm round of applause. Thank you.
MODERATOR: We would like to start the afternoon session. May I ask Professor Iokibe to chair, please.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you for the kind introduction. During the morning session we had a very active and lively discussion. Following the morning session we will continue to talk on the public access to government information. The theme for the afternoon session is the Obstacles to Reform and Proposed Agenda for Change. To have more in-depth discussion on the problems, and how we should put forward the vision for the future, this is what we need to discuss this afternoon.
I, myself, on the question of public access to government information, as an academician, I am benefitting from access to government information, especially when I went to the United States, where the public access to information is fairly advanced. Up until then, I had to interview the survivors of historic importance, and to receive the relevant information from them, but when for the first time I went to the National Archive in Washington, I was indeed amazed and surprised to find that there was absolutely no discrimination. Whoever you were, you were able to have access to such an enormous amount of information. And I was amazed by it, and I was very delighted to see this. And I have benefited much as an academician and scholar. And we have minutes at the [academic?] societies, and at a meeting you tried to first of all introduce the past minutes, and then give the conclusions of what was decided in the past. Now the persons who have been in charge of the particular debate and problem, the minutes start with memos and notes, and it's been typed up and been changed into the formal documents, you can really look into the whole process. Starting with the private notes, up until the formal minutes and conclusions and documents.
So ever since then I've frequently visited the United States to retrieve the necessary information and documents in the United States. And my friend always tell me, "It's good for you to come over here, and it's nice to see you again, but why can't you find the relevant material in Japan?" was always the question asked me by my American friends. It is not easy for us to try to make improvements in the process in Japan, but even though it is a very slow pace, we have been able to put one step forward towards expanded public access to government information. So in that regard I believe that it is indeed significant and opportune that we are able to have this conference at this time. I very much hope that as we go towards the end of the public access, and expanded public access to government information that would, I hope, be conducive to Japanese society.
Without further ado, allow me to introduce the three speakers and three discussants who are up on the stage. From your right, on the right hand most side is Dr. Wampler. He is from the National Security Archive in Washington. This is a private sector organization by which the government information is released and opened to the public. The National Security Archive is in charge of that.
Seated next to him is Professor Melvyn Leffler, who teaches the history of foreign affairs at the University of Virginia. The history of foreign affairs during the Truman era, as well as national security policy and so forth is his specialty.
Seated next to him is Professor Iriye from Harvard University. Not only bilateral questions of U.S. and Japan, but other countries as well, and not only the power structure but cultural aspects are also encompassed in his study. So he is studying a broad range in areas, and he is a leader in the study of Japanese foreign affairs.
And the fourth person seated up on the stage is Mr. Tazuaki Tanaka, the Director General of the Management Coordination Agency. He is trying to think of ways how to proceed with more public access to government information. He is the Executive Director of the Administrative Reform Committee, so he is at the front line of this effort.
And Mr. Koichi Yotsuya is seated on this side of the table, the person seated third from the end. He is the Manager for Declassification Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This Declassification Section, if I may dare to say so, is about the only organization amongst all the Japanese government organizations who is properly opening up information to the public. So he is in charge of that section.
An seated next to him is Professor Takashi Mikuriya of Tokyo Metropolitan University, of the Law School. Japanese political history is his specialty, and he is one of the opinion leaders in the academic society, as well as in the many journals. He is my colleague, if I may say so. On the questions related to both the administration as well as the legislation of politics, he is well versed in those matters.
And seated to the furthermost is Mr. Hiroshi Miyake. He is a lawyer. As a practicing lawyer he is very active in the question of the public access, especially on medical matters. He specializes in the matters of medical aspects on the public access to public information.
These are the seven people up on the stage that we will have for the panel discussion. ... May I now first of all call upon Dr. Wampler. How in the United States the public access to government information is being established and implemented, and how it is being utilized. Dr. Wampler, please.
DR. ROBERT WAMPLER: Today what I would like to discuss is to describe briefly the organization the National Security Archive's Special Documentation Project on U.S.-Japanese relations since 1960. I hope that in the course of these remarks I will be able to provide you with a clear understanding of the manner in which a project such as this makes use of the archival and declassification resources available in the United States for researching the history of American foreign policy.
This project has its roots in a desire to provide a more comprehensive documentary database for scholars, journalists, and other researchers who wish to study the history of official U.S. policies toward and relations with Japan over the past three-and-a-half decades. The 1980s saw growing public and scholarly interest in U.S.-Japanese relations, marked as these years were by the re-invigoration of the security relationship under Reagan and Nakasone, as well as by deepening trade tensions. These years witnessed the breakdown in the traditional seperation of security and economic issues in U.S. policy making and political debate, as seen in the FSX dispute and other high-technology issues such as semi-conductors. In the United States, concerns about the balance of responsibilities and the security relationship, worries over the future of American international competitiveness in high-technology fields, the festering disagreements over the persistant U.S. trade deficit with Japan, all worked to drive U.S.-Japanese relations to the forefront of public debate.
Accusations that the U.S. government was, in effect, assisting a key economic competitor in the name of sustaining a security alliance whose rationale was put in doubt by end of the Cold War, indicated the strains produced by these issues, all of which served to heighten public interest in this key, bilateral relationship. A body of scholarly analysis emerged, christened "revisionist" by some, which argued on the basis of close study of the organizational, bureaucratic, historical and cultural workings of the Japanese state that the U.S. government and American academics have long misunderstood the essential nature and structures of politics and economics in Japan, to the detriment of clear policy making in the United States.
Guided by the belief that scholarly analysis and public debate can only be enriched by greater access to official records which document the course of U.S. policy making regarding Japan, the National Security Archive in 1993 began its U.S.-Japan Special Documentation Project. It is designed to fill a critical gap in the empirical database for those interested in studying the history of the relationship in order to better understand its evolution over time, the roots of its continued existence, and the nature of the persistent misunderstandings and disagreements which grew to such prominence over the past fifteen years.
By necessity, the focus is on U.S. records, and thus on the making of U.S. policy toward Japan. This is admittedly only one-half of the story, a point I will return to later. For now, I want to outline the basic elements of the U.S.-Japan Project's efforts to locate and secure declassification of key official records, in the process showing how the Project makes use of, and in fact depends upon, the presence of important archival and declassification laws and regulations in the U.S.
In the U.S., the process of systematic review and declassification of U.S. diplomatic records held by the State Department has now reached the early 1960s while access to military records continues to lag somewhat behind. And the records of other relevant government agencies, such as Treasury, Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative, are in varying states of declassification.
The records of one key agency has already been discussed today, the CIA. We're only now beginning to see some selective declassification, though there are still major and extensive gaps in the open record of this critical agency which has particular bearing for those wishing to study and understand the development of U.S.-Japanese political relations in the post-war period.
As I began to organize the project, a first priority was to establish what was available among the declassified official U.S. records. This required extensive research in the U.S. National Archives located in Washington, D.C. and College Park, Maryland, where one can find the major archival collections of U.S. federal agencies. Here I was able to examine and collect copies of State Department records dating up through 1963 and Defense Department records, primarily the records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, up through 1962. In addition to the National Archives, I was able to examine records held at the Presidential Libraries for Presidents Eisenhower through Carter.
In each of these places, there are finding aides to the available records which facilitate research. Based upon work in these archival collections, the Project was able to collect the most important documents already declassified. The range of subjects is broad, including documents on the revision of the U.S.-Japanese Security Treaty and the ensuing political crisis in Japan in 1960; political, diplomatic and military relations during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations; emerging economic and trade tensions in the 1960s and 70s; trade negotiations in the early 1980s, and planning memoranda for the Reagan/Nakasone Summit Meeting in 1987.
As I will discuss in a moment, in the booklet you received, you will see examples of some of the documents which the Project has gathered along with some other interesting and important documents, one of which comes from the former Soviet Archives. These documents give you a good sense of the detailed information which is available in these records once you are able to locate them and secure their declassification.
Of course, not all of these records have been declassified. There are a still a large body of classified material which makes up the target of the U.S./Japan declassification effort. Fortunately, there is available information of varying degrees of specificity indicating the nature of the still classified material. In some cases, you can determine the titles, dates, addressees and authors of letters, cables, memoranda, reports, etc. with indication of the folders, boxes and collections in which they are found. This is the basic information which is needed in order to file a declassification request under the Freedom of Information Act to secure review and, it is hoped, release of these documents. In the Presidential Libraries, this information is found on withdrawal sheets in the various collections. Similar withdrawal cards can be found in the State Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff Records.
The existence of these withdrawal cards required by the existing archival rules and regulations is critical to permitting researchers to obtain a clear grasp of the extent and nature of the still classified material held in these archives. Using this information, a scholar in the United States can file a Mandatory Declassification Review request for closed materials found in the presidential libraries or a Freedom of Information Act request for such items held in the National Archives. As I will discuss in a moment, this is but the start of what can be a protracted process. Declassification is neither quick nor assured. But there are laws and procedures in place to regulate the review process which provide the scholar with important tools in his or her effort to secure access to these records.
So, to summarize, we have covered one primary component of the U.S.-Japan Project's declassification effort. Surveying the available records found in the U.S. National Archives and Presidential Library System to collect the important declassified records and secure the available information on still closed records necessary for the declassification requests.
A second and equally important resource is provided by a legislative requirement that all federal agencies collect for storage and eventual transfer to the National Archives, all records deemed of historical importance and thus requiring permanent retention. Before being transferred to the National Archives at a set date in the future, these records are gathered into what are called accessions for storage at the various National Record Center facilities around Washington, D.C. An inventory of the contents of the accessions is placed on file at the main Federal Records Center offices in Suitland, Maryland where they are filed according to record number and are available for examination by the public.
These inventories vary in detail, ranging from one page descriptions of the contents to lengthy box, file, and even individual document listings for some Pentagon records. As you might expect, these record group accession inventories are an invaluable source of information on the existence of still classified records. Early on, I spent considerable time examining such record inventories for documents stored by the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury and Commerce as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Using this information, I'm able to prepare a very detailed Freedom of Information Act Request providing specific information on the existence and location of the relevant records, requesting review and declassification of these documents. On the basis of these inventories, I've placed FOIA requests for documents dealing with the full range of U.S. Japanese diplomatic, security and economic relations since 1960. For example, these requests include specific records dealing with the issue of nuclear weapons in Okinawa, trade negotiations in the 1970s and 1980s, the FSX negotiations, and preparations for U.S.-Japanese Summit Meetings. There have already been notable successes in securing the declassification of records. Early in 1994, the Department of Commerce released hundreds of pages of documents relating to U.S.-Japanese trade relations and negotiations during the Reagan Administration.
The Departments of Treasury and Agriculture have also released numerous documents on this subject including reports and memoranda of conversation on high level trade talks. The Project has also secured documents dealing with U.S.-Japanese international economic relations during the Johnson and Nixon Administrations; high level, political diplomatic and military talks during the Johnson years; negotiations over Okinawa reversion in 1969 to 1971 under Nixon, and with relations during the Ford and Carter Administrations.
Now, you've received a copy of this booklet which has some selected documents already secured by the Project. As you can see in this booklet, the first five declassified documents are briefing memoranda prepared for the Reagan/Nakasone Summit in 1987. The first document is Secretary Shultz's memo to President Reagan outlining the basic issues and objectives for the summit meetings. It discusses the trade and other economic strains effecting the relationship, Japan's anticipated goals for the summit, and the desired results as seen from the U.S. side. The following four documents sent to Secretary Shultz by Gaston Seger, the senior East Asian policy advisor in Shultz's office, provide greater detail on all of these subjects surveying the full scope of U.S. Japanese relations in the diplomatic, defense and economic fields. In particular, they discuss Japanese proposals to address the economic and trade problems straining the relationship. The next four documents provide detailed information on the U.S.-Japan Structural Adjustment economic and trade talks in 1986/87. These documents, two memoranda and two cables, discuss the exchange of views and positions at the first three meetings as well as the planning meeting in San Francisco in August 1986 to establish the agenda for discussion. These are fascinating and important windows into these negotiations on persistent trade and economic problems.
Statements of Japanese officials such as Deputy Foreign Minister Kitamura, Ministry of Finance Vice Minister Gyota and Miti Vice Minister Kuroda are reported in detail as the two sides argue about what should or should not be part of these discussions. The next document is an excerpt from a CIA intelligence memorandum dated May of 1969 on the effectiveness of reform of import and investment controls by Japan. As the summary and the prospects section reveal, U.S. concern and pessimism over Japanese economic and trade reform has a long and venerable history.
Following the CIA memorandum is a fascinating memorandum of a conversation Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, at this point still National Security Advisor, had, with Mao Tse-Tung and Chou En-Lai in February of 1973. I believe the Yomiuri Shimbun published this document in Japanese last year. The discussion ranges from matters of high geopolitical issues, analyses of the situation in Europe, Russia and Asia to the problems Mao saw China facing due to its overabundance of young women and talk about transferring these to America.
The next document is a September 1974 study memorandum by Kissinger outlining the issues facing the United States as it reviewed Japan policy in preparation for Nixon's trip to Japan, which did not occur because of Watergate. The Archive is attempting to secure declassification of the studies which were called for in this memorandum. Following this NSC memorandum is an original Russian and English translation of a document from the former Soviet Archives which is a hotline message from Carter to Brezhnev on the problems arising out of the discovery of Soviet troops in Cuba and the Salt II arms control negotiations.
The last document is a very recent release. It's an offprint of a photograph just released by the CIA in February of this year taken from a formerly secret project called Corona which was a reconnaisance satellite project providing overflights of the Soviet Union and many other parts of the globe between 1960 and 1972. This particular picture reveals major shrinkage in the area of the Aral Sea between 1962 and 1994 due to Russian irrigation projects.
Finally, the Project is filing FOIA requests which are of the more normal type seeking to secure declassification of documents from relevant agencies dealing with specific meetings, events or issues. But without detailed information as to the existence and location of these records, these requests are based upon ongoing work in another part of the Project which aims to compile a detailed chronology of U.S. Japanese relations since 1960. This chronology is based initially upon public information as is found in newspapers, memoirs and scholarly writings. It will be constantly revised and updated as new information becomes available from declassified documents. Using this information, the project is seeking records, documenting every high level official meeting or negotiation between the U.S. and Japan as well as high level policy studies and recommendations regarding all significant areas of U.S.-Japanese relations. The FOIA requests draw upon the chronologies to provide specific information as to dates, officials involved and subject matter, all of which help the relevant U.S. departments and agencies carry out the search for the records.
Pursuing such a research strategy, the Archive's U.S. Japan Project is designed to leave no stone unturned in its efforts to locate and secure declassification of key documents bearing upon U.S.-Japanese relations. This, however, is but the start of a long process as I noted earlier. Given the immense number of FOIA requests which agencies such as the State Department or the Pentagon receive each day, it can be as long as two years or more before the records requested are located, reviewed and a decision made on their release. Release can be in full, in part, or be totally denied. In the event of a full or partial denial, then I must prepare an appeal based upon all information available about the records in question, making the case for a new review of a document at higher levels within the agency and declassification of the records.
