U . S . intelligence involvement with German and Japanese war criminals after World War II While the United States was involved in the prosecution of war criminal s , principally at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo , the Nuremberg Military Tribunal s , and other judicial proceedings , US military and intelligence agencies protected some war criminals in the interest of obtaining technical or intelligence information from them , or taking part in ongoing intelligence or engineering ( e . g . , Operation Paperclip ) . Multiple US intelligence organizations were involved ( the Central Intelligence Agency was not created until 1947 and in control of its clandestine services until 1952 ) . The relationships with German war criminals started immediately after the end of the Second World War , but some of the Japanese relationships were slower to develop . The concealment was not always deliberate , but simply because the records were scattered among a huge volume of government records . In some cases , prosecutors actively developed cases against individuals , yet were unaware the US had detailed records on them . The US Congress required an interagency working group ( IWG ) , under the auspices of the National Archives and Records Administration to report on the big picture . Since the CIA was formed in 1947 , and did not have full control of its clandestine HUMINT functions until the formation of the " Directorate of Plans " ( DD / P ) in 1952 , where relationships were formed with individuals suspected of war crimes , other intelligence agencies obviously established the relationship . Many of these relationships were formed before the creation of the CIA in 1947 , but the CIA , in some cases , took over the relationships and concealed them for nearly 60 years . Most often , when these were established before the formation of the CIA , they were done by United States Army Military Intelligence , or by its traditional name of the Counter - Intelligence Corps ( CIC ) . In General of the Army Douglas MacArthur ' s commands , the intelligence service was called G - 2 . Under the direction of Major General Charles A . Willoughby , it was fairly autonomous of Washington , DC . Others might have been formed by the Second World War Office of Strategic Services ( OSS ) , or various interim groups that existed between 1945 and 1952 , such as the Strategic Services Unit or Office of Policy Coordination . Some of these relationships were dropped when the CIA established its authority , others were continued under the CIA , and yet others moved from US control to their home nations . That picture features substantial sufficient differences between the European and Pacific areas of operations , such that only some broad principles of US postwar policy were shared . As an example of a key difference , US intelligence in Europe worked closely with their British counterparts . OSS needed good relations with SIS and SOE , and it was reasonably obvious that the working relationship would need to be preserved in the postwar period . OSS had a much lower presence in the Pacific , so there was relatively little pressure from allies to hide information not necessarily for reasons of benefit to the US , but to the ally with whom the OSS ' successor , the CIA , needed to work . Morality versus utility in international relationships . Ethicists have long debated the proper balance between conceptual standards and apparently practical decisions . This debate becomes even more complex when " presentism " is a facet of retrospective reviews of decisions : were the decisions reasonably moral by the standards prevailing at the time they were made , rather than by the standards of the present . These ideas are not abstractions , but guided real - world choices that decision makers often , especially in the Cold War , thought were the least of an assortment of evils . Even at the time , ethicists can recognize that there is no ideal choice . Thomas Aquinas ' principle of double effect is a classic way of choosing between difficult alternatives . In the context of war criminals , both suspected and established , several factors arise : IWG member Elizabeth Holtzman s argued that , in the European context , the declassified war crimes documents " force us to confront not only the moral harm but the practical harm " of relying on intelligence from ex - Nazis . What conclusions do you draw about using tainted sources to gather intelligence ? " Timothy Naftali observed that the moral argument was well established , but a common counterargument was " Well these people are useful , and sometimes you have to make moral compromises . " Containment and anticommunism . Several doctrines affected the postwar policy under which these relationships were formed , although not all historians agree that all applied . Containment , general anti - Communism , and McCarthyism were generally accepted . Containment , as a concept in US foreign policy after World War II , was intellectually founded by George F . Kennan , first in an internal document called " the long telegram " and then the " X article " in " Foreign Affairs " , " The Sources of Soviet Conduct " published under the pseudonym " X " . While Kennan advocated a nuanced implementation of limiting Soviet options , US policy became increasingly absolutist : that which was bad for communism was good , and preventing modifications of capitalism was considered important enough to justify co - work with war criminals . The actions of Senator Joe McCarthy , however , were even more reflexively anti - communist . The mere accusation of communism was often sufficient grounds to act against individuals or organizations . Searching for order or opportunities ? " Our goal , ” the US State Department ’ s Henry A . Byroade asserted in fall 1951 , “ is to obtain the type of German nation which . . . will not again cause the United States to be plunged into war , but will instead freely cooperate with the West . ” The newly established German Federal Republic had so far resisted “ extreme Right ” and “ extreme Left ” belligerence . But protracted Allied control now risked German “ irritation . ” This unproductive emotion , Byroade warned , could foster “ extremist nationalism ” in Germany . Byroade recommended that the Western powers accord “ full control over foreign and domestic affairs ” to Germans themselves . According to Kisatsky , Byroade ' s comment , " Only by “ [ convincing ] the Germans that they are equals ” could the United States “ retain . . . power ” and achieve its global objectives . " showed that U . S . - German policy , in a broader policy of Atlantic politics , had multiple dimensions and multiple time periods . A subtle but important point is not that the US was concerned both with right - wing nationalism , which might or might not be a Nazi resurgence , and Communism . Right - wing nationalism could be present anywhere in the world , and possibly provide a haven for Nazis . She suggested US leaders , in the period following the Second World War and through the Cold War , followed a " moral pragmatism " that led to authoritarian governments who supported the economic order desired by the United States , as well as directly countering perceived Soviet and sometimes Chinese influence . While the purpose of this article is not to examine worldwide US policy toward authoritarian governments , it is relevant to consider situations where a government might provide sanctuary to Nazi war criminals . Internal to the US government , and by its critics , is a constant debate between absolute morality and the perceived needs of realpolitik with respect to communists and allies . " Elizabeth Holtzman , a former US Congresswoman from New York and member of the panel , the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group , said the documents showed that the CIA " failed to lift a finger " to hunt Eichmann and " force us to confront not only the moral harm but the practical harm " of relying on intelligence from ex - Nazis . The United States government , preoccupied with the cold war , had no policy at the time of pursuing Nazi war criminals . The records also show that US intelligence officials protected many former Nazis for their perceived value in combating the Soviet threat . But Holtzman , speaking at a news briefing at the National Archives on Tuesday , said information from the former Nazis was often tainted both by their " personal agendas " and their vulnerability to blackmail . " Using bad people can have very bad consequences , " Holtzman said . She and other group members suggested that the findings should be a cautionary tale for intelligence agencies today . " Evaluating the intelligence process . Naftali and others have suggested that a useful , if amoral choice , is to consider whether the results of the use of tainted resources produced good results : " . . . People are now welcome to look at the operational records of these tainted individuals , and they can come to their own conclusions about whether making the moral compromise was operationally useful . And more often than not , these people were not productive . His response to an interview question of " Is it still important to look at documents about the Nazi era ? " was " It ' s healthy for a society to have the tools to evaluate the performance of its intelligence community - - even if the performance involves activities that are 50 years old . And I would also hope that the intelligence community itself will take lessons from the past . " In another article , he writes of the experience with Iraq , in using tainted sources . Did these criteria , at least , help contain communism ? Hans - Georg Wieck , head of the German BND intelligence organization between 1985 and 1990 , responded " With the disclosure of documents on the U . S . Army ' s and the CIA ' s relationships with Gehlen , the downside of that cooperation has become known . The upside - the quality of the intelligence project - remains undisclosed . Hence even with righteous , detached hindsight , a cost - benefit analysis of hiring Gehlen and his people remains far more difficult to make , even today , than Naftali thinks . He concedes that contacts with unsavory characters sometimes prove beneficial . This was the case with Gehlen ' s organization . " European Policy . Not only British sensitivities were involved , but others , including German . " That ' s not up to us . Our mandate is to declassify US government records , not the records of other countries . I would assume that is something for the German press , German scholars , and German people to demand . I find it interesting