Trainwreck

August 17, 1949. 3:09 AM.

Passenger train #412 is approaching the village of Matsukawa, Japan. So far, the journey on the Tōhoku main line has gone smoothly. But disaster is only sixty seconds away.

For the last two months Japan has been inflamed with railroad terrorism.

In July, the President of the Japanese National Railway authority was kidnapped and run over with a train. Days later, someone tampered with another train, causing it to lose control and crash into a platform, killing six. [A, ch. 1]

And here, someone has removed pieces connecting two portions of the track, and shifted the rails several feet apart. Disaster is only thirty seconds away.

The motive for all these attacks is obvious. Since July, over 100,000 railroad workers have been fired. Between the public and private sector, over two million have lost their jobs, while Japan’s economy remains shattered by the Second World War. Despair is widespread, and communists have been growing in power throughout the country’s powerful trade unions. They were the first to lose their jobs in July.

And now, disaster is only-

Train #412 derails catastrophically.

Two men are killed instantly: 49 year-old engineer Ishida Shōzo and 27 year-old fireman Itō Toshiichi. The assistant engineer, 23 year-old Mogi Masaichi lives just long enough to gasp to the train’s conductor, “Ressha wa hakai sa reta.” — “The train was sabotaged.” [A, 4]

But who did it?

20 Communists were quickly charged and convicted. Their motive, like I said, was obvious.

But why did they have a motive? Why were so many people fired so quickly, and why were communists the first to go?

It wasn’t a policy the Japanese had decided on. Instead, it was imposed by American authorities, who had occupied the nation since the end of the war.

Officially, they were there to help Japan transition from a bellicose imperial state into a pacifist democracy. And when the occupation began, that’s what they did. But over the last year, that mission faded into the background. Now, America was intent on releasing war criminals from prison, locking up Communists instead, and returning Japan’s wartime leaders to power, even if it meant using the CIA to fund their political campaigns.

So the communists struck back. At least, that’s what everyone thought. Except…after fourteen years of trials and retrials, those 20 individuals were ultimately acquitted by the Tokyo High Court. The whole thing was a sham. But if they didn’t do it, who else had a motive?

According to the accused, they were set up: framed for an inside job by the American authorities who sought to paint communists as terrorists, to validate and accelerate their pivot away from an inclusive democracy and toward anticommunism.

The question of who really sabotaged the tracks at Matsukawa is one that goes to the heart of Japan’s postwar history: how it became the nation we know today. And it’s a dark story of how an idealistic mission transformed into a cynical plot to bend Japanese politics to American ends, whatever the cost: bribery, theft, espionage, even a Prime Minister on the CIA payroll.

Japan 1949 is the story behind the scars, the deep wounds in the country’s democracy that have never truly healed.

Idealists

*”It is ironic that…the occupation authorities…[adopted] an exceptionally lenient attitude towards Japan’s Communists.”

• Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru [B, 225]*

The story of Matsukawa is the story of a battle between democratic idealism and cynical anti-communism. And that story begins with this: The Constitution of Japan, Exhibit A, the idealists’ greatest achievement.

It was adopted in 1946 by the Japanese Diet, or legislature, but it was not written by them. Instead, it was drafted by the Americans who after World War Two, occupied Japan—political scientists, legal scholars, and historians—and the occupation’s Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur, the idealist in chief.

The Constitution exudes idealism. Article 9 renounces war forever: a vital condition given Japan had recently started a conflict that killed 30 million people throughout Asia. Articles 11 through 40 enshrine individual rights, including the classics like freedom of speech, political participation, and religion, but also some absent from the American constitution like rights to equal education, academic freedom, freedom of thought, privacy, and—crucially for the Matsukawa case—freedom of workers to organize and bargain collectively. [C]

In the same spirit of idealism, MacArthur's very first act as head of the occupation was not to punish but to liberate, freeing all of Japan's 2,500 political prisoners including many leading Communists. [A,15] At the same time, he gave 200 of Japan's wartime leaders the opposite treatment. Deeming them most responsible for instigating the war, MacArthur labeled them "Class A" war criminals, banished them forever from public office or government employment, and imprisoned many of them to await trial for their crimes. [D, E]

Idealism was on the march, but the tragedy at Matsukawa was brewing already, because that idealism had blind spots.