In preparing such appeals, it is essential to buttress general arguments about the public's right to know and its interest in the records under review with more specific information regarding what is already public knowledge on this subject, often as a result of other documents declassified by the government. In making the case for a new review and release of the documents, the appeal must address the specific reasons which the agency cited as authorization for refusing declassification. These are most often an assertion that release would damage U.S. national security, or that the information was received from a foreign government. As has been discussed already, President Clinton's new Executive Order has authorized some important changes in the guidelines for review and declassification. Only time will tell what substantive effect this will have upon the foyer process.
As I've sought to show in my remarks, the work of the National Security Archive and of its U.S.-Japan Project rely fundamentally on the existence of legislation and procedures which provide essential tools and support for the location of classified records, requesting their declassification, and appealing any decisions to deny release of the records. The Freedom of Information Act or the Mandatory Declassification Review Act and its counterpart, the Presidential Records Act, would fall even farther short of their designated objective without the existence of rules mandating the collection and preservation of federal records for eventual transfer to the U.S. National Archives or the provisions guiding the operations of the Presidential Libraries. Without these legislative and legal assurances there would be no guarantee that important, official records of historical significance would be preserved, and no way to determine with any degree of precision the nature and extent of the classified records in existence.
Still, important and critical though these U.S. policies and procedures are, for the person wanting to obtain access to official records documenting the course and nature of U.S. Japanese relations, the documents alone are not sufficient to provide the understanding being sought. For this reason, the U.S.-Japan Project plans to pursue a program of oral history interviews with former U.S. officials who played key roles in the relationship working from a design which has proven quite productive in studying other key historical issues and events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis or U.S.-Soviet relations during the Carter presidency.
The project will work to bring together these former officials with scholars to discuss, in light of the new information found in the newly declassified documents, the issues and events around which these officials careers and the documents revolved. The objective is to have this interchange among scholars, officials and documents initiate an ongoing process of exchange of views and information which will establish an agenda of questions and research which will produce, in the end, scholarly works integrating these different sources of information into a new analysis of critical periods, issues and events in U.S./Japanese relations over the past 35 years. We now plan that the first such effort will focus on the impact upon the relationship of the Nixon "Shokku" in the early 1970s.
There is yet another missing element to this effort, which brings me to why we are meeting here today. Any analysis based solely or primarily upon American sources is by definition, one-sided. We can determine what American policy makers and elected officials wrote, debated or decided, or secure records of their meetings with their Japanese counterparts which give the American version of these meetings. But to obtain a fully rounded picture of the history of the relationship, we must know more about policy making and the role of key officials on the Japanese side. In the United States, historical work on the Cold War has gone through substantial revisions as new records become available not just in the U.S., but in the archives of its allies and now of its Cold War adversary, the former Soviet Union.
So, it is essential for those interested in understanding the history of U.S. Japanese relations that there be access to corresponding official records of such obvious historical importance in Japan. And we've just heard from Professor Iio of the difficulties which stand in the way of this. Still, only in this way can scholars, journalists and the public in each country grasp the manner in which each country understood or thought it understood the policies and actions of the other, how each government debated and decided policy questions regarding the other, and the manner in which our respective leaders and officials have interacted, cooperated or disagreed in the pursuit of these policies.
It is clear from historical studies on U.S. relations with other countries that once research is carried out in the archives of those countries, in many cases what the U.S. thought it was doing was not the same thing as it was perceived as doing in those other governments. The workings of the various ministries and agencies who had to deal with the U.S. must be fully researched and analyzed to obtain a more complete picture of the full range, levels and linkages which comprise official relations between the two nations. To this end, the efforts of the National Security Archive to document the making of U.S. policy towards Japan needs corresponding efforts within Japan to examine and analyze the making of Japanese policy towards the U.S. based upon the documentary record of the agencies responsible for conducting the relationship.
And, as with the U.S.-Japan project, such documentary research must be combined with oral history efforts to draw upon and make available for posterity the experiences and knowledge of key Japanese officials in these ministries and agencies. And again, following from the remarks by Professor Iio, it seems that these former officials may be the primary source of institutional memory and knowledge about the activities and decisions of these agencies until reforms are carried out in terms of document creation and preservation within Japan.
Such an effort admittedly seems broad-reaching and even audacious in its aspirations, but it's only through such complimentary efforts in the U.S. and Japan that we can come to a better understanding of the history and workings of the relationship in all its guises. Such understanding is essential not only for the advancement of our scholarly understanding, but as we discussed this morning, in the final analysis, it's essential for the broader goal of ensuring government accountability to the people it serves and public support for the policies that governments pursue.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much, Dr. Wampler. Yes, magnificent, I would say so. Under the thirty years rule, the doors will be open but this is something that goes far beyond the fact, say, back in the 1970's, the Nixon shock and the 1980's, Japan-U.S. bilateral talks. Everything seems to be encompassed and the information will be provided. So you are making the endeavors and I would like to thank you for that. So that is what is happening in the U.S. Now, we would like to hear from Japan -- what is happening now in this country. First of all, Mr. Yotsuya of Foreign Ministry, I would like to ask you to speak. As I have introduced him earlier on, of all the Japanese government agencies and administrations, the Foreign Ministry is the only ministry who is properly discharging its responsibility based upon set rules for disclosure of information and Mr. Yotsuya is the person in charge for that.
MR. KOICHI YOTSUYA: I rather find myself in a difficult position after having to follow Mr. Wampler. In the middle of June, except for Hokaido, from Okinawa to the northeastern part of Japan, the meteorological agencies said we had entered into seemingly a rainy season. So, it's rather a humid and uncomfortable season that we are in and maybe what I'm going to tell you will be like rainy weather in Japan at this time of the year with much humidity.
Well, for the general public to accurately understand the history and also to assist the understanding amongst the researchers, the disclosure system of record is a significant system within the administration. It is not only just a public service provided to general public and it is not just a benefit that is being accorded from the authority to general public in a condescending manner. It is not so. For the administration to take the position of making information available to the public is the attitude that administrators have to take.
Well, we tend to be so defensive about our position that we have a tendency not to create any controversy or trouble and this has been the long-standing perception of what the administrations are. But this negative type of fixed preconception should be dispelled and at least as far as Ministry of Foreign Affairs are concerned, I hope you will more or less have, instead, a positive view on our Ministry. I hope this will enable you to do so.
The administrative reform council was established for disclosing the information. Of course, many swings and turns are expected before the formation of this policy. But, at least, a trend has been started.
Professor Iokibe had given our Ministry his compliment. Because of our prescient predecessors, just twenty years ago exactly we took the lead amongst other ministries and based on our voluntary decision on the part of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, we have been voluntarily dealing with the issue of the declassification of the information. It seems -- it sounds like a commercial, but our attitude is to be with the general public as far as our administration within the Foreign Ministries are concerned. With regard to making public the post war records -- ever since May 1976, the twelve times the [inaudible] information has been made public. In terms of the pages opened up documents amongst about 430 thousand pages in total.
As was mentioned before, with regard to the diplomatic records, in principle, there is a 30-year rule that if it passes 30 years -- and except for the situation where the grave national interest is impaired or serious infringement of the individual privacies involved, then accordingly by and by the declassification of the this information has been conducted. And there are three tests to see whether the grave national interest is being impaired or not in terms of category.
Should I call this a national interest? Or the concept of the national interest, should I say? Literally speaking, this is the interest we pursue by state -- the state is equivalent to the policy decision makers. Depending on how you look at this, the viewpoint will be different, but the Foreign Ministry is of a view that the three following criteria should be applied for impairment of the national interest. The safety and the security of the countries being impaired or threatened to be impaired and the second is what about the possible impairment of our external relations and the countries that we have external relations with. And the third is whether the interest involved in the negotiation will be impaired or not. Or negative benefit is likely to arise as a result of the disclosure of that information to the negotiation. So those are the three tests that are conducted before deciding on whether the declassification of these would constitute impairment of the national interest or not. I have mentioned the case of the grave national interest being impaired or there are certain cases where serious infringement of individual privacies are at issue. So, except for those cases, by and by, gradually, the information ought to be declassified after the passage of 30 years. And in Roppongi and in Kamiyacho, in between those areas, there is a place called [inaudible] where we have an external affairs-related documentation archive where the public can come in have access to the information. Of course, the consideration is to make the minimum necessary exceptional cases which will not be subject to opening up of the information. Well, this is a practice firmly established within our Ministry for the past twenty years, and the due evaluation of the matter has been given by society. And as far as we are concerned, the Foreign Ministry, I would like to live up to this policy, not withdrawing from it or retreating from it in the future.
With regard to the disclosure of diplomatic records by our Ministry, I know that criticisms and views are being expressed. There are increasing number of exemptions from the disclosure and, according to Professor Igarashi, borrowing his words, he said that there are some arbitrary disclosures made or sometimes the Foreign Ministry has taken the attitude to hide some of the information to maintain their credibility and so forth. So, in that vein, criticisms have been voiced over our policy and what we had done in the past. But we would like to face those opinions and views in good faith, squarely. Of course, within our Ministry with regard to the opening up of the record, there are some who are inactive or critical about this, it's true. But in general, those are the minority view as you say. So that the majority of the people within the Ministry are supportive of what we are doing.
In disclosing the records, the past diplomatic negotiation of the Foreign Ministry will be revealed. That might invite some criticism and so forth, I know, but it a case of myself as well, but a diplomatic critic by the name of Mr. Miyagi[?], former ambassador to Singapore. He said that there's no victory in diplomacy. So borrowing his words, I can say that perhaps it is all right anyway to see the negative impact arising from the opening up of the information, because if you look at the international economy as you can see very well, it is just like a game of Mah Jong, so there are winners and losers at the same time. If someone wins, then some other party will be losing. So, it's not always the case that we can be the winner. If we are a winner all the time, then we might be causing some sacrifices on the part of other game players sitting at the same table.
So those are the negative impacts that can be felt. But those negative incidences are very rare in their occurrence. Maybe I sound as if I am self-serving, but in general I think it's fair to say that more or less the progress made in post war Japanese diplomacy was done in a rightful way. Not many mistakes.
Now, what about the observance of the 30-year rule for disclosing the information. There are some who say we have not been abiding this rule faithfully. I would like to say the following. Of course, we are seeing an increasing number of diplomatic records year by year after we have recovered out independence. Well, the file is in this thickness and 6,000 to 7,000 volumes [files?] of records are coming out every year -- massive amounts of information. So, honestly speaking, for the past twenty years, we have disclosed information twelve times, but in terms of percentage what we have disclosed so far was always - not an accurate figure - but 4.5 percent or 5 percent of the total, so it's only 1/20th of the total volume of the information which has been disclosed so far. So there are massive amounts of information which have been accumulated which will be subject to disclosure based on the 30-year rule and there are people who are working on the declassification but there are only about less than 10 people working as declassifiers and on the other hand we have increasing number of documents to be disclosed and at the same time, careful examination will be needed and review of the documents is needed before disclosure. Physically speaking, the limit is almost there. We have almost attained the limit of what people can do in this regard with our manpower capacity. And I would like to share my personal view with you as to what can be done about this situation later.
But if I may deviate for a while, rights and obligation are the two sides of the coins. They are inseparable. Rights and obligations constitute the two sides of the coin which are inseparable so it is constituting one entity in the medieval times. The words only expressing about the rights/obligation respectively. I try to look into it in the ancient Greek period. There was a word called [inaudible] which expressed both the notion of the rights and obligations. In medieval times there was jus, which is a Latin word which also expressed at the same time, the rights and obligation -- not each one of the two, but two meanings always at the same time. So we are called public servants of the -- so the master of the public servants are the general public and public servants are to serve the general public. So you are the master, and the masters are instructing servants to serve something delicious, and within the budget of food given the servants will make their utmost efforts to come up with as delicious a dish as possible. But I don't like this. This is not unusual. Let's serve fugu, or blowfish, instead, a delicacy. Then the servants will say to the master, "Give us more money. Otherwise, I cannot go out to the market and buy the blowfish."
There was a German philosopher by the name of [inaudible] who talked about the characteristics of the modern man who said, "Mehr unt mehr" in German. In English it means "more and more". That characterizes the human personality and nature -- insatiable appetite so to speak or greed. "Mehr unt mehr". The general public might ask us to come up with that, but we have to have a budget first of all -- otherwise as a servant we cannot fulfill the instructions ordered by the general public master ... But I have mentioned to the history of information disclosure in Japan and this is a unique and very significant disclosure system that we have at our Ministry and it's not that we are standing idle without doing anything, but we have been very much proactive throughout the years. The drastic measures would be to, of course, increase the number of declassifiers up to maybe 50 or so. It will be good if we can achieve that. In France, they have 71 people working on the declassification, but in Japan, we only have about 10 people. So increasing of the number of people would be necessary. But small government is what people are calling for, so in that context it would be very difficult for us to increase the number because we do need to secure rather a large budget for this. So, if the disclosure of the information becomes a law, then perhaps there is a way to do something. But because of the tight budgetary situation, it's very hard to get the official from the Ministry of Finance give a positive response to our budgetary request. Of course, administrative reform should go on and continue as much as possible. And to decrease the number of government workers as well as parliamentary and so forth. I might be one of them, who knows, but -- sorry that I deviated from my main line of topic. But we have been rather reactive in dealing with the issue. That's the reality and that has been the realistic responses that our Ministry has been making in the main.
But from now on, I'll be sharing with you my personal viewpoint -- nothing to do with the Foreign Ministry, mind you. But if I may, I would like to present to you, say, two suggestions. It has not been authorized formally or anything, thus it's my own personal viewpoint, but I welcome your response to this later, perhaps, and reaction. It's my personal remarks, so I must put a large question mark as to whether this suggestion can be really implemented or not, but having said that may I just share with you my view for the possible solution to the issue.
First is narrowing down and focusing more narrowly on the information to be disclosed. As I said to you before, we have a number of constraints. And what has been disclosed so far is a very small part of the total 430,000 pages so far. It may not be appropriate for me to say this, but some of the pieces of information have been included just for the purpose of the increasing the total number of disclosed pages regardless of the significance. And we have to have a reviewing system and good declassification system before coming up with the declassified information, so we would like to really focus on the information that can be declassified in a priority basis. And in that mode, maybe examination system should take effect. So quality comes first rather than the quantity. And in choosing what information to be disclosed and declassified, of course, we must be careful so that we won't be criticized as being arbitrary in our decision, that we must be very fair in choosing what information to be opened up. But there are some that will not be chosen as subject for disclosure, so what we can do about this is that we apply a certain year-limit rule, like 40-year rule, so that after the passage of 40 years, the document item inventory will be disclosed and that will be open so that requests from the public for disclosure and if such a request is made then the examination can take place and decide whether that can be disclosed or not. So if everyone asks for every piece of information in the report, then it will put hard pressure on the personnel working on the declassification. So, suppose there is a researcher who is working on a critical theme who absolutely needs some pieces of information, then, perhaps we would like to place a priority on those requests.