that when the US releases information about Eichmann , it gets a lot of play in Germany . But there ' s no follow - up with the German government . After all , German scholars should be asking their government , " Why can ' t you do the same ? Why can ' t you be as open as the US government ? What are you hiding ? " Why doesn ' t the BND release materials to have an open history of its past ? What is it afraid of ? " Occupiers also acquiesced in the appointment to leading positions in the new West German government of such former aides to Adolf Hitler as Hans Globke , who had co - authored the antisemitic Nuremberg Laws of the 1930s and then went on to become one of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer ’ s closest advisors . The motivation here seemed again to be harmony with an ally , in this case West Germany , The Gehlen Organization . Much of the immediate postwar activity , until the mid - fifties when it became part of West Germany ' s BND intelligence agency , was the Gehlen Organization . Reinhard Gehlen approached US Army intelligence shortly after the end of the war , and offered his files and staff on the Eastern Front and Soviet Union . Gehlen himself was not considered to be a war criminal , but some of his staff were far more likely to have been so . Originally , Gehlen had an excellent reputation in intelligence , but more recent information has brought this into question . At the GHI symposium , Michael Wala , managing editor of the German publication , " Journal of Intelligence History " , said Gehlen was assumed to have transformed German intelligence during the war . Wala , however , said it was less that Gehlen was so good as a Soviet analyst , but that his predecessors , prior to his taking over the " Fremde Heere Ost " ( FHO , English " Foreign Armies East " ) had been so bad . Prior to 1942 , according to Wala , Nazi racism caused FHO to deprecate Soviet strength and equipment , such as the T - 34 , widely believed to be the best tank of the Second World War . Even though Gehlen was not able to keep Nazi ideology out of estimates , leading to such things as a failure to predict the Soviet resistance at Stalingrad , he remained highly regarded by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ( OKW , English : High Command of the Armed Forces ) . In his essay reviewing James Critchfield ' s book " Partners at the Creation " , Timothy Naftali devalues and disparages the early postwar cooperation between the CIA and what later became West Germany ' s Bundesnachrichtendienst ( BND , English : federal intelligence service ) . Naftali said Gehlen ' s organization and its successor , the BND , was of " questionable " value . Wieck responded , " At no time during my tenure as president of the BND ( 1985 - 90 ) was the significance of its assessments of Soviet bloc developments doubted within NATO . This was true during the time of my predecessors and successors as well . With the disclosure of documents on the U . S . Army ' s and the CIA ' s relationships with Gehlen , the downside of that cooperation has become known . The upside - the quality of the intelligence project - remains undisclosed . Hence even with righteous , detached hindsight , a cost - benefit analysis of hiring Gehlen and his people remains far more difficult to make , even today , than Naftali who agreed that " contacts with unsavory characters sometimes prove beneficial . " Rather than accept Wieck ' s contention that the " upside " of the cost - benefit analysis could not be done , Naftali argues " CIA records show that Gehlen was insubordinate , his organization was insecure , and the entire operation provided intelligence of questionable value . Fifty years later , the German government still refuses to declassify its own records on the subject . Until it does , and unless those documents paint a dramatically new picture of the situation , the account of the Gehlen organization in the early Cold War will remain damning . " " Such assertions , it should be noted , are not simply casual opinions , but scholarly conclusions based on analysis of more than 800 " name files , " including a multivolume " Gehlen file , " released by the CIA from 1999 to 2004 , pursuant to the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998 . An extensive interpretation of this material can be found in the study " U . S . Intelligence and the Nazis , " issued in May 2004 by the Nazi War Crimes and Imperial Japanese Records Working Group , and co - authored by Richard Breitman , Norman J . W . Goda , Robert Wolfe , and myself . " Naftali said US intelligence underestimated the extent to which Gehlen had hired war criminals , and overestimated the value of Gehlen and his organization . Wieck asked which other Germans could have provided the United States with intelligence in the early Cold War period , to which Naftali said that the correct approach would have been to recruit and train anticommunist Germans , " who could have done a much better job with far fewer tradeoffs . " Elsewhere , Norman Goda describes as " catastrophic " the Soviet penetration of the Gehlen Organization , sponsored by CIC and CIA . Wieck said that the Gehlen Organization " recruited some former SS men ( around 100 ) possibly guilty of war crimes - great weight must be given to the desperate need of the United