From behind a wooden lectern in Princeton University's Department of East Asian Studies last month, 85-year-old Tokio Tobita, a Japanese World War II veteran and convicted war criminal who served 10 years in Sugamo Prison, surveyed the intently focused faces of scholars, artists, students, American war veterans and their families.

Then, speaking calmly through his English-language interpreter, East Asian Studies Director Martin Collcutt, Tobita began his startling confession:

"I was a farmer's boy with an elementary school education," he explained. "So for me, the experience [of imprisonment] at Sugamo actually proved nourishing. I learned poetry and art. I wrote in a diary and made friends from another culture. Those 10 years actually gave me my education.