Kennedy's Messages 1963. Edited, with a Foreword by Edwin Reischauer

[Japan], 1963. [Politics] FIRST EDITION. Quarto (26 x 19cm), pp.155. With three black and white photographic plates [JFK, 88th Congress and Ambassador Reischauer]. Text in English, followed by Japanese, each segment with separate title-page printed on green card. Bound in dark blue silk, blocked in silver-gilt to spine and upper. Contents very clean, Japanese ink chop and inscription to endpapers, spine sunned, gilt rubbed from same. Generally near fine. An especially rare publication, with no copies appearing in global library searches. This collection of Kennedy's speeches was published on 15th November, exactly one week before the President's assassination. The speeches were assembled to appeal to the Japanese market by Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (1910-1990), the eminent Japanologist, respected American educator, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan (1961-66) who was personally appointed by Kennedy. Having seen diplomatic ties with the US suspended for a decade after the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan was again building trade and relations with America under their dynamic young President. Speeches selected here would add to his appeal in the East, including subjects such as Foreign Aid, The World Food Congress, The Free World Defense Program and The Reduction of Balance of Payments Defecit. Reischauer founded the Japan Institute at Harvard University and was honoured by the opening of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at John Hopkins University. Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said of him "I know of no other man who has so thoroughly understood Japan