Photo/Illutration U.S. President George H.W. Bush falls ill and collapses at a welcome dinner hosted by Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on Jan. 8, 1992. (Pool)

U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who fell ill and infamously fainted and vomited at a welcome dinner at the prime minister’s office on Jan. 8, 1992, reflected on that moment.

The documents, which the Foreign Ministry declassified on Dec. 20, revealed a rare conversation between Bush and Japan’s then Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe.

Bush visited Tokyo to attend the Japan-U.S. summit in early January 1992. The U.S. president was 67 years old at the time.

After collapsing, he walked to his private car as he left in the middle of the dinner.

The following day, the morning edition of The Asahi Shimbun reported on its front page, “President Bush collapsed and left the dinner.”

It was big news primarily because it was a presidential election year in the United States, and one of the headlines read, “Re-election strategy may be affected.”

Watanabe was the foreign minister of Kiichi Miyazawa’s Cabinet.

After returning to the White House, Bush spoke with Watanabe, who paid a courtesy call on Jan. 22 during his visit to the United States.

According to a top-secret official telegram conveying the exchange, Bush said he did not remember fainting at all.

The last thing he remembered was seeing a beautiful light and feeling like he was in a quiet heaven, Bush said.

Bush added that his political opponents would try to take advantage of the incident, but he said he had the 24-hour flu and that 80 percent of Americans catch it, showing that he was in good health.

At that time, criticism of Japan swirled in the United States and particularly in Congress as the huge trade deficit with Japan had become a major political problem.

Bush, who was up for re-election in November, demanded a further market opening to U.S. exports at the summit with Miyazawa in January.

In response to this, Watanabe visited the White House to attend a ceremony to expand the government’s procurement of computers.

Michael Mansfield, a leading Democratic Party figure who served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan for about 12 years until 1988, viewed the incident of Bush collapsing as symbolic, according to a report dated Jan. 27, 1992, written by Yukio Sato, then director-general of the North American Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Ministry.

The image of Miyazawa supporting Bush after he collapsed at the dinner symbolized both the good and bad ways in terms of how Americans perceived U.S.-Japan relations, Mansfield said, according to the report.

In the November presidential election, in which economic restructuring was the main issue, Bush, a Republican, lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

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This article is part of a series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry in December 2023.

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