NEW YORK -- Earlier this month, when our friends Lenore and Robert invited us to visit them in Naples, Florida, where they recently acquired a new apartment, I decided to accept their offer. Naples is where Yukio Mishima (1925-70) spent a few days during his first visit to this country in January 1952, and I wanted to see the place.
Japan then was still under the American Occupation and any Japanese going overseas had to have the Supreme Commander's signature. But once the permit was given, the arrangements made by the U.S. government seem to have been generous and diverse. Those made for Mishima even included a visit with Julius Fleischmann in his seaside villa in Naples.
Julius Fleischmann Jr. was the head of "an empire" built on yeast during the prewar decades and one of America's wealthiest men at the time. So, his ready agreement to give his time to a young man from a defeated nation, however impressive his rising fame in his own country, is surprising enough. Even more surprising, he met his guest in Miami airport himself and drove him 195 km across the peninsula.