To Inspire Japanese Youth, Clinton Pulled In Top Dollar
Civic Group Paid $400,000 for Visit by Ex-President
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 17, 2003; Page A03
SEOUL, June 16 -- The man who initiated what became Bill Clinton's most lucrative visit and speech last year admits he flinched -- if only for a moment -- when he found out his civic group in Japan had paid more than anyone else for a visit by the former president.
"I did say, 'Oh! Is that so?' " admitted Takashi Kawatsu, when he read that the $400,000 his group paid to have Clinton come to his town topped a list of speaking engagements that netted the former president $9.5 million last year.
"But I want to focus on what he left with our children" in an address he made to high school students in Mito City, Japan, Kawatsu said in a telephone interview. "I want to emphasize that we do not see this as a matter of money. We really, really appreciate what he did for us."
Don Walker, president of the Harry Walker Agency Inc., which represents Clinton in speaking engagements, said that fees are higher if the former president travels abroad. "An overseas engagement entails more time and effort," he said.
In February 2002, Clinton was paid $300,000 for a visit to Sydney to attend a meeting of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, part of an international tour that netted him nearly $1.2 million. His standard fees in the United States last year were $100,000 or $125,000.
What Clinton did on Nov. 19 in Mito City, located on the northeastern outskirts of Tokyo, was address 1,700 high school students, pose for photos at a reception, then dine at a banquet with the town fathers who donated his fee, Kawatsu said. The next morning he met for a political chat with college students before leaving.
For that, he collected the largest fee of the 60 paid speeches he gave last year, according to the account of his earnings detailed in the financial disclosure statement filed by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)
What did he say that was worth $400,000? "He told our youth to have a dream," Kawatsu said. "He told them the world is connected, not just through computers and Internet, but wherever you go and wherever you are, you can connect. He also said there is no magic. But he said if you have dreams, you can connect."
Kawatsu, 51, a former city assemblyman and now a member of the assembly of Ibaraki prefecture, said that inviting Clinton was his idea.
"The youth of our prefecture have an increasingly high rate of crime. In this kind of environment, I wondered how we can play a role to give them hope." He recalled learning that Clinton had been inspired to enter politics after meeting President John F. Kennedy at a youth group visit to the White House.
"I thought, who is more suitable to give that kind of hope than Mr. Clinton?" Kawatsu said. "I thought it would be good for him to come to talk to our youth."
He said he contacted the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, which referred him to the Harry Walker Agency in Manhattan. He said the agency suggested that for a speech Clinton might get $300,000. When the town proposed adding a banquet and a meeting the next day with local university students, the amount climbed to $400,000, he said.
"This was the amount proposed. The agency said this was the kind of money he would receive for this," Kawatsu said.
Walker said it wasn't clear who proposed that the added activities would hike the fee by $100,000, but that the figure was appropriate because Clinton had to stay overnight for the event the next morning. Walker also stressed that Clinton participated in a series of events the first day, in addition to the speech.
Clinton was following Republican footsteps to lucrative engagements in Asia. Former president Ronald Reagan reportedly received $2 million from the Fujisankei Communications Group for a nine-day visit to Japan in October 1989. That trip -- and the huge fee -- sparked controversy in the United States.
To raise the money for Clinton's visit, Kawatsu said he made the rounds of a Mito City political "study group." Such informal associations, in which members get together periodically to discuss a subject of mutual interest, are common in Japan. Eventually 103 donors underwrote the fee.
"They were doctors, lawyers, civil servants or some older gentlemen. Some people contributed 1 million yen [about $8,500], some 500,000, [$4,300] or 50,000 [$430] or what they could," he said.
"True, it's a lot of money," he said. "But we thought the opportunity was priceless. He touched the youths. They grasped something. We don't expect them to win Nobel prizes because of this, but we would like them to look back and say that this was perhaps something that encouraged them."
Kawatsu said the success of the speech was confirmed by letters the students were asked to write after the event. "He [Clinton] taught me the obvious," read one such letter from Miwa Morita, a sophomore at Mito Second High School, "the obvious we tend to forget from day to day, based on his own experience: To change what is around you leads to changing the world."
Deputy Foreign Editor John Burgess in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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