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Democracy's Porous Borders: Espionage, Smuggling and the Making of Japan's Transwar Regime (Part 2)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Tessa Morris-Suzuki
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The Deck-Hand's Story

Itagaki Kōzō was an orphan of empire. At the end of the Asia-Pacific War, then aged fifteen, he was stranded in the former Japanese colony of Karafuto (Sakhalin). His father, a coal miner, had died in a mining accident when Itagaki was a child, and his mother had been killed in the brief but fierce fighting that erupted as Soviet forces swept into the southern half of Sakhalin following the USSR's declaration of war on Japan on 8 August 1945. Just as many young men in Japan sought survival after the surrender by taking jobs with the occupying American forces, Itagaki survived by becoming a “houseboy” to a Soviet officer, and his employer, Maxim Tarkin, appears to have been connected to the GPU (the forerunner of the KGB). In 1949, Tarkin left for Moscow via China, and allowed Itagaki to accompany him from Sakhalin as far as Shenyang in northern China, from where Itagaki hoped to be able to find a way to the Japanese homeland he had never seen.

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Research Article
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Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 41 , October 2014 , e2
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References

Notes

1 Testimony of Toda Masanao (Official of the Human Rights Protection Branch of the Ministry of Justice) to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 27, 31 July 1953.

2 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953; Inomata Kōzō, Senryōgun no Hanzai, Tokyo, Tosho Shuppansha, 1979, p. 266.

3 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953; Inomata Kōzō, Senryōgun no Hanzai, Tokyo, Tosho Shuppansha, 1979, p. 266; Yamada Zenjrō, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, Tokyo, Gakushū no Tomo Sha, 2011, p. 27.

4 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953; Yamada Zenjrō, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, Tokyo, Gakushū no Tomo Sha, 2011, p. 27.

5 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953; Testimony of Nakao Bunsaku (public prosecutor) to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 27. 31 July.

6 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953.

7 Inomata, Senryōgun no Hanzai, p. 265.

8 Itagaki Kōzō, Suzuki Tomoo, Takeuchi Riichi, Tada Ichirō and Mayama Haruo, “Supai Uzumaku Tokyo Sokai”, Ōru Yomimono, vol. 8, no. 10, October 1953, pp. 218-225, particularly p. 219.

9 Testimony of Toda Masanao (Official of the Human Rights Protection Branch of the Ministry of Justice) to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 27, 31 July 1953; Testimony of Nakao Bunsaku (public prosecutor) to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 27. 31 July; Testimony of Yamada Zenjirō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953; see also Yamada Zenjrō, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, pp. 26-30.

10 Inomata, Senryōgun no Hanzai, p. 265.

11 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953.

12 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953.

13 On the TC House, see Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, pp. 14-15.

14 Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, pp. 14-15; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 30 August 2014; see also Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953.

15 Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, pp. 23-26; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 30 August 2014.

16 Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, pp. 9-11 and 34-42; Kaji Wataru and Yamada Zenjirō, Damare Nihonjin! Sekai ni Tsugeru “Kaji Jiken” no Shinjitsu, Tokyo, Rironsha, 1953; Erik Esselstrom, “From Wartime Friend to Cold War Fiend: The Abduction of Kaji Wataru and US-Japan Relations at Occupation's End”, Journal of Cold War Studies, 2014 (forthcoming).

17 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953.

18 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953.

19 Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 31, 5 August 1953.

20 Testimony of Toda Masanao (Official of the Human Rights Protection Branch of the Ministry of Justice) to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai no. 27, 31 July 1953.

21 Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, p. 29; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 30 August 2014; on Itagaki's disappearance, see also Inomata, Senryōgun no Hanzai, p. 266.

22 Interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 30 August 2014.

23 Charles A. Willoughby, eds. Yeon Jeon and Hiratsuka Masao, GHQ Shirarezaru Chōhōsen: Wirobī Kaikoroku, Tokyo, Yamakawa Shuppan, 2011, pp. 282-287.

24 Willoughby, GHQ Shirarezaru Chōhōsen.

25 Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, pp. 31-33; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 31 August 2014.

26 Allan J. Millett, “War Behind the Wire: Koje-Do Prison Camp”, Historynet; for further discussion on Koje-Do camp, see Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Unconventional Warfare: The International Red Cross and Humanitarian Dilemmas in Korea, 1950-1953”, History Australia, vol. 10, no. 2, 2013, pp. 15-34

27 F. Bieri, “UN POW Camp no 1, Koje-do and Pusan, visited by ICRC delegates Bieri, August 28th to Sept. 9th, 1951 and de Reynier, August 28th to Sept. 3rd 1951”, Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, no. 1411, Rapports de Mm. Lehner, Bieri, de Reynier, Corée, 1951, pp. 9-12 and annex 7; James F. Gebhardt, The Road to Abu Ghraib: US Army Detainee Doctrine and Experience, Fort Leavenworth Kansas, Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005, pp. 19-20.

28 See, for example, the testimony of one of the POW recruits trained in Tokyo, Hou Guangmin, published in Zhou, Xuihuan et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu. Taipei, Guoshiguan, 2013, p. 289. I am very grateful to Dr. Cathy Churchman for providing this reference and its translation.

29 Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, pp. 43-45; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 31 August 2014.

30 Interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 31 August 2014.

31 Yamada, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai, p. 43.

32 Interview with Yamada Zenjirō, 31 August 2014.

33 Gao Wenjun, Hanzhan yiwang: yuxue yusheng hua renquan, Taipei, Shengzhi Wenhua, 2000. I am very grateful to Dr. Cathy Churchman for providing this reference and its translation.

34 See Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Borderline Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Postwar Era, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

35 The Japanese magazine Sunday Mainichi published an interview with a former Deputy President of the Ōita Prefectural Assembly, Ōkubo Tsurayuki, who described how towards the end of 1948 he was approached by Z Unit to run a smuggling and spying operation to North Korea. Ōkubo, who had served in the Imperial Navy during the war and ran a small shipping business in Kyushu in the late 1940s, agreed, and arranged for a ship to be sent to a fishing port south of Wonsan. To gain access to North Korean waters, Ōkubo disguised the mission as a smuggling venture trading in Chinese liquorice (kansō, a natural sweetener used in Chinese medicine). He also arranged covertly to transport a pro-North member of the Korean community in Japan to develop contacts in Pyongyang, thus obtaining further protection against problems with the North Korean authorities. The real purpose of the journey, though, was to allow the Japanese crew to collect information on the presence of Soviet military in North Korean ports. On the return journey, the voyage ran into difficulties when the boat was seized by Japanese coastguard ships on suspicion of smuggling, and an arrest warrant was issued for Ōkubo. But, following intervention from Jack Canon, the prosecution was dropped. Shigeki Kazuyuki, “Kyanon to Uyoku Supai Kōsakusen”, Sandē Mainichi, 5 September 1981, pp. 150-156.

36 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 4.

37 Memorandum of a meeting held on 25 November 1948, reproduced in CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 4, p. 3.

38 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 4.

39 JIS Groups and Japanese National Revival, 11 May 1951, in CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Hattori Toshushiro, vol. 1 document 18, p. 27.

40 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 11.

41 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 1, document 50; as of March 1951, Tsuji was also reported to be conducting intelligence analysis on North Korea and China for Charles Willoughby's G2, see CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 1, document 57.

42 JIS Groups and Japanese National Revival, p. 27.

43 See Furukawa Mantarō, Chūgoku Zanryū Nihonhei no kiroku, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1994; Donald Gillin with Charles Etter, “Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945-1949”, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 42 no. 3, 1983, pp. 497-51.

44 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 40; see also CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 9; see also CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 68.

45 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 68.

46 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 40.

47 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 9.

48 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 9; CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Ogata Taketora, file 3, document 7.

49 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 6; CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 94; CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 95.

50 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 103.

51 See, for example, Mainichi Shinbun, 31 October 1949; Christian Science Monitor, 8 September 1949; Sydney Morning Herald, 13 September 1949.

52 Sydney Morning Herald, 13 September 1949.

53 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 9.

54 Testimony of Yoshikawa Mitsusada, Head, Special Investigation Division of the Ministry of Justice, to the Lower House Special Committee on Administrative Oversight [Shūgiin Gyōsei Kansatsu Tokubetsu Iinkai], no. 12, 26 May 1951.

55 It is briefly mentioned in Stephen C. Mercado's The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army's Elite Intelligence School, Dulles VA, Potomac Books, 2002, p. 222 and Peter Lowe, Containing the Cold War in East Asia: British Policies Towards Japan, China and Korea, 1948-53, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1997, p. 154.

56 See for example CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 8; CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 11; CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Maeda Minoru, document 23; on Horiuchi, see also JIS Groups and Japanese National Revival, p. 30. Horiuchi, whose name is generally given in in the US documents as “Horiuchi Ganjo”, was a wartime China analyst who in the postwar period created his own Far Eastern Affairs Research Institute [Kyokutō Jijō Kenkyūkai] to develop his personal anticommunist vision for East Asia.

57 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 9.

58 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 1, document 50. Kimura is something of a mystery. He is one of the very few figures whose surname consistently appears in the US files without a given name attached. One document (CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 1, document 50) refers to him as “Former Commanding Officer of Japanese Military Government for the Burma Theatre”, which would appear to point to Kimura Heitarō (or Hyōtarō), Commander in Chief of the Burma Area Army, but this is obviously a misidentification, as Kimura Heitarō was executed for war crimes in 1948. Another, perhaps more plausibly, re-indentifies him as having been “Political Affairs Chief for Burma” - CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 10.

59 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 9.

60 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 7.

61 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Maeda Minoru, document 40; CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Maeda Minoru, document 55.

62 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 9

63 See CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 1, document 57.

64 See for example CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 1, document 33.

65 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 8.

66 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 11.

67 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 11.

68 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Arisue Seizō, document 8.

69 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Maeda Minoru, document 57.

70 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 103; on Dai Nippon Heiki, see also Nagano, Toshi Chirigaku Kenkyū Nōto, Tokyo, Tōyamabō International, 2009, p. 141.

71 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tatsumi Eiichi, document 103.

72 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 3, document 36.

73 CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files, Tsuji Masanobu, volume 3, document 36.

74 JIS Groups and Japanese National Revival, pp. 37-38.

75 See, for example, Abe's speech on National Foundation Day, 11 February 2009, extracts of which are available on Youtube.

76 On Okazaki Hisahiko, see, for example, Tomoko Nagano, “Jieitai wa Sensō sure Guntai no Narimasu yo: Abe Shushō no Burēn, Okazaki Hisahiko ni Kiku Shūdanteki Jieiken”, Huffington Post (Japanese online edition), 19 May 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.jp/tomoko-nagano/okazaki-hisahiko_b_5349355.html

77 “US Must Learn Lessons from Occupation of Japan”, Okazaki Kenkyūjo, 19 January 2003.

78 “Japan PM Abe sent condolences to memorial for convicted war criminals”, Reuters (online), 27 August 2014.