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With the constitution, MacArthur’s idealism seemed to be off to a strong start, but the tragedy at Matsukawa was already in the making, because that idealism had blind spots.

Because MacArthur's idealism didn't stop at politics. He also set about building a "democratic economy" which meant dismantling the Zaibatsu, or mega-corporations and generally deconcentrating economic power. [A, 18]. Conspicuously missing from these objectives in the war-shattered country, however, was economic growth.

And so we land at Exhibit B: The bulletin board, the primary means of communication amongst the working class.

All over Japan, advertisements for Communist gatherings appeared on these boards as newly released Party members rebuilt their power. At the same time, MacArthur's "democratic economy" froze; growth went flat and unemployment exploded. In turn, support for the Communists grew, catapulting them into leadership roles in Japan’s constitutionally-empowered labor groups, including the National Railway Workers Union.

One former president of a labor group recalled, “[MacArthur] in the early stages of the occupation did not merely tolerate but welcomed the participation of Communists in such important bodies as the central and local labor relations commissions.” [A, 16]

It was, of course, merely an extension of MacArthur's and the occupation's democratic idealism. Everyone had a right to participate and express their beliefs.

Cynics

But new centers of power were developing under MacArthur’s nose, particularly the Occupation's secretive military intelligence unit, G-2, headed by his close confidant Major General Charles Willoughby. And he was increasingly skeptical about the wisdom of MacArthur's idealism. To Willoughby, the great threat wasn't a resurgence of the militant nationalism that had just caused the war, as MacArthur feared; it was communism. So Willoughby exploited G-2's secrecy, went behind MacArthur's back, and began building an anti-communist spy network in Japan (F, 199).

To do that, he needed expertise, and he needed money. He needed Kodama Yoshio. In China, Kodama hadn't just been a vital intelligence officer in the Japanese invasion and occupation which killed tens of millions, he'd actually made off with 175 million-dollars worth of stolen Chinese gold and diamonds (H, 606). He was exactly the sort of man G-2 needed, but he was also exactly the sort of man MacArthur locked up and branded a "Class A" war criminal.

But by 1948, the ground was shifting beneath MacArthur's feet. Communists were turning the tide in China's civil war, and rumors swirled that a Soviet-backed invasion of Korea was on the horizon.

And so, we arrive at the doorstep of the Matsukawa incident, Exhibit C: the Ryder Letter. Penned by one of MacArthur's subordinates, General Charles Ryder in October 1948, it's nothing less than a mutiny against MacArthur's idealism.

“On the one hand we find ourselves bound to act in the best interests of the United States Government in handling the Communist problem and on the other hand, we, as an occupying force, are committed to the sponsorship of a democratic form of government in Japan…Can we, then, maintain Japan as an oasis in which Communism may flourish…in direct opposition to the stated position of the United States Government? The answer is an emphatic NO.” [A, 57]

In other words, according to Ryder, it was time for democracy to take a back seat to national security and anti-communism. And Washington agreed. That same year, George Kennan, the architect of America's Cold War strategy, traveled from Washington to Tokyo to read MacArthur the riot act. His demands were in line with Ryder's criticism: end the ambitious economic experiments, reduce the influence of the Communists, and begin releasing "Class A" war criminals from prison [J, 66-69]. Matsukawa was now inevitable.

By December, Kodama Yoshio was a free man, and he was soon working with Willoughby's G-2 to smuggle precious metals out of China—Kodama's specialty—to fund the Takematsu plan: a blueprint for a vast and centralized Japanese intelligence operation to fight Communism at home and abroad [H, 606; G, 9].

