You can subscribe to e‑mail alerts from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to the comments made on programs and posts–an excellent source of information in, and of, itself HERE.
This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Recapitulating key thematic elements of the previous program–an ominous resonance between Japanese revisionist schools Tsukamoto, Moritomo Gakuen and the Native-Land-Loving School, some of whose alumni assassinated Japanese prime minister Inukai on May 15, 1932. The “May 15th Incident,” as it is known, was a key element in the rise of fascism in Japan.
A passage from Hugh Byas’s 1942 text encompasses the dynamic:
“. . . . In 1939, his [Kosaburo Tachibana’s] admirers enabled him to establish a school. He called it the Native-Land-Loving School (Aikyojuku). Everybody in Japan with a message to deliver or an axe to grind opens a school. . . . Those schools in the hands of the patriotic societies are at once a method of training young men for strong-arm work and a plausible excuse for extorting contributions from the rich and timid. . . .”
Progressing downward from the upper tiers of the political structure, Japanese fascism stems from the Nippon Kagai (“Japan Conference”), whose members exert profound influence in the administration of Shinzo Abe, as well as the Japanese parliament.
Fundamental to an understanding of the dynamics underlying the Japanese deep state is awareness of the relationship between the powerful Japanese corporations, the zaibatsu, U.S.-based transnational corporations and the international cartel system. FTR #905 examines this relationship at considerable length.
Another important element in this dynamic is Golden Lily–the systematic looting of Asia by Japan in World War II and the use of the billions in recovered gold to fund the re-institution of fascist infrastructure in Japan, U.S. covert operations and the clandestine buttressing of financial and governmental institutions around the world. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509, 688, 689 deal with the subject of the Golden Lily program.)
With much of the world’s attention focused on the blustering between Kim Jong-Un and Kim Jong-Trump, the fact that Japan has had a clandestine nuclear weapons program since the 1960s has gone unreported:
” . . . . The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. . . . The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.
. . . . The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.
While Japan has refrained from deploying nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrella of U.S. nuclear protection, NSNS has learned that the country has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow the country to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined. . . .
. . . . That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems. . . .”
Key players on the Japanese landscape, such as Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa (the self-proclaimed “World’s richest fascist”) embody the Japanese deep state, operating from the 1930’s onward in conjunction with the Japanese patriotic and ultra-nationalist societies, the zaibatsu, Golden Lily and the clandestine fascist political infrastructure the is increasingly visible.
Sasasakawa launched and funded Sasasakawa Peace Foundation USA, which might be viewed in the same light as “The Adolf Hitler Foundation for the Study of Peace and Social Justice.” One of its scholars (now with the RAND Corporation) is Jeffrey Hornung, a frequent “go-to guy” for the media.
After reviewing Sasakawa and Kodama, especially their links to the Unification Church, the program notes that Abe’s grandfather, Nobosuke Kishi was Kodama’s cellmate in Sugamo prison. Kishi also signed Japan’s declaration of war against the U.S. ” . . . . During World War II, he was vice minister of munitions and minister of commerce and industry, actively involved in slave labor. Along the way, he made a personal fortune in side-deals with the zaibatsu. . . .In 1948, when his release from prison was purchased by Kodama, Kishi began organizing the financial base of the LDP, using Kodama’s black gold and injections of M‑Fund cash. . . .”
The program concludes with review of the profound connections of the Japanese zaibatsu, the deep state associated with that, and American diplomats who rebuffed a suit by Allied POW’s to get compensation for having been used as Japanese slaves.
Program Highlights Include:
- Japanese Air Force chief-of-staff Toshio Tamagami’s view that Franklin Delano Roosevelt bears responsibility for World War II.
- Tamagami’s view that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons.
- Tamagami’s assessment that Japanese aggression in World War II benefited the occupied countries.
- Tamagami’s support from many prominent Japanese politicians and military figures.
- Japanese Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and former Prime Minister Taro Aso’s admission that his family’s coal mining company used slave labor.
- Discussion of the possibility that the Aso Coal Mining company may have been involved in storing some of the Golden Lily booty.
- Discussion of the fact that Aso, as Finance Minister, would have been involved with the M‑Fund and its financing of Japanese politics.
