Historical chronicles: total espionage in Japanese
In the world public consciousness, the concept of "total espionage" is associated with Hitler's Germany, and only Japanese scholars know that this phenomenon originated and was created and perfected in Japan over the centuries.
According to experts, Japanese espionage dates back to the middle of the 19th century. Before that, Japan was a country closed to foreigners. But on July 8, 1853, a powerful American squadron under the command of Commodore Perry entered Edo Bay. Having disembarked, accompanied by guards armed to the teeth, the Commodore handed the Japanese authorities a letter from the then President of the United States, Fillmore. In an ultimatum, the Japanese were asked to give the United States the right to trade within the country. Then English and French merchants poured into the country and imposed treaties with broad powers on the Japanese emperor. Since then, Japan has ceased to be a closed country.
SCORTERS OF THE RISING SUN
With the development of capitalist relations, the Japanese government began to send many diplomatic, trade and naval missions to obtain information in Europe and America. As trainees, the Japanese infiltrated industrial enterprises in the Old and New Worlds, as their owners were forced to hire the Japanese. It was a kind of payment for the right to trade in Japan.
Under the guise of Japanese workers, experienced engineers came to fetch Western industrial secrets. Various Japanese delegations, students and tourists were also involved in economic espionage.
Of course, the Japanese went abroad not only to spy. Nevertheless, when they had the opportunity to obtain any information, they did so and passed it on to the Japanese consul, and upon returning home, to the police officers. The roots of this phenomenon go back centuries, when the Japanese rulers made extensive use of detectives, voluntary or recruited informers. Scientists believe that this practice has developed in the nation a propensity for espionage, which is so ingrained that the Japanese are engaged in it wherever an opportunity falls, and even more so on foreign trips. The attitude of the Japanese towards espionage was (and still is!) In full accordance with their cult of serving the motherland and the ideals of patriotism, which is based on the Shinto idea of God's chosenness of the Japanese.
It was extremely rare to meet a Japanese tourist without a camera, although without it he is an observer by vocation. Lacking the skills to give a correct assessment of what was observed, the Japanese often collected a lot of useless information, which he carefully recorded in his travel diaries and eventually accumulated in the Tokyo Intelligence Center. Reports from both professional agents and initiative amateurs were transmitted to the Center in various ways: through the consulates, which forwarded intelligence information to the embassies with couriers, in turn, the embassies sent it to Japan with diplomatic mail; through special courier agents acting under the guise of inspectors on a mission; through the captains of Japanese merchant and passenger ships, who usually received reports at the last minute before sailing to Japan. From the Center, the information obtained by the agents was sent to the intelligence units of the army, navy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where it was registered, classified and analyzed, and then passed on to the headquarters officers.
Patriotic societies played an important role in the activities of Japanese intelligence. Among their agents were recruited people from all social strata. They were united by one common goal: the establishment of Japanese control over Asia, and subsequently over the whole world.
The largest patriotic society was the Kokuryukai (Black Dragon), with over 100,000 members. His cells were located in the United States, Latin America and North Africa.
"Black Dragon" is the Chinese name for the Amur River, which separated Manchuria and Russia. The name of the society contains a hint of its main goal in Japan - to oust the Russians beyond the Amur, from Korea and from any other place in the Pacific region. In other words, the main direction of the society's activity was the war with Russia.
Smaller but no less aggressive societies included the Great Asia Awakening, White Wolf and Turan. Their activities developed in five directions: the study of the economic, geographic, educational, colonial and religious situation in Central Asia and Siberia, so that after the seizure of these regions by Japan, to ensure the power of the emperor there.
After the end of World War II, Japanese intelligence was at the center of attention of Western intelligence services. Certain methods of her work led her colleagues from the CIA and ICU to genuine amazement. Thus, a young employee of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bernard Boursicot was able to introduce a Japanese recruiting agent, a professional opera singer, posing as … a woman, to the espionage trade!
Over the years, an equally impressive story has become known from Japanese sources. A young Japanese American woman drowned while in Japan in the mid-1950s. Japanese intelligence officers retrieved her body and documents. The fluent English agent (operational pseudonym Lily Petal) underwent plastic surgery, and as a result, she acquired the appearance of the deceased. As a result, Lily ended up in the Japanese quarter of New York, where she successfully acted as a recruiting agent for a number of years. As Japan grew into an economic superpower, it became one of the main customers of industrial espionage.
