Japan’s failure in the realm of intelligence gathering—before, during, and since World War II—was made very clear during a recent symposium in Tokyo entitled “How Should Japan Fight the Information War?”　　

　　　　　Panelists at the symposium, sponsored by the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals (JINF), a privately financed think tank I head, were Tadae Takubo, JINF Deputy Director and international affairs specialist, former Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, and Professor Tsutomu Nishioka of Tokyo Christian University, a leading Korea watcher.

　　　　　In his keynote address, Takubo introduced the gist of Intelligence and Intrigue by Kunio Kasugai (Kokusho Kanko-kai, Tokyo; August 2014)—a dramatic revelation of what clandestinely took place in the world of intelligence and espionage during World War II. Kasugai (85) is former chief of the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (1965-1987).

　　　　　Speaking of the key leaders of the war, Takubo listed Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Chiang Kai-shek, spotlighting the British prime minister as having played an especially crucial role.

　　　　　There were two questions in particular Churchill grappled with, Takubo stated: how to win his war against Hitler, and how to get the US to enter the war in Europe. Kasugai presents a number of concrete cases of how Churchill addressed these challenges. Quoting the author, Takubo had this to say:

　　　　　Churchill sent his right-hand man—Canadian-born spy chief William Stephenson, codenamed Intrepid, to Washington as his personal representative to Roosevelt. Stephenson passed on Churchill’s message that Hitler’s ambition would be directed not just at Europe, but the US as well, and that it was no time for the US to continue its pacifistic policy of isolationism.

　　　　　Churchill had Stephenson make two proposals to Roosevelt—a joint development of an atomic bomb and an offer to provide Washington the know-how to decipher coded German messages sent through a device known as the Enigma machine.

Britain’s Desperate Efforts to Capture the Enigma Machine

　　　　　“Enigma” in ancient Greek means “mystery.” A cryptographic machine originally developed by a Dutch inventor was purchased by a German technician and subsequently improved by experts at Nazi public security and intelligence agencies. Convinced that German military information enciphered on the Enigma machine was impossible to decipher, the Nazis used the device extensively, succeeding in developing a miniaturized portable model in 1938 that was widely distributed among German troops on its borders. In other words, all vital German military messages, including Hitler’s personal instructions to his generals as well as troop to troop liaison, were delivered through these Enigma machines.

　　　　　Information is the source of all power. Using all its strength to pursue the Enigma machine, British intelligence obtained information that miniaturized models of the Enigma were manufactured at a plant near Berlin and that a shipment by truck would be leaving the plant early in 1939. In close cooperation with intelligence operatives in Poland, which was facing an imminent German invasion, British agents lay in wait and raided the trucks that carried the portable Enigma machines. Setting fire to the trucks, they made away with just one machine intact, leading the Germans to believe that all of the machines were destroyed in the fire.

　　　　　The machine that survived the raid was transported via Warsaw to London, where a team of leading mathematicians was swiftly put together to analyze the device, including British mathematical genius Alan Turing of Britain as well as others experts from Poland, which traditionally excelled in mathematics. It was the end of August 1938, just a week prior to the German invasion of Poland.

　　　　　Subsequently managing to break the Enigma code, the allies were able to intercept most of the communications between Hitler and his generals throughout the rest of the war. Notes Takubo:

　　　　　“For over two years, Churchill did everything he could to get the US to enter the war. He secretly thought Britain had won the war when he learned that Japan had declared war on the US. That’s how important Churchill felt that development was.

　　　　　“However, Churchill did not influence Washington’s decisions with just his proposals about Enigma and the joint atomic bomb development scheme. He had Stephenson remind Roosevelt time and again that even if Germany occupied Britain, underground forces would be determined to fight a guerilla warfare. Churchill informed Roosevelt of the firm resolve of the British to fight the enemy to the last Briton. This is where the Britons then differ from today’s Japanese, who are most reluctant to even support their government in its decision to exercise the right to collective self-defense.”

　　　　　Quite like Germany, Japan also had its vital diplomatic and military messages intercepted and decrypted by the allies during the last war. Kasugai writes: “By 1941, the US had succeeded in deciphering the highest-level Japanese military and diplomatic codes, and additionally managed to reproduce a complicated encryption decoder used at the Japanese embassy in Washington.” Takubo talks about how this breaking of the code led to the death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Throughout the Battle of Midway, Japanese military messages were already being intercepted and decrypted by the US, unbeknownst to the Japanese, and then in April of 1943 a message on the flight plans of Yamamoto was intercepted, allowing the US to shoot down his plane.

　　　　　With six Zero fighters flying in formation to protect a transport bomber aircraft carrying the admiral, the attack by the US aircraft apparently concentrated on Yamamoto’s plane alone. Takubo said he had personally heard from one of the Zero pilots escorting Yamamoto that all the bullets fired from behind by-passed his own aircraft and hit Yamamoto’s aircraft.

　　　　　Back at the base, however, this pilot could not bring himself to report that he thought the Japanese codes had been broken. He couldn’t run the risk of being executed as a traitor for making such unpatriotic remarks.

　　　　　The fact that today Japan is grossly inferior in its intelligence capabilities, I suppose, reflects a fundamental failure on the part of us Japanese to precisely understand what intelligence means to our national security, coupled with the propensity to refuse to grapple squarely with the reality surrounding Japan.

China: Japan’s No. 1 Adversary in the New Information Wars

　　　　　During the Washington Naval Conference in 1922, then Japanese ambassador Kijuro Shidehara realized quite by chance that the US State Department knew fully well the content of the cables he had dispatched to Tokyo. Takubo called the audience’s attention to a reference to that incident found in Shidehara’s memoirs entitled 50 Years of Diplomacy (Chuo Koron, Tokyo: 1975)

　　　　　“My secret diplomatic messages must apparently have leaked out to the State Department. I secretly chuckled at the thought that, if that was the case, the US side had decrypted my diplomatic cables and must be regarding me as a boring but honest human being.”

　　　　　A fool such as Shidehara is beyond help. Japan truly lagged behind in both gathering and disseminating information before and during the war, and it still does today. How Japan has failed to handle the so-called “comfort women” issue amply demonstrates its failure on the dissemination side.

　　　　　Commented Yoshio Omori, who previously served as chief of the Cabinet Information and Research Office:

　　　　　“In today’s world, there are two nations that stand out in intelligence gathering and espionage—Britain and China. In particular, I think the Chinese from their leaders down to the common people are quite capable in this regard by nature, historically speaking. By contrast, Japanese intelligence capabilities leave a lot to be desired.”

　　　　　It is China that is now Japan’s main adversary in the new information wars—both the gathering and the dissemination of information. On the dissemination side, the public relations side, it is the US that is the primary battlefield. Japan must do everything necessary to survive the information warfare instigated by China and other nations. What every thinking Japanese must freshly realize at this juncture is that there is no such fictitious world as referred to in the preamble to the Japanese “peace” constitution and that the state must commit itself to protecting its land and people on its own. For that purpose, Japan as a sovereign democracy must bid farewell to the dreamy notion still prevailing that somebody will come to its rescue in times of crisis, and instead be determined to make its utmost efforts to safeguard its security by significantly improving its self-defense capabilities.

(Translated from “Renaissance Japan” column no. 628 in the October 30, 2014 issue of The Weekly Shincho)