1. The written description recaps part of the introduction to the “Books for Download” category, discussing globalization and its relationship to the Second World War and the rise of fascism in both Europe and Japan. Note that the process of globalization described here is fundamental to the understanding of the areas of overlap between transnational corporations, the Golden Lily money and the symbiotic relationship between the Japanese and American oligarchies.
In the decades since the end of the Second World War, much has been written about the war and fascism, the driving force behind the aggression that precipitated that conflict. Unfortunately, much of what has been said and written has failed to identify and analyze the causes, nature and methodology of fascism—German National Socialism or “Nazism” in particular.
A deeper, more accurate analysis was presented in literature published before, during and immediately after World War II. Spitfirelist.com is pleased to present a number of books published during that period. Almost all more than 50 years old, these works embody a more complete, profound analysis of the historical forces that dominated the events of that time and, more importantly, our own. Whereas much contemporary literature on the subject presents fascism (and Nazism in particular) as an aberration, the phenomenon was an outgrowth of major political forces and dynamics that dominate and control contemporary events and processes. Some of the books presented here illustrate the extent to which fascism (Nazism in particular) was an outgrowth of globalization and the construction of international monopolies (cartels). Key to understanding this phenomenon is analysis of the Webb-Pomerene act, legislated near the end of the First World War. A loophole in the Anti-trust legislation of 1914, it effectively legalized the formation of cartels—international monopolies—for firms that were barred from domestic monopolistic practices. Decrying what they viewed as excessive and restrictive “regulation” here in the United States, U.S.-based transnational corporations invested their profits from the industrial boom of the 1920’s abroad, primarily in Japan and Germany. This process might well be viewed as the real beginning of what is now known as “globalization.” [FTR#’s 99, 361, 426, 511 and 532 present an overview of the reinvestment of the wealth generated by the American industrial boom of the 1920’s in German and Japanese strategic heavy industry. It was this capital that drove the engines of conquest that subdued both Europe and Asia during the conflict.] We also note that the failure of American industrial and financial firms to invest their capital in U.S. infrastructure contributed significantly to the onset of the Great Depression, depriving American industry of the monies needed to sustain the engines of industry and commerce. At the conclusion of the Second World War, industrialists, financiers and associated luminaries formed the World Commerce Corporation. Explicitly designed to replace the German-based cartels that coalesced after World War I, the WCC directed the postwar flow of wealth into channels favored by the global corporate elite, thus preserving the fundamental economic order established in previous decades via the Webb-Pomerene Act. . . .
. . . . Although the book is current and, therefore, not available on this website, interested researchers are emphatically encouraged to read Gold Warriors by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave. Covering the Japanese equivalent of the Bormann flight capital network, the volume is a heroic, masterful analysis and penetration of the Asian wing of the cartel system that spawned fascism, as well as the realities of the post-World War II economic landscape. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509, 688, 689 deal with the subject of the Golden Lily program successfully implemented by the Japanese to loot Asia.) . . . .
2. We note the rise of fascism in Japan is a “process guided from above.”
“Partners at the Pacific;” german-foreign-policy.com; 3/20/2017.
“Right-Wing Populism from Above”
. . . . Japan, with which Germany is seeking closer economic and military cooperation, has taken a sharp nationalist course. This course is generally associated with Abe becoming Prime Minister. Abe, who arrived in Hanover yesterday, “is anticipating in Japan, (…) what right-wing populists dream of in Europe,”[6] a leading German daily recently noted. With his visit at the Yasakuni Shrine, which is also honoring some WW II war criminals, he is promoting a nationalist transformation of the state, he is permitting the growing falsification of history and he is responsible for the increased patronizing of the media. As a result, Japan slipped from 22nd down to 72nd on the world press freedom index issued by “Reporters Without Borders.” Observers note that with the Nippon Kaigi (“Japan Conference”), a nationalist lobby organization has gained significant influence. Of the 722 parliamentarians, 289 are members and 13 of the 19 ministers and the Prime Minster Abe are in close contact with Nippon Kaigi. Nippon Kaigi says of itself that it is striving to strengthen the empire, loosen the separation of state and religion, upgrade the traditional family and gender roles, promote the country’s militarization and end critical consideration of Japan’s crimes during WW II. “Right-Wing populism in Japan” is a “process guided from above,” particularly pushed by the country’s elite, according to Gabriele Vogt, japanologist at the Hamburg University.[7] The new nationalism is pushing the country ever deeper into a confrontation with China. . . .