In 1990, Nissan Motors, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japanese aerospace companies, purchased computer software from an American businessman. The American was arrested for trading in military technology without a license. The computer programs confiscated during the arrest were categorically not subject to sale, since they were developed by the Americans as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI - the Star Wars program). Since then, in Japan, they believe that industrial espionage is the intelligence that owns the future, therefore it has support at the highest state level. And it starts with the younger generation.
In Japan, students are exempt from military fees if they agree to travel to Western countries as spies. They also undergo special training: after graduating from a higher educational institution, they are hired free of charge as laboratory assistants for scientists engaged in research in the field in which they will subsequently have to deal in the country of destination.
There is a technical college at the University of Tokyo, which Western intelligence services have called the forge of personnel for industrial espionage. Students there are trained in the theory of scientific and technical intelligence, after which, as part of cultural exchange between countries, they are sent to the United States, Germany, Great Britain or France. For example, during a visit to a French photography company, Japanese student excursionists "accidentally" dipped the ends of their ties into chemical reagents in order to find out their components later.
BLACK SAND
In 1978, the Japanese company "Asakhari" applied to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade with a request to lease to it a plot of the coastal zone near the village of Ozernovsky, on the southeastern end of the Kamchatka Peninsula, for two years.
The firm motivated its intention by the need to build a recreation center in the indicated area for the crews of fishing vessels fishing in the neutral waters of the Sea of Okhotsk.
The Soviet side went to meet the leadership of "Asahari", the contract was concluded, however, according to the observations of the Soviet border guards, the Japanese were in no hurry with the construction of the recreation center, focusing all their attention on the export of the so-called black sand from the coastal zone.
The Asahari management explained their actions by the preparatory work for the subsequent construction of cottages, berths, etc. Moreover, the volume of the removed sand was so great that there was a joke among the border guards: “We will soon go on an excursion to Japan. The Ozernovsky-Tokyo metro line is being laid at full speed!"
However, the Japanese Foreign Ministry was quick to assure the Soviet side that the sand was simply being dumped into the sea.
At the direction of the chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, space reconnaissance was connected to track the routes of movement of Japanese ships with sand on board.
It turned out that the sand is carefully delivered to Japan, where it is scrupulously, down to a grain of sand, stored in special waterproof hangars.
By order of Andropov, a chemical and biological analysis of the black sand exported by the Japanese was carried out in the special laboratories of the KGB.
It was found that the sand, nicknamed by the locals "black", is nothing more than the volcanic ash of the periodically active Mayon volcano, located near the island of Catanduanes (Philippines).
Mayon throws volcanic ash into the coastal waters of the Philippine Sea, which is carried along the bottom of the Izu-Boninsky and Japanese troughs by the Pacific current only on the coast of Kamchatka, specifically in the area of the village of Ozernovsky.
Laboratory studies have shown that the ash is literally oversaturated with rare earth elements: scandium, yttrium, lanthanum and lantonides. In addition, a high content of gold and platinum was found in the black sand.
The coastal zone in the village of Ozernovsky is the only place on the globe where the listed rare-earth metals, actively used in electronics, laser and optical technology, can be mined in an open way.
In 1979, the lease agreement was terminated by the Ministry of Foreign Trade unilaterally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR sent a note of protest to the Japanese side, a memorandum was left from the State Security Committee to the Central Committee of the CPSU, in which, in particular, it was noted: fraudulently exported from the southeastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula … It is alarming that so far not a single Union ministry has taken an interest in the development of the wealth that literally lies underfoot."
DISPLAY GLASS
In 1976, the General Director of the Japanese semi-state enterprise "Ikebuko" turned to the Council of Ministers of the USSR with a proposal to purchase significant quantities of display glass in our country. At the same time, the Japanese counterparty of the Ministry of Foreign Trade was ready, regardless of costs, to purchase glass in trains! The prospect of the deal was more than attractive - the production of display glass cost a penny for the USSR.
