Richard B. Finn oral history interview

1978-11-04

Finn, Richard B.; Mayo, Marlene J.

Oral history interview with Richard B. Finn conducted by Marlene Mayo on November 4, 1978. Richard Boswell Finn (1917-1998) was a naval intelligence officer, diplomat, and scholar. Finn graduated from Harvard College in 1939 and Harvard Law in 1942. After college, Finn joined the Navy and attended the Navy's Japanese Language School at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Finn became a naval intelligence officer, then joined the Foreign Service. He remained in Japan with his wife until 1954. He served as an adjunct professor at American University and from 1983 to 1987 he administered the United States-Japan program at Harvard. Finn authored "Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Post-war Japan" and also served as editor for a series issued by Transaction Press on US and Japan relations. In 1987, he was awarded an imperial decoration by the Japanese government. Finn passed away in 1998.

University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)

Oral histories

Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952

Japan; Maryland; Glen Echo

Postwar Japan

Special Collections and University Archives

English

Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the University of Maryland Libraries at http://www.lib.umd.edu/special/contact/home.

Recording: 02:23:00 (audiocassette; mp3); Transcript: 72 pages (PDF)

This oral history interview is part of the Marlene J. Mayo oral histories. A guide to the full collection of Marlene J. Mayo oral histories is available in our archival collections: http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/42478.
Accession 2009-209-GWP
An interview transcript is available.

Filename: prange-087540