3. Billionaire hotelier Toshio Motoya and his fashionista (“fascionista”?) wife Fumiko are leading exponents of an Orwellian re-write of Japanese history.
QUICK: Can you think of any other reactionary, billionaire hoteliers with fashionista wives?
“Right-Wing Hoteliers in Japan Anger China With Their Revisionist Views” by Jonathan Soble; The New York Times; 1/20/2017; p. B4 [Western Edition].
. . . . “As political patrons, they can’t be ignored,” said Tamotsu Sugano, an author who has researched Japanese rightist groups. “They spread money everywhere.”
The Montoyas have used a fortune estimated to be in the billions of dollars to court and support politicians, mostly on the conservative end of the spectrum—from the center-right establishment to the fringe. Guests at their long-running wine parties have included Shinzo Abe, the current prime minister, according to a record of an event in 2005 that includes a photograph and was circulated by APA at the time. . . .
. . . . Right-wing literature has long been a staple, if odd, amenity at APA hotels in Japan. Much of it is written by Mr. Motoya, who uses a pen name but acknowledges authorship.
The books and articles describe a kind of alternative historical universe, one where Japan fought entirely nobly in World War II and in which its alleged atrocities were invented by Chinese and Korean propagandists. The accounts differ sharply from those of mainstream historians, both in Japan and abroad.
One piece of literatature that was featured for years was an essay by a former air force general, Toshio Tamogami, [the former chief of staff of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force and a member of Nippon Kagai–D.E.] which won a prize in an APA-sponsored contest in 2008. In it, Mr. Tamogami claimed that Japan had been duped into attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941, in a plot he said was hatched by Communists inside the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. . . .
4. Tamagami’s revisionism is shared by much of the Japanese elite. Note, in particular, how finance minister and deputy prime minister Taro Aso (an exponent of Hitler’s political methodology) is heir to a family business that used Allied prisoners of war as slaves: ” . . . . Aso himself has had to admit to parliament for the first time that his family-run company used hundreds of Allied war prisoners at its mines in the final months of the war. He offered no apology. . . .”
. . . . When Japan went to war, the nation was told it was for self-defense, to free Asia from Western colonial powers, and to deter the United States from attacking Japan.
Japan officially abandoned that view of history after its crushing defeat in 1945, but every so often a Japanese high-up would roil the waters by justifying Japanese conduct in the war and treatment of its neighbors. Not until 1995 did a Japanese prime minister acknowledge his country was an aggressor that had brought about great suffering in Asia.
The air force chief’s essay shows that Japan’s argument with history isn’t over.
It was entered in a contest sponsored by a commercial company and conducted by Toshio Motoya, a right-leaning businessman. Motoya said 235 essays were submitted, one-third by air force officers, and most shared Tamogami’s views.
“We should review our perspective of history and become a truly independent nation, or our future is at risk,” Motoya said. “I’m confident Mr. Tamogami will get credit some day for sacrificing his job by what he wrote.”
Tamogami called his essay “Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?” and wrote that Japan has been unjustly subjected to “the history of the victor.” . . .
. . . . .former Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma praised Tamogami for his frankness.
“What Mr. Tamogami said was true,” he said in a video message on his Web site. “We should take this opportunity to study harder so we can have correct views of Japan’s history.” . . .
. . . . “There are many people, including political leaders, who support Tamogami’s views,” said historian Hisao Ishiyama. “It’s not a problem of one fanatic military official.”
Tamogami’s views are common among nationalists, including former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who, with a strong segment of the ruling party behind him, spearheaded a partially successful campaign over several years to remove mention of Japan’s wartime atrocities from textbooks.
Only in recent years, after lawsuits from victims, has Japan acknowledged many of its brutalities, including the use of poison gas in China and sex slaves recruited in countries under wartime occupation.
Aso himself has had to admit to parliament for the first time that his family-run company used hundreds of Allied war prisoners at its mines in the final months of the war. He offered no apology. . . .
5a. In addition to his political revisionism, Aso is an advocate of Japan acquiring nuclear weapons.
“Toshio Tamagami;” Wikipedia.org.
