Tokyo Underworld (41 page)

Dr Aksenoff, a highly respected member of the foreign community in Japan by the mid-1950s, related the story about introducing Shattuck’s wife to the judge, who was Aksenoff’s friend. Bushell told a similar story, without mentioning the judge, who, in any event, is now deceased. Doris Lee and Shattuck have long departed Japan.

The details of Zappetti’s incarceration and excursions to American Express were verified by one of the official police interpreters assigned to the case, a man who wishes to remain anonymous. Incidentally, the regimen Zappetti endured remained essentially unchanged thirty years later when ex-Beatle Paul McCartney spent a week in detention after being arrested at Narita Airport for possessing 225 grams of marijuana.

The
Jimbutsu Orai
article, ‘
Tekikoku Hoteru Hoseki Gyangu’
(‘The Imperial Hotel Jewel Gang’), was by Yoshino Saburo (March 1956, pp. 164–67).

US Embassy official William Givens visited MacFarland every month during the six years the jewel thief was incarcerated in Fuchu Prison – a grim, unheated place with high gray walls located outside Tokyo. On each visit, Givens hand-delivered MacFarland’s lone request, a copy of
Gourmet
magazine. ‘He was sick of fish and rice,’ said Givens. ‘He had lost about 100 pounds. He fantasized all day about gourmet food.’

3. SUCCESS STORY

Descriptions of Roppongi in the mid-1950s are from Tom Scully, Hal Drake, Richard Pyle, Richard Roa, Minoru Sasaki, Reikichi Sumiya, Dick Berry, William Givens and Thomas Blakemore.

Crime journalist Minoru Sasaki wrote the first article about Nicola’s restaurant. He described his impressions in an interview with the author of this book. Akio ‘Frank’ Nomura, the first waiter to work at Nicola’s and a man who would work on and off there for some thirty years, provided additional information and background color on the restaurant and its clientele.

TV sales figures and ratings for the era are from
Nichiroku 20 Seki, Shukan Yearbook
series,
Dai 38 Go
, published by Kodansha, and by the wrestling encyclopedia
Nihon Puro Resu Zen Shi
.

All of the books on Rikidozan mentioned in the bibliography describe bizarre behavior. His antics were quite well known in Japan. Nick Zappetti and Nicola’s headwaiter Frank Nomura were also eyewitnesses.

A good description of gang life in that era is ‘
Hi wo Haiita Koruto!’
[‘The Colt That Spat Fire’],
Shukan Tokyo
, June 28, 1958 (pp. 4–9), which describes the shooting of Hideki Yokoi.

UNDERGROUND EMPIRE

The underground empire of Yoshio Kodama has been described in many works. Foremost among them is the work of journalist Takashi Tachibana, in particular, his lengthy article, ‘
Kodama Yoshio To Wa Nani Ka?’
[‘What Is Yoshio Kodama?’], for the respected monthly
Bungei Shunju
, May 1976, pp. 94–130. Also see the multi-part series in the weekly
Shukan Bunshun
, ‘
CIA to Yoshio Kodama
’ [‘Yoshio Kodama and the CIA’], published April 15, April 29, May 13, May 20, and May 27, 1976. Also the
Shukan Asahi
weekly magazine article, ‘
GHQ Johobu, CIA, Soshite Uyoku To No Setten Wo Arau’
[‘Laundering the Connection between the GHQ Intelligence Wing, the CIA and the Right Wing’], April 23, 1976, pp. 173–76.

Also revealing was a report by Jinkichi Matsuda, ‘How Yoshio Kodama Behaved Himself on the Continent: History of Crime of the Shanghai Adventurer,’ IPA Case No. 194, US National Archives. And Soichi Oya, ‘
Kodama Yoshio, …’ Bungei Shunju
, January 1961. Another interesting source is Yoshio Kodama,
Akusei, Jusei, Ransei
, which describes his early years as a young nationalist.

The definitive work on the relationship of Kodama and Machii is a long (15,000-word), two-part article published by the prestigious but now defunct weekly,
Asahi Journal
, ‘
Kodama no Kage De Odoru Aru Fuikusa
’ [‘The Fixer Who Danced in Kodama’s Shadow’], published in two parts on October 1 and October 8, 1976. Authorship was credited to the magazine editorial staff. It describes the
gang boss’s youth and rise to power in great detail. Also see the
Shukan Bunshun
series, ‘
Kankoku Kara Kita Otoko’
[‘The Man from Korea’], June 23, June 30 and July 7, 1977. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department file on Machii, to which the author had access, confirmed many facts, as did crime reporter Hiroshi Sasaki and a confidential interview with a former member of the Tosei-kai.

