Dr. George Packard
Dr. Packard received his B.A. (magna cum laude) from Princeton University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Early in his career he was an intelligence officer and later a special assistant to US Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer in Tokyo. After working extensively in journalism, from 1979 to 1993 he was Dean of the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He founded the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS, where he became Director and the Edwin O. Reischauer Professor in East Asian Studies; in this capacity he served concurrently as visiting President of the International University in Niigata from 1994 to 1998. Since 1998 he has been President of the United States-Japan Foundation, a private grant-making organization committed to promoting stronger ties between the US and Japan and addressing common concerns in the Asia-Pacific region. He is also Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, where he offers a graduate seminar on US-Japan Relations from Pearl Harbor to the Present.

He has written or edited eight books and is currently writing a book on Edwin O. Reischauer.

Of the paper that he read to the Society, Dr. Packard writes: It has become fashionable recently to dismiss the works of Edwin O. Reischauer on Japan as hopelessly naive and optimistic. "Convergence" and "modernization theory" are in disrepute. The star of E.H. Norman, whose life and thought stand in fascinating contrast to Reischauer's, is rising in the worlds of such disciples as John Dower and Herbert Bix. In a brief stroll through the minefield that is modern Japanese history, I propose to re-examine Reischauer's fundamental beliefs about Japan and to compare their validity and relevance with those of his critics in the light of the 50 years since Japan recovered its independence.