THE MONEY CHANGER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100100048-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: April 10, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

7 r.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/04: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100100048-0
THE NEW REPUBLIC
10 APRIL 1976
Curious Customers of Deak & Co.
The Money Changer'
by Tad S7.111C
Most of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's secret
payments to agents in Japan and to Japanese govern-
ment figures between 1969 and 1975 were. transmitted
by Deak & Co., a New York-based firm of international
currency dealers that has for many years also served as
a covert channel for worldwide financial operations of
the Central Intelligence Agency.
That Deak was used by Lockheed in its Japanese'
dealings is shown in documents in the hands of the;
Senate subcommittee on multinational corporations
and the Securities Exchange Commission. Deak's
involvement with the CIA is a matter of guarded
knowledge in Washington's intelligence community.
Therefore it is more than likely that the CIA was aware
all along of Lockheed's secret activities in Japan,
including the payments of millions of dollars in "fees"
and "marketing commissions" to the leader of an
extreme right-wing Japanese political faction and still
unidentified senior Japanese government officials.
According to well placed American sources familiar
with the ongoing investigations of these links, the CIA
may have even orchestrated much of Lockheed's
financial operations in Japan pursuant to covert US
foreign policy objectives. This, then, may be what
investigators have called the"missing link"in the wider
mystery of secret overseas payments by US cor-
porations. Secret foreign payments by American
corporations abroad and their political implications are
to be investigated by a special cabinet task force headed
by Commerce Secretary Elliot L. Richardson. How will
the investigation proceed if evidence develops of CIA
involvement?
Between June 1969, and January 1975, Lockheed
used Deak & Co. to transfer at least $8,279,894 in 27
separate transactions to Lockheed representatives in
Tokyo for the secret payments. Of this amount close to
seven million dollars went to Yoshio Kodama, the most
powerful Japanese rightist leader, eminence grise and
maker and breaker of a succession of prime ministers.
Lockheed payoffs in Japan relating to sales of
commercial and military aircraft added up to $12.6
million, but some payments-about $4.3 million-went
through other, non-Deak channels. Deak & Co. became
Lockheed's hidden transfer agent in June 1969, six
months after the aircraft company signed its initial
contract with Yoshio Kodama to be its Tokyo "consul-
tant." Deak's first transfer coincided with the signing of
an expanded contract between Lockheed and Kodama.
And intelligence sources say that Kodama had a
working relationship with the CIA from the time he
was released from a Japa
serving a three-year term
Deak & Co., which occ
funds through its offices in
through Hong Kong.and
shortly after World War 1I
Deak, a wartime employe
Services (OSS).in the Far
have joined the CIA after oD' ..u..
according to intelligence sources, he has continued to
have close personal ties with senior agency personnel.
Having built his company into one of the leading United
States foreign-currency dealer firms, Deak is said to
have performed various covert services for the CIA in
the last 25 years. With headquarters in New York City
(Deak's own home is in Scarsdale), the company
operates through some 20 offices in the US and abroad.
These include Zurich, Geneva, Vienna, London, Tokyo,
Hong Kong, Macao, Honolulu, Guam, San' Juan,
Washington, DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami,
Vancouver and Toronto. It thus offers an ideal network
for what is known in the trade as "discreet" transac-
tions, and, according to reliable sources, the CIA had
repeatedly availed itself of Deak's help. I
Deak is said, for example, to have handled CIA funds
in 1953 when the agency overthrew Iran's Premier
Mohammed Mossadeq and restored the Shah to the
throne. In that instance, the money went through
Zurich and a Deak correspondent office in Beirut.
During the Vietnam war, Deak & Co. allegedly moved
CIA funds through its Hong Kong office for conversion
into piastres in Saigon on the unofficial market. Deak
officials in Hong Kong and Macao helped the CIA
investigate Far East gold smuggling in the mid-1950s. It
has also been suggested that Deal: & Co.'s Hong Kong
office may have "laundered," with the CIA's
knowledge, illegal contributions to the Nixon reelec-
tion campaign in 1972 although it is unknown whether
Deak & Co. was aware of the precise nature of that
operation. As in all secret CIA dealings no documenta-
tion is available to prove the reported links between
Deak and the agency.
Lockheed spokesmen refused to discuss with me the
company's connections with Deal: & Co. They would
not say, for instance, whether using Deal: had been
suggested to Lockheed by anyone in the US govern-
ment. Lockheed's international payments are currently
under investigation by the Securities and Exchange
Commission; this is one reason, according to the
company, that Lockheed refuses to comment on the
Deak connection: Nicholas Deak himself refuses to say
anything about his company or his own background
when asked questions about services performed for
Lockheed. A CIA spokesman refused comments,
wnnt_1 mtfad
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/04: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100100048-0