Tokyo Underworld (44 page)

For material on Maria Sojka Hannelore, the author relied on interviews with Richard Roa, who was a part-time manager of Danny’s Inn and knew Maria extremely well, along with a number of foreign patrons, who, for understandable reasons, do not wish to be identified. The original proprietor, Danny Stein, is dead. Danny’s Inn is long defunct.

The
Asahi Shimbun
of November 11, 1978, carried a detailed description of Maria’s life, ‘
San Men Kyo’
[‘3-Sided Mirror’], p. 2. Also see
Asahi Shimbun
, November 10, 11, 19, and 28, 1978;
Mainichi Shimbun
, November 11 and 28, 1978; and
Yomiuri Shimbun
, November 11 and 28, 1978. Also see
Japan Times
, November 11, 1978, for articles on her murder and the arrest of her assailant. The
Asahi Shimbun
evening edition of November 28, 1978, carried a report on the assailant’s confession (‘In the room, she asked for more money. I refused and went into the bath, and when I came out, I saw her rifling through my wallet. I got angry and before I knew it, I strangled her.’)

A 1977 crackdown by Akasaka police on Maria and her confreres had resulted in the arrest of several of the girls, but all were released and the charges dismissed. Few Japanese men, it turned out, were willing to testify they had engaged the services of the young ladies. Further attempts by Japanese undercover police to entrap the young ladies failed, because it was all too obvious they were policemen in disguise.

For explanations of the aircraft business, the author relied on interviews with Jim Phillips, a former fighter pilot, Grumman executive and longtime aircraft consultant in Japan.

For material on the Copacabana as a favorite hangout of the aircraft executives, the author relied on interviews with Phillips, journalist Hiroshi Sasaki, Richard Roa, Nick Zappetti and on personal experience.

Kern’s negotiating the Grumman kickback was reported in the
Mainichi Daily News
, October 17, 1980, p. 17 (Kyodo News Service): ‘In the libel case Nissho Iwai and the former Grumman consultant (Kern), were found to have concluded a secret contract for payment of substantial kickbacks to former defense chief Raizo Matsuno and others in reward for sales of Grumman’s E-2C early warning patrol plane to Japan.’ Kern died in 1997 in Washington, D.C. The author also relied on ‘Harry Kern: A Man behind the Scenes of Postwar Japan’s History,’
Asahi Journal
, February 2, 1979; ‘
Nazo No Otoko’
[‘Mystery Man’],
Gekan Gendai
, February 5, 1979; by John Roberts and Takashi Tachibana, ‘
Shiroi Kuromaku’
[‘White Wirepuller’],
Bungei Shunju
, March 1979. Also see ‘Aoi
Me No Fikusaa’
[‘The Blue Eyed Fixer – Sensational Scoop Rewrites Japan’s Postwar History’],
Shukan Posuto
, February 2, 1979; and ‘Japan Inc. Exit Harry J. Kern’,
Insight
, April 1979.

The first reports of the Grumman scandal appeared in
Form 8-K, Current Report for the Month of January, 1979, Grumman Corporation
, Washington, D.C., Securities and Exchange Commissioner, Commission File No. 1-302.

Also see Davis and Roberts,
An Occupation without Troops
, pp. 32–33.

The quotes and other descriptive material about TSK.CCC came from magazine articles about the opening day reception in the
Shukan Shincho, ‘Machii
Hisayuki to iu Otoko’
[‘A Man Called Hisayuki Machii’], July 26, 1973, pp. 32–34; and the
Shukan Bunshun
series article, June 23, 1977, pp. 152–57, June 30, 1977, pp. 146–50; and July 7, 1977, pp. 144–49 entitled ‘
Kankoku Kara Kita Otoko’
[‘The Man Who Came from Korea’]. The author also relied on interviews with Zappetti and Roa and his own firsthand experience. The book
Yakuza
contains a summary of Machii’s career (pp. 191–97).

The description of the
Cupid
incident and its aftermath was provided by Richard Roa.

The Lockheed scandal and Kodama’s role in it are discussed extensively in a number of excellent works, not the least of which is Anthony Sampson,
The Arms Bazaar: From Lebanon to Lockheed
, and Inose Naoki,
Shisha Tachi no Rokkuiido [The Lockheed Dead
].

Also see, ‘
Rokkuiido Kenkin’
[‘Lockheed Donations’],
Shukan Yomiuri
, special issue, February 28, 1976. Koichiro Yoshiwara, ‘
Burakku Rokkuiido’
[‘Black Lockheed’],
Shukan Yomiuri
, April 3, 1976, pp. 42–45; Takashi Tachibana, ‘
Kodama Yoshio to wa Nanika?’
[‘Who Is Yoshio Kodama’],
Bungei Shunju
, May 1976, pp. 94–135; Tad Szulc, ‘The Money Changer’,
The New Republic
, April 10, 1976; ‘
Kimi Wa Kodama Wo Mitaka?’
[‘Have You Seen Kodama?’],
Asahi Journal
, June 11, 1976; and the
Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations of the Committee on Foreign Relations
, US Senate, 94th Congress, February 4 and 6, and May 4, 1976.