The second suggestion that I have personally would be as follows. Well, basically, after the passage of 30 years, we have to encourage disclosure of the diplomatic records. But as I said, there is a number of constraints on the part of our Ministry so there has been backlogs and the delaying of the work. Maybe re-examination might be needed in some cases. So, in five or ten years time after the decision not to disclose certain pieces of information, we must have a system in place so that once undisclosed information could once again have an opportunity to be disclosed. Say, after five or ten years time, after the passage of 30-year rule. It can be either 49-year rule or 50-year rule. I don't know which is which, but after 50 years, maybe unconditionally, all the information should perhaps automatically be disclosed without applying any examination or reviewing work before the declassification. I'm talking about the pieces of information which it was decided not to declassify at the 30-year time. But in a 50-years time rule, maybe by then the individual privacy interests problem have disappeared and so forth, so I thought that maybe 50-year rule can come in once again to have those undisclosed information to be disclosed. I'm not talking about the Mah jong game but of course national interests have to be pursued, but we must avoid causing any inconveniences to the fallen counterpart involved in the actual diplomatic cases or the negotiation. But maybe we also have to -- we will do eventually -- disclose information for the sake of the world.
To be sure, I am saying that this is not something which is to replace the 30-year rule, but as for the important information which was decided not to be disclosed at the passage of 30 years, maybe we can once again apply a 50-year or 49-year rule and to look at the possibility of disclosure once again and also place those items maybe after the passage of 40 years on the inventory list and look if there are some people who would like to submit requests for disclosure of those pieces of information. Then, the examination will be done accordingly and the decision for declassification will be made. But we believe what could have been done was already conducted in our Ministry. So, it took a long time in my presentation, but I have just outlined for you the Foreign Ministry's policy for disclosing diplomatic records and also have shared with you some prospects for future. Because of the constraints of the time, I was not able to cover everything, but I hope you will pardon me for that. I hope I was successful in disclosing the works which are going on within our ministry. The publication of the diplomatic records are not done arbitrarily and it has not been applied with intentional sabotage on our part. I hope by this point, it was well understood by yourselves. Thank you for your attention.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much, Mr. Yotsuya. Now for the development of the Japanese foreign policies after the World War II, he mentioned that basically he believes how the foreign policy was not wrong. So with that confidence, I hope that the history and information will be publicly made available, furthermore. I hope that such efforts will be accelerated.
Now the actual situation in Japan has been just explained, so I hope that there will be many questions asked later on from the Japanese or the American side. Now, the last speaker would be Mr. Tanaka. Mr. Tanaka will be speaking to us on the developments that are leading to the establishment of the law of full disclosure of information. I'm sure he will be able to give us some interesting insights into the process.
MR. TAZUAKI TANAKA: Thank you for the kind introduction. I serve as the Executive Director for the Secretariat of the Administrative Reform Committee and I'm also the Director General for Administrative Management Bureau of the Management and Coordination agencies. I have two hats to wear so to speak of. Now we have many different problems related to bilateral matters, but everything seems to be blamed on bureaucrats. And when it comes to public access to government information, if the process is delayed, it's the bureaucrats to be blamed. Everyone says so. Actually, in the United States, there is already the Freedom of Information Act which was established in 1966, but in Japan as you know very well, we still lack a comparable law. And who has pressed not to establish such an act? It is the bureaucrats. It seems that everything that goes wrong is blamed with the bureaucrats. Perhaps not the [inaudible], the religious incident, but everything else seems to be blamed on the bureaucrats. Even the politicians -- they shelve what they have done wrong and blame everything on the shoulder of the bureaucrats. Now, when I was asked to speak at this conference, I was very reluctant. I wanted to refuse. But to appear here and to be criticized is to deepen my knowledge. I thought that I would be able to learn something so that as quickly as possible we can bring about what is demanded of us by the general public now, the law for freedom of information. If we can speed up the process in establishing the law, I thought that it would be good for me to appear at this conference.
Now, on the 19th of December, last year, the new administrative reform committee was established. And every since then I have been wearing the second hat. I was asked by the Prime Minster's Office and Cabinet to become the Executive Director of the Secretariat for the Committee. But, as has been said often, the bureaucracy is not good and we have the coalition government and there are loud criticisms within the ruling party. The ruling party is that, but the bureaucracy is something to be blamed and Secretariat for the Administrative Reform Committee should not be a bureaucrat was the consensus of the government. I was very glad that I was not really appointed, but then someone directly made an appeal to the Prime Minister, so in February all of a sudden I was appointed to the Executive Director.
Now, as Mr. Yotsuya has been saying, we have the quorum of the different ministries. There is the management and coordination agency, the Bureau for Administrative Management, which is checking how many numbers of public servants are to be allocated to each ministry. Now, it is the Foreign Ministry and the Fair Trade Commission. Those are the two organizations only that can be permitted increase of the number of personnel. All the other ministries have been cut down on their personnel, have had a severe cap put on their numbers, so not only criticism was coming from the outside, but in a soft-spoken manner, there was criticism coming inside the government from the other ministries. Because I had the heavy responsibility of the Director General of the Administrative Management Bureau, how can you wear another hat. On top of that was the criticism coming from my colleagues in the other ministries. But even so, there was no other person, proper person, so I had to accept the responsibility.
Now, as I said earlier, there are many criticisms for the government, and the bureaucrats especially, but when we look at the facts, how the responses are made by the government in approaching the direction toward expanded public access to government information. I would like to explain to you in a business-like manner, how it has been developing by stages and of course invite any criticisms later on. But because of various reasons, we cannot do it overnight, at once. There were six parties in their position in the past, so there were examples in the past that Diet members came up with the bill to open up and disclose the relevant information. And as was mentioned in the morning session, we thought that if we are to come up with the proper rules and regulations, the government should think of the proper organ and proper mechanism to do that. Because government needs to serve the public, I hope you will basically understand that that is why we are going on on a seemingly slow pace. We are doing it on a step by step basis. First of all, as to the approach of the government towards the public, access to government information started at the earliest back in 1980. The 1980 Cabinet understanding on measures to improve provision of information and others was the starting point of the government approach. And to be more specific, the Cabinet understanding stated as follows, "To note the need for proper and efficient management of administration and at the same time endeavor to facilitate improved and expanded access to information. So this is what is set forth in the Cabinet understanding. And to give you more detailed specific points, first of all, in every ministry and agency, a unified document perusal counter or office is to be established. And secondly, to formulate a catalogue of the list of documents to be made public and also to encourage putting a time limit to the classified documents, the time limits to the classification and also to promote the measures to disclose information at the National Archives and also toward expanded information to be provided to the public through the various libraries of the ministries. And thirdly, to disseminate the fact that information is being provided to the general public. And fourthly to have a comprehensive review of document management and to formulate common standards for public access and also to study on the legislation for public access to the information which is suitable to the intrinsic conditions in Japan.
Now let me go on to explain how we're tackling this question at this moment in time. First of all, the important thing is the third working group of the second subcommittee of the ad hoc commission for administered reform which was established in March 1981. This working group is studying ways to have public access to the government information and procedures for management of the documents. Now, what we call the Rinchoo, in short the Dokoo commission or the Ad Hoc Commission for Administrative Reform. Mr. Dokoo Toshio was formerly the chairman of Keidanren. At the time, the free public corporations, the NTT, the National Railways and the monopoly, state monopoly on tobacco and salt -- I was responsible for that. I was not drifting forth with this ad hoc commission, but what was stated in the final recommendation of this ad hoc commission was to reduce the number of personnel. The government privatized the National Railways or NTT. If we take the reform in the hardware aspect of the government, the on the software aspect, the ombudsman or the public access to information or the protection of privacy, there were aspects of administrative reform in the software side, if I may say so. So, in the ad hoc commission, as one step toward the more software type of administrative reform, public access to information was mentioned. As to the findings of the study, it was mentioned in the final recommendation which came up in March 1983. Let me give you the outlines, major outlines, five of them, in the final recommendation. First point, the current status of public access to information is not adequate enough in Japan. It is not responding to the needs coming from the general public. It has been squarely mentioned as such. Now, we should place ourselves on the prospect of open government and change our thinking towards, as a rule, open access to government information and also to provide on a voluntary and active basis, useful and necessary information to the public. That's to say that the government side should take the initiative and voluntarily provide the necessary information. And also to expand the mechanism to disclose the relevant information upon demand coming from the public.
The second point was more specifically to provide a provisional measure for administrative management such as establishing the counter for perusal of documents and also to formulate standards for public access. And as a third point, as a part of efforts to develop necessary administrative procedures, to study the establishment of an information disclosure system to the relevant and interested parties. The fourth point, the government information public access system should realize more fair and democratic administration. And from the viewpoint of winning confidence of the public to the government, we should tackle with the question in a positive and active manner so the necessary adjustment is made with the relevant systems and institution. We also must think of the effectiveness of the system and a cost benefit study should be made, and also study the disadvantages in public access. And in order to study all these points, you should establish a professional study group for further research and study. The fifth point mentioned in the recommendation was to promote more institutional measures including legal measures for protection of personal and private information. But as a rule, if the person in question himself or herself asks for the information, then there should be a measure in place to make that person have access to such personal information.
Now, based upon such final recommendations coming from the ad hoc commission, the government has taken a policy to respect to the utmost what has been mentioned and we have been promoting this ever since the final recommendation came about. And we are trying to take measures on an administrative management basis to establish necessary standards for public access. And at the same time we have been trying to develop the necessary legislation so we have been following a two-track approach. Let me first of all explain the institutionalization of the public access to government information. The ad hoc commission says that there is a need to establish an organization that can study on a professional basis the desirable mechanism which is suited to the situation in Japan. Therefore, the study group on public access to information was established by bringing together jurists and experts on jurisprudence, under the Director General of Administrative Management Bureau of Management and Coordination Agency.
Now, about five years ago, in September 1990, this civic group came up with interim report. So, it's an interim report, it's not a final conclusion. Therefore, much criticism has been coming from various parties and various fields. Now, there were several points I set forth in the interim report. One point is how can you make an adjustment between the numerous information disclosure provisions already existing and a newly-created institution and system for public access to government information? How can you strike a balance between the municipal ordinances, for instance, and the more comprehensive law for public access to information? And secondly, how do you deal with information related to defense matters, foreign policy or criminal investigations as well as private and personal information and information related to business corporations? And, also, how to handle information on consultative or collegial organizations. Where should we draw the line for the scope of disclosure and non-disclosure?
I would like to give you just the outlining points. The third point, if there are complaints to the decision of non-disclosure, if one seeks judicial remedy for that, to submit relevant information to the public court, that is necessary through the judicial procedure that would have a effect similar to that of a defendant has been defeated in the lawsuit. So how can we think of ways to assure a fair and appropriate trial is one thing we need to consider. And fourthly, for the proper management of the public access information disclosure system, what kind of improvements are necessary for the management of documents in order to have a proper system of public access to information, how can you manage and control the documents is one question that needs to be tackled.
Now, turning on to the other approach which is to promote the disclosure of government information through administrative measures. In December of 1991, the liaison committee for public access to information was established and this liaison committee has come up with an agreement which sets forth that whenever there is a request coming from the general public for public access, common standards should be established in order to judge whether the relevant information can be made public or not by the competent ministry.
And the standard has been formulated for administrative information disclosure and this at the Cabinet level. The policy has been decided that this standard should be employed and implemented in a proper manner, thereby contributing to the expanded public access. Now, of course, this standard is being implemented as an administrative measure, therefore it is not a legal measure, therefore the general public does not have as a legal right yet the right to public disclosure.
Now, this system should be implemented together with the document perusal counter which I mentioned earlier and at the moment we have each year 100 thousand or so requests coming from the public for disclosure of government information. Now, in the final recommendation of The Ad Hoc Commission for Administrative Reform, the following was also mentioned: personal information which is computerized. There is a law which has been promulgated in December 1988 which is called for short the Privacy Law, but the long name is the Law for the Protection of the Personal Information related to the Computerized Information Which is Held by the Administrative Organizations. This is something relevant to the other question and I will be referring to that later on.
But in any case, the administrative procedure or law including the measures for information disclosure for the relevant and interested parties, this was under the third provisional counsel for the promotion of administrative reform. I was also member of the secretariat then. A Mr. Suzuki, he was the Chairman of this third provisional council and he took ill, or he had a heart attack while he was giving speech at the college of a certain university last year, making a speech on the report of his provisional council. Anyway, he was the chairman of this provisional council, and this council has established a subcommittee for fair and transparent administrative procedures. This subcommittee has conducted a professional study the administrative procedure law was established in November 1993. So, based upon due process, the privacy of individuals will be protected and also at the same time the emphasis will be placed upon transparency, expanded transparency and disclosure of relevant information.
So, I am trying to explain that we are going step by step towards expanded public access to information. Now, as for this system of government information disclosure, at the ad hoc commission which was held 13 years ago, it defined that the system had to allow right to disclosure of the information related to the administrative organ to the general public. This is the definition given in the final recommendation of the ad hoc commission. But as for the institutionalization, for the past thirteen years, ever since the final recommendation of the ad hoc commission, still the study phase has continued. Now, approximately 13 years ago, the ad hoc commission came up with this recommendation and ever since then, municipal ordinances for public access to government information was one after another established. As of April 1st, this year, there are forty prefectual governments and 224 municipalities including townships and villages who have established municipal ordinance for disclosure of information.
Now, on the 15th of February 1994, that is to say last year, the government came up with the so-called 1994 general outline program of administrative reform. This was the overall policy decided by the Cabinet for administrative reform, which says that a full-fledged study should be made to establish a system for public disclosure of government information. Now, the name given then was tentative: Administrative Reform Committee. And this committee should be the one to deliberate and study the matter. And this was taken to be a part of the efforts toward administrative reform. Now, ever since the ad hoc commission, both hardware administrative reform and software type of administrative reform were to be pursued simultaneously in order to win confidence of the general public and the public access to government information was taken up as part and parcel of that effort which I have been explaining to you.
Now, the organization that is to be newly established was given a tentative name, the Administrative Reform Committee. The bill to establish this committee was submitted to the Diet and the parliamentarians then amended this bill and finally the bill passed at the 130th session of the Diet, that is to say, last year.
The amendments were related to exactly the section involving the public access to government information. In article 2, paragraph 2, it says that it has been expressly written in this paragraph that the committee needs to deliberate and study on the establishment of the law for public access to government information and also to think on the matters related to such legislation. In the original bill it speaks of establishing the system for public access, but in the amended law it says explicitly that the law should be established, not just the system, but the law should be established. And under Article II, paragraph 4, it was added that the establishment of the law for the public access to the government information and the opinions and comments to be made for the establishment of such mechanism should be given within two years from the date set forth by cabinet order as provided in a supplementary provision. It was explicitly written that the comments and opinions should be provided within two years from the set date. This was what was explicitly written in by the amendment.