. . . .At a semipolitical meeting on the 15 September 2004, he said that he felt that it would probably be necessary for Japan to develop nuclear arms in order to be seen as an independent nation by China and that promising never to develop nuclear arms is “foolish.” After the furor created by his essay and dismissal, he was asked, by a British journalist on 1 December 2008, whether he would have used nuclear arms against America in 1945; he responded he “might have considered using nuclear weapons against the United States had he been a general for a nuclear-capable Japan in 1945, especially if it was a case of nuking in response to the threat of American nuclear weapons.”[6][7]
Tamogami claimed that other members of the Japanese government and military share his views.[8] . . .
. . . . The essay also argues that the war brought prosperity to occupied China, Taiwan and Korea, that “it is often those who never directly saw the Japanese military who are spreading rumors about the army’s act of brutality”, and that the Greater East Asia War is viewed in a positive way by many Asian countries. It criticizes the war crimes trials, which followed the war.[1] . . .
” . . . . The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. . . . The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.
. . . . The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.
While Japan has refrained from deploying nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrella of U.S. nuclear protection, NSNS has learned that the country has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow the country to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined. . . .
. . . . That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems. . . .”
The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.
The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.
While Japan has refrained from deploying nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrella of U.S. nuclear protection, NSNS has learned that the country has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow the country to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined. . . .
. . . That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems.
Political leaders in Japan understood that the only way the Japanese people could be convinced to allow nuclear power into their lives was if a long line of governments and industry hid any military application. For that reason, a succession of Japanese governments colluded on a bomb program disguised as innocent energy and civil space programs. . . .
6. Although he has now moved on to the RAND Corporation, analyst Jeffrey Hornung was a “go-to” guy for The New York Times on Japanese security matters. Hornung worked for the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA. This organization was launched with capital from Ryoichi Sasakawa, a prominent Japanese fascist. He referred to himself as “the world’s richest fascist.”
Like fellow war criminal and Unification Church funder Yoshio Kodama, Sasakawa was deeply involved with the Japanese patriotic and ultra-nationalistic societies.
. . . .“It’s sad that we’ve even come to this point,” said Jeffrey Hornung, a fellow in the security and foreign affairs program at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, a research institute based in Washington. ‘But in the context that we’re in, that reassurance is very important.’ . . .
7. The program features an interview with Daniel Junas, an expert on the Unification Church. The interview, conducted on 12/8/1991 (observing the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor), focuses on connections between Japanese fascism and the Moonies.
Specifically, the broadcast highlights the close connections between Yoshio Kodama, Ryoichi Sasakawa, the Japanese patriotic societies and the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the interview, Mr. Junas affirms the hypothesis presented in RFA‑7—that the Moon organization constitutes an extension of the Japanese patriotic societies through the years and around the world. (It should be noted that, although nominally Korean, the Unification Church is rooted in Japanese fascism. Korea had been a Japanese colony, and many of the organization’s key early participants had been officers in the Imperial Japanese army. This interview develops the Moon/Japan link still further.)
Both Kodama and Sasakawa were very close to, and involved with, the patriotic societies. (See FTR-296.) Both were also key operatives with the Unification Church. Sasakawa was very close to Admiral Yamamato, who led the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor. Sasakawa was also very close to the Mitsubishi heavy industrial firm—one of the zaibatsu that was principally involved with shipbuilding for the Japanese navy. Kodama founded the Kodama Agency on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked (its founding actually took place on 12/8/1941 since Japan is on the other side of the International Date Line.)
The Kodama Agency utilized (among other things) the trafficking of contraband from Japanese-occupied Manchuria in order to obtain strategic materials for the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Arm. As discussed in RFA‑7, Kodama and General Minoru Genda were involved in the Lockheed scandal in 1976. (They were convicted of accepting bribes to effect the purchase of Lockheed aircraft for the Japanese self-defense forces.) The commander of the air armada that attacked Pearl Harbor, Genda was awarded a medal by the U.S. Air Force for his work on behalf of Lockheed!
One of the focal points of the interview concerns the funding for the Moon organization. Despite its numerous industrial and fund-raising operations, the source of its vast economic resources remains ambiguous. Most of the Moon-owned businesses are money-losers. Junas advances the hypothesis, based on his research, that the most probable source for the financing of the Moon organization is Japanese heavy industry—the Mitsubishi firm, in particular!
The patriotic societies were also very close to the zaibatsu (the giant family trusts). Mitsubishi was one of the zaibatsu. (For more about the zaibatsu, see also: FTR #‘s -290, 428, 905.)
