JFK ON THE GINZA

"JOHN F. KENNEDY" 

ON THE GINZA  

AN AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ICON ... IN JAPAN 

IN HONOR OF JFK, BORN ON THIS DATE 

IN 1917, IN BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS

PRESIDENT, JANUARY 20, 1961-NOVEMBER 22, 1963

In 1981, en route to China for my first visit, I had a chance to dash downtown to Tokyo for an hour-and-a-half, and grabbed it. 

I was back in the country where I lived for a year as a child, in the town of Sasebo, and where, at age eight, I had taken my first photographs.

And what did I see but an image of our slain president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in a store front window on the Ginza – being used to sell glasses.

Such is the power of icons and the mystery of iconography, and of cross-cultural exchanges. 

A SUNNY DAY AT REAGAN'S WHITE HOUSE

A SUNNY DAY AT RONALD REAGAN'S WHITE HOUSE 

AMERICAN PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN HOSTS EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT HOSNI MUBARAK AT THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, JANUARY 27, 1983

This week President Reagan's unabridged diaries go on sale. They reportedly offer an "unvarnished look at people ranging from Pope John Paul to Mother Teresa to Mikhail Gorbachev." It should be interesting to look up the date of this meeting (above), and see what kind of comments Reagan offers (there is an official transcript of the report on their meeting and brief Rose Garden Q&A session).

Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, and died in June 2004. Hosni Mubarak is still president of Egypt.