The contract was signed, and hundreds of platforms loaded with glass moved towards the port of Nakhodka, where the "most valuable export commodity" ended up in the holds of Japanese dry cargo ships …
Only three years later, the KGB of the USSR, through its foreign agents, established that the glass served as a cover. As soon as the caravan of dry cargo ships with the next batch of glass left the port of Nakhodka and went out into the open sea, pliers and nail clippers were distributed to the entire crew, and they began to smash containers with display glass. But how?! Boards, fittings were carefully peeled off, sorted and stored in piles, which were then lowered into the holds with special winches. And the glass was thrown overboard.
Disassembly of containers was carried out at the minimum speed of the vessel and only with the onset of darkness under the light of onboard searchlights. These precautions were designed to keep the true purpose of acquiring glass secret from unexpected bystanders: passing ships, as well as planes and helicopters of the Soviet border guards.
For conspiracy purposes, the Ikebuko administration formed a hired crew for only one flight. It consisted of guest workers recruited in Southeast Asia and Indonesia, ready for any job for a meager pay. At the end of the work, the day laborers in batches of 20, under the supervision of armed guards, were escorted to the wardroom, where they were handed $ 5 each and fed. At the same time, they were forcibly forced to drink a glass of rice vodka, which was mixed with drugs that caused temporary paramnesia. This was done so that after being scrapped ashore, none of the workers could remember what he was doing on the ship.
According to reports, in one voyage alone, a caravan of dry cargo ships delivered up to 10 thousand cubic meters to the Land of the Rising Sun. m of the most valuable wood. And all because any of our products, which were exported, were traditionally sheathed with valuable and hard tree species: cedar pine, beech and oak. It is from this wood that the containers for the display glass were made. The Japanese were interested in fittings, but not glass at all … Thanks to the machinations with display glass, Japan, which does not have natural reserves of wood, at the end of the 20th century took the third place, after Spain and Italy, in exporting environmentally friendly furniture to the world market!
From the donated wood, Ikebuko produced exquisite furniture that it supplied to Arab oil sheikhs, the United States and even Western Europe.
A sarcastic grimace of Japanese business: in 1982, Ikebuko sold furniture made from our wood to the Administrative Department under the USSR Council of Ministers for the cabinet of … the Council of Ministers Nikolai Tikhonov!
FAIENCE EXPORT
While high-speed highways were built in the United States in the interests of national security, the USSR expanded and modernized its railways for the same purpose. The CIA was well aware that Soviet strategic missile systems were developed and produced in the west and center of the country, and then transported along the Trans-Siberian Railway to the east, where they were installed and aimed at objects in the United States. By the early 1980s, the Americans had information on the whereabouts of most of our permanent-based strategic nuclear missiles. However, they did not have data on our mobile missile systems (according to the American classification - MIRV) with ten self-guided warheads installed on railway platforms and camouflaged as passenger cars. And then the Japanese came to the aid of the Americans …
In the late 1980s, the private Japanese firm "Shochiku" attracted the attention of the Primorye counterintelligence officers by delivering faience vases to the port of Nakhodka once a month for six months on a regular basis for their subsequent shipment to Hamburg.
It seemed that there was nothing to complain about: the accompanying documents are always in perfect order, the cargo is neutral, it is not dangerous for the environment (and of interest to robbers!), Is in a sealed metal container on an open railway platform. Nevertheless, some peculiarities of earthenware export were alarming …
- Well, vases of artistic value would be exported, otherwise they are ordinary pots! - argued the head of the KGB for the Primorsky Territory, Major General Volya, again and again returning to the issue of transporting products of Japanese artisans. - Is it worth the candle? After all, shards, which are worth a penny on a market day, are transported for some reason to a country famous for Saxon porcelain! Why? And the transportation of luggage through the entire Union on the Trans-Siberian Railway is not a cheap trip … It turns out,after paying off the overhead and transportation costs, ceramic pots should cost like gold … So, or what ?! I wonder how much the Japanese sell them in Hamburg? Y-yes, business … In general, so! Either it's time for me to retire because of the persecution mania, or the Japs are doing something illegal under my nose … And at the same time they make fun of the idiots from customs and counterintelligence! Exactly, something is wrong here! Better, as the saying goes, to overdo it than to miss it! - summed up the chief of the Primorsky counterintelligence and stated his considerations in a cipher telegram to the Second Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR.