Ushijima’s
Mo Hitotsu No Showa Shi (1): Shinso Kairyu No Otoko: Rikidozan
was a valuable reference in that it explored Rikidozan’s political connections, which, the author wrote, represented a map of Japan’s underground government.

There are numerous references to the Machii and Rikidozan relationship in Honda’s
Kizu
(a highly regarded biography of a famous Shibuya gangster who was assassinated in 1963 by a pair of Tosei-kai soldiers wielding
yanagi-bo
, thin but deadly willow-branch-shaped swords, in a decisive turf war) and also in
Eikyu No Rikidozan
, by Eiji Oshita. Ex-gang boss Norboru Ando’s three-part autobiography,
Yakuza to Koso
, describes how his face was slashed from ear to chin by a West Ginza gangster. Both Honda’s and Ando’s books describe the postwar growth of crime and the gangs. So does
Ninkyo Daihyakka
[‘The Great Encyclopaedia of Chivalry’], an 800-page colossus on crime and gang history and culture in Japan, and
Koan Hyakunenshi
[‘The 100 Year History of Public Security’].

Ginza Nippo –
a gang-run magazine – was just one of many, many such ‘magazines’ in Japan that were sold by the ‘direct sales’ method, so to speak, and were not available on newsstands. They represent a well-known type of extortion racket in Japan.

The CIA’s interest in Kodama as delineated in the previously referenced articles was twofold: as a string puller for the LDP, and as a quiet leader of the extreme rightist elements in Japan. ACJ co-founder and ex-State Department official Eugene Dooman carried out a covert CIA-funded operation to smuggle tons of tungsten – a strategic metal used for hardening missiles – to the Pentagon from Japanese military installations. Yoshio Kodama was the man hired to accomplish the task. (The Kyodo News Agency reported on October 16, 1994, that Kay Sugahara, an official of the OSS [the predecessor of the CIA] procured tungsten from Japan through Kodama and paid $2.8 million to the rightist; this according to Howard Schoenberger, late professor at the University of Maine, in an unpublished manuscript.)

There are numerous references to the Machii and Rikidozan relationship in
Kizu
and in
Eikyu No Rikidozan
. Machii’s real name, according to his file in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, is Cheong Geong Young.

The activities of the Tonichi trading company vis-à-vis Sukarno and Dewi were described in the weekly
Shukan Gendai
, February 28, 1966. Also see Yoko Kitazawa, ‘Japan-Indonesia Corruption: Bribe, It Shall Be Given You’ (part 1), by
AMPO
8, no. 1, 1976.

The Diet protests against the renewal of the Security Treaty were described in detail to me by Dr Fusakazu Hayano, a chemical engineer for Asahi Chemical, who participated in them when he was a student at Tokyo University. William Givens, a US Embassy official at the time, also witnessed them and related his impressions.

The formation of the gangster patriot army is described in detail in
Koan Daiyoran
[
Great Directory of Public Security
]. Other good descriptions are found in
Yakuza to Nihon-jin
, by Kenji Ino,
Mo Hitotsu No Showa Shi (1), Black Star Over Japan
, by Alex Axelbank, and
Yakuza
.

The quote, ‘Even in dirty swamps’, is from a fourteen-part
Mainichi Daily News
series on gangs, ‘Organized Violence Pattern in Japan’, which began July 18, 1964, and ran through August 22 of that same year.

Secret meetings involving Kodama, Machii, LDP officials, and ROK representatives are described in detail in
Mo Hitotsu No Showa Shi (1)
and also in the aforementioned
Asahi Journal
article, ‘
Kodama No Kage De Odoru Fuiksa
’ of October 1and 8, 1976. Machii himself mentioned them in a rare interview with the
Shukan Gendai
, June 23, 1966.

A NOTE ABOUT GUN CONTROL LAWS IN JAPAN

Possession of firearms has been strictly controlled since the Tokugawa era, when guns were introduced by Portuguese traders. The shogunate banned them because they were fearful of what might happen with such weapons in the hands of the populace. A famous feudal lord named Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598), who unified the nation, began a campaign in which all swords and other weapons owned by civilians were confiscated, assuring people their safety was guaranteed as long as they paid their taxes. The police system developed in this vein over time, and a certain awe of law enforcement and authority was engendered along with it. A complete ban on individual ownership of handguns has been in effect since 1958.