In addition, there is the aforementioned Dixon piece, in the January issue of 77,
Pacific Community;
‘
Hawaii Kaidan Kuirima Hotel No Hishitsu De nani Ga Atta Ka’
[‘What Happened in a Private Room at the Kurima Hotel during the Hawaii Conference’],
Shukan Bunshun
, February 1, 1979, pp. 156–60; ‘The Selling of Japan’,
The Nation
, February 13, 1982, pp. 171–78; and ‘Black Current’,
Japan Times
, April 1, 1992. Kotchian’s exorbitant expenses are noted in Inose Naoki,
Shisha Tachi no Rokkuoodo Jiken [The Lockheed Dead]
, pp. 223, 224.

The ‘bribery, as a business expense’ quote appears in Sampson’s
The Arms Bazaar
. Bribes are also described in Williams Horsely and Roger Buckley,
Nippon New Superpower
, p. 129; and in the aforementioned Dixon article on structural corruption. Also see the excellent
Shadow Shoguns
, by Jacob M. Schlesinger, for an in-depth study of Tanaka’s highly suspect political fund-raising tactics.

The ‘If they had wanted to, they could have stopped it’ quote is from Sampson,
Arms Bazaar
, p. 223. The April 2, 1976, edition of
The New York Times
, quoted a CIA agent as saying that the agency ‘was checking with headquarters every step of the way, when the Lockheed thing came up. Every move was approved by Washington.’

‘How dare they’ quote is drawn from Horsley and Buckley,
Nippon New Superpower
, p. 129.

See
Rokkido Saiban Bochoki [A Record of the Lockheed Trials] Asahi Shim-bun
, 1994, vol. 1, pps. 132–35; 184–86; 196–99 for Tachibana’s analysis of the missing bearer checks and the $200,000 Osano payment at LAX. Also see interview with Takashi Tachibana in the monthly magazine
Ushio
, November 1976. For another discussion of the theory on secret campaign donations, see an article in the
Mainichi Daily News
, March 15, 1976, p. 4, ‘Nixon Said Implicated in Lockheed Bribery’.

The Lockheed aftermath is discussed in the aforementioned Naoki,
Shisha Tachi no Rokkido
. Its effect on the Machii organization is described in the
Shukan Bunshun
series (
Kankoku Kara Kita Otoko
) and in ‘
Ginza No Senryo No Shussen Wo Tsugeru TKS.CCC no ‘Banka’
[‘The Elegy of the TKS.CCC’s Postwar Occupation of the Ginza’],
Shukan Shincho
, May 26, 1977, pp. 42–46; and in ‘
Kurabu’
[‘Club’],
Shukan Shincho
, January 8, 1977, pp. 130–31.

Also see Yoichiro Tanaka, ‘
Rokkido Jiken Wa Sagi Jiken?’
[‘Was the Lockheed Incident a Sting Operation?’],
Shukan Bunshun
, March 1, 1979, pp. 46–47.

Kissinger’s court order was discussed in Tad Sculz, ‘The Money Changer’,
New Republic
, April 10, 1976.

The
Mainichi Daily News
of June 13, 1976, listed eight people related in one way or another to the payoff scandal who died under ‘mysterious circumstances’, including a police inspector investigating Lockheed who killed himself by leaping into Tokyo Bay. The excellent book
Shisha Tachi no Rokkuiido
describes them in detail.

See
Asahi Shimbun
, evening edition, April 27, 1984, p. 1 for reports on Osano’s conviction.

The Supreme Court verdict of ANA’s Wakasa was upheld in 1996; it was widely reported in all the Japanese newspapers, as was his company’s response.

For an excellent essay on how Tanaka managed to bend the system to suit his purposes, see Inoki, pp. 245–50.

The most complete and authoritative work on the Lockheed scandal remains Tachibana’s four-volume
Rokkido Saiban Buchoki
, which was published in paperback in 1994.

CITIZEN NICK

Material on Koreagate was obtained from the US Congressional Report,
Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations on International Relations
, ‘Activities of the KCIA in the US’, March 17, 1976; also
Japan Times
, June 4, 1977.

In the Fujita case, the author relied on interviews with Zappetti, Vince Iizumi, Akio Nomura and Yutaka Mogami, who were closely involved. Fujita is now dead. Said Nomura, a close friend of Fujita’s, ‘What Fujita did was wrong. But I understand why he did it – Nick treated him too badly.’