Now, the previous government, previous administration, another coalition government under Prime Minister Hosokawa, was very enthusiastic in promoting this, and the Hata Administration that followed was also enthusiastic in promoting administrative reform. So successively for three parties, the Sakigake Party, Harbinger Party, was involved in all these three consecutive governments and for both the Komeito and the Socialist Party, but in particular the Sakigake Party was very eager and enthusiastic in bringing forth administrative reform. Therefore, I believe there is now a good momentum to put the system in place. Now, this committee, it was started in December last year under chairmanship of Mr. Yotarota[?], and now deliberation is ongoing. Through a Cabinet order, the subcommittee for disclosure of government information was established in order to conduct professional deliberation which was established on 15th of March. And on the 17th of March, the first meeting was held, bringing together experts and professionals. In the morning session Mr. Fukukawa was amongst us and Mr. Fukukawa is also a member of the subcommittee, and for chairman and active chairman, we have Mr. Tinoda who was responsible for the administrative procedure law as well who was previously the judge of the Supreme Court. Mr. Tinoda is the Chairman of the Subcommittee and also Acting Chairman is Professor [inaudible] who was formerly a Professor at the University of Tokyo. Now, during the morning session, an Advisory Council was mentioned repeatedly. Some stringent criticism was made from an incumbent Diet member during the morning session. Now, this Administrative Reform Committee itself is closed session, does not have any press or media representatives included, but after every meeting there is a press conference, therefore what is being discussed is made public. And within two to three days, of course, no names are mentioned, no crediting, but the very detailed information on the discussion is being disclosed.
The reason why no names are mentioned, no crediting is done, is - I'm not sure whether it's the same in the United States or not, I would like to ask you later on - but in Japan, in various committees, many crucial and very sensitive matters are discussed which are hotly contested and if names are known, then various people will try to pressure the committees. Even after midnight, they would call by telephone intimidating them, pressuring them, and people can't sleep. If it's just for them, it's all right, but even their family members are affected. The reason why I say this is because at the time of the National Railway Reform not only telephones, but letters flooded the mailbox every day.
Now, the Mainichi Shimbun, a daily newspaper, reported that newly elected Governor Aoshima had cancelled[?] the holding of the city, the Expo. The Mainichi asked my view on this. Of course, it's something to do with local government, so it is not for a national public servant to comment on it. I don't think it is -- I am in that position to do it, to say anything on that, but perhaps I was led in my comment or perhaps I was sort of guided and very frank with giving a statement that was mentioned, because it is a major project. And when the government starts with big project, it is very difficult to stop the process, even after several years or several decades, it's very difficult to stop and cancel a project which is already months put into place, but of course people are entitled to different views. But when it comes to government, it is usually the case that because you already have budgets allotted, personnel allocated, it's very difficult for the government side to cancel it.
But when the paradigm shifts, when the times have changed, maybe the politics can change that. Moreover, that, I believe, is something to be applauded from one point of view. I have mentioned this comment and this was publicized in the newspaper and then I was flooded with incoming calls and also letters. Also, this is something private, but now I am turning on my answering machine so that I won't have to take every call, but I have to listen to the tape, the badmouthing, loud criticism. But, I don't want to miss the necessary information, so I have turned up the volume a little bit so that I can hear what is going on.
So, I'm not trying to burden you with all of the troubles I personally have encountered, but with advisory councils of the venue and places where you discuss sensitive and serious matters, sometimes violence is involved if you disclose the names. So, I hope you will give us understanding on that.
From time to time, because of the level of maturity of the society, sometimes you're adversely affected by it. Of course, it will depend upon what matter you're talking about. What is the problem you are talking about. But sometimes, you have to be very sensitive and very careful in your approach. Of course, I, myself, am rather a positive person. I am in favor of opening up and making public as much as possible all information, but basically speaking, you also have to be cautious. There are some problems involving the times and sometimes the issues are so sensitive, therefore it cannot be disclosed freely. Now, because I am the head of the secretariat so if I talk free-handedly... Of course, I am a bureaucrat and my statements have been checked and my subordinates and staff are worried if I wag my tongue too freely. So, I should be very careful and cautious. But sometimes, perhaps, there may be a slip of the tongue and I apologize for that.
Now, in any case, this subcommittee is held every week and as I said earlier, the very first meeting was held on March 17th and already eleven meetings have been held. Today, just today, a meeting is being held and up until July what are to be discussed are the regulations and laws in the other countries, the situation of how the system is managed in the municipal ordinances existing in Japan, and also to hear the views and comments of the relevant associations and the learned people. And also, a free discussion.
Of course, what should come under the scope of the law and what should be considered to be classified information not to be disclosed, the Subcommittee will be up til July trying to sort out and identify these problems. And December, next year, will be the deadline for comments and views to be submitted. So extensive and in depth deliberation are ongoing. And the members are very enthusiastic.
Now, lastly, I would like to mention that administrative reform is the top priority for the government. The Prime Minister has that awareness. One of the most important challenges for the government is to expand public access to government information, but in order to institutionalize this, to tackle various problems including the legal aspects, you need to have a consensus of the Japanese people to study the scope for disclosure, to have wide-ranging issues to be discussed based upon the actual situation in Japan, the society or the administration. In any case, the administrative reform committee and the subcommittee is working very hard, and very enthusiastically, so I would like to ask your extensive support for them. So, by soliciting your support and cooperation, I would like to conclude my remarks. I have to apologize that I was too long-winded and I believe that the moderator is calling me. But I apologize for that. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much, Mr. Tanaka. And he has introduced very interesting episodes, but at the same time as a Chairman, of course, you must work as a time keeper. That is to say, the allocation of time. And so I am sort of in a dilemma. Sorry, that I've got to make you hurry. But I think that your presentation has been a very interesting one. Thank you very much, indeed. I'm sure that more discussions will be following later on.
So far, we have heard about the current situations both in Japan and the United States from the persons directly in charge. I think that the picture has become more and more clear to us. So, from now on, we would like to hear from the scholars now directly involved as well as an attorney at law who is actually a user of the Freedom of Information system. Now, we would like to hear from those people at this time in time, at this point in time. Now, I would like to call upon Professor Iriye to give us an overall framework of Japan-U.S. relations, especially in relation to the Freedom of Information.
PROFESSOR AKIRA IRIYE: Thank you very much. I listened to Professor Iokibe and also just like Professor Leffler, I am a historian, like them. And so for historians, information is manifold[?], of course. But as a historian, as Mr. Tanaka has mentioned, I am interested in what's being done and of course, I'm not asking for information concerning what's going on at the moment. What we are asking is what happened 20 years ago or 30 years ago or ten years ago. I wish that that kind of information concerning what happened in the past should be made public and of course it has implications for what's going on at the moment. But anyway, I'm a historian and I am doing a lot of work with the National Security Archive. I'm very much impressed with the progress and success that has been achieved at the NSA. And of course some of the information available at the NSA is recent examples but some other documents go back to history. So, if you think about the historical implications and connotations, of course, there has been much reference to the national interest that was mentioned by Mr. Tanaka and Minister Mr. Yotsuya. And when you think about national interests, the national interests of ten years ago are not the same as the national interests of today. And also say today is June the 10th of 1995 and for the sake of the national interests, as of June the 10th, 1995, you might say that this kind of information should be kept classified. But, say, if you go back to twenty years ago or 30 years ago, based on that standard, of course, that kind of justification does not apply to what happened, say, 10 years ago or 20 years ago. And so without resorting to the yardstick of national interest, we would like to get access to all the information. Of course, that is the wishful thinking on the part of the historians in a way, but . . . as Mr. Yatsuya said, and from the standpoint of the Japan-U.S. relations, in the studies on Japan-U.S. relations, in the context of history or in the context of what's going on at the moment, as was elucidated in the morning session, I think that the information, on the part of the United States, is very much abundant. So, people now talk about trade and imbalances and so on, about the United States suffering from deficits and that's the reason why Americans are very concerned about the trade imbalance. But when it comes to the information, it seems that the U.S. has a surplus whereas in the case of the information, Japan is having difficulties. And it is true that Japanese automobiles are being exported in floods to the United States, but likewise, various information is coming from the United States to Japan, whereas Japanese sources are very rare. So, we may have trade surpluses, but in Japan we may have information deficits. And so we need to take more keen interest in the Freedom of Information on the part of Japan. I think that some economists are saying that trade friction issues would be resolved if it is left as it is. And so, say in five years or in ten years, maybe the trade imbalance between Japan and the United States will be rectified. There are some economists who say so, who argue so. But, anyway, we need to do something about the trade frictions between Japan and the United States, but when it comes to information imbalance, we need to do something. It's not something that can be left as it is.
And so when we think about Japan-U.S. relations and when you think about a Japan-U.S. equal partnership, and more a fair relationship between the two countries which has to be ensured, to that end, of course, we need to be on an equal footing with the United States when it comes to information. Be it in the context of the national interest or be it in the context of historical studies, if you look back, the history and almost all the information is coming from the United States. And as Mr. Wampler has talked about this issue early on, it is just a one-way perception about the past as well as a lop-sided perception about what's going on. So, in order to establish a more fair and more equal partnership, I think this is an issue to be addressed. And so, from the standpoint of the Japan-U.S. relationship, a more equal partnership would have to be established and more information would have to come out of Japan. There has been much reference to the National Security Archive and, as was made clear, I think that the people engaged in this project are very young and they are really enthusiastic. Those people are in their twenties or in their thirties and those people who are engaged in the NSA are very enthusiastic about declassification efforts based on FOIA. So, these people are very much enthusiastic and these people are really impressive people, I think.
I realize in the case of Japan, I think everything is led by the government, the government is holding deliberations and also the government is holding a subcommittee to further promote freedom of information in Japan. And so it seems that in Japan, it is the national government which is taking the initiative. And so I think that we wish that there would be some organization just like the NSA which would be enthusiastic about the Freedom of Information in Japan. The declassification of classified information and so on would have to be further promoted with those younger and enthusiastic people. Otherwise, in terms of the quantity and quality of information, the gap between the United States and Japan won't be narrowed and this issue of information deficits won't be resolved. And probably this information imbalance between the two countries would be more unfortunate than the trade frictions between the two countries even.
And earlier, Mr. Johnson talked about this. In the 1970s we have had the trade problems between the two countries. If you think about this issue, what kind of negotiations were held between the two countries? And what kind of suggestions and proposals were made by the Japanese representatives and what kind of process has been followed in the decision-making process and so on. And in many cases, the NSA would be able to provide various information and so what knowledge we have at the moment actually comes from the United States. Whereas the Japanese source of information is very much lacking. Probably something is wrong with the Japanese system. The American people are saying that -- they are asking for information from Japan, but probably the Japanese way of doing business is mystifying and the way of doing business in Japan is not fair.
But at the same time, we need to clarify that we are doing our best to pursue freedom of information and if you want to do that, of course, we have to declassify the information to substantiate our case. So, information concerning Japan-U.S. relations is lopsided in favor of the United State, that is to say, we have to depend on the information coming from the United States. This is not an ideal situation for Japan and the United States, of course, and it is very timely that we are holding this symposium today and it seems that there is an atmosphere conducive to holding this kind of symposium. That is to say, the intellectual exchanges between the two countries and the cultural exchanges between the two countries. I think it's an encouraging phenomenon that we are having this symposium today. It may sound a little bit abstract. When you think about the very core of the U.S.-Japan relationship, I think that the core is not the trade frictions between the two countries or economic problem, but it's actually the cultural relationship between the two countries. And in order to really rectify the situation, the cultural imbalance and the information imbalance would have to be rectified, of course.
And as I mentioned earlier, if it's impossible to go back to the information, say, ten years ago, then why do we go back to 20 years? And as Mr. Yotsuya has referred to in his presentation to a 30-year rule and 50-year rule, we historians can compromise to, say, a 30-year rule. And if you are talking about 30-year rule, then the national interests of Japan 30 years ago has nothing to do with the current national interests. And so, the information of 30 years would have to be disclosed. And I think that he said only 10 people are actually working on the declassifiers. So you don't necessarily have to have declassifiers as long as the 30-year rule is applied.
And just one more comment before concluding. Of course, this is not necessarily limited to Japan-U.S. relations. We are currently finding ourselves in the post-Cold War era. What is the future direction of the world in the post-Cold War? When we come to think of it, the importance and significance of information will be increasing in the future. As has been pointed out, for instance, we have the issue of electronic information and information technology is advancing tremendously worldwide. So, in the future, when we think about the future direction of the international community, information culture is going to have a very important role to play. And if that is the case, the United States is defined as the information superpower, so to speak. At one time in the past, there were some people who argued that the United States is no longer a superpower. But when it comes to information, I think the U.S. is still an information superpower. There are some other countries who are also as enthusiastic about information, but I think, nonetheless, U.S. is the largest superpower when it comes to information. So when you think about the context of the post Cold War, of course, it is not necessarily limited to the trade frictions but we have to think about information exchange. When you think about the future course of the Japanese diplomacy, well, some people are arguing that Japan should become more involved in the Asia-Pacific region rather than depending solely on the United States. But that's nonsense in a way. That is, the U.S. is an information superpower at the moment, so we need to have a closer relationship with the United States while at the same time Japan should be a transmitter of information from our side as well.
In the world, some people are talking about the cultural imperialism of the United States, be it in history, back in history, or be it what's happened only recently. It seems that the information source is located in the United States and some people are referring to that as the American information imperialism. But on the other hand, if you do not declassify your own information, you're not entitled to blame the United States. And so we have human rights problems in the world and also it seems that there are some Asian countries who are opposed to the American human rights diplomacy. But it's not enough to oppose what the U.S. would have to say. If you would like to be on equal footing with the United States, you would have to transmit information from your side. And so, in the future, probably it's not desirable for just one country to be emitting information on a one-way basis. In the future, more ideally, there should be more information sources located throughout the world. And so, from this standpoint, from the standpoint of cultural diversity, we should have more and more information sources available in the United States. For instance, there is more and more information coming from the Communist regimes, China and Russia. I think there is much information being made available concerning the Korean War from the previous adversaries. So, we've got to do something in Japan, as well. Otherwise, we will be even lagging behind the Russians and the Chinese as well. And we need to be able to transmit information from ourselves in the context of the new era of post Cold War. So it's not just a matter of referring to the historical documents, but I think that it has great connotations and implications as well.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much, Professor Iriye. You have shared with us your grand perspective looking into the economy and military, but culture is really primary. It boils down to the intellectual and information elements being crucially important. I think that was your message. In this respect, Japan might not be sufficently fulfilling its gap. Thus a more appropriate action is called for on the part of Japan. Now, let us go to the United States and Professor Leffler, the well-known scholar of diplomatic history.
PROFESSOR LEFFLER: Before I start, I would like to thank the organizers of this symposium for inviting me here. It's a pleasure to be in Tokyo to discuss these issues. I'm an historian, but for the last two years, I've also been serving on the State Department Historical Advisory Committee, and I thought I would take my time today to describe and to assess the functioning of this Committee.
The Committee itself was established as a result of an act of Congress in 1991. The law was written with regard to the famous diplomatic documentation series, the Foreign Relations of the United States. For many decades there had been an advisory committee to the Historical Office of the State Department. But the new Committee that was mandated by law and that was allocated specific oversight functions by the Congress of the United States, had much greater leverage than any preceding committee. With this new leverage, with this legislative mandate behind it, the new Advisory Committee has been able to struggle with bureaucrats and with officials who sometimes want to conceal the diplomatic record or who sometimes are inclined to say that publication of documents might undermine the nation's security or impair its current diplomatic negotiations.