States in the 1940s and early 1950s for information about the Soviet Union , its forces in Europe , and the communist regimes east of the Elbe . The United States had almost no agents of its own in the area during those years . Alternatives to Gehlen ' s group and remnants of other German espionage organizations from World War II capable of collecting such information simply did not exist . " Wieck suggests that Critchfield , the US liaison with Gehlen from 1948 to 1956 , " had in mind a good greater than intelligence collection : assuring that the security elite of the new German state would be firmly Atlanticist . This contributed in no small way both to the development of mutual trust between the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States and to the preclusion of a domestic neofascist or nationalist threat to the former . " Schmitz , a member of Critchfield ' s staff from 1949 to 1954 , and his deputy in 1953 and 1954 , said " the implication is that these former SS personnel - indeed , all former SS personnel - were unexposed war criminals and , as such , were subject to blackmail by the Soviets . The German Army General Staff , of which Gehlen and many of his subsequent co - workers had been a part , was by no means a haven for war criminals . Indeed , Gehlen did not have a high standing with Hitler , who had him fired after Gehlen produced estimates on Soviet military capabilities that exceeded what Hitler wanted to hear " Planning Stay - Behind Networks . Alongside the Gehlen Organisation , CIC had set up " stay - behind networks " in West Germany , who were supposed to stay put in the event of a Soviet invasion and transmit intelligence from behind enemy lines . Certain of these networks included ex - Nazis . These networks were separate from those that have been called Operation Gladio , which refers specifically to Italian stay - behind networks . Most of the networks were dismantled in the early 1950s when it was realised what an embarrassment they might prove . Those were the least of their flaws as would - be anti - communist agents . They had not risen in the Nazi ranks because of their respect for facts . They were ideologues with a keen sense of self - preservation . " The files show time and again that these people were more trouble than they were worth , " Mr Naftali said . " The unreconstructed Nazis were always out for themselves , and they were using the west ' s lack of information about the Soviet Union to exploit it . " One example of a network later dismantled was an apparent equivalent to the East German " Freie Deutsche Jugend " ( Free German Youth ) , the " Bund Deutscher Jugend " ( BDJ , League of German Youth ) seemed , at first , to be a youth group that countered Communist movements . Its increasing militancy and secretiveness about its financing , however , brought it to the attention of Georg August Zinn , the Socialist Minister President of Hesse . Zinn discovered that BDJ was US - funded , and inside BDJ was a covert operations service , " Technischer Dienst " ( " Technical Service " ) made up of former German officers , some Nazis and SS men , between 35 and 50 years old . Their mission was to wage guerilla warfare against a Soviet invasion . " The BDJ affair demonstrated that at least some agencies of the U . S . government willingly worked with undemocratic elements in service to American power . " Beyond the direct anti - Soviet activity , according to Zinn , the Technical Service had prepared long lists of West German " unreliables " to be " put on ice " on Invasion Day . Only a handful were Communists ; the rest were Socialists , including such prominent anti - Reds as West Germany ' s No . 1 Socialist Erich Ollenhauer , the mayors of Hamburg and Bremen , and the Minister President of Lower Saxony . After Zinn ' s presentation , the US High Commissioner for Germany ( HICOG ) , Walter J . Donnelly , asked the West German government and Socialist Party to join in a U . S . - German investigation of the whole affair : " Let ' s get to the bottom of this . Let the chips fall where they may . " Donelley and the United States Department of State were correct in that senior HICOG personnel had refused to meet with BDJ . John J . McCloy , the previous HICOG , refused to meet with BDJ , but US intelligence organized BDJ after becoming concerned by the invasion of Korea . US intelligence seemed to have been unaware of the BDJ blacklist and tried , too late , to denounce it and avoid Soviet propaganda . The Communists , however , termed it a proof of US - Nazi conspiracy . The independent Frankfurter Rundschau editorialized : " One would like to assume that the secret American sponsors knew nothing of the assassination plans . However , their support of a fascist underground movement is bound to produce distrust of American officials . We refuse to fight Stalinism with the help of fascism . " No one seemed to understand , according to " Time " , that the U . S . had not been sinister , just silly . Subsequent CIA operations involving German and associated war criminals . The CIA had been aware of the location of some high - profile Nazi war criminals , including the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann two years before he was captured by Israeli agents , but the agency did not publicize this information , as