Linus Pauling: Some organization in Pasadena, or perhaps Los Angeles, telephoned my wife to say
that there was an American soldier of Japanese ancestry - probably never been in Japan,
I expect, born in the Sacramento valley or in southern California - an American soldier
who had been inducted two weeks before, or a few days before, into the American Army
and had been given leave to come to California on some family business. And it may
be that his family was interned. I'm not sure about that. I don't remember. But
the main point is he had been inducted into the army and allowed to return to California
and wanted to make a little extra money. So would my wife hire him as a gardener?
Nothing about - well, so far as I know he had never been to Japan. There was nothing
about housing him, just giving him a job as gardener. So he came the next day, I
think, and probably worked eight hours as a gardener and got paid for it. It was
that night that our garage door was painted and our mailbox was painted. And then
for a couple of weeks we had the sheriff put up a 24-hour guard at our place. I had
to go back to Washington, D.C. in a day or two. We got several threatening letters,
which I turned over to the authorities.
Thomas Hager: The FBI was called into the case - according to their files they came in and did
an investigation as well. But it was you who, I assume after finding the graffiti,
who called up the sheriff's department and notified them of the case and asked for
help. Is that the way that that happened?
Linus Pauling: Well, after receiving these threatening letters, I think my wife called the sheriff
and the sheriff said, "Well, that's what you get for hiring a Japanese worker." And
my wife was an officer of ACLU I think at the time. At any rate she called the president
of the Los Angeles chapter of ACLU, and she put pressure on the sheriff to put up
a guard.