In the late 1980s, nobody would have predicted the passage of new legislation dealing with the Foreign Relations series, and with the declassification of diplomatic records. Neither the Reagan nor the Bush administration seemed to have any special interest in these matters. The Foreign Relations Series was languishing. Put together by historians who worked for the Historical Office of the State Department, the Foreign Relations Series had a long and venerable history. Although an official publication, it was nevertheless widely regarded to be a trustworthy compilation of government documents illuminating the diplomatic record of the United States. But in the 1980s the Foreign Relations Series was falling further and further behind. As government officials hesitated to declassify records about the early Cold War years, the situation seemed rather hopeless when suddenly a great furor was aroused over the publication of the Foreign Relations volume dealing with Iran for the years 1952 to 1954. Many officials working in the Eisenhour administration already had written personal accounts acknowledging that they had participated in the overthrow of the government of Iran in 1953. Yet the official record of the United States government or at least of its diplomacy is presented in the Foreign Relations volume on Iran made no illusion whatsoever to this covert action. Professor Warren Cohen, who was then the chairman of the existing advisory committee to the State Department, resigned in protest. He wrote letters to the New York Times and to other newspapers. Leading professional organizations passed resolutions calling for the restoration of the integrity of the Foreign Relations series. Professional organizations understood that they needed to translate their anger into constructive action. The most effective means to restore integrity to the series and to force government officials to provide full access to diplomatic records in the National Archives, was through legislative action. In this respect, the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History played an important role. The National Coordinating Committee is a lobbying organization representing the Historical and Political Science Organizations. Its executive director was Paige Miller. She contacted influential Democratic and Republican Senators on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees. Claiborne Pell, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was sympathetic to legislative action. So was Jesse Helms, the senior Republican Senator on the committee. According to Paige Miller, Senator Helms was a populist who believed that the people had a right to know what their government was doing. More likely, Helms was eager to expose the actions of the State Department bureaucrats whom he held in very low regard. Although President Bush did not support legislation dealing with the Foreign Relations Series, the law gathered support because of the publicity generated by media accounts, because of the pressures exerted by professional organizations and because of the effective lobbying of the National Coordinating Committee. Normally, such factors would not suffice to get legislation through Congress. But supporters of legislation were powerfully aided by the evolving international climate, the decline of Soviet power, and the end of the Cold War. In this context, the arguments for secrecy seemed less persuasive than they once had been.
The legislation passed in 1991 was quite remarkable. It stipulated that the Foreign Relations Series and I'm quoting, "Shall be a thorough, accurate and reliable documentary record of major United States foreign policy decisions, including the facts which contributed to the formulation of policies and the records which illustrated alternative views to the policy position ultimately adopted." The law also stated that all government agencies dealing with the making of foreign policy, had to cooperate in the publication of the Foreign Relation series. These other agencies like the Defense Department, had to open all their records to the historians of the Department of State, so that these historians could chose the most important documents to insert in the Foreign Relations series. If State Department officials or officials of other agencies objected to the declassification of documents selected by State Department historians, these officials had to explain their objection. The Historical Office was given the right to appeal these decisions. The appeal initially would be considered by the newly created historical advisory committee.
The 1991 law also stated that all State Department records, regardless of whether they were chosen for publication in the Foreign Relations Series, should be declassified not later than 30 years after they were initially prepared. However, the law also allowed for several critical exceptions. Records wholly prepared by foreign governments and found in State Department Records need not be declassified. Nor would any records be declassified that revealed information that would compromise weapons technology or cryptologic systems. Likewise, documents that would reveal intelligence sources, or that would impede current diplomatic negotiations or that would impair the national security, or that related to personnel matters inside the State Department, need not be declassified. These were very broad exceptions and much would depend on how they would be defined in the guidelines written for declassification by government officials. The legislation created the Historical Advisory Committee to review the implementation of the law's provisions. If the Advisory Committee found that records were being unjustifiably withheld from publication, it had the obligation to inform the Secretary of State and to make recommendations about how to fix the problem. The Advisory Committee was also authorized to review State Department declassification guidelines and procedures. It was instructed to review classified documents older than 30 years to ensure that there was justification for continued secrecy. Congress gave the Historical Advisory Committee certain powers to carry out its mandate. Most importantly, the legislation stated that the Advisory Committee had the right to see all classified documents pertaining to the foreign relations of the United States. The law stated that members of the Committee were eligible for top secret security clearances. Having obtained such clearances, committee members could look at the classified documents not only of the State Department, but also the records of the other agencies such as the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, when such records were selected by State Department historians for inclusion in the Foreign Relations Series. If the Committee concluded that documents were being unjustifiably withheld from publication in the Foreign Relations Series, or if the Committee concluded that State Department records were being kept classified unjustifiably for more than 30 years, it had the obligation to inform the Secretary of State and the Congress. To ensure that the Advisory Committee would act independently, Congress stipulated that government employees could not be members of the Advisory Committee. The Committee was to be composed of nine historians, political scientists, archivists, international lawyers and other social scientists who had demonstrated a record of substantial research pertaining to the foreign relations of the United States. The Secretary of State would appoint the members from nominations put forward by the major professional associations.
The legislation also stipulated that the Committee should meet at least four times a year. It is at these meetings, each lasting for two or three days, that the important work of the committee gets done. The Historical Office of the State Department brings to the attention of the Committee those documents that it deems appropriate for the Foreign Relations series but that have been refused declassification by the originating agency within the United States government. The Committee then reviews these documents and determines whether their inclusion is essential for a comprehensive and accurate record of the nation's foreign relations. If it judges that their inclusion is necessary, it urges the State Department historical office to appeal the determination. Sometimes the Advisory Committee itself will meet with officials in the different departments to discuss their reasons for wanting to keep a document secret. For example, if offices or bureaus within the State Department object to the publication of a document, the Committee will meet with appropriate officials, invite their views, and explain the committee's own thinking. If an agency outside the State Department objects to declassification of a record deemed necessary for the Foreign Relation Series, the Committee will meet with officials of that agency. Many such meetings, for example, have occurred with officials of the Central Intelligence Agency. Occasionally, these meetings have lead to resolutions of disputes. If agreement, however, is not achieved, the Advisory Committee will write to high level officials inside the State Department, explain the reasons why a particular document should be declassified, and ask for high level State Department intervention in behalf of openness. The Committee explains that its duty is to ensure that Congress's mandate is carried out for the publication of an accurate and comprehensive documentary record of the nation's diplomacy.
If agencies nevertheless refuse to declassify an important record, the Advisory Committee decides whether or not to recommend that the volume or parts of a volume should be withheld from publication. Sometimes the Committee will recommend that the volume should be published, albeit with an explanation that the record is not altogether complete. At its quarterly meetings the Advisory Committee also reviews the progress that the State Department is making toward the declassification of its records that are at least 30 years old. Members of the Committee go to the National Archives or to other repositories housing the records of the State Department. They examine the new declassification guidelines, and they review the decisions made by official declassifiers. Committee members randomly select boxes of documents and read the memoranda or dispatches that State Department officials believe must remain secret. If Committee members think that the process is too slow or cumbersome, or if they think the guidelines are unreasonable or if they judge that the guidelines are being implemented unreasonably, they discuss these matters with appropriate officials and they reserve the right to make appropriate recommendations to the Secretary of State.
The Advisory Committee has played a constructive role in the declassification process. It has helped to illuminate how antiquated were some of the guidelines used by State Department bureaucrats. Many of these guidelines are now being rewritten or old ones are being interpreted with much greater flexibility. Officials in the government know that they are being monitored by outside experts, and this seems to have had a positive impact. Perhaps more importantly, the Advisory Committee has repeatedly urged that procedures for declassification be streamlined. It has recommended that priorities be assigned to important files, that files dealing with delicate matters of national security be separated from less sensitive records and that these less sensitive records should be subject to automatic declassification.
One of the great attributes of the Advisory Committee is that four times a year it brings together officials from many different parts of the State Department and from many different agencies of the U.S. government who are involved in declassification and publication of historical records, but who nevertheless rarely talk to one another. By getting these people to sit together and to discuss common problems, the Advisory Committee exerts a tremendously salutary influence.
Government bureaucrats, of course, do not like outside experts interfering in their business. But since committee members are mandated by law to do their job and since the law is explicit, government officials have had to listen to the concerns and suggestions of Committee members. By probing traditional practices of doing business and by exposing how costly and how inefficient some of these methods are, the committee has encouraged officials to reappraise some of their methods and to think of innovative alternatives. By exposing the lack of communication among agencies dealing with common matters, the committee has prodded government officials to identify at least a few shared goals. One of its real accomplishments has been to bring about a much greater degree of cooperation between the historical offices of the State Department and of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The effectiveness of the Advisory Committee has much to do with its statutory foundation. It uses the law to monitor the actions of government officials. It reminds officials that ultimately the Committee has the duty to report to the Secretary of State and to Congress about compliance with the law. However, the Committee has no real power except the power of exposure -- exposure to higher officials, to Congress, or to the media. Because it has no fundamental power of its own, the Advisory Committee has been very conscious of the need to build constructive relationships with government officials whose activities it is monitoring. There's a fine balancing act to be pursued, because too close a relationship might mean that the Committee could be easily coopted by bureaucrats or by officials who might not want to change and who may be reluctant to have their actions and policies exposed through timely and comprehensive declassification. On the other hand, a strictly confrontational approach would solidify bureaucrats' predilection to view outside experts and academicians as naive, gullible and irresponsible. It has been essential for the Advisory Committee to be seen as resolutely committed to the opening of records yet at the same time to be regarded by officials as understanding of their needs and of the ongoing requirements of the nation's diplomacy and security.
This balancing act is hard to maintain and the Advisory Committee has certainly not had an unblemished record of success. The Committee, after all, only has the power to advise and to make recommendations. Officials have no obligation to heed the Committee's suggestions. Although declassification procedures have been improved and much progress has been made in the opening of records that are more than thirty years old, the State Department has still resisted automatic declassification of most of its records. Most declassification is still being done page by page. Guidelines for declassification are being revised. But the results are still not clear.
Top officials in the State Department have been responsive to the Committee's recommendations regarding the Foreign Relation Series and the publication of this series has been enormously accelerated. But it is by no means certain that other U.S. government agencies will agree to publish documents that the Advisory Committee has deemed essential for a complete and accurate record of the nation's diplomacy. Hence the progress of recent years in the publication of the Foreign Relations Series may again be slowed.
In effect, the Advisory Committee is strictly advisory to the State Department. The Committee cannot force declassification of documents that belong to other agencies. It cannot even force the declassification of documents that belong to the State Department. It can only inform the Secretary of State that failure to declassify or failure to publish a complete and accurate record, violates a law of Congress. The Secretary of State can, of course, respond as can officials in other agencies, that continued secrecy is permissible because the law acknowledges that declassification should not jeopardize such matters as the nation's security, current diplomacy, war plans and intelligence sources. The Advisory Committee has been relatively effective because it is founded by an act of Congress. The Committee has played an important role reminding officials of the importance of complying with the law and communicating deficiencies in compliance to interested constituencies in the Congress, the media and the academic world. The struggle for openness continues, and is certainly not yet won. But without the 1991 law and without the Advisory Committee, the struggle would be even more formidable. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much, Dr. Leffler. The Department of State of the United States has come up with such Advisory Commission. There's a big difference between Japan and U.S., thats to say, no government member can participate and all the documents can be accessd -- it's greatly different from the Advisory Council system in Japan.
So in a sense, the social culture distinction goes beyond such cultural aspect. I think there are some things we need to learn from the United States. I have promised you to break 3:00 o'clock but we have gone beyond that time and we still have two more discussants to go, but then the coffee will become luke warm, so perhaps we should break here and ask both Mr. Mikuriya and Mr. Miyake to postpone their presentations to after the coffee break please. So we would like to break for 15 minutes. Thank You.
BREAK
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We are coming to the last stretch if I may say so. We have heard presentations from three speakers who are closely involved with the actual practice of the public access to government information and we also heard the discussant, Mr. Iriye, identify the problems, so for now I would like to have both Professor Mikuriya and Mr. Miyake to place emphasis on what should we do from now onwards. Dr. Mikuriya will be talking to us from the academic point of view, as one who is at the front line, a front runner of leading public debate. So, if you could please . . .
DR. TAKASHI MIKURIYA: Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. I am a historian. Therefore, in my daily studies, I am very cautious to look into past precedents and history, but today as an opinion leader, I may be rather prejudiced in my views. So, I would like first of all to make that disclaimer. And I would like to focus my talk on several outlining points. After listening to Dr. Wampler's presentation, I felt that what he mentioned was very dear to my heart. To give you some personal comments, I was at the Kennedy School at Harvard several years ago, and Professor Ernest May, who is still with the Harvard Kennedy School, had a course on the "lessons of history" and the textbooks used and materials used were of the latest material. The documents are provided to the students and the students, who are in their mid-career, debate on the questions, which was a very refreshing experience for me.
And I remember very well when we discussed at the time the case study of FSX. As I listened to the explanation, it seemed that everything was good for the U.S. side and I asked Professor May, isn't it too one-sided a view? And then Ernest May said, if you think so, then you should base yourselves on the information available in Japan, documents available in Japan and give your own perspective. But the only information available was in the public domain, such as newspaper articles and so forth. So I said very straightforwardly, I cannot use relevant material in Japan. That is the problem, he said. He smiled and said so. Now, as I listened to the argument made by Dr. Wampler I just remembered what Dr. Ernest May said to me.
Now, regarding Japanese government officials, roughly speaking, to try to record what has been discussed on a systematic basis to preserve them for prosperity, that is exactly the kind of thinking lacking and missing amongst the government officials in Japan. When they are appointed newly to one position, they start afresh by discarding all the old documents. But if they do not know of the past developments, they try to go back to the precedents, not recorded precedents, but something remaining in the minds of certain people, and you look, you check and inquire and you find that some laws and regulations do exist. So that is the starting point and basis of the job for the government official. So, they don't place that much significance and meaning on preserving the document, preserving the record, so even before discussing what is the national interest and what is not the national interest, to preserve something as a document, something as a record, to have a precise recording of something that has been discussed, is already missing right from the beginning.
As was mentioned earlier, I found it the example of the United States very impressive. Both the private sector and the government will have a debate over certain disclosed material and the minutes taken will gradually be disclosed and be made public. This is often seen in the United States as it's depicted in a movie, for instance, in a scene. But why is this missing in Japan? Why cannot this be done in Japan? Because the Japanese government officials, the bureaucrats do not have that type of thinking, that type of mentality, to speak of. In the case of diplomatic records, if there are certain rules, for instance, a 30-year rule, there is a set regulation to open up the information, but for other documents, the format -- even the formats are not set firmly. I have been talking with my friends and colleagues and the policy-making documents will go to the National Archives, I told my friends, in the government. And they look bewildered. Why do we have to provide our documents to the National Archives? The National Archives are not trustworthy because it does not belong his or her own ministry. It is very insecure for them to try to provide some documents to other ministries, to organizations other than their own ministry. So, they will never, ever provide any document to a national archive. This is the typical mentality of a government official. And this is the mindset of the Japanese bureaucracy. This is a fact.
