Frank Gibney

Frank Bray Gibney (September 21, 1924 – April 9, 2006) was an American journalist, editor, writer and scholar. He learned Japanese while in the American Navy during World War II, then was stationed in Japan. As a journalist in Tokyo, he wrote a popular book about the Japanese, welcomed for its humanism and for transcending the bitterness of war. A half dozen more books followed on Japan and East Asia. He also wrote on Communism in Europe. At the Encyclopedia Britannica he directed translations, and he was the founder of the Pacific Basin Institute.

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Gibney came of age in New York City. The son of a restauranteur, he excelled in debate, being awarded a scholarship to Yale University. His education was interrupted by World War II, yet he was awarded a bachelor's degree in classics in absentia in 1945.

In the Navy, he studied at its elite Japanese Language School located in the University of Colorado. As an officer in naval intelligence, he was then stationed at Iroquois Point near Pearl Harbor. There he interrogated Japanese prisoners of war, officers among them, making daily use of his Japanese. In 1997 he wrote that in Hawaii "I came to know the Japanese." After the war he kept in touch with prisoners "through reunions at a sushi restaurant." For the American occupation he had been transferred to Japan. "I was a small human bridge between Gen. Douglas MacArthur's conquering army and a puzzled but receptive Japanese public."

A foreign correspondent for Time, Gibney also served as Tokyo bureau chief. He was an editorial writer at Life. He became a senior features editor at Newsweek. While his residence remained in Tokyo, covering Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia, he also was sent on assignments to Europe. From his experience as a journalist, he began to publish a series of books, many on the Japanese. His first in 1953, Five Gentlemen of Japan, was widely acclaimed for its cross-cultural insight.

In the early 1960s, Gibney worked briefly for two magazines. Until he resigned he was editor for Show Business Illustrated. He then became the publisher of the short-lived Show magazine, which focused on art and culture. Show is remembered, among other things, for "an undercover exposé of the Playboy bunny world by Gloria Steinem."

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