it did not have a policy of pursuing Nazi war criminals at the time . Several former Nazi operational agents were recruited as U . S . secret agents , yet formed just a minor portion of the agents at that time ; they were induced financially and promised exemption from criminal prosecution and trial for war crimes committed during World War II . CIA name file analysis . The IWG analyzed CIA name files as they became available . In an article by Richard Breitman , professor of history at American University and IWG Director of Historical Research , Nazi name files studied were broken into two categories of criminal . The process here involved analysis of the name file mechanism , not necessarily protection , since some of the criminals did not survive the war or its immediate aftermath . A CIA document , dated 19 March 1958 , from the Munich station chief to headquarters , stated that German intelligence had provided a list of former Nazis and their locations . Eichmann was third on the list . The memo passed on a rumour that he was in Jerusalem " despite the fact that he was responsible for mass extermination of Jews " , but also states , matter - of - factly : " He is reported to have lived in Argentina under the alias Clemens since 1952 . " There is no record of a follow - up in the CIA to this tip - off . The reason was , according to Timothy Naftali , a US historian who has reviewed the freshly declassified archive , it was no longer the CIA ' s job to hunt down Nazis . " It just wasn ' t US policy to go looking for war criminals . It wasn ' t British policy either for that matter . It was left to the West Germans . . . and this is further evidence of the low priority the Germans gave to hunting down war criminals . " It was not just a question of bureaucratic inertia . But it was not just Globke . When Eichmann was captured the CIA combed files it had captured from the Nazis to find information that might be useful to the Israeli prosecution . The results caused near panic among the CIA ' s leadership because , unknown to the junior staff who had looked through the files , a few of Eichmann ' s accomplices being investigated had been CIA " assets " , and who might be discovered through Soviet knowledge of the Israeli prosecution records . Individuals not in name files . Several Nazis were not evaluated in the preceding name file analysis , but are significant examples of the complications of accepting Nazis : Soviet counterespionage in the case of Heinz Felfe and smoothing US - German relationships with Konrad Adenauer , to whom Hans Globke was a key advisor . Heinz Felfe . In particular , the recruitment of Heinz Felfe , an SS officer who rose through the ranks of West Germany ’ s Gehlen organization to become its counterintelligence chief in 1955 did not only raise questions of ethics , but produced a major security failure , since , in 1961 , Felfe was identified as a Soviet spy . According to Norman Goda of Ohio University , Felfe was " the West German official most knowledgeable about CIA operations in Eastern Europe " , which let him sabotage one of the CIA ’ s most important spy operations , against the KGB base in East Germany . The CIA subsequently estimated that Felfe had compromised 15 , 000 items . The article cited an unidentified CIA officer as saying , in 1953 , " Clear evidence of a war crimes record might also serve as a possible control . " Christopher Simpson claims that these agents had a long - term corrosive effect on American intelligence agencies . Hans Globke . Naftali does not understand the level of sensitivity about Globke , who at that point was the subject of a very public dispute with a man named Max Merten , who accused Globke of disposing of Greek Jews . " What could Eichmann have added that would have altered Globke ' s position ? I don ' t know . I can only report the alarm that is evident in the document . " " It is very difficult to do international history from one side … It ' s a real shame that the German government refuses to release its information on these topics . Naftali believes the immediate West German fear was what Eichmann would say about Hans Globke , who had also worked in the Nazis ' Jewish affairs department . While Eichmann had gone on the run , Globke stayed behind , and , by 1960 he was Chancellor Konrad Adenauer ' s national security adviser . West Germany , NATO , and the CIA were concerned about " how the East Germans and Soviet bloc in general might make use of what Eichmann would say about Hans Globke . " At the request of the West Germans , the CIA even managed to persuade Life magazine to delete any reference to Globke from Eichmann ' s memoirs , which it had bought from the family . Handling Nazis outside Germany . A " rat - line " is a term of art in clandestine operations , which deals with the methods used to get a human asset physically away from a dangerous environment , remove threats to that individual , or both . While the term is used in multiple contexts , it has been used in the specific context of protecting Nazis , either by getting them to welcoming countries or improving their security . It also has been used for specific postwar resources for escaping Nazis , which , in their entirety , may make up what has been dubbed the ODESSA support system . In one known case and possibly a few others , relatively few cases , CIC personnel , may have directly participated in the evacuation of a Nazi that was not to work directly for US engineering or intelligence . It is possible that there was a " quid pro quo " for such evacuation , such as protecting a more valuable asset by removing a source of denunciation , or protecting an ally from embarrassment and making that joint effort more difficult ( see Hans Globke and working with Adenauer ) . Erhard Dabringhaus , a U . S . Army ( CIC ) intelligence officer in post - war Germany from 1946 to 1952 ( i . e . , the year that the OPC clandestine service was brought under CIA control ) , and later a language professor at Detroit ' s Wayne State University , was Klaus Barbie ' s case officer . Dabringhaus said he was ordered to house and pay Barbie , and did inform his command of Barbie ' s past actions . Bill Moyers quoted Dabringhaus as saying " [ Barbie ] was wanted by the French as their number one war criminal and somehow we employed a man like that as a very secretive informant . " According to Moyers , Barbie worked with ex - Nazi Germans reporting on the Soviets . Once his work was done , the US did not turn him over to the French , but helped him escape , via Italy , to Bolivia . An analysis of Barbie ' s U . S . Army file , by the IWG , recounted that in May 1949 , the French Ministry of Interior pressed the U . S . military government of Germany , HICOG , for Barbie ' s extradition . The CIC , however , was concerned both that Barbie knew too much about CIC espionage networks , but also about the adverse publicity if it became known he had been recruited . From the HICOG file , To have exposed BARBIE to interrogation and public trial would not have been in consonance with accepted clandestine intelligence operational doctrine . . . . [ H ] e was knowledgeable of high level operations and operational procedures , which would have been compromised . Through procedures in effect at that time , BARBIE was assisted in 1951 in leaving Europe for resettlement . U . S . Army Intelligence has had no further contact with BARBIE subsequent to his departure from Europe CIC , therefore , arranged for Barbie to reach South America through a " ratline " in Italy . Barbie , using an alias but otherwise living openly in Bolivia , was extradited to France in 1983 . While in Bolivia , he was also a security advisor to Alfredo Stroessner , President of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989 . Since CIC involvement clearly would become public , the United States Attorney General ordered the Office of Special Investigations of the United States Department of Justice to produce an investigative report . Alan Ryan , outgoing head of OSI , detailed the use by U . S . intelligence of Barbie , including his escape using a line that included assistance from a Croatian priest in the Vatican . Ryan concluded that " no other case was found where a suspected Nazi war criminal was placed in the rat line , or where the rat line was used to evacuate a person wanted … " But , he did find , " that officers of the CIC engaged in obstruction of justice … although " prosecution is moot because of the statute of limitations " ) A copy of a " Guardian " citation quoted Dabringhaus about Barbie . " Barbie was so well in with my superiors that he did not ask me for orders , but just told me what he was going to do . In fact he was so well thought of that I was more like his chauffeur . " Weitzman referred to a 22 May 1999 report , in " The Times " , which painted a much larger scope . It cited Dabringhaus as personally having recruited hundreds of Nazis , operating at least into the 1960s . Some SS men may have worked for the CIA in Latin America , and may have taught methods of torture . Pacific Policy . OSS , however , had a much more limited role in the Pacific , primarily in China . General of the Army Douglas MacArthur essentially banned the OSS from his South West Pacific Area ( SWPA ) , while OSS simply was less relevant to the naval and " island hopping " operations in Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz ' s Pacific Ocean Area ( POA ; Nimitz was referred to as CINCPAC [ Pacific ] / CINCPOA ) theater . Since there was no postwar alliance to be preserved for US intelligence , there were few reasons to keep matters classified due to the sensitivities of a key ally . While the US did work with Australia and New Zealand , MacArthur had essentially subordinated their commands . The number and types of Japanese who formed relationships with U . S . intelligence differ from their Nazi counterparts . The Japanese were fewer in number than the Germans who were directly to collect HUMINT from the Soviets or take part in stay - behind networks after invasion . Some of the Japanese were imprisoned for investigation , or actually served prison time for war crimes , perhaps being released early . Far more of the Japanese were later at a much higher level of authority than were the Germans . U . S . intelligence conflict in postwar Japan . MacArthur ' s distaste for the OSS continued into an equal reluctance to allow the CIA to operate in the Occupation , until he was relieved of duty . Until his relief , MacArthur used his own intelligence organization , G - 2 , headed by Major General Charles A . Willoughby ( a confidante of MacArthur ) . Japanese ex - officers and nationalists , immediately after the war , created an informal network intended to preserve , as far as possible , the Imperial system and eventually to reestablish the military . Subsequently , the CIA referred to these as " underground " groups , although not in the sense that they were resistance organizations . Most US contacts with the underground groups were combat rather than intelligence specialists . With the exception of Arisue Seizo and a few key others , most of the links established by U . S . authorities to the Japanese “ underground ” groups , as the CIA called the Japanese networks , were to highranking officers with operational and combat experience . Another significant intelligence specialist , with an extensive network of contacts among officers , was Lieutenant General Kawabe Torashiro . Kawabe joined with Arisue in providing the services of former Japanese Army personnel to occupation authorities , particularly G - 2 . Kawabe ’ s last headquarters assignment gave him informal authority over many groups and individuals within the army . His network was made up primarily of former high - ranking army general staff members and their subordinates . These individuals were in networks of subordinate organizations , called " kikan " , that would carry out actual operations . In one important case , that of Ishii Shiro , the intelligence cooperation was not for shaping the political destiny of postwar Japan or for obtaining future intelligence , but as a trade of immunity for technical data . Since the relationships often were established after a convicted or investigated Japanese left prison , the working relationships started later than did those with Germans . Some of the Japanese eventually reached Cabinet or Prime Ministerial level . In at least one case , that of Kodama Yoshio with Kishi Nobusuke , the close working relationship grew when they were cellmates . Japanese who worked with US intelligence . A variety of relationships existed , first with G - 2 and then with the CIA . Characteristic of the G - 2 relationships was a significant amount of delegation of both planning and execution to Japanese , since SCAP did not itself have the manpower for detailed monitoring , nor would it work with CIA in the theater or in the US . After his rehabilitation in 1950 , Tsuji Matsonubu received U . S . finding through the G - 2 ’ s Historical Branch under Willoughby . Through Arisue , G - 2 recruited and employed some 200 former Japanese officers to assist historian Gordon Prange ’ s work on the history of MacArthur ’ s Pacific campaign . A central figure in this effort was Colonel Hattori Takushiro . One of the most important members of the Hattori kikan , known in some CIA documents as “ Willoughby ’ s Stable , ” was Hattori ’ s close friend Tsuji Masanobu . Arisue Seizo . The key individual in the " undergrounds " was Lieutenant General Arisue Seizo , chief of the intelligence department at Imperial General Headquarters at the end of the war . Shortly before the end of the war , Arisue began collecting intelligence documents to use as a bargaining chip with the Occupation . SCAP sentiment toward Arisue was mixed , and officers outside G - 2 considered indicting Arisue as a Class A war criminal . Willoughby , however , had met and liked Lieutenant General Kawabe Torashiro who had been head of intelligence for the Kwantung Army , military attaché to Berlin , deputy chief of staff for Imperial GHQ , and the leader of the surrender delegation to Manila . Willoughby asked Arisue , in September 1945 , to set up a domestic intelligence network to warn of a potential Communist coup . Ironically , Willoughby was unaware that Arisue and some of his associates , at various times , considered right - wing coups against the Japanese government . Hattori Takushiro . Hattori , a staff colonel , had served as a senior operations staff officer in the Kwantung Army during the Nomonhan Incident . Shortly afterwards , Hattori , became Chief of the Army General Staff Operations Branch , making him one of the principal planners of the successful Japanese Army offensives of 1941 – 42 . He does not appear to have been under investigation for war crimes , but he had significant involvement with SCAP G - 2 after the war . Hattori believed , along with his friend Tsuji , that the rearmament of Japan could not be achieved “ through democratic methods , ” and advocated a revival of the disbanded army , in which he would be Chief of Staff . According to an AP article , the plot was developed after the U . S . postwar occupation of Japan ended in April 1952 , by which time the US was no longer funding Hattori . Two CIA documents said the plot reportedly had the support of 500 , 000 people in Japan , and that the group planned to use a contact who controlled a faction inside the National Safety Agency - a precursor to the Defense Ministry - to help launch the coup . The article reinforces the lack of cooperation and common policy between SCAP G - 2 and the CIA . " Since the beginning of July 1952 , plans for a coup d ' etat have been initiated among a group of ex - purgees including former military officers . The leader of the group is ex - Colonel Hattori Takushiro , " said an Oct . 