Employees of the 5th (Japanese) department quickly established that Shochiku is closely connected with a large American company working in the radio-electronic industry of the US military-industrial complex, and, in fact, is in her support, since the authorized capital of a Japanese company is 80% American origin. This circumstance, according to sources from overseas, was the most guarded secret of "Shochiku" …
The 1st (American) Department was engaged in the machinations of the military-industrial complex of the United States, so the cipher telegram from Primorye ended up on the desk of its chief, Major General Krasilnikov. He supported the Primorsky Chekist and gave the order: as soon as the next container will be reloaded from the ship to the railway platform, an operational and technical group will go to Nakhodka from the capital to conduct an unofficial inspection of the container.
The platform with the mysterious container was detached from the main train and driven to a dead end. They cut off the seals, opened the doors. Neatly packed crates are stacked along the entire length of the container from floor to ceiling. They opened the first … the second … the tenth. There were faience vases painted by Japanese handicraftsmen in a soft package.
- Is it really a mistake ?! - Krasilnikov, who personally arrived in Nakhodka to direct the operation, wiped his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief.
The inspection continued. Carefully, so as not to damage, they opened all the boxes in a row … Finally, after the search engines pulled out and gutted more than 50 boxes, they stumbled upon a plywood partition, behind which was hidden a fairly spacious room the size of a bathroom, cluttered with mysterious equipment. Not a container - a spaceship cabin!
It took the metropolitan techies about six hours to make a preliminary conclusion.
A more thorough examination, already carried out in Moscow, revealed that the container is equipped with a complex system with units for registering gamma radiation and feeding, accumulating and processing the received information. In addition, there were thermoluminescent dosimeters and photographic recording equipment. The system was completely autonomous, controlled by a computer without human intervention.
Having carefully studied all this fantastic equipment, the experts came to the conclusion that the container contains a special laboratory capable of collecting and storing information all the way from Nakhodka to Leningrad.
The specialists also found that the unique intelligence system recorded the presence of places where the seizure of atomic raw materials was carried out, as well as production facilities for its processing. She was able to detect the transport on which the components of nuclear production were transported, and even determine the direction of its movement.
In places of the most intense radioactive radiation, the container ventilation flaps were automatically opened and photographs were taken of the surrounding area up to several kilometers deep on both sides of the railroad bed. Indicators of radiation and photo registration, mileage counters made it possible to determine exactly where a given object is located.
Thus, the miracle laboratory made it possible to secretly probe a rather vast space along the entire Trans-Siberian Railway, to establish and control the movement of our atomic objects.
… General Krasilnikov understood why the vases were declared in the accompanying documents. Tell “Shotiku” about the transportation of, say, bamboo mats, and who knows how the loaders would treat the containers, and faience products are fragile goods, and requires a particularly careful attitude. Obviously, the senders hoped that by declaring fragile items as cargo, they would thereby force our workers to carry out loading operations with extreme caution. And this is a guarantee that the most valuable equipment (our specialists estimated it at $ 200 million!) Will arrive at its destination safe and sound. Of course, the company could also indicate consumer electronics - an equally fragile cargo that also requires delicate handling, but in this case there was no guarantee that the containers would not be robbed. The platform is open and unguarded.
The laboratory on wheels was used according to the following scheme: after completing a pirate raid deep into the territory of the USSR, it was to be transported from Hamburg to the United States, and after removing the information, it was delivered back to Japan, and everything would be repeated from the beginning.
It was not possible to establish how many revolutions the "carousel" made. We could only hope that before the exposure and expropriation of the laboratory, the containers contained only earthenware vases. The true owners of the containers should have made several test flights first, and not go into the water without knowing the ford!
… It was not easy for the leadership of "Shochiku", which fell suspicion of complicity with the Central Intelligence Agency. To keep his business in our market, the head of the Japanese company Hideyo Arita urgently flew to Moscow to get an appointment with the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. Having finally achieved an audience, the president tearfully begged the Council of Ministers not to make the case public. He assured him on oath that the Japanese side would immediately transfer a considerable sum in dollars to the Russian treasury as compensation. The KGB leadership had no doubts that Arita had spent the money not from his own pocket - from the box office and the remaining incognito American company for the production of electronic miracle equipment.
As for today's Russia, serious analysts agree that today Japan views it not as an equal partner, but solely as a resource exporting source of its life support. And from time to time makes openly pirate raids on the Russian storehouses of natural resources …