The relatively low number of violent crimes in Japan is considered the result of this historic absence of a custom of armed self-defense, as well as the result of certain cultural traits in regard to a sense of public decorum and an aversion to publicly shaming one’s family name, which some regard as particularly strong among the Japanese.

MAFIA BOSS OF TOKYO

The Club 88 typhoons were described by eyewitness Zappetti. The close friendship of Zappetti and Rikidozan and Machii has been described to me by the chief waiter Nomura, the cash register girl Yae Koizumi (who later became
Zappetti’s wife), and Yutaka Mogami, formerly of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, who called Rikidozan, Machii, and Zappetti the ‘leading enemies of the Tokyo Police’.

The Tanashi gang encounter was described by Zappetti and Yae Koizumi.

Numerical data on gang membership appear in
Koan Daiyoran
. Also see the fourteen-part series on gangs appearing in the
Mainichi Daily News
, beginning July 18, 1964, entitled ‘Organized Violence …’ And the round table discussion, ‘
Henshin Suru Boryoku Shudan’
[‘The Changing Organized Violence Gangs’], in the weekly
Shukan Yomiuri
, October 15, 1978, pp. 28–40. In it, a police official is quoted as saying, ‘We really don’t know how many yakuza there are. The government asks us to make a count, so we do. But it’s only a guess.’

The ‘Wash Blood with Blood’ incidents were taken from
Kizu
and police reports.

The standoff with the Kobayashi-kai men was described by Zappetti and his cash register girl at the time, Yae Koizumi.

The twenty-man battle between the Sumiyoshi and Tosei-kai took place in 1962 in front of the Chako nightclub in Roppongi, prompted by an argument over an unpaid bill. The club was operated by the TSK. The customer who refused to pay was from the Sumiyoshi. The details were verified by a police report of the incident.

KILLERIKEDA

The encounter between Zappetti and Ikeda and henchman was related by Zappetti and by eyewitness Frank Nomura. Some secondhand accounts dispute certain details, such as Ikeda leaving his gun on the counter.

KIM SIN RAK

The facts about Rikidozan’s true identity were first revealed to the public in 1973, in print, in the aforementioned Ushijima book.

A NOTE ABOUT KOREANS IN JAPAN

The term
sankokujin
(third country people) was used to refer to the Koreans and Formosans who had been brought to Japan to work in the coal mines and factories during the 1920s and 1930s, when Korea and Formosa belonged to the Japanese Imperial Empire and, after years of oppression and harsh treatment, liberated by the Occupation forces. Although a postwar repatriation program resulted in over 2 million going home, 600,000 Korean imports, along with some 100,000 Taiwanese, chose to stay in Japan and enjoy the new liberated status granted them by the GHQ, which exempted them from the legal authority of the Japanese
police. Some of them formed gangs, set up their own markets in the burned-out areas around the train stations, and with better access to American goods than the Japanese, began to expand their influence, a state of affairs that was not welcomed by the pure-blooded Japanese gangs despite the democratic spirit supposedly in the air. What one Japanese gang boss of the era wrote of their incursions in his autobiography some years later was typical of the attitude toward the
sankokujin:

Thinking back, for those people who had been treated like slaves and beaten by the Japanese military, the time was for them like a spring which came in the 100th year. They wanted to behave as they wish and that may be a reflection of their feelings of revenge, as well as an inferiority complex.

They would drink on the train, annoy Japanese women and take up too much space, occupying 2 seats or even lying down during the rush hour.

Using their special privileges, they got access to rationed goods and sold them on the black market … going into places like a thief.

Although it was understandable, it was also unbearable to see in front of us: our own people being treated badly and for us not to do anything about it and to pretend as if we were not seeing it. (Ando,
Yakuza to Koso
, vol. 1, p. 119.)

In the end, the Japanese gang bosses did do something about it, in several brutal clashes (in Shibuya, Ueno, and Shimbashi) when the American MPs were not around, using swords, handguns, and, in one instance, a machine gun, slowly gaining the upper hand over the upstart outsiders.

The battle for territory between Koreans and homegrown mobsters was symbolized by the rivalry between the Tosei-kai and the Sumiyoshi. In the aftermath of war, the Sumiyoshi grew to several thousand members citywide, becoming Tokyo’s largest gang, and expanded into other spheres of activity once disdained by the true
bakuto
. They gained control of the Tokyo docks, moved into the amphetamine trade as well as the entertainment business, and even took up handling the promotion of Rikidozan pro wrestling. But the Tosei-kai was not easily displaced.