Meanwhile, in February 1949, Joseph Dodge—a Republican bank president—arrived in Japan. Officially, he was sent by President Truman as a financial advisor to MacArthur. In reality, he was there to take charge and attack the root of Communist power in Japan: MacArthur’s stagnant “democratic economy.” [A, 66]

Dodge’s message to Prime Minister Yoshida was clear. He would have to pass a balanced budget, and that meant slashing government spending. It took months of wrangling before Yoshida finally caved, but in April, 1949 Japan’s Diet passed the budget. Now, the scary part. [A, 68]

Disaster

The government had to fire about 30% of its employees. The Japanese National Railway authority or JNR alone had to shed 100,000.

On July 1, each railroad division received orders from JNR president Shimoyama Sadanori in Tokyo with the numbers to be fired or kubikiri: translated literally, “decapitated.” Officially, the firings were to be decided according to efficiency and seniority, but influential Communists were among the first to figuratively lose their heads when the layoffs began on July 4. [A, 69]

The next day, JNR President Shimoyama suffered a more literal kubikiri. He was found in pieces scattered around railroad tracks in Tokyo, run over by a train. The official autopsy determined, on account of the minimal blood at the gruesome scene, that Shimoyama had been dead for some time, before someone laid his body on the tracks. [A, 86]

Despite his murder, on July 14, the second and final round of kubikiri carried on as planned.

The next day, a train careened into the suburban Mitaka station, killing six waiting passengers. Its controls had been tied down, causing the crash. [A, 88]

And on August 17, far from Tokyo, passenger train 412 derailed near Matsukawa, killing three.

In all three attacks, authorities quickly blamed communists in the railroad labor unions. [A, 98]

The cause for suspicion in the Matsukawa case is obvious: for one, railroad workers, railroad terrorism, connect the dots. But more importantly, the communist workers had clear motive and means.

As for motive, a hundred thousand railway employees had just been laid off. And the only thing that angers communists more than mass layoffs are…mass layoffs that especially target communists.

As for means, railroad sabotage isn’t an easy business. It requires heavy duty tools not readily accessible in postwar rural Japan, unless you happen to work in railroad maintenance. But even with the tools, a lone saboteur couldn’t manage it. This had to be a conspiracy, and nothing rhymes with conspiracy like communism.

Despite the clear motive and means, however, the only physical evidence was a couple of tools apparently stolen from a nearby JNR rail maintenance supply shed. But the shed was broken into, so this didn’t actually prove the conspiracy involved workers with access to it. [A, 167]

What the police did have were confessions. They picked up a former rail maintenance worker, 19 year-old Akama Katsumi, in September. Ten days later, Akama confessed and named four communist union members in Matsukawa as the ring-leaders. One of them then did the same, naming a handful more communist accomplices. And so on, until the police had 20 communists under arrest. [A, 175-182]

Except, there were a few problems. For one, as time went on and new evidence arose, police invited their suspects to revise their detailed confessions to remain consistent with the facts. So much for reliable evidence. [A, 182] For another, internal police documents later revealed that police focused almost exclusively on members of Japan’s railroad union, ignoring other possible perpetrators. And finally, not all 20 suspects were communist. In fact, one wasn’t: the one who kicked it all off by fingering a handful of communists in the first place, teenager Akama Katsumi. And he only "confessed" after police threatened to kill him and told him some Communists had already blamed him and that he should get even with them. [A, 176-7]

And here begins the…alternative theory: that the communists were framed by the American government.

For one, the motive is equally obvious. Willoughby's G-2 had one mission: disrupting the growth of Communism. We know their Japanese agents like Kodama were engaged in shady activity like smuggling, often alongside American counterparts. It's not a stretch to imagine a false flag, and what better way to do that than the Matsukawa incident? Railroad workers, railroad terrorism, connect the dots. And in the aftermath of those layoffs, who else would anyone blame?

Back then, though, almost nobody knew about G-2.

Back then, nobody knew a thing.

There’s a reason the case spent 14 years in court, in retrial after appeal after retrial, until the Tokyo High Court finally declared the defendants not guilty. It was a rural investigation with basically zero physical evidence to go off of.

As a result, we will likely never know who sabotaged the tracks at Matsukawa. But today, we do know some things they didn't know then. We know that G-2 was building its strength, carrying out clandestine acts far more complex than this, like Kodama’s smuggling plot. And we know that the cynics like Willoughby could not have asked for a better excuse to justify abandoning Japan's democratic experiment and pivoting to anti-communism.

Matsukawa, they argued—and most believed—was the culmination and ultimate indictment of MacArthur's idealistic project. Toleration, freedom, corporate trust-busting, and worker power: they were all mistakes which bolstered communism and inspired terrorism.

And today, thanks to the slow declassification of documents, we know what happened next. We know that in 1949, everything changed. In short, the idealists lost, and the cynics took charge, secretly building anti-communist politics in Japan, whatever the cost.

Subversion

This is a letter from MacArthur to Prime Minister Yoshida from June 1950, before the trial of the accused saboteurs had even wrapped. MacArthur ordered him to "remove and exclude…the full membership of the Central Committee of Japan’s Communist Party from public service…” [K].

The "Red Purge" was no longer an unspoken priority, like in 1949. It was now official policy. Those not quietly purged in the 1949 mass layoffs were quickly and loudly fired by 1950, thanks to Matsukawa.

By 1951, as Communists were being purged for their politics, Japan's recently-freed war criminals were suddenly de-purged, permitted to participate in politics once more: a darkly poetic reversal of MacArthur's first steps after the war to free political prisoners and punish war criminals.

One of these collaborators was Ogata Taketora, a former top intelligence official in Japan’s wartime cabinet and suspected Class A war criminal [H, 6]. Ogata dove right back into politics after being de-purged, winning a Diet seat as a member of Yoshida's Liberal Party—Japan's main conservative party. His return to high office was swift—by 1953, the year after the Occupation's end, he was Deputy Prime Minister. [H, 6].

Yet America’s war against Communism in Japan didn’t end with the Occupation. It just went underground.

Look at this CIA memo from 1955, documenting a meeting between a CIA officer and an asset codenamed POCAPON [L]. POCAPON’s real name? Ogata Taketora.

That’s right—Ogata, by now the leader of Japan's ruling political party, was literally a CIA asset.

He delivered huge dividends. In this meeting Ogata's providing his handler information that only someone in his position, at the highest level of Japanese politics, could offer: information about the personalities of leading politicians, the dynamics of inter-party rivalries, and updates on a proposed merger between Japan’s two largest conservative parties, the Liberals and the Democrats [L].

Ogata assures his American handler that the merger to consolidate a single anti-communist conservative party is in its “final stages,” offers negotiation details, and predicts that he himself will become the first Prime Minister of the merged party [L].

Unfortunately for the CIA, however, Ogata died unexpectedly in 1956. Luckily—for them—the roster of Japanese war criminals happy to take CIA money to combat communism ran deep [H, 599]. Next up to the plate was Kishi Nobusuke. He'd been imprisoned with Kodama Yoshio, and he was a special case, because as a cabinet minister in 1941, he’d literally signed Japan’s declaration of war against America. Yet, in this bizarro world the anti-communists built, he didn't just return to politics. In 1957, he became the leader of the newly merged Liberal Democratic Party, making him America's most important ally against communism in Japan. That same year, he visited America to play golf with President Eisenhower and throw out the first pitch at Yankees stadium [H, 603-606].

We can’t say for sure whether Kishi himself was a CIA asset, mainly because there are batches of files on him that the agency still refuses to release. But we do know that it was during Kishi’s tenure as leader of the LDP and Prime Minister of Japan that the party and its candidates began regularly receiving huge payouts from the CIA. Tens of millions of dollars were given to the party over the remainder of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s, which funded their rise to power in Japan [H, 603-606].

It’s hard to overstate how “successful” this CIA - LDP collaboration was. In the 70 years since the party’s founding, it’s been in charge of Japan for 65.

To 1960

But as the 1950s drew to a close, it wasn’t yet clear just how dominant the LDP would be. On one hand, the economy was finally turning around. On the other hand, the Japanese left seemed to be getting its mojo back. Although the Communists were sidelined by the Red Purge, the Japanese Socialist Party was a serious contender in the 1955, 1958, and 1960 elections. It was this very Socialist threat that motivated the CIA to work so frantically to support and fund Kishi's LDP [H, 603-606].

Yet that nearly backfired, because a big source of the Socialists' popularity was that, even as nobody truly knew what was happening with the LDP and CIA, it wasn't a secret that Kishi was extremely buddy-buddy with America. And a lot of Japanese were by this point, a little fed up with being treated like America's little brother. This all reached a head in 1960, another insane year that made Japan what it is today, so go watch that one next.

Meanwhile, in 1959 Japan's Supreme Court granted the Matsukawa defendants a retrial, and in 1963 all of the defendants’ convictions were, to the shock of Japanese society, overturned. They were acquitted on all charges.

The defendants, thanks to rights enshrined in MacArthur's constitution, then sued the government for redress, alleging they'd been intentionally framed at the behest of American officials. Yet they never were able to prove their case. Many government files on the period remain strictly classified.

In turn, the Japanese people have been denied any real certainty about who was ultimately responsible for the deep and fatal divisions that plagued Japan in 1949.

There remains something unsettled, even warped, about Japanese politics today thanks to this turbulent period and the occupation’s dramatic pivot away from idealistic democracy-building to cynical anti-communist realpolitik. This pivot was, in some ways, built in to the Occupation process from the start. Regardless of the can-do, idealistic and democratic spirit of the initial Occupation and the constitution it produced, it remained...an occupation. There was always a risk that the needs of Japanese democracy would come into conflict with the interests—whether real or merely perceived—of American officials and national security. That’s the nature of an occupation—it’s not a democratic process but something imposed from above, by a foreign regime with its own designs.

That isn’t to say, when we look at the broad sweep of modern Japanese history, that the Occupation fell short of everything MacArthur hoped. Japan today is a liberal democracy. The Matsukawa defendants received their day in court and were ultimately acquitted. Citizen enjoy civil and political rights, freedom to vote in fair elections, and a high standard of living in a market economy.

But Japan's politics remain dominated by a single party, despite its own unpopularity, despite many scandals, perhaps because in the formative years of Japan's democratic culture, it was stunted, as clandestine American operations intentionally smothered political competition and produced a regime more tolerant of secrecy and corruption than of ideological diversity and disagreement: those essential qualities of a healthy democracy.

Post-Roll

To see more like this, watch our two other videos on Japan’s insane, formative years—1932 and 1960—and consider supporting our efforts to tell more stories like these, that matter to democracy, by grabbing some merch like this or joining our Patreon. And as always, thanks for watching.

Sources

A. Chalmers A. Johnson, Conspiracy at Matsukawa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972).

B. Shigeru Yoshida, The Yoshida Memoirs (1973).

C. Japanese Constitution, via Constitute: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Japan_1946

D. Douglas MacArthur, “Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Directive to the Japanese Government 550,” 4 January 1946.

E. Douglas MacArthur, “Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East,” 19 January 1946.

F. Michael Petersen, “The Intelligence That Wasn’t: CIA Name Files, the U.S. Army, and Intelligence Gathering in Occupied Japan,” in Researching Japanese War Crimes: An Introduction, (National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, 2006).

G. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Democracy's Porous Borders: Espionage, Smuggling and the Making of Japan's Transwar Regime,” in The Asia Pacific Journal 12 (40).

H. Brad Williams, “US Covert Action in Cold War Japan: The Politics of Cultivating Conservative Elites and its Consequences,” 50 (4), 593-617.

I. George Kennan, “Report by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff,” in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, The Far East and Australasia, Volume VI, 25 March 1948.

J. Paul J. Heer, Mr. X in the Pacific: George Kennan and American Policy in East Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018).

K. Douglas MacArthur, Letter to Prime Minister Yoshida, 6 June 1950.

L. CIA Contact Report, POCAPON*,* 1 November 1955.