Junas discusses the Japanese economic imperial organization called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In discussing the support by Sasakawa, Kodama, the Moon organization and WACL for the Vietnam War, Junas underscores the importance of that war for the Japanese economy. The capital inflow Japan experienced during that conflict had much to do with the rise of the Japanese economic juggernaut. As discussed in FTR-290, a key element of the foundation of the post-war Japanese economy was the Kido flight capital program.
It is interesting and significant that Junas notes the historical links between the patriotic and ultra-nationalist societies and fishing. The Unification Church made significant inroads into the Gloucester (MA) fishing industry and dominates the Sushi business in the United States.
8. For the convenience of the reader, we present information about Ryoichi Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama, their links to the patriotic societies, and their participation in the World Anti-Communist League.
“Japanese Nationalism Revives” by Kenny Coyle; Searchlight; January/2001 [#307].
. . . . The links between organized crime and the ultra-right are well documented. When the police crack down on yakuza activities, gangsters find it easy to launder money through legal outlets such as the ultra-right groups, although even here, almost half of the right-wing groups do not submit their accounts as they are legally obliged to do. These murky links can best be illustrated, Mr. Harinaka argues, by looking at a key figure in the prewar Japanese right who forms a direct link to the politics of today, the late Yoshio Kodama.
His life illustrates the interweaving of far right fanaticism, big business, organized crime and government. In the 1930’s, Kodama was active in a variety of political nationalist movements such as the Independence Youth Society, Blood Brotherhood [involved in the May 15th Incident–D.E.], Holy War Execution League, Federation of Radical Patriotic Workers, and Capital Rise Asia Academy, which broke strikes and attempted to assassinate political figures.
Despite prison convictions, Kodama was then contacted by the Japanese government in the wholesale looting of China for raw materials for Japan’s war effort. By the end of the war in 1945, his industrial empire, the Kodama Agency, was worth $175 million. Following the Japanese surrender, Kodama was listed as a Class A war criminal, yet he served only two years in Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison.
In 1949, he personally directed yakuza gangsters against a threatened strike at the Hokutan coal mine. The second wealthiest man in Japan, he bankrolled the LDP at its birth in 1955. In the 1960’s, he teamed up with a then unknown South Korean right-winger, ‘the Reverend’ Sun Myung Moon, and Ryoichi Sasakawa, a Japanese motor boat racing millionaire. Sasakawa had organized Japanese Blackshirts in the 1930’s and once described himself as the world’s richest fascist.
The three, with the help of South Korean intelligence and Taiwanese dictator Chiang Kai-Shek, helped form the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League. The League set up and funded Moon’s Freedom Center in the United States in 1964. Kodama was chief adviser for the Moon subsidiary, Win Over Communism. In 1966, the League merged with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations to form the World Anti-Communist League, a major international network of fascists and anti semites featured many times in the pages of Searchlight. . . .
9. Next, the program reviews the political resume of Nobosuke Kishi, Abe’s grandfather and an author of the political legacy to which his grandson is heir. Note that war criminal Kishi’s cell mate at Sugamo prison was Yoshio Kodama. As discussed in FTR#446, Kodama was the godfather of the Japanese underworld, a major Japanese war criminal in his own right, and the CIA’s man in Japan. As discussed in FTR#’s 84, 291, 446, 551, Kodama was a major, early figure in the Unification Church.
Gold Warriors-America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [HC]; Copyright 2003 by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1–85984-542–8; pp. 121–122.
. . . . In 1956, for example, the Eisenhower Administration labored long and hard to install Kishi as head of the newly-merged Liberal-Democratic Party and as Japan’s new prime minister. This was the same Kishi who had been a member of the hard-core ruling clique in Manchuria with General Tojo Hideki and Hoshino Naoki, head of the narcotics monopoly. Kishi had also signed Japan’s Declaration of War against America in December 1941. During World War II, he was vice minister of munitions and minister of commerce and industry, actively involved in slave labor. Along the way, he made a personal fortune in side-deals with the zaibatsu.
