CIA activities in Japan
This process of aiding the Liberal Democratic Party also involved the agency establishing what has come to be described as an "iron triangle"[7] dealing in the trade of tungsten, for the purpose of covertly financing the LDP.
[8] In addition to supporting the LDP financially, multiple authors have alleged that the CIA actively subverted and interfered with the Japan Socialist Party and anti-American protests in Okinawa.
[8][9][10][11][note 1] Prior to the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco, CIA operatives arrived in Japan as part of Project BLUEBIRD to test "behavioral techniques" on suspected double agents.
[13] The M-fund was allegedly used to enrich CIA contact Yoshio Kodama, who ostensibly used the fund to bankroll Yakuza protection for US President Dwight Eisenhower during his cancelled 1960 visit to Japan.
[26] As a result of the Loss of China to the Chinese Communists and the subsequent Sino-Soviet Treaty, the pro-China crowd lost much of its influence, giving the CIA and US military intelligence the rationale necessary to collaborate and support the Japanese right and the Yakuza.
[29] During the dismantling of the Imperial Japanese Army and IJN during the demobilization of Japan, the Kempeitai was dissolved and the IJA intelligence command was charged during the White Purge.
[34] In September 1945, Willoughby asked Arisue to establish a clandestine intelligence gathering group within the G-2 to combat communist elements in Japan as a means to prevent a socialist revolution.
[41] Before his contact with US military intelligence and subsequent formation of the group, Colonel Hattori Takushirō, who had served as the chief of Staff to Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, ordered his subordinates to deliberately conceal official documents and their own personal writings during the occupation period.
[42] Hattori's activities with the CIA began because of his own personal belief that Japan could not be rearmed through "democratic methods", arguing for the reconstruction of the Imperial Japanese Army and his appointment as the Chief of Staff of the institution.
[57] The unit's second in command, Yeon Jeon, described an espionage mission spanning Japan, the Korean Peninsula and China where the agency recruited 13 operatives and parachuted them into Korea.
[6] The Counter Intelligence Corps and the Canon Agency allegedly detained Itagaki Kōzō, a former houseboy to Maxim Tarkin, an individual with suspected ties to the GRU.
[74] During the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, US occupation authorities deliberately omitted witnesses to obfuscate evidence in relation to the conviction of several Japanese right-wing officials.
[75] The US intervened, forcing interrogations to be performed only in the presence of US military officials, obscuring the true extent of Japanese human experimentation to preserve their own research edge over the Soviet Union in the field.
[77][78][79] In conjunction with the Japan lobby and American corporate interests, US military intelligence engaged in a pressure campaign to reverse Douglas MacArthur's policies around the Zaibatsu and civil service officials purged during the US occupation.
[14] The KGB, in several documents, accused the CIA and SCAP of staging attacks on Japanese infrastructure, including the Matsukawa derailment, in order to justify the change in policy.
[82] Nick Kapur, author of the book Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo, argues that Nobusuke Kishi, at the advice and encouragement of the Central Intelligence Agency, orchestrated the formation of the party in 1955.
[84] In the aftermath of the Daigo Fukuryū Maru Incident in the Castle Bravo test, numerous members of Yoshida's government described the US as "war-loving" and voiced their opposition against US foreign policy,[85] including Minister of International Trade and Industry Aichii Kiichi.
[97][99] After the occupation, US intelligence agencies feared a takeover of Japan by the JCP, and engaged in a decade long campaign of providing financial aid to senior members of the LDP.
[8] At the same time, Kishi himself visited Washington DC to accept agency campaign contributions in order to prop up the LDP in preparation for the 1958 general election.
[103] Eugene Dooman, who was part of the Japan lobby and who quit the agency in 1945 to support the Reverse Course, engineered a plan to smuggle 10 million dollars worth of military-grade tungsten from the stores of the Japanese military and Chinese sources to Pentagon defense contractors.
[8][104][105] Due to the unavailability of supply caused by the Cold War and communist control over half of the world's tungsten production, prices had tripled for higher grade varieties.
[106] Kodama's network was involved with the physical process of actively moving the materials, with the CIA underwriting the plot by supplying some 2.8 million dollars to facilitate the operation.
[136] During the Reverse Course, MacArthur and the SCAP decided to turn a blind eye to the outgrowing criminal organizations, many of whom had links with illegal ultranationalist organizational bodies, for the reason of their anti-Communism.
Prior to the occupation period, many crime syndicates including the future Yamaguchi-gumi formed under explicitly endorsed military purview to facilitate the aforementioned opium trade.
[126] A subordinate member of the Canon Agency allegedly contacted Hisayuki Machii to form the Toa-kai to combat abusive Chinese dockyard workers in Yokohama.
[153][154][155] US officials were allegedly interested in Kodama's immense wealth and his expansive intelligence network in China, which the G-2 viewed as a valuable asset, particularly for the upcoming Operation Takematsu.
[154] 30,000 young men of various athletic organizationsand strongly opposed to the Zengakuren arebeing issued arm bands for identificationand will, if required, assist police.
During the 1960 Anpo protests, caused by the attempted renegotiation of the 1951 US-Japan Security Treaty, Nobusuke Kishi ordered his friend Yoshio Kodama to put together a force of Yakuza to protect US President Dwight Eisenhower during his visit to Japan.
[97] Kodama's role as kuromaku (black curtain puller) gave him substantial influence in the LDP, which he used repeatedly to the agency's benefit by promoting figures who would be supportive of more extensive re-armament.
[143] During the Lockheed Martin bribery scandal in the 1950s, the CIA is alleged to have actively participated in a cover-up operation by hiding the names of foreign officials and agency employees who had involvement with the bribes from the public.