Then what are the documents or records which are actually preserved in Japan? This is one problem we need to look into. Somebody mentioned that there are no records and not even notes. Now, the records are not really set in terms of format, so if you would like to retrieve a certain document or certain records, take as an example the National Archives in the United States, you need systematically to try to identify the needs and demands of the academics, to first of all set forth a format of a document that needs to be preserved. The institutionalizing of the users point of view -- what would you like to know as the information coming from the government? I think you need to first of all identify the needs and then try to set forth the format for the documents to be preserved. The young bureaucrats who have been educated in the United States, they learn the system in the United States. The U.S. has a very solid basis of documents and records on which they would construct their arguments and debate. And the young officials have experienced that and they understand the need for that. So having public access to the government information would be conducive to the decision-making, would be some positive thing for the decision-making, policy-making. That is, I believe, the awareness of the younger generation of bureaucrats.
So, if you can encourage such an attitude and expand their point of view to an even more extensive historical point of view, then I think we will be able to have a more favorable atmosphere to accommodate the demand for public access to government information. That is one thing I felt and what I wanted to emphasize.
Another thing I wanted to emphasize is what has already been indicated from Dr. Iriye - that documents that are already 30 years old should be opened and made public. So, if I may try to amplify what he has mentioned, we should not be afraid of failures in trying to have expanded public access to information. The Japanese bureaucracy, as a principle, do not want to have bad scores on their performance, so if there's a problem, they don't want do disclose anything. But rather than taking that attitude, to refrain from opening up because some problems may be found, that is the set mentality of the bureaucracy. So, let us do away with this kind of thinking. There may be some problems involved, but the government -- this is true not only for the Japanese government -- but the governments I'm sure you understand are not always right and correct. They do something bad. They're sometimes mistaken. And this is normal. So, let us take a different attitude and mentality and open up and not be afraid of the mistakes and problems. Now, sometimes documents are misplaced, documents are lost because the government agencies do move. For instance there's a Tokyo metropolitan government. The office of the metropolitan government moved from Yurakucho to Shinjuku city office. And as I was anticipating, massive amounts of documents were lost during the move. With no intentional dumping done, but they are put into card boxes -- the old documents are placed into card boxes and of course, when we move from house to house, of course we do lose some things, the belongings.
Not only local governments, but central government agencies, when they move their offices, sometimes the documents are lost. Some documents are being identified by certain academics and even though they were not able to quote directly from the documents, they know that the documents were there. But some documents that have been already identified have been lost during the move.
Now, the reason why I'm saying this is because people are now debating that the capital should be moved from Tokyo to somewhere else. Now, if the capital is to be moved, the government agencies will also move. So, we need to ascertain that the documents will not be lost during the process.
Now, if we are to move the capital, of course the question of public access to the government information is closely involved with this. So even though you decide to move the capital, if the relevant and necessary documents are lost, that will not do. So you need to have adequate discussion on this question accompanying the debate over the moving of the capital.
Now, what I am worried about -- this is another point -- to give you a very personal example. Dr. Iokibe has also cited the example of his own university. There's the minutes of the Professors' meeting at the university. And for the Tokyo metropolitan government, the municipal ordinance was implemented and the minutes, the content of the minutes have changed -- that is to say they give just the outline in points. It used to be that there was more detailed information incorporated into the minutes, but when the information is to be disclosed - of course, no ordinary person will ask for the disclosure of professor's meetings, minutes - but because they are to be disclosed, people will tend to erase everything they don't want the public to see. Because it's computerized, it is easy to erase something. So, only the abstract will remain.
So, I think public access to public information is something good. But if you do it on a unilateral basis, on a one-sided basis, in the process of legislature, you have the draft bill and you have amendments ..., the historian for posterity would like to know the process, but you have only the original bill and the final law and all the rest during the process becomes a black box. It's lost.
So this is one problem we will be encountering. And as has been mentioned earlier on, to disclose the information to the public, will be to the positive, will be a plus to the public officials. The government officials must understand this. Without this, they would have to erase everything they don't want the others to see. There is a high probability of this happening. So, when we think of public access to the government information and what has happened in the past, I think these are some of the problems that we need to tackle. Now, a very last thing. This is the last thing, I assure you. Now, there are minutes of the House of Lords that was before the war. The House of Lords, you may be surprised. This was the precursor to the House of Counselors. Now, the House of Lords as abolished by the Constitution that came into place after the Second World War. In the pre-War period we had the House of Lords -- the second house in the Diet. And the minutes of the House of Lords at long last have become public. And the newspapers thought that there would be secrets, really guarded secrets that would be made public. But as you can see with the newspaper reports, there was no truth that was disclosed and covered at last. So what was made known was how was the minutes were indeed boring, bereft of new secrets. So, after the minutes were disclosed, it seems that the House of Lords was managed and administrated in a very healthy manner. That was what has become known to us - their organizational matters, institutional matters. But if you look from a balanced point of view, from a good perspective, I think public access to information is something good. But, of course, there are problems involved. Thank you. That is my conclusion.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much for your clear-cut pointing out of many things including the concrete examples. Now let us hear from Mr. Miyake who in his daily business uses this information disclosure.
MR. HIROSHI MIYAKE: Well, today from the historical point of view, I was able to listen to many of the presentations. Based on a wide perspective, I learned a great deal. Ever since I have become a lawyer, I have been looking at this issue. In Japan, there usually is a process which is started by the municipal ordinance and on the way court cases would occur and I have been involved in that. In the meantime, I have gone to the United States to have a fact-finding tour.
Perhaps the U.S. system might be not be that familiar to you in the audience. But if you like to receive a U.S. document or record, all you have to do is to write a letter to the U.S. and you can get hold of that information. In my work, I wanted to have the information from the Interior Department of the United States and the Department of the Interior received a letter from me. About a month later, they sent me 300-pages worth of documents, and the cost was 10 cents per page. So how much did I pay? -- the copy cost was about 9,000 yen and I was able to look at hundreds of pages of papers and I was able to use that in a court case in Japan.
My lawyer friend also had wanted to know something about the information existing in the United States. And he went to the U.S. to gain that information too, and to the FDA. He wanted to know the information pertaining to FDA about AIDS and so forth, the history of the cases and so forth. And one week prior to his departure for the U.S., he faxed the list of necessary information to the archive in advance and once month later, he was able to get hold of large volume of the necessary information.
So in Japan the litigation case concerning the AIDS case was handled by using the information coming from the United States. Because in Japan, we even do not know whether the relevant document is existent or not to start with. But in the United States if we identify the list of the information that we would like to get for example, concerning AIDS, then you can write a letter to the authority and they will send the relevant information to you with the cost of ten cents per copy or page.
I live in Japan, but it seems as if Japan has become one of the states of the United States as far as the obligation of the Freedom of Information Act is concerned, so I really feel myself a wide gap in the case of information availability between the two countries. If you take along your passport with you and drop in at the National Archives in the United States, the people will be very helpful for you and they will make an ID card for you enabling you to go inside the archive and get access to the information you need. At first I was very much surprised, pleasantly surprised by this, so I learned right away that if you do like to know something, go to the National Archives. That has become a password for me.
For the past ten years or so, I have been examining the municipal ordinances concerning information disclosure. So from my viewpoint, I would like to share with you my views. The Management and Coordination Agency made a presentation for us earlier about what has been done. But what is most important is the right to request for the disclosure of the information. So if that right is denied, then one can go to a court and appeal that case. But presently such a case has not been approved or that right has not been approved. So that is the major gap that needs to be filled in Japan in the first place. If the Freedom of Information Act is to be enacted in Japan, then first of all we have to see the stipulation of the right to know in the law. So when that right to know is denied, then one will be given the right to bring that to court. So, in a way, we need a sort of an examination board to judge whether the decision has been right or not.
Then of course, many of the relevant laws must be taken into consideration. For example, we have a political fund control law which was recently enacted. We requested some piece of information pertaining to the political fund being used by a person, but it said that no copy can be provided because the law only provides for the public examination of the paper at a certain window. You can get a physical access to the information, but no physical copies can be provided. That was what we mentioned and that was what we heard.
So, maybe we need to change the culture in order for us to internationalize ourselves in the true sense of the word. Now, we need a system to guarantee the right to request the disclosure of information. And also, all of the administrative ministries have to make available the information for public access. And the documentation to be prepared by administrators must be subject to disclosure in a certain period of time, be it the imperial household, the agency, or the regular ministries and agencies.
But, of course, all the administrative organizations holding all of the documentation need to be in principle subject to disclosure. Not to start with exemptions in the first place. As I have listened to this morning's and this afternoon's discussion, you might well know that because of the cases pertaining to national security and private information, they were mentioned as exceptions to the disclosure rule. Of course there are certain information the administration would like to withdraw but that scope would need to be minimized as much as possible. That is the nature of the law that we need. That is the most crucial point in my view.
A few years ago in Japan, the consumer group leader Ralph Nader came and he said, "let's make FOIA." When he was here for two weeks in Japan that time, his password was "let's make FOIA." So in order to make a municipal ordinance for information disclosure, one important point was to minimize the exemptions and we have been monitoring the processes of the formulation of the municipal ordinances and I believe, that, in the hope that this will be included into the national legislation, I would like to really watch over what MCA will do in the future.
So I have said to you that in the United States all you have to do is write a letter from Japan to gain the information. But maybe the guests from the United States are wondering whether it is possible with Japan, too, that if people from the U.S. write a letter to Japan, can request information from National Archive in Japan. Well, we don't have a law yet, but if the law isn't updated, we do not know of either case. I do not know whether after the enactment of the law, foreign people will be able to get access to the pieces of information in Japan or not just by writing a letter and so forth. I hope that will be the case, but we don't know how it will be settled. And also, what about the inventories. That is one pending problem because sometimes there is a whole gap in the availability of the information, so an information inventory needs to be made in a thoroughly thorough manner. Also it should be a user friendly type of system with a cost of maybe ten cents per page of copy. That is a practice in the United States. Would it be possible to have for Japan the same system. That is also one point that we have to monitor closely.
Professor Leffler spoke about the Historical Advisory Committee and his information was very informative for me because one can go to court if one would like to appeal the classification decision and so forth. And we need to have a system for appeal and relief. And as was mentioned before, the non-government official must be given an opportunity to look at the documentation like in the case of the Advisory Committee members in the United States.
Would that be possible in Japan? We have a grave concern over that because Japanese Ministries are always persistent about their ministerial interests -- ministries divided from one ministry to another in a vertical way, strictly. But if an Advisory Committee is going to be established and say it is placed under the control of MCA, the Management and Coordination Agency, then when it comes to undisclosed information or classified information and say, the economic documents is involved, from sources in the Ministry of Finance, then, I really doubt whether such a committee can be a viable committee.
Well, with regard to the prefectural ordinance for information disclosure, there is something like an information disclosure review board which is made up of non-government officials who decide eventually whether certain documentation should be disclosed or not. But if you bring a case to that review board, then 30 percent or 40 percent of the hitherto undisclosed information would be made available for public access. That is being made possible by the review board's activities which is made up of non-government officials. So not only in the municipalities, but I hope that on the national level, an independent review board so to speak will be established and that's one more important point that we need to be watchful over.
I know my time is limited, so I focus myself on the important points: the guarantee of the right to know and the guarantee to know about the administrative information in its entirety and make the exceptions minimum and make a user friendly system, and if a classification decision is made, then there would be a possibility to appeal that decision, and ask for eventual disclosure.
Those are the important points we have in mind when we are watching over the processes of the enactment of the information disclosure law in Japan in two years time and we hope to see how much legislation can be legislated and formed and we would like to support the efforts of the MCA on this matter, and also, wehope that our American friends will also be supportive from behind for our efforts. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IIOKIBE: Thank you very much, Mr. Miyake. Both Mr. Mikuriya and Mr. Miyake together have sorted out and identified the problems and also have come up with very good suggestions.
We have a little bit less than one hour to go. Now, the challenges and the points that need improvement have been identified for Japan, mainly on these points. Of course, the Japanese side has shown interest in what is happening in the United States. And both the Americans and the Japanese are also interested in what kind of system Japan is trying to come up with. And the U.S. in terms of public access to government information has been far ahead of Japan and Dr. Iriye has said that U.S. is the only superpower in the world on information.
But in Japan there is a long tradition of not letting the public know, so Japan is still at an infant stage. Can we really stand on our own feet solidly by establishing a good system? So, we can we have our American panelists come up with questions or, for instance, suggestions and advices for the Japanese system? Can we ask our American panelists to ask questions or perhaps give us some suggestions? Dr. Leffler, please.
PROFESSPR LEFFLER: [Inaudible]. . . working on the State Department Advisory Committee is that to bring about effective declassification, it's absolutely essential to have the automatic declassification of whole groups of documents. The line by line review is inconceivable when you think of the magnitude of documents. So we have advised, at least as an initial effort to separate out the documents that clearly do not relate to weapons systems or war plans or intelligence efforts, put them in one category and try to bring about the automatic declassification of other categories. And I was wondering from my Japanese friends if they think that this might be one way of dealing with some of the issues.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Dr. Wampler?
DR. WAMPLER: Yes. This is primarily for Mr. Yotsuya. He had the comments about the enormous backlog of documents which they are trying to work through, and it seems that one approach to this, which has been taken in the United States, deals with the Department of Energy Records, where they have established liaison with what are called stake-holders -- the people in the academic community who are interested in the records -- to help get a better sense of how you would prioritize your plan for declassifying these records that try to reflect the interests of the people who would be doing research in these. Would it be possible to try to establish some sort of relationship with the scholarly community whereby you could draw upon their expertise, their interests, to help you get a handle upon this problem of working through the enormous backlog you say you have of diplomatic records.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Mr. Iriye, do you have anything to add please?
PROFESSOR IRIYE: Probably Mr. Yotsuya should respond to that question maybe.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Both Mr. Yotsuya and Mr. Tanaka have their many views and comments being made, so if I can ask both of them once again, comment on what are the points they would like to make note of and so forth. Mr. Yotsuya, please.
MR. YOTSUYA: The backlog issue and also prioritization of the documentation was mentioned. When we look at the history, we will naturally know which pieces of information need to be picked up with priority. Of course, it's not based on the prejudices or the biases, but the scholars would come up with their views and so forth and their views can be solicited, of course.
[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER]: also, the ten members for examining and reviewing the situation, that would mean too slow a process. So as a rule, it can be made public let's say after ten years, or after thirty years automatically declassification will be made. That is the kind of system that could be suggested so that the workload can be mitigated and at the same time actively promote public access. What is your response to that? You mentioned about fifty years rule at the onset.
MR. YOTSUYA: Well, there are certain qualifiers I must make. I am not sitting on the defendant's seat. When I am working at the Foreign Ministry I am on the plaintiff side and I come from declassification section. So we are the section promoting the declassification. Sometimes people like to avoid us, but as I mentioned to you in my presentation -- you already know what my thoughts are -- maybe a 30-year rule might be too short for some of the documents because the documents are too vivid. Of course, less sensitive ones can be disclosed, but with fifty years passing, I think it's fair to say that most of the information can be disclosed. What's the difference between the 49-year rule, 50-year rule or 51-year rule, it's difficult for me to discern the differences, but maybe in 50 years or time it's all right to disclose most of the information, not for disclosure automatically, but 30 years can be one of the cutting lines -- maybe not 100 percent, but maybe after the passing of the 30 years, another line will be the 50 years so whereby maybe more than 90 percent of the documents can be disclosed. And we have been proceeding with the work of disclosure, but I know that some quarters do offer some obstacles, but we have been trying to overcome those obstacles, but sometimes we get injured by it, trying to overcome the hurdles.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you. Then, Mr. Tanaka. Not only in the Foreign Ministry, but in the government in general, well, from that point of view, how would you react?
MR. TANAKA: Yes. If I may take the questions not in order they have been voiced. Now, what was pointed out by Mr. Mikuriya, I agree with him fully. In particular, regarding how the documents are being drawn up in the Japanese ministries is the postulation was indeed very plausible. It is exactly done in the way he has explained. So, I would say that in the future when the law for disclosure of information will be established, I believe, how the documents will be drafted way will be changed, I believe, because of this. Of course, I've been involved with such endeavors. But you mentioned the House of Lords, the minutes that have been published from the House of Lords. That is very suggestive. No new truth was uncovered that may change the history - this was not found in the minutes. This is indeed telling.
When something happens, you become worried or try to excuse yourself, so sometimes you do not want to disclose information because you would like to excuse yourself -- in case something happens. So that was the attitude for the majority of the bureaucrats. But for the majority of the cases, I believe, nothing is actually the problem, no risk is involved, so rather than taking the attitude of negative listing or negative scoring, I think you need to look in a more positive manner. But who is to make the judgment? So, I believe you need some legal back-up so that the bureaucrats can feel secure and safe in making the information public. Now, if and when the law is established, we have the confidentiality law and regulations for both the national public servants and the local governments public servants. And there are some exemptions to allow for non-disclosure, to be made as small as possible in a limited manner. And I agree with Mr. Miyake that it should be done as such.
But we have 22 government ministries and agencies and they're concerned about all sorts of different things. So, how it will develop has to be seen. You cannot predict what may happen, but as under Mr. Tinoda, the Chairman of the Subcommittee and so forth, I believe the overall direction is going towards expanded public access. The exemptions or the exceptions for no disclosure should be as limited as possible and made more concrete and specific. Because if there's a lawsuit, the judges may be confounded if it is too vague and ambiguous. So, it should be made very concrete and specific.
So, in terms of confidentiality, for public servants and for others, if they're not public servants, then to a certain extent there will be automatic disclosure. I am simplifying my argument in order for you to have easier understanding, but as soon as the laws and regulations are legislated, I think the situation will change dramatically. That is what I would like to say here. Now, regarding what Mr. Miyake has mentioned, I personally cannot say I am in favor of certain things or I am against certain things.
That's to say, how to write in the language of the rightful request for the information. Can we write in to anybody? That is to say, can we -- should we make it more specific to limit the persons? Of course, there are certain laws and regulations where you write citizens or the residents or anyone. In the case of U.S., one says anyone -- can anybody, even U.S. citizens, have access to the information in Japan for instance. This is something we need to consider. But we are seriously tackling with such problems. And also the cost involved, expenses involved and also the inventory question.
That is to say, if the cost is too high, then you would not be able to have easy access. It would not be affordable. So, what should be the charges and so forth? These are all things to be considered and are being deliberated at the subcommittee actively. But we need to hear the situations of the different ministries. Why are they reluctant? Why are they hesitant? And what are the specific problems for them that should be heard adequately, sufficiently, and should be discussed at the subcommittee.
Now, both Dr. Leffler and Dr. Wampler have said that, for instance, in order to eliminate backlogs what should be done is perhaps the private sector should be contracted or a committee should be established, like a nine-member committee in U.S. Can we really establish something like that? We need to study on this.
Now, what would be the confidentiality requirement of such a nine-member committee I would like to ask you? Is it like the public servants? Do they have a confidentiality obligation or -- I'm asking about the nine member review committee. I'm not an expert on this matter, so I would like to be educated on this. So, if the U.S. situation could be explained to us, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
PROFESSOR LEFFLER: Well, just to answer that question. Yes, we're obligated not to reveal anything about the confidential documents and top secret documents that we see. Those are the rules under which we operate.
I actually think that the committee works very conscientiously both to maintain that type of confidentiality yet to exert a good deal of pressure and it's a fine line to walk, but I think most of us have done it reasonably well.
And I was very gratified that when the new Executive Order was written by the Clinton Administration, which was talked about this morning, a private committee of this sort was created in the Executive Order to oversee the declassification process in the entirety of the whole government, not just the State Department. So, the government, you might say, as a whole has come to accept the effectiveness of this sort of outside so-called expert committee. And since you yourself were just talking about the difficulties of bringing together all the agencies of the government, that is a formidable enterprise in any country. And one of the things I would suggest is to sort of welcome the help of outside experts in part to facilitate some of the task here. Because I think once other agencies begin to have a sense of the role of private experts and can get a sense that they can act responsibly and not reveal secrets that really ought to be kept secret, but yet at the other hand can carry out the appropriate functions of disclosure, everybody gains more credibility and the whole process can work more effectively.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much. In the final discussion we had, as was mentioned by Mr. Tanaka and others, the bureaucrats tend to think in ways to avoid errors or failures. And they also have confidentiality obligations. But by establishing the law as Dr. Leffler suggested in the case of U.S. it was the Executive Order, so the confidentiality obligation can be changed and the obligation to disclose. And thereby the attitude can be changed. But in order to change the attitude and mentality, you need the law, the Freedom of Information Act. Something comparable to that can be established in Japan and that will be a thorough step forward. That, I believe, has become clear as we listen to the panel speak.
It seems that Mr. Tanaka is making the effort to have that kind of discussion. I don't know how long it would take, but perhaps in 30 years, for instance, for information other than the National Security, or the other national interests or privacy and so forth. As a rule, everything should be disclosed. That, I believe, would be the principle. I think that is -- is that the direction you're going at your subcommittee for the Freedom of Information Act in Japan, Mr. Tanaka?
MR. TANAKA: No, still that is exactly the question which is still to be debated. I'm sure that would be the basic position of the members of the subcommittee. But when it comes to the actual length, the period -- how many years, because that would depend upon the different situation. The Freedom of Information Law -- perhaps I'm preaching to the Buddha, to Mr. Miyake -- this is whether to give the legal right to request for access. This is something to do with some legal right.
But to start with, the government stance should be that all the information being held by the ministries and agencies should be published, should be made open to the public. That should be the basic principle. But due to various reasons, they have been kept from the public. But they should be made public.
Of course, there are some drawbacks, some disadvantages, but as a rule, it should be disclosed in one year, two years, -- because there is a rule. Now, after the rule is been established, people may say that this belongs to the classified area, so it can't be disclosed until ten years later.
And what kind of document should be preserved permanently or should be preserved five years or ten years or fifteen years as to the categories and classifications. I think you need to have a set rule. But there may be some adverse affect such that if you ask for the relevant information, the government office will immediately discard it, will burn the relevant information, for instance, because they don't want to find it. That is the kind of problem we can think of.
As Mr. Mikuriya has pointed out, if everything is to be made public, then people will tend to make no records. That may be one adverse possible impact. But how to draft the documents, how to keep the records and how to ask for and request for the right for the access, I hope that you will have detailed discussion into all these aspects. Now, I would like to ask the panelists for any other comments or questions. I would like to ask the panelists. Mr. Miyake, please.
MR. MIYAKE: I talked about the fine details of the right to request information, but currently, through Internet, through personal computers, one can access information from the executive branch directly just from Japan. But what about the Prime Minister's office in Japan? I hear that there has been the first report that the same thing is about to be done with the Prime Minister's office too, here in Japan. Computerized information, I hear, can soon be a subject of a request for information in the United States, meaning that college professors can work from their office and access directly through their computer the administration for necessary information. And my lawyer colleague could also access through computers the documents from the United States via their computer without even physically being there in the United States and that would be much less costly. That is one of the types of information that requestors should be able to request in Japan, too, based on the law.
So, if one makes a request in the United States one can get the undisclosed information disclosed. Also in other cases, without even making a concrete request in writing, there is a system in the United States where certain pieces of information can be disclosed anyway. But in the case of the tax office communication made by Japanese tax office, some of the pieces of information are not being disclosed. So those circular notices issued by the administration would also needed to be subject to disclosure and eventually to be accessed by computers. So computer information in my view should also become a subject for disclosure in the future because of the globalization of the world. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much, any other panelists? If not, then now I would like to open the floor for questions and comments to come from the audience. I would like to thank the people in the audience for their patience, for listening to the long hours of presentation. I'm sure you have pent-up comments you would like very much to voice now. But before you speak, please identify yourself and tell us your name. There is a microphone on the table before you, so please hit the green button on the console. Then the microphone will work. Yes, please.
AUDIENCE: I am Ide from Gumba Prefectorate. Well, my question may not be directly related to this symposium, but in a wider sense of the word with regard to the freedom of information, may I ask you the following questions. First question is addressed to Mikuriya.
Well, Mr. Mikuriya, you have mentioned that the Japanese bureaucrats tend to discard their documents and memoranda and it just reminded me that the Japanese politicians do not often write their memoirs. I don't say it's never, but very few of them write memoirs. But DeGaulle and Churchill have written famous memoirs respectively. But Schmidt and Lady Thatcher who are still living have also written their memoirs. But maybe in Japan we have so many of the former bureaucrats turned politicians. Has it something to do with it that the Japanese politicians do not often write memoirs? Is it due to the cultural differences or philosophical differences that they don't do that here in Japan? But can you just elaborate on this point, please.
The other question is addressed to our American guests. When American presidents retire, they usually erect a library in their constituency taking after their name and I believe many of the documents are deposited there too. Recently, in Japan, Prime Minister Miki's library was established. But most of the documents stored in that Miki Library are not open to public access because most of them are secret information. What about the case of the United States when former Presidents of the United States have erected libraries in their name in the constituency? What about the treatment of the documents contained in these libraries? Would people have free access to all the information inside the library or not? Mr. Mikuriya, please.
MR. MIKURIYA: Yes, I think there are several problems, but to say the documents are being discarded, being thrown out is not quite correct. Yes, when it comes to public documents, there are public papers and private papers. But when it comes to public documents or papers, if I said that they have been thrown out, that they've been intentionally lost, that is not so. I think for the public documents, because they have put into the card boxes, they were forgotten and those card boxes were thrown away by accident. That, I believe, is the majority of the case. So that is the first point I would like to mention. Now, regarding the private papers, be it government officials or politicians. Since the Meiji Restoration era there have been many private paper records retained. Since there was no time today, I did not go into this in my presentation, but for private papers, there it the National Diet library, there is the constitutional government document room and also at the House of Representatives, there is also the Constitutional government memorial hall which also preserves private papers. There are certain sets of documents by somebody, for instance, so and so, it's been preserved. So, both prewar and post war politicians, the private papers are being sorted out and being preserved by these organizations. But the reason why memoirs are not written by the Japanese politicians is not because documents are not available, it's because I believe as a principle, that is an attitude of the politicians. The private papers are being preserved in the form of private documents, not public documents. An enormous amount of documents are being preserved.
For instance in the case of the Japanese politicians by the name of Hara Kei or Toshimichi Okubo, I think that they've kept diaries every day. They were probably the busiest politicians in the Japanese history, but as a matter of fact, they were in fact very good record keepers. For instance, Eisaku Sato has kept his diary. Part of it has been already published and isn't there anybody -- isn't there any politician whose diary might be of any interest to you? For instance, in the post war era, Hatoyama Ichiro's diary will be shortly published and Mitsujiro Ishii's, that is to say the politicians during the Japanese occupation period say back in 1945 or so. Ikeda's[?] diary has been already published and probably there are more and more to come.
And in addition to that, some other information has been confirmed to be in existence and such information will be forthcoming.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: If the Japanese side does not produce any documents, that would be a severe trade imbalance as has been suggested by Mr. Iriye. But we need to try by and by to gradually resolve this imbalance, I hope. Now, turning to the second point, the allocation or division of labor between the Presidential record centers and the National Archive. Dr. Wampler, would you like to speak?
DR. WAMPLER: The question as I understood it, relates to the disposition of the records that go to the Presidential Libraries. These are administered as part of the National Archives system. There is different legislation and regulations covering those. There was a mandatory declassification review for the presidents up through Carter, then with Reagan, it's the Presidential Records Act. Essentially, they established the guidelines for the preservation, the cataloguing of the documents and eventual review of these documents for declassification review and release at a certain point beyond -- starting with Reagan, the end of their administrations. You can then go to these presidential libraries, do research, establish which records are still classified and under the relevant laws, file for review of those. But they are still dealt with as government documents in the sense that they fall under the purview of the federal legislation which covers the maintenance of those records. So that falls within the National Archives system as it exists in the United States.
MR. SLOAN: I'd like to just add a couple of personal experiences with respect to presidential records -- two personal experiences. One as a researcher about 16 years ago, I spent some time at the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, and it's a fascinating experience to go through the files.... I remember in particular files about Lyndon Johnson, then a young congressman, wanting very much to get in to see Franklin Roosevelt and the notes to Roosevelt from his Secretary about it and Roosevelt eventually writing on the notes -- sneak him in the back door for a glass of bourbon sometime. There was an immediacy from the records that was incomparable and that I still remember very vividly.
The other personal experience is when I left the White House recently two months ago, like any other White House staffer, when I left there is a very elaborate procedure for turning over your files to the records management section of the White House. Some of the active files get routed to people for current use, but those files that are not active go to records management and will ultimately be part of the presidential library and available to researchers subject to certain specified exceptions. Thank you.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Dr. Wampler, thank you. And Mr. Sloan, also, thank you very much. Mr. Sloan was the speaker during the morning session. Well, the presidential library is something established by the government. Now, as compared to that, the Miki Commemorative Library is scant in its collection. But in U.S. there is ample collection of all the documents because they are sorted out by different era. But also, apart from that, the problems involved with a certain administration are being preserved at the presidential library and there is also an enormous collection in volumes of information there as well apart from the National Archives.
Now, from the user's point of view, the presidential libraries in the countryside, not in the big cities, are especially very kind to us. President Kennedy's Library is in Boston and lots of tourists are there. But it's not that generous if I may say so -- not friendly to the users.
But Lyndon Johnson's Library in Austin, Texas is very organized and it's very useful to us. And also in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower's Presidential Library also is very kind and generous. It's well organized, also. And Truman's Library is in Independence, Missouri. So, if you go to those libraries other than in the big cities, in the countryside, I think, they're very supportive and helpful to you. This may have been something of inconsequential to you, but any other comments or question, please?
AUDIENCE: My name is Jerome Bedford, I'm a private researcher. Mr. Chairman and members of the panel, I would like to ask Dr. Wampler, could you tell us or explain to us, what are North America's motives behind declassification of information from other countries?
DR. WAMPLER: I can only speak of my personal motive as a historian, which is to understand the making of U.S. foreign policy, the nature of U.S. relations with other countries, so we can just understand this process better. I think that informs public understanding of how the government has interacted and related to other nations, thereby promoting understanding of the way in which my own government works. To me, as we've discussed this morning, this is an essential part of the democratic system and government accountability. And then, it's very interesting and important, to be able to understand the degree to which your own government perceived or misperceived the way in which its actions and policies were received overseas. This is an important part of the process of trying to, in the end, have a better foreign policy, and a better public understanding of that foreign policy. So, that, in a nutshell, would be the motivation behind this project.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Dr. Leffler, please.
