Verity Slurs Japanese in Speech

President Reagan’s incoming Commerce Secretary, C. William Verity Jr., referred during a speech today to an innovative American idea which “the Japs took and now we’re going to take it back.”

Verity used the term Japs, widely used during World War II and now considered a slur, while discussing the benefits of a Rapid Acquisition of Manufactured Parts program in Charleston involving the U.S. Navy and private industry. “You have a reduction of inventory costs due to ‘just in time’ delivery, a new concept that we had, the Japs took and now we’re going to take it back,” Verity said.