DID CIA BACK LOCKHEED BRIBES TO JAPANESE?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300470050-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 50
• Content Type: NEWSPAPER CLIPPING

Approved For Release
PRIL 1A, ?8-01315R000300470050-6
Id .
Lockheed bribes
t4j
to Japanese?-
J3y.
William Shau-cross
'TIdE CIA was aware of and may The story is now emerging un
have actually helped arrange the classic Washington fashion,
massive bribes that the Lockheed through information given to
Aircraft Corporation has paid to. reporters by government investi-
Right-Wing politicians. This !
startling allegation is made this
weekend by two separate Ameri-
can papers.
The stories, in The New York
Times and The New Republic,
sugge,y that Lockheed may not
have been acting in"its commer-
cial interest alone when it paid,
in Japan, bribes worth $12.6 mil-
lion over a period of 20 years.
It may also have been helping
sections of the US intelligence
community .to back. Right-Wing
politicians.
The allegations will intensify
the political crisis than ? has'
gripped Japan since the Lock-
heed bribes were first revealed
in January. And they will in-
crease demands for complete dis-
closure of just what Lockheed's
Intentions were in all the other
countries, like Holland, and Italy,
where it has paid bribes..
On Friday the New York
Times reported that details of the
bribes paid by Lockheed in the
1950s to secure the sale of its
F104 fighter plane to Japan were
reported then to the CIA. The
Agency did nothing about them.
In tomorrow's issue of New Re-
public, a liberal Washington
weekly, Tad Szulc describes in
detail how most of Lockheed's
bribes over 1969-75 were trans.
mitted through a New York firm
of currency dealers which the
CIA, has reportedly often used.
Mr Szulc cites sources close
to the investigation of the bribes
scandal as saying that "the CIA
may even have orchestrated
much of Lockheed's financial
operations in Japan pursuant
to covert US foreign policy ob-
jectives. This. then. may be
what investigators have called
the 'missing link' in the wider
mystery of secret overseas pay-
ments by US corporations.',
officials. Inevitably- the sources
are unnamed and the stories are
full of such qualifying, hrases
as " intelligence source believe
that." But the New York Times ~?
account is carefully documented.
And Tad Szulc, who wrote the
New Republic article, is a highly
skilled reporter on foreign affairs
who has almost unrivalled con-
tacts in the world of US intelli-
gence.
The key figure In
both stories
is Yoshio '.`Kodaina, who . was
Lockheed's agent, betwen '1969-
75 and is known-to, have handled
at Nast $7 million of the bribes
that the company paid in Japan
during that period. Kodauta is
an extreme right-wing Lationalist
who was jailed In 1945 for three
years as a war criminal. After
his release in 1948 he became
an influential powerbrokcr in
the Liberal Democratic Party
which the US built up as Japan's
ruling party during the period
of occupation.
Now both the New York Times
And' New Republic claim that,
before he came to Lockheed,
Kodama worked for years for
the US Government.
? Szulc argues that "the CIA's
Interest in Kodama was two-
fold; as a strong pillar in the
Liberal-Democratic party and the
quiet leader of the extreme
rightist elements in Japan. The
Agency's, . policy was thus to
Influence the entire rightof-
centre of Japanese politics. But
secrecy was 'essential to protect
Japanese conservatives from. the
leftist opposition."
The New York Times says that
the CIA know in the Fifties of
the bribes then paid by Lock.
heed to secure sales or its F 104
.in Japan. "One former official
who was in a position to see the
reports said that the CIA station
In Tokyo was " checking with
headquarters every step of the
way when -the Lockheed thing;
came up."
In the New iRepublic, Szrilc
takes the story further on the
basis of documents in the hands
of the Senate Multinational Cor-
porations sub-committee. These
show that, since Lockheed
employed Kodama in 1969, it has
transferred $8.4 million to Japan,
mostly to Kodama, through a
New York currency firm called
Deak and Co.
Deak and Co was founded just
after the end of the second world
war by Nicholas Deak, a wartime
officer in the office of Strategic
Services, the forerunner of the
CIA. "According to intelligence
sources he had continued to have
close personal ties with senior
Agency personnel," after the war _
.;
says Snclc. The, firm has 20 over- 1
seas offices and Szulc quotes CIA
sources as saying that they were
frequently used by the Agency
for transmitting money, though .
he points out "as in all secret
CIA dealings no documentation
is available to proves the re-
ported links." Szulc points out that, so far as
the Senate investigators knew.
Lockheed did not use Deak for
any of the bribes A paid in.
countries other than Japan, 'He.'',
was unable to extract any eom-
rnent from 'either Lockheed or
the CIA. Be quotes one intcili-
,.(-nc?c official as saying "Lock-
heed would have been a perfect
channel for the CIA to move
funds secretly to people like
Xodania." BBut he also says it is
not known 'whether Lockheed
executives knew of a possible
CI.tk interest in its Japanese
operations or whether the bribed
Japanese officials knew.
The New York Times points
out that the apparent, CJA. link
contradicts the Senate Subcom-
mittee's view that Lockheed had
been conducting its own foreign
-policy, independent of the US
Government. Now it. seems that
at. least. one branch of tha
I;overninent--the CIA--may also
have been supporting Kodama.
if so, siwhat has US involvement.
in Japanese politics been all
these years: And who has cost-
trolled it?
Approved For Release 2006/12/15: CIA-RDP88-01315R000300470050-6