Ex-U.S. Senator Who Worked for Japanese-American Internees Dies

Washington, March 15 (Jiji Press)--Former U.S. Republican Senator Alan Simpson, who worked to restore the honor of Japanese-Americans imprisoned during World War II, has died at age 93, according to a local organization where he served as an executive.

Simpson, who died on Friday, was a cross-party ally of the late Democrat Norman Mineta, the first Japanese-American to hold a U.S. cabinet post.

As a boy, Simpson met Mineta, who had been taken to an internment camp. Together, they worked to restore the honor of incarcerated Japanese-Americans and contributed to the enactment of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which included an apology from then President Ronald Reagan and compensation to such Japanese-Americans.

Simpson was born in Colorado in 1931. He served three terms as a U.S. senator from western Wyoming from 1979 to 1997.

END

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]