PROFESSOR LEFFLER: I would like to add the point that most officials and most bureaucrats are always afraid that the opening of their documents will prove embarrassing to them. But, I really wonder if this is the case over the long run. What I have in mind is a famous example about two American presidents - you raised the issue of presidential libraries and it reminded me of the case of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. These two men loathed, hated, one another. And they had very different views of what their legacy would be. Before Roosevelt died, he actually provided, not only for the creation of the first presidential library in Hyde Park, but also made it clear that he wanted his papers opened very quickly, that for the most part, he was willing to have his record assessed. The result was that if you look at the literature, the historical literature, over the early years of the post-war period, the 1950s and early 60s, most of the literature written about Franklin Roosevelt is very sympathetic.
Herbert Hoover had exactly the opposite view. He felt that because of his record during the Depression, that once his records were opened people would be very critical of him and that his image, already tarnished, would even be worse. So, during his lifetime, Herbert Hoover, for the most part, prohibited access to his papers and he lived until -- I forget -- the late 60s or the early 1970s and hence throughout this period of time, from the time he left the presidency in 1933 to the early 1970s, there was a very negative image of Herbert Hoover in America. Then, after his death, the Hoover Presidential Library was opened and historians flocked to the library to look at the papers of Herbert Hoover. And to everyone's surprise, even liberals and some leftists, indeed, radicals, who went to the Herbert Hoover Library to write about Herbert Hoover, started looking at the record and found many sympathetic things to say about Hoover and suddenly in the mid- and late-1970s and early 1980s, there was actually a revival of Hoover's image in America.
What I'm saying here, the larger point, is that if you have conscientious officials -- and I think for the most part we should assume that in our countries we do have conscientious officials -- they are making very difficult decisions under very difficult circumstances. When the records are opened up, almost invariably, the honest researcher begins to see the issues from the perspective of the official and the officials themselves. You begin to empathize with them. You begin to see the conflicting pressures under which they operate, the various constituencies to which they're responsible, and you begin to understand why they made the decisions that they made. Sometimes the historian is critical, but more usually, I would say, empathy develops even when there is criticism. Hence, the larger point that I think we should all try to remember is that openness does not really lead to embarrassment. Openness leads to understanding and to empathy.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much. You have taken the example of Herbert Hoover. ... Now, in the case of the U.S. president, there are sometimes popular presidents and unpopular presidents. But under the 30-year rule, documents will be released so it catches up. So, once again, the historian will be able to review the released documents. So, the second time around, the American administration and presidents can have again, once again, contact with their people, be it Hoover's or be it Eisenhower's. They're nice, but they are not that good a president was the contemporary assessment. But the second time around, they were applauded as good presidents.
Now, are there any other questions or comments? You haven't exhausted your question yet? Would you like to continue?
AUDIENCE: [Unidentified speaker] Today, we're talking about the internationalization of Japan and the open government. I think that for Japan, we have zero points so to speak if they're lower than 50 years. And today, we are always talking about the open government and also the internationalization of Japan. Everything is moving very rapidly. But why is it that we are repeating the same thing? Why is it that it takes us so long to internationalize ourselves? I think that it's taking us too long. And everything is going quite rapidly. We've got to hurry up.
Well, I think that it is taking us too long. Well, I think that the speeches from the American speakers were very much to the point, whereas in the case of the Japanese speakers, they were sort of off the mark. They were trying to protract their representations. I think that here we are talking about the relationship between Japan and the United States. But in Japan the information is not made available, so there is very little information being disclosed. There is much discussion going on about the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. PANELIST [Unidentified]: Well, there are certain prices given to a product. There are even three different prices attached to a product. And we don't have freedom of information access and so forth. You know, there's a TV personality who speaks about this. I know I'm not an excellent speaker, so you might not get the point in question, but sorry about my unorganized manner.
Yes, I believe what you were suggesting was that before the [inaudible] happens, public access to information law should be established fully. I believe that was what you had suggested. Yes?
AUDIENCE: My name is Sakaede[?]. I have a question for Mr. Tanaka. Now, disclosure of historic documents, that's fine. But the regulations and laws which are still valid, the systematic disclosure of such existing laws and regulations is not being done in a systematic manner, especially for the industry-related regulations. Because there are certain things that are taking the form of administrative guidance that's not in the formal legislations.
Now, in your efforts to try to come up with a law for the public disclosure, are you also trying to systematically document those things as well?
MR. TANAKA: Yes, the point of your question as to the various regulations and laws -- of course laws are all published, be it ministerial ordinance, be it notifications -- they are completely published. But what is not being disclosed yet? Of course, certain provisions and regulations are being opened up. For instance, the regulations related to political funding, for instance. It was mentioned by Mr. Iriye earlier on. In the interest of time, I'm not going into details, but on the whole it is true that it has not been systematically sorted out. So, how can we try to establish a clear relationship between the law we're trying to establish and the volume of existing regulations is what we're trying to do. Now, in November of 1993, it was promulgated and it was implemented since last year, the administrative procedure law is what I'm talking about. It has been provided in this law -- administrative guidance should have some basis of laws and regulations to back up whenever a Ministry would like to give administrative guidance [inaudible]. In a word, if the party who receives the guidance does not have to comply with administrative guidance if you don't like to do so, and if some penalties are being imposed, that is forbidden. That is clearly written in the administrative procedure law. And of course, complaints can be made and the responsibility and accountability is not made clear in the administrative guidance, that is the problem. But administrative guidance should be in writing, documented. That is also another new provision in the administrative procedure law.
There has been much criticism on administrative guidance, but last year since the administrative procedure law was implemented, it has been very effective. I think the public disclosure law is the same. It is very similar. If the citizens are courageous enough to utilize, make use of what has been provided by the law, I would like to encourage you to do so. So, if you would like to have some documents, you need to speak up, and you have to stand and ask for the documents. You need to summon up that courage. And of course, we would like to disseminate the information in management coordination agencies doing the PR activities for them.
MR. SAKAEDE[?]: The point that I've been trying to convince you is not only about the perspective of the users, but I'm talking about the position taken by administrators and administrations, ministries and agencies. The administrative agencies are issuing the laws to the industry, but administrative guidelines are not documented in writing. For example, on the director's level, below the Director General's level, on the Director's level there are massive guidelines or guidances issued by the ministry to the relevant industries which foreigners will find it nearly impossible to understand. But soon, under WTO and EU rules and costs, the practices will be sort of globalized, internationalized. So not only the administrations and the industries, but the people would like to know what is the situation currently and one must grasp what the situation is. So, inventory taking will be needed. That's my point of view.
MR. TANAKA[?]: Yes, I agree with you fully. Yes, I understand your point very well. Administrative guidance is already outmoded and old-fashioned. We need to change with the times. The law would lose its meaning, but if you have implementation regulations and so forth under the different ministries, so I won't say that everything is bad but sometimes there are outmoded, old-fashioned and antiquated and distorted practices in the industry. Then, those things should be abolished. You need to summon up your courage to say so. It is rather peculiar to Japan that everybody waits until somebody else does something, but you should take the initiative yourself. Our budget and our manpower is constrained for us, but there are various ministries and agencies that are not [under?] administrative inspection but the administrative examination committee is reviewing the matter. So, the laws and ordinances, if they are no longer necessary, should be abolished or should be amended. And we are trying very had to do so.
And what has been suggested just now, Mr. Sakaeda, what you have suggested will be investigated, but industries still don't speak up. They don't tell us that these are the guidances, these are the regulations imposed on us. That is not what we hear from the industries. Of course, administrative guidance doesn't have any binding power, has no enforcing power. But, perhaps behind the scenes there may be some troubles and problems such as you are concerned with.
But the administration is for the people. So, the people should speak up to change and reform the ways the administration and the laws and regulations are being developed. Of course, there are many problems to be tackled and there are some things we are looking into and studying. For instance, the privacy law or the law that has been already been established -- an administrative procedure law. Perhaps it is incomplete yet, but it is already established. So, one by one, step by step, we are trying to develop the necessary mechanism and you are the people, we are your servants, please speak up. That is what I would like to request to you.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Perhaps one more question from the floor because of the time. The person who was raising hands before. Yes?
AUDIENCE: I am Yamamoto from Ibaragi Prefecture, city of Mito. My question is addressed to Mr. Mikuriya. All the central ministries and agencies are very hesitant to disclose their information. One of the reasons for that is because of the negative scoring rule. That is to say, they are afraid that some problem would arise as a result of disclosure of a certain piece of information but as I see it, the relationship between the other ministries -- executive branch and the legislative branch are reversed. That is to say, it is executive branch of the bureaucrats who take control and decide everything and convey the conclusion to the legislature and legislators. But if the ongoing process is to be disclosed then, the administration will be afraid that they will be deprived of their controlling part by the politicians and legislators. Option papers or the offering of the options have been mentioned before certain options can be offered to the politicians so the politicians can make a choice. That is how the relationship between the administration and the legislature should be. Otherwise, the general public will not be able to know the exact processes involved in the formulation of a certain policy of the government. That is a concern I have myself. What you think?
PROFESSOR MIKURIYA: I'm not representing the government myself, so I'm not sure whether I'm a proper person to answer your question, but I'm sort of observing the situation from the sidelines if I may say so. So there are many points involved. The difficulty is that the relationship between the legislature and the administration seems to be reversed. It is not yet reversed, but the process of reversal is not disclosed. The point is whether it is embarrassing or disadvantageous to discover the process.
Now, when you communicate with the politician, the problem is that nothing is being preserved in the form of documents or in writing, so I think the actual situation is that you cannot put something into writing and the administration's side may have option papers and come up with a reasoning for those option papers and as in the case of the U.S. we frequently see that notes are being exchanged frequently. If that is actually taking place, that's fine, but the biggest problem in Japan is that that is not what is actually been happening. So, when we speak of information to be publicized, the information is not put in a set format, so I think the bureaucrats worry that they have nothing to disclose because they don't have anything of documents. Of course they may have written in in their notebooks, but those notebooks are not preserved, they've been discarded, so that is the problem with Japan.
The important thing is that it's being whispered. Important things are whispered. It's not put into paper. What would you say to that?
MR. TANAKA[?]: I think that what Mr. Shiina mentioned this morning was very suggestive. That is to say, amongst the politicians, probably, that has been the case. And also, in the government agencies, I am the director general officer in a certain bureau in my ministry, but -- well, yes, many people actually prepare papers. Well, as a matter of fact, we have documents that are signed and that are agreed upon but before that kind of process, I think that you've got to prepare various papers and documents. There should be that kind of document. But such documents are not detailed enough. And it's just outlining the main points. And I think that probably some kind of opposition might be embarrassing to the person in charge. And so, there are some people who actually prepare documents. But anyway, there is no mandatory rule for document preparation. But I think that amongst the politicians, probably before a decision is made, of course, option A and option B -- you have two options, for instance. And so, probably the kind of process may not be so embarrassing anyway to the politicians. I think that Mr. Shiina was on a very extreme not so to speak, probably that case was a relatively extreme case and it is not that everybody is like him.
And in relation with Freedom of Information or public access to government information, municipal goverments have municipal ordinances and there are two types in the case of [inaudible] prefecture. The documents that are in the process are to be made subject to public access as well.
But when I say process, what is the definition of process? And, of course, some of the processes may be made public but in some other cases, some other parts of the processes may not be made available as information. In most of the cases, I think that documents that have been formally approved, would be only subject to the public access. And so how to think about the process, how to think about and how to deal with the policy-making process? Is it a good idea to go directly and go stright to the very advanced case? Like that in the United States? Well, I don't know, but, anyway, everything will go back to Edo period or some other period in the Japanese history, and we have the tradition and we have the customs that have been prevalent over the past more than 100 years. And so, some kind of some practice might be changed, but some others may not be changed over night.
And of course, it would be good if everybody agrees on a certain thing. There are some politicans who are relatively reluctant about freedom of information. Anyway, everything will be decided upon by the Diet and so we would have to have the majority's consensus.
So, borrowing the words of Prime Minister Nakasone, former Prime Minister Nakasone, without the wind, without the momentum, we cannot pursue administrative reform. So, even if a certain learned person might advocate the need for the freedom of information, unless there is consensus on the part of the majority, we cannot pursue that. So, I think this is, in fact, the functionality of democracy. And so, of course, there are many difficulties that we need to encounter, but we're doing our best anyway.
PROFESSOR IOKIBE: Thank you very much. I thought that we had long hours to go, but almost instantly the time is up and I would like to thank you, the people in the audience for your active inputs and also we had a very enthusiastic discussion amongst the panelists as well.
There was one relevant theme here. We are trying to bring about revolution -- a peaceful revolution if I may say so. The government is being mandated from the people, from the public and take the responsibility for that. And the private sector, the people, will cooperate with the government and the good governance from above should be accepted as such. That was the long tradition in Japan.
Of course, government was created as such, but we should not forget that the people, the private sector is also very important and government is something to be entrusted with, mandated with. But if we can do away with the major obstacles, then the private sector or the people can ask for the public disclosure of the information. Just as in the case of United States, all the documents should be provided so that the people can have the relevant debate over any question. That should be the direction we should be going, and to institutionalize and to legislate the necessary regulations and without that we cannot support the broad-based civic society. That, I think, is a big shift in paradigm -- a historic change if I may say so.
Throughout the morning and the afternoon sessions on several points, the people who are in charge of the question in the government and the users' point of view or the observers point of view, both from the outsider's point of view as well as the insider's point of view, have been expressed. I believe generally speaking there was a consensus that it is necessary to establish firmly a legal basis for public access or expanded public access to government information. I believe this has become clear. I believe there was a consensus.
And secondly, be it the 30-years rule or be it how many years rule, sometimes the duration should be shorter. But if there are no major damages or hindrance, then, as a rule, information should be made public. And the distinction to be drawn between material to be disclosed and the material not to be disclosed should be clearly defined. And also the documents that are being disclosed should be utilized fully by providing catalogues and directories and so forth for easier access and easier use.
Now, in order to have information more widely disclosed, if it can be done on the private sector basis, that's fine. But in Japan, perhaps we need an advisory council to expedite the situation and if disclosure is not done properly, then based upon the information disclosure law, the appeals can be made, complaints can be made, and put to the court if necessary. That is a system that needs to be put in place - that was also argued. And Mr. Mikuriya and others have pointed out the question of whether the Japanese bureaucrats are jealously guarding their own turf and jurisdiction and who don't want anybody to become important. I believe bureaucracy is the same everywhere, but such bureaucrats will be able to accept in general an obligation, as a rule, to disclose everything.
Wouldn't they protest? Wouldn't they try to hamper the process? That was the question posed. But now the international trend or the current is going towards freedom of information. Would the bureaucrats be resigned to go along with it?
Now, if we can facilitate this to happen, that would be to strong wish of the people. The wind to blow and soar the glider, so to speak. So, the people need to actively promote this and to be supported by the people at large. The experts who are involved with the process should be facilitated by the wide support coming from the people both domestically and internationally. I think that that was indicated as a fact and that, I believe, is the true significance and relevance of the conference today. Thank you very much for your very useful and valuable insights into the question. I would like to thank all the panelists, speakers and discussants.