Paul Charles Blum (March 31, 1898 – August 16, 1981) was an American intelligence officer, businessman, writer and translator.

[1] In 1927, Blum translated the book The Life of Buddha: According to the Legends of Ancient India by André-Ferdinand Hérold [fr], from the original French into English.

In 1945, nearing the end of World War II, Blum was involved in the attempted peace initiatives brought by Yoshirō Fujimura [ja], the former Japanese naval attaché in Berlin.

Blum also took part in Operation Sunrise, a series of secret negotiations in March 1945 in Switzerland between elements of the Nazi German SS and the OSS under Allen Dulles.

On March 3, 1945, Blum met with Guido Zimmer [de], Luigi Parrilli and Eugen Dollmann in Lugano, Switzerland.

[10] After arriving in Japan, Blum contacted Shintarō Ryū [ja], the European correspondent for The Asahi Shimbun during World War II and later its managing editor.

He got in touch with Yoshirō Fujimura to establish The Jupitor Corporation [sic], a trading company in Minami-Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo.

[11] From approximately 1948, Blum started collecting intelligence by hosting the "Tuesday meetings", a series of roundtable discussions with leading Japanese figures and intellectuals at Tokyo's Imperial Hotel.

In the background of these activities was the fact that Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, had not permitted the CIA to operate in Japan, and Blum had very few subordinates.

In July 1952, following the peace treaty, Blum's name disappeared from the staff lists of the US Embassy in Japan and the GHQ's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Following his retirement from the CIA, he also completed the English translation (co-translation with Makiko Yamamoto) of Seichō Matsumoto's novel Points and Lines.

[16] Takayasu Narimatsu, the founder of Japan's first spaghetti specialty store Hole in the Wall (壁の穴, Kabe no Ana), worked as a butler at Blum's residency at the time the Tuesday meetings were held.

In 1948, Blum made an effort to recruit Narimatsu while he was reading a book by Norman Mailer on a coastal beach in Yokosuka.

The same year, he opened the spaghetti specialty store Hole in the Wall (壁の穴, Kabe no Ana)[23] in Tamura-chō, Tokyo with financial support from Blum and other acquaintances.