Jack Seward, a U.S. Army veteran and Japan expert who served under Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff command during the Allied Occupation, died Nov. 10 in Houston. He was 86.
Born in Houston on Oct. 11, 1924, Seward grew up in Dallas and attended the University of Oklahoma. An act of chance during his early years introduced him to his life-long connection with Japan: While working several summers on a ranch in Oklahoma, two Japanese hands there started to teach him some of the language.
At 18 he volunteered for active duty in the U.S. Army. With his knowledge of Japanese, the army enrolled him in a special military intelligence training unit on Japan at the University of Michigan. As a commissioned officer in military intelligence, Seward served under MacArthur during the Occupation and thereafter in the CIA as part of its Asian operations.