BIOGRAPHIC REPORTS ON SELECTED MEMBRES OF FOREIGN MISSIONS IN JAPAN
OIR [Office of Intelligence Research] Report No. 4398
July 1, 1947
CONFIDENTIAL
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Division of Biographic Information
![[ Norman, formal portrait ]](../../images/site/365981_2.jpg "[ Norman, formal portrait ]")
Norman, formal portrait, Unknown, University of British Columbia Library, Rare Books and Special Collections, BC 1860-032
NORMAN, Egerton Herbert
CANADA
Personal data: Born September 1, 1909, Karuizawa, Japan; married, Irene Clark of Hamilton, Ontario, August 1935.
[…]
Remarks:
Norman is an outstanding Japanese scholar, as linguist, historian and authority on contemporary Japanese politics. He has studied and worked for a number of years in the United States, and is described as an American- as opposed to a British-Canadian. He is objective and academic, but at the same time a practical man, having many interests outside his special field. 1 / He has been devoting his entire energies since the war to the problems of Japanese reconstruction, and has expressed his warm endorsement of the policies of General MacArthur. He feels that the democratic gains “can be made permanent, because they conform with the deepest wishes and finest traditions of the Japanese people themselves.” Speaking at the Foreign Policy Association in New York, he said that he strategy of the American occupation of Japan had been superb and that no serious criticism of it would prove valid. 2 /
Politically Norman is a moderate liberal. Both he and his wife are socially popular. Their family life is unpretentious. 1 /
BI: EJRudline:kec
June 11, 1947
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1 / Department of State, June 11, 1947, CONFIDENTIAL.
2 / New York Times, March 17, 1946.
CONFIDENTIAL