31 , 1952 , report , which claimed " this report is the first to mention a definite rightist plan involving violence . " " The original plan of the group was to engineer a coup d ' etat , including the assassination of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru on account of his hostile attitude toward depurgees and nationalists , " the CIA document said . " The group is considering the possibility of some minor assassination attempt in lieu of a coup d ' etat , " the Oct . 31 , 1952 , document said . Ishii Shiro . Perhaps the most blatant violator the Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii , head of the Japanese biological warfare program based at Unit 731 in Pingfan , China . Ishii , who had presided over human experimentation perhaps on a greater extent than the Nazis , and waged biological warfare against the Chinese , was given protection by CIC in exchange for data . Tsuneini Keiichi , a professor at Kanagawa University , found two significant documents from Willoughby , dealing with the Japanese biological warfare research and operations by Unit 731 . One , titled " report on bacteriological warfare " was for the chief of staff of the Far Eastern Commission and was dated July 17 , 1947 . The other , dated July 22 , went to Major General SJ Chamberlin , director of intelligence of the US War Department General Staff , to illustrate the need for continued use of confidential funds without restrictions to obtain such intelligence . Willoughby described the achievements of his unit ' s investigations , saying the " information procured will have the greatest value in future development of the US BW ( bacteriological warfare ) program " . Citing a US War Department specialist in charge of the investigation , Brig Gen Willoughby wrote in the report that " data on human experiments may prove invaluable " and said the information was " only obtainable through the skilful , psychological approach to top - flight pathologists " involved in Unit 731 experiments . Tsuneishi said it had been thought that the US had gathered the information high - handedly by making unit members choose between cooperating or facing war crime charges , " but it has become clear that this was done by winning ( unit members ' ) hearts with money and rewards " . In 1947 , SCAP G - 2 tried to obtain the experimental data but " because war crime charges against the Unit 731 officers had been waived by then , the GHQ was apparently forced to offer monetary rewards to access the information . " Kaya Okinori . Department of State records refer to Kaya Okinori , a Class A war criminal , and wartime Finance Minister . Kaya had been the finance minister in Japan ' s wartime cabinet . Convicted as a war criminal , he was sentenced to life in prison . Paroled in 1955 and pardoned in 1957 , he became one of Kishi ' s closest advisers and a key member of the LDP ' s internal security committee . Kaya started to work for the CIA around the time of his election to the Diet in 1958 . After his recruitment , he wanted to travel to the United States and meet Allen Dulles in person . Kaya came to visit Dulles at CIA headquarters in 1959 , and asked the director to enter into a formal agreement to share intelligence with his internal security committee . " Everyone agreed that cooperation between CIA and the Japanese regarding countersubversion was most desirable and that the subject was one of major interest to CIA " , say the minutes of their talk . Dulles regarded Kaya as his agent , and six months later he wrote him to say : " I am most interested in learning your views both in international affairs affecting relations between our countries and on the situation within Japan " . Kaya ' s on - and - off relationship with the CIA reached a peak in 1968 , when he was the leading political adviser to Prime Minister Eisaku Sato . Kaya was instrumental in a CIA action intended to swing the Okinawan election to the LDP , an action that failed . Okinawa was a key U . S . base , both for Vietnam operations and nuclear basing . Kaya played a key role in the CIA ' s covert actions aimed to swing the elections for the LDP , which narrowly failed . Okinawa itself returned to Japanese administration in 1972 , but the American military remains there to this day . Kishi Nobusuke . In 1941 , Kishi was a Cabinet member who co - signed the declaration of war against the United States . During the war , he had held portfolios for Commerce and Industry and later Munitions , and directed forced labor by Koreans and Chinese . In 1945 , he was arrested as a suspected Class A war criminal , and spent three years , in Sugamo Prison , being investigated . Eventually , he was not charged . His cellmate was Kodama Yoshio . His political rehabilitation led to his becoming Prime Minister in 1957 . While the Occupation originally had bold goals to restructure and democratize Japanese society , ambitions became more modest as the Cold War chilled . Kennan ' s containment doctrine was the priority of the Truman Administration . United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal said that real security against communism required the " restoration of commerce , trade and business " worldwide . This meant putting " Japan , Germany and other affiliates of the Axis back to work . " Before the war , Kishi had been a friend of U . S . Ambassador Joseph C . Grew . Grew , along with journalists , diplomