The activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Japan date back to the Allied occupation of Japan. In the context of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, Douglas MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence, Charles Willoughby, authorized the creation of a number of Japanese subordinate intelligence-gathering organizations known as kikan. Many of these kikan contained individuals purged because of their classification as war criminals. The CIA organized and financed Operation "Takematsu", utilizing the kikan as part of an intel gathering operation against North Korea, and the Soviet possessions of the Kuril Islands, and Sakhalin. One of the kikan created, the "Hattori group", led by Takushiro Hattori, allegedly plotted to stage a coup d'état and assassinate Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida on account of his opposition to Japanese nationalism.
Under the direction of the American Far East Command, Willoughby amassed an on-paper force of over 2,500 intelligence personnel. The CIA and military intelligence established numerous extrajudicial agencies including the "Canon Organ" which allegedly engaged in illegal abductions and torture of left-wing political activists, including novelist Kaji Wataru.
The CIA was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the formation of the present Japanese political system. The agency was financially involved in the creation of the Liberal Party by abetting the requisitioning of assets seized from China. The agency also participated in an influence campaign in order to sway the Liberals' successor, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), towards accepting Nobusuke Kishi as prime minister. The CIA was active in advising the LDP on policy in regards to military installations in Japan and security interests. This process of aiding the Liberal Democratic Party also involved the agency establishing what has come to be described as an "iron triangle" dealing in the trade of tungsten, for the purpose of covertly financing the LDP. 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.
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. US intelligence helped allegedly establish and administer several clandestine funds collectively known as the M-fund. 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.
Background The CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), maintained extensive intelligence networks in the Japanese colonial territories during the Pacific War. After the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, a significant wealth of documents and materials were confiscated from Kenpeitai installations and Japanese diplomatic installations. However, many documents could not be recovered as the Japanese ordered many of the documents pertaining to human rights abuses, such as Unit 731 activities, to be destroyed. The Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the destruction of all wartime documents following the Hirohito surrender broadcast. The Japanese Foreign Ministry similarly ordered the destruction of all papers on August 7. War crimes investigators required translators and interpreters to translate Japanese documents and question Japanese suspects on their involvement in the Pacific War. This resulted in widespread utilization of Nisei linguists in translation duties pertaining to war crimes. The Military Intelligence Service and Counter Intelligence Corps, using Nisei translators, were able to translate a significant portion of the remaining documents, much of which would be later used as evidence in prosecution for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
Worried about the spread of Communism, US policy regarding containment necessitated actively combating communist elements across East Asia. US policy regarding Japan in this time period was fractured into two components with one side arguing that Maoist China served as a better security partner (with Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek being perceived as unreliable and corrupt), and the other side arguing for the rearmament and revitalization of Japan into a security partner. MacArthur's policies initially sided with the pro-China camp, with the first few months of MacArthur's tenure revolving around a purge of the Japanese right and the demobilization of the Imperial Japanese Army as well as economic reorganization involving the dissolution of the vertically integrated zaibatsu monopolies. During this reform period, over 200,000 officials associated with militaristic policies were purged from holding office or arrested as war crime suspects. By 1947 MacArthur's occupation government, under the pressure of policy-makers in the US government now focusing on the Cold War, began releasing purgees from their civil-service blacklist and initiated the Red Purge. As a result of the loss of China to the Chinese Communist Party 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.
Douglas MacArthur held a dislike of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and prevented the OSS, and its successor organization the CIA, from operating in Japan until 1950. As a result, many of the intelligence operations undertaken during the early phase of the occupation were delegated to military intelligence, particularly the G-2.
During the occupation period Formation of the Kikan
Prior to the US occupation period, the Kenpeitai and Tokkeitai maintained military intelligence units known as kikan (Japanese: 機関). These included the Fujiwara Kikan, the Iwakuro Kikan, the Hikari Kikan and the Kodama Kikan, headed by Yoshio Kodama. 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. This was reversed during the Reverse Course policy change during the late 1940s and early 1950s, subsequently, the majority of the Kempeitai officers which were arrested or under investigation were either released or evaded criminal charges for their conduct in the Pacific War.
The SCAP occupation apparatus established by MacArthur assigned each official organization its own Japanese experts, lacking the manpower necessary to carry out day-to-day operations without the existing bureaucracy. The lack of oversight in intelligence operations gave significant operational flexibility to many of the Japanese recruits, allowing them to defy orders and distort information in the process of intelligence-gathering. Willoughby's organization recruited former lieutenant general Seizō Arisue as an intelligence asset. Arisue would become instrumental in the formation of the kikan, and an organizer and planner, along with Kawabe Torashirō, of Operation Takematsu. 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. By 1947 the G-2, requiring an increasing number of operatives to carry out operations, began actively using former Japanese military and intelligence personnel for use against the Soviet Union and Japanese Communist Party. Militarist networks were able to avoid prosecution via their association with the G-2, giving them legal standing to engage in illicit activity meant to strengthen the Japanese right.
In 1948, emboldened by the Reverse Course, the G-2 and the various kikan created during the occupation period formulated two programs to establish espionage networks internally and externally. The proposed operation "Take", which consisted of intelligence concerning foreign targets, and "Matsu", domestic intelligence gathering, allowed for substantial operational freedom and flexibility for intelligence assets. Willoughby and the G-2 would only supervise the upper echelons of the operation, giving on the ground personnel the ability to act without much purview. The operation itself involved the establishment of clandestine networks on North Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. Using smuggling networks and shell corporations, the operations would ship operatives to their assigned destinations, where they would monitor radio traffic and other intelligence sources. Formulated by Kawabe Torashirō, who fell under suspicion for war crimes but was never charged, the operation had an estimated cost of 10 million yen.
Despite substantial investments by the G-2 and by the CIA, the operations yielded mixed results by 1951. Operations in the north of Japan stagnated by 1949 and a lack of Japanese agents compounded issues like a shortage of intelligence officers, causing a lack of coordination in many operational areas. By 1948 operations in North Korea were wholly cancelled, with the focus of the groups shifting to Taiwan. In Taiwan, the kikan established a volunteer network for the defense of Taiwan against communist incursions and formulated a plan to retake the mainland. The main issue with Takematsu was the ambition of the operatives, who often cabled false and misleading information to improve their standing with US officials. By 1952 the operation was cancelled, with many of the networks being compromised.
Hattori Kikan
The Hattori Group was one of the kikan formed during the Reverse Course. It worked in conjunction with the Tsuji kikan, led by Masanobu Tsuji, in clandestine operations. 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. 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. Hattori supported a revival of conscription with voluntary enlistments as a precursor. It is believed that Willoughby himself was heavily involved in the construction of the agency, as Agency documents have referred to the group as "Willoughby's Stable". Tsuji, whom Hattori was close friends with, used the group in planning an operation for Chiang Kai-Shek's invasion of the Chinese mainland. Tsuji himself owed the agency for the fact that he had war crimes charges, caused by his instigation of the Bataan Death March, dropped against him. However, the plan was abandoned because the operational details of the plan were leaked to the Chinese communists.
The Hattori kikan was implicated in an assassination plot targeting prime minister Shigeru Yoshida in July 1952. Hattori disliked Yoshida for his supposed opposition towards former purgees and Japanese nationalists, also disliking the Yoshida doctrine, stating that it over-relied on US military protection against external threats. The plot allegedly had the backing of 500,000 people and support from various factions in the National Safety Agency. In the coup attempt, Hattori would first stage an assassination of Yoshida, whereupon Ichiro Hatoyama, Yoshida's rival, would become prime minister in his place. Tsuji managed to convince Hattori out of the plot, arguing that the Japanese Socialist Party served a greater danger.
Project BLUEBIRD