Following Japan’s surrender, he was one of the most prominent indicted war criminals at Sugamo, where he was a cellmate of Kodama. In 1948, when his release from prison was purchased by Kodama, Kishi began organizing the financial base of the LDP, using Kodama’s black gold and injections of M‑Fund cash. For ten years, Kishi was groomed as America’s Boy by Harry Kern, Eugene Dooman, Compton Packenham and other members of Averell Harriman’s group at the America Council for Japan (ACJ). They worked tirelessly to improve Kishi’s mousy image, tutored him in English, and taught him to like Scotch. To them, Kishi was America’s ‘only bet left in Japan.’ All this was done covertly, for if the Japanese public learned that Washington was using the M‑Fund to replace one prime minister with another, the democracy fiction would collapse. . . .
10. In what the Seagraves describe as the “last battle of the Pacific War,” surviving victims of Japanese atrocities, including American former POW’s sued for compensation for their wartime suffering. The federal government effectively blocked these suits, maintaining that international diplomatic relations took precedence over legal ethics and morality. Note that the wife of U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley and Deputy Chief of Mission Christopher J. LaFleur have strong professional links with Sumitomo and Mitsubishi, two of the zaibatsus. Lafleur is married to the daughter of former prime minister and finance minister Miyazawa, who appears to have been a financial overseer of the M‑Fund.
Gold Warriors-America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [HC]; Copyright 2003 by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1–85984-542–8; p. 12.
. . . . The real issue is conflict of interest. During the Clinton Administration, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley was adamant in rejecting compensation for POW’s and other slave laborers, insisting that ‘The peace treaty put aside all claims against Japan.’ His Deputy Chief of Mission, Christopher J. Lafleur, echoed this dogma at every opportunity. . . .
. . . . It was a matter of some interest to victims that Foley’s wife was a well-paid consultant to Sumitomo, one of Japan’s biggest zaibatsu conglomerates, heavily involved in wartime slave labor and a target of the lawsuits. The moment Foley ended his tenure as ambassador and returned to America, he signed on as a paid advisor and lobbyist to another huge conglomerate-Mitsubishi-one of the biggest wartime users of slave labor. . .
. . . . Of greater significance, perhaps, is that Lafleur is married to the daughter of former prime minister and finance minister Miyazawa, one of the three Japanese who secretly negotiated the 1951 treaty with John Foster Dulles. (Miyazawa also is considered by professor Lausier and others to be the financial overseer of the M‑Fund.) Conflict of interest does not seem to be an obstacle in diplomatic appointments to Tokyo.) . . .
The Bank of Japan recently had to issue an apology over the comments by one of its board members, Yutaka Harada, for suggesting that the stimulative economic policies of Hitler were not just successful, albeit with horrible consequence, but were also needed due in part to the rest of the world not implementing stimulative policies earlier and allowing the global depression to fester. As far as comments that could be construed as pro-Hitler it was actually relatively mild and arguably not really praise of Hitler since that particular chapter in history is extremely relevant for learning about the consequences of different macroeconomic policies. Compared to the many other pro-Hitlerian remarks that have emerged from the right-wing Abe government in recent years it was really quite tame. Although given the abundance of pro-Nazi remarks from Shinzo Abe’s cabinet officials in recent years one could argue that Harada’s comments were, at a minimum, an attempt to placate a pro-Nazi sentiment within his government.
The pro-Hitler comments just made by Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso, on the other hand, are much closer to what we’ve sadly come to expect from the current government:
““Hitler, who killed millions of people, was no good even if his motive was right,” Aso told a meeting of his faction of the governing Liberal Democratic party, according to Jiji Press.”
So Hiter’s motives, which included killing millions of people, were good. It was just all the killing that spoiled everything. That’s the kind of pro-Nazi rhetoric we’ve come to expect from the Abe government: unambiguously pro-Nazi statements followed by a ‘whoops, I hope people didn’t misunderstand me!’ apology. And it is, of course, just the latest pro-Nazi and pro-far-right ‘gaffe’ from Taro Aso and the Abe government. Plenty more will no doubt follow.
Speaking of the US rewarding treason and mass murder, here’s a baffling and disturbing item from the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/17/obituaries/general-minoru-genda-84-dies-planned-attack-on-pearl-harbor.html
General Minoru Genda — Japanese General who planned attack on Pearl Harbor later received the highest United States honor given to foreigners, the Legion of Merit.
@Bill in SACTO–
Coincidence indeed!
I spoke about Genda in AFA#7.
Best,
Dave