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Attorney General Kennedy Visits Waseda University, Reds Make a Scene

Feb. 6, 1962 - A small band of young Japanese Communists turned a warm university welcome for Robert F. Kennedy into a wild demonstration today. At Waseda University in Tokyo, the Attorney General of the United States, startled at first but icily calm later, got a first-hand taste of the ability of the Japanese Left Wing to use disciplined political shock troops to dramatize and magnify their power. A 21-year-old Japanese student and several hundred assistants managed to take the floor from Mr. Kennedy and drown out his attempts to speak with a hectoring chorus as carefully coached as a choir. Mortified Japanese surrounded the Communist leader afterward, pushing and shoving him and demanding an apology. Many Japanese were humiliated by the 1960 riots that forced President Eisenhower to cancel his planned visit to Japan. The visit of the Attorney General represented for many persons a chance to make amends.

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