The Grolier editorial incident came from interviews with Grolier executives Richard Walker, Hiroo Nakao and Phil Yanagi, who were caught in the middle of the conflict.

DEA CULTURAL WALL

Sessions and Mueller gave their testimonies before the US Senate in November 1991. See US Senate Report on ‘The New International Criminal and Organized Crime’, 1993.

In addition to the aforementioned fifty-nine page Senate report, the material on the DEA in Japan is from a three-part series entitled ‘Japan’s
La Cosa Nostra’
by Hiroaki Furano of the Kyodo News Agency, released in February 1984, as well as from interviews with a US crime investigator who wishes to remain anonymous, and Steve Weissman, who was with the Tokyo Bureau of the
New York Times
in the early 1990s and was covering the subject. Also see ‘
Roppongi Konnekushon’
(‘Roppongi Connection’) in the
Shukan Asahi
of June 7, 1991, pp. 20–23, for material on the underground drug scene in Roppongi and the arrest of Shintaro Katsu, and the feature article ‘
Yakuza No Keizai Gaku’
(‘Gangster Economics’) by Atsushi Mizoguchi in the now defunct monthly magazine
Marco Polo
, November 1991, pps. 60–69.

7. THE GREAT TRANSFER OF WEALTH

A NOTE ABOUT EXCHANGE RATES

The dollar was fixed at 360 yen to the dollar in 1949 and stayed there until 1971, when it was taken off the gold standard by then US President Richard M. Nixon and allowed to float against other currencies. The move was designed in part to alleviate the $3 billion trade imbalance with Japan. It slipped to 300 yen in a matter of months, then to 240 (and to 190 by the end of the decade), before being revived in the Reagan administration, when it rose to a plateau of 263 in February 1985.

The move off the gold standard was one of the year’s two ‘Nixon shocks’, as the Japanese referred to them. The other was the surprise announcement by Nixon that Henry Kissinger had been carrying out secret negotiations with the Chinese government to establish diplomatic relations without consulting with or even notifying the Japanese government, which the latter saw as a humiliation.

However, the
doru shokku
, as it was known, gave the Japanese unprecedented spending power and provided further impetus to Japan’s growth.

For a description of the G-5 Plaza Summit of 1985, see James Fallows,
Looking at the Sun
. Trade and financial statistics on Japan for the period are from
Japan
Almanac
data provided by MITI, MOF, and other government agencies. The bar and nightclub count comes courtesy of Azabu Ward Office. Educational statistics are from
World Almanac
.

‘The Greatest Transfer …’ quote came from Kenneth Courtis, an economist with Deutsche Bank, Tokyo.

The ‘… essentially racists …’ quote is from John Roberts.

Additional US–Japan trade data and information provided by ACCJ and the Boston Consulting Group.

Construction data came from the
Japan Almanac
(courtesy of the Ministry of Construction), which pointed out that Japan in the 1990s had twice as many cars as in the 1970s but only one-tenth more road space, thereby justifying the increased construction of highways. See Patrick Smith,
Japan: A Reinterpretation
, pp. 180–82, for an excellent essay on the construction state; and Schlesinger,
Shadow Shoguns
, pp. 240–41.

The pig farming saga was related by Zappetti, Aksenoff, and Vince Iizumi. Hog farming data are from
Japan Almanac
(Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries).

KEIZAI YAKUZA

‘Tani’ is a pseudonym for a Roppongi gangster.

Miyashiro’s US arrest record appears in Kaplan and Dubro,
Yakuza
, p. 248. Miyashiro was also profiled and interviewed in the
Shukan Taishu
weekly magazine article ‘
Kore Ga Daigaku No Oyabun Da’
[‘These are the College Gang Bosses’], January 29, 1990, pp. 38–47. He was also interviewed in Mark Schilling’s ‘After Dark’ column,
Japan Times Weekly
, August 3 and 10, 1991.

Kobayshi’s role in the election of Nakasone is described in part 1 of a twelve-part series, ‘Politicians and Gangsters – The Unholy Alliance’, appearing in the
Mainichi Daily News
, beginning on May 4, 1991, p.1. (During the 1982 campaign for LDP president, Nakasone had been harangued by right-wingers from Kobayashi’s Nihon Seinensha, protesting his ties to LDP kingmaker Kakuei Tanaka, who was being tried for bribery in the Lockheed affair. Nakasone’s associates made a request through certain channels and the harassment suddenly stopped.

The 1985 police investigation that uncovered over 100 instances of extortion by the Roppongi office of the Kobayashi-kai was reported in the October 15, 1985, issue of the
Asahi Shimbun (Yukan
, or evening edition), p. 11. Other data on the Kobayashi-kai came from Yomiuri Shimbun, June 20, 1993.