Tokyo Weekender Spotlights Chuck Iikubo '57, A50 and DePauw

September 26, 2001

September 26, 2001, Greencastle, Ind. - The cover story of the September 7, 2001 edition of Tokyo Weekender tells, in great detail, of Hirotsugu "Chuck" Iikubo's efforts to affirm an "old friendship through a new century" by creating the A50 Project. The article notes that Iikubo and his father are both DePauw graduates (in 1957 and 1923, respectively), and that "Hirotsugu Iikubo has devoted much of his time organizing a movement in Japan to express his country's appreciation to America and its policies, which put Japan on the road to recovery and eventual wealth and power."

"I, as a Japanese, have been directly helped by American largesse," Chuck Iikubo told the Weekender. "I graduated from DePauw University and am now a member of the Board of Trustees of that school. Today I have a wide circle of acquaintances and friends in the U.S. and had long felt a moral obligation to do something to repay the debt of my country to America. I had not the foggiest notion of what to do."

In 1993, after a dinner with former Indiana Governor Robert Orr, Iikubo came up with an idea: a formal ceremony in Tokyo to thank the USA, followed by a caravan through major American cities. The project would be called A50: "A" for Appreciation and America; 50 representing the number states, the years since for the end of the war and the hope for 50 more years of good relations. That dream was realized this month, with a September 8 ceremony in Tokyo (at which fellow DePauw alum Dan Quayle '69 represented the United States) and a caravan (you can read about, see video and hear audio from the Indianapolis events here).

Accompanying the article is a photo of Chuck Iikubo with former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield. You can read the entire article online by clicking here.

In another column in the same edition of Weekender, Corky Alexander writes, "I'll tell you, Hirotsugu (Chuck) Iikubo is a very, very interesting person. He's the gent who dreamed up the A50 Project, featured on our front page today, which he designed to express Japan's gratitude to the United States for all it has done in the postwar years to set Japan back on its feet after WWII defeat. That's him in the inset photo on Page 1; in the background is U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson in the act of signing the 1951 Peace Treaty between the U.S., her Allies and Japan, officially and legally ending hostilities."

You can read the entire text here.

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