Point at that time and it broke ground by the end of 1963. The garden was an open to the public until may of 1967. The idea for the garden goes back a few years earlier than that. Became sisterand cities. Creating a place where portlanders could learn more about the population of japan. They came for opportunities for their families and children, they came as farmers, they came as businessman, going back to 100 years ago. What we now know as chinatown in portland was originally japan town. The japanese came and settled in that area. During world war ii, you are aware that the tragic situation in which the japanese were put into internment camps, that was a terrible moment in u. S. History. During that time, much of the land was taken away. They were not allowed to return to it. It really decimated the japanese population for the next couple of generations in portland. In the 1950s, in the late 1950s, there is still a lot of antijapan sentiment in oregon and portland and across the united states. Japan was our mortal enemy in world war ii, what people remember about japan was pearl harbor and what was done there. If we were going to become allies and friends, there had to be some healing that was going to happen. This entire garden was built around this concept of peace. The better that we understand each other, the less likely we are to go to war with each other. That is how the healing begin. In 1954, the first ship to come a peace mission, it came from japan. On that ship was a lantern. We call it the peace lantern. It is a gift from the mayor of all,. Okahama. There was no Japanese Garden at the time. The public could enjoy it as a symbol of a beginning of a conversation with japan and it was moved up to the rose gardens for a couple of years. , it waswas open here brought into the Japanese Garden for the grand opening. , the people garden of portland begin to understand the people of japan better. They are both around the idea of peace and tranquility. When you look around this garden, you have plants and flowers from time to time. Of most of the plant material in this garden was all about green and shades of green. It creates this feeling of peace and tranquility. The path and the stones that you step on, they are so carefully placed. Lots of winding paths. Youof these things require to be mindful about how you are stepping and walking. The idea is that everything is intended to slow you down. The more corners you have to turn, the more stones you have to step on, the more careful and mindful you have to be, that helps to slow you down. Garden, is designed around the buddhist qualities of meditation, of peace, of tranquility. And ist going to meditate will think and absorb the beauty of what it is. The garden has absolutely achieve this goal over history. I will tell a story to demonstrate that. Theres a lot of antijapanese sentiment. It was a young japanese man who lived on a trailer while it was being built. He would come home from time to time and there would be groups of people protesting that he was living here and he was building this garden. They would spray paint on the side of the trailer go home job. One time, he was even mugged and physically attacked by a group of protesters. Left for then three years later and bout he would never return to the city of portland or to discarded because of the spirits he had. Later, we resent all the former garden directors and we wanted to have a garden gathering here for the first time. In fact, i approached him and asked him to come back and he said no because of the experience he had. It took a couple of visits and some convincing and working with the family and we were finally able to convince him to come back. He came to portland about five years ago and found what this had grown into. More importantly, he so with this garden had become to his community, how the community had embraced it and made it its own. How we had 11,000 members and how we had hundreds of thousands of visitors and how when we had a Panel Discussion of those garden directors, 1000 people showed up. Heres what he had to say about the experience. Do you know what happened . All of the wounds were healed. He saw that the wounds of this community and their feelings or japan has completely changed over the course of the preceding 45 years. He realized in that moment that this garden had done what it was intended to do. It brought peace and understanding between the people of portland and the people of japan in a way that he had never even imagined. Our cities tour staff recently traveled to portland, oregon to learn about its rich history. Learn more about portland and other stops on our tour at cspan. Org cities tour. Youre watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. This is the author of special forces berlin. Clandestine cold war operations of the army elite. The graduate school of National Security hosted this hourlong event. Before we begin our session, and we talk about our speaker and everybody sitting down, i would to make sure that we q a at the and. If everybody would be so kind as to shut off your cell phones, frank pletcher, who is our head of Public Affairs is a very he has a very large and heavy mike. Be careful, we are dealing with some dangerous people. Thats on who introduced us can do is to get out of the way quickly. I like to welcome everybody to daniel morgan