He was presented with the Fourth Class Order of the Sacred Treasure in a ceremony at the Foreign Ministry for "the service he has rendered in promoting friendly relations between Japan and the United States for many years."
Across the decades, Ofusa worked with more than twenty bureau chiefs and correspondents assigned to Tokyo, acting as reporter, interpreter and fixer.
When the American occupation army swept into Tokyo in 1945, Mr. Ofusa greeted the arriving correspondent, Lindesay M. Parrott, with a smile, saying: "I did my best to defeat your country.
A.M. Rosenthal, the executive editor of The Times, and his wife, Ann, were the hosts at a reception at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.
Among the guests attending the reception were Ryugen Hosokawa, Japan's leading television commentator and an old friend of Mr. Ofusa, and Junichi Ueno, a major stockholder and owner of the mass circulation newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun.