C.I.A. SAID TO HAVE KNOWN IN '50'S OF LOCKHEED BRIBES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450029-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 25, 2004
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: April 2, 1976
• Content Type: NSPR

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-f~ Dy .\NN CRITTENDEN Approved For Release/2 A1.UTIt6: CIA-RDP88-01315R00 ,,
many of the details of the' never received the tunaten.
r{ 4 v,~ mr. Kodama let it a^ known
bribe pf Japanese politicians r~"z t
by the Lockheed Aircraft Cor-, ~ G: a . Said, to c-' uve ` ?o II that the ship, had sunk, and sa-
poration in ti,2 late 1950'x, ill, py patently kept the Cnn mission.;
connection with the sale of the, 12,50 One forms a Ent rvoted that;
F-104 fl~:lter plane to Japan,) s o1 Loo there ware some sentiment at;
were reported at that time to' It is also possible that falseinC?Ib.A. ton 1't adqueraters in VVash-
that bit. {odama, who
uarters of the Central; statements, punishable by Fed- f
o
o had close tIiS to the Tok
ead
ll
h
h
y
:
q
a
e
t
,
Intelligence Agency in Wash-i ? part in the payments himself oral law, were made to such s
Government agencies- as the unc,en:?orld. was untrutworthy
.ington, according to a farmer) and has said that he was un ? and %,~as using the Americans)
C.LA. official and Japanese aware that the officer was a Department of Defense, which and their financing for his own
C.I.A. agent. monitors foreign arms c=alls. ends. II
sources. Former senior intelligence One Justice Department offi- In this man's opinion, Amer-
Although the C.I.A. was, officials have confirmed that cial( told of the allegations of ,
l the Embassy official was in- ican a:rtiro ;ties were spending
aware of the bribery, public C.I.A. ed awareness early Lock- vast amounts of money sub-
disclosure of the payoffs did' deed a C.I.A. staff officer heed payoffs, said that at-
?assigned to the Tokyo station. though it might not have been sidizing extreme rib! fists to
not come until last Feb..4 in One former official who was legally incumbent upon the fight a Communism never real-i
hearings of the Senate subeom- in a posi~ien to see the reports agency to report what it knew ly a serious threat in Japan.
mittee on multinational corpo said than- the C.I.A. station in to the Justice Department, the Other experts disagree, arg-,
Tokyo "was checking with agency's apparent failure to do uing that, particularly in the'
cations. ate 1940'x, there was a real(
The scanctaI has created 'in- headquarters every steY9of the so was "certainly a matter of ossibilit' of
way when the Lock;gd thing concern from a policy point of P a left-wing regime.
in Japan.
ternational tensions and came up." view."
touched off worldwide invest,- "Every move made.was aP" part in Payoffs Denied According to Ivan Morris,1
ved by Washington," he professor of Japanese at Co-,
b
ll
y pro
the payments
When informed of the a
e- gations- of
Lockleed and other American added, asserting-that details of ?ation, Mitchell Rogovin, the lulnbia University and an auth
ti AT.nckheed affair werekrown b___: +1,? Tliwrtnr , ority on the extreme right
Europe, Japan and the Middle
'East to win lucrative multimil-
lion-dollar sales contracts for
various products ranging. from
,aircraft to pharmaceuticals.
The Lockheed payoffs .in
Japan involving-S12.( million
UL enor:?r~ous
? American trnancar
Bush, said that "the only thing sup art, for conservative ele
wecan say is we-have no roc- ?
aids of --any- involve- vents in the country was cru-',
frient with Lockheed or_the cial in 1947 and 1945. ,
bribes." He denied that- the ! In thus, years, Japanese poi
agency as an institution had itics?could have turned in a dif-
participated f,-rent direction, Professor Mor-,
"A lot was done'
` ris maintained
a
t
rp
pa
.
Ri
that he
M
id
r.o ovn Sa could sa nnothin either con- to prevent that," he said, "and'
firming or denying any agency Suc~.ssfull}:"
knowledge of the payments to. Amon- other thing:, Arneri-
Japanese officials, or any in-
volvenient in them by C.I.A. can occupation authorities in
the Iate 1940's and the 1950's
,
1 ,toed extreme right-ruing for-
agents. n er military officers to pro-1
A spokesman for Lockheed
vide information on and to dis-
Over a per:vu op JyV . .-.:--.. jected i were made to fop officials of1 etted in favor of the Lockheed the Govera:retlt, primarily planeLockheed is estimated to have +through Yoshio Kodama, and spent some $1.5 million to win influential ewer? broker in P the Japanese jet fighter contract
IJapan who iias already been awe from Grumman in the identified as the 'mast im-
latey1950's. In all, Lockheed 1portant behind-the-scenes rep paid.-fees, commissions. and
iresentative of Lockeed at that bribes totaling $12.6 million to
sell $700 million worth of air-
time. craft to Japan between 1956
Mr. Kodama'_has- not beent and 1975.
Ridentified as a. C.I.A: agent, butt Kodama'Earned $750,000
he has had a long-standing re Of that total, some $7 million
lationship with American went to Mr. Kodama, who
Embassy officials in- Japan. In earned an estimated $750,000
If the information concern-
addition, Mr. Kodama was. the ing the Lockheed bribes was
recipient of American funds passed on . ta, the Justice De-
for covert projects on several partment, the Securities and
,occasions, according to former Exchange Commission or the
l- Internal Revenue Service, no
denied that the company had
had any dealings with individu-
als in Japan that it knew to be
C.I.A. agents.
According to knowledgeable
sources, Mr. Kodama, a power-
I
f
or years
rut ultrannnrasL who
!author ties with information on
exerted a significant behind-! leftist novelist Kaji Wataru,
I
the-scenes influence on politi- who wr: 'subsequently kid-
clans of Japan's ruling Liberal- napped b Occupation forces
Democratic Party, also had a n?r p
and heldy i ncompation do by
long-standing relationship with . ~?
American Embassy officials in C.I.A. rqagents for a year, ac-
,cording to sources inside and
an
Ja
d
p
. In the early 1950's, he is sai
1
,to have received some $150,000.
C.I.A. oftrcrd 5. The C.I.A. headquarters in action was taken to investigatejfrom the American Embassy to
the irregularities, smuggle a hoard of tungsten
Washington was .informed of Foreign bribes are not in out of mainland China on Na-
-the- Lockheed payoffs thro ugh themselves illegal under Feder- tionalist warships and deliver
C.I.A. channels from the ern- it law. However, the bribes are it to United States, authorities I
bassy in Tokyo in the late not tax-deductible and the in Tokyo.
1950's. A Japanese citizen who large foreign payoffs raise the Ship Said to Have Sunk
worked for Lockheed in 1953, possibility that Lockheed and
other companies might have it-I According to a former C.I.A.
legally reduced their taxable official and to Robert H. Booth,
when certain bribes were
known to have been made, has corporate income by deducting! an American said to have acted)
said he told an American Em- the bribe payments as business! as Mr. Kodama's agent in the
i?ssy officer of these .payoffs. 'expenses'. -arrangement, the Americans
~.-----?---1-- _.-.----_-_---.---.,r__._
He has denied having taken
`.The Central Intelligence
Agency failed to pass this in-
formation on to the State Der
artment or to the Grumman
p
Aircraft Corporation, whose
F11F-IF Super Tiger jet fighter
was first selected for purchase
by the Japanese Government
rupt left-wing groups.
In November 1951, for ex-
ample, one of these officers,
Col. Takushiro Hattori, a for'
i mer -secretary of General Tojo,
Approved For Release 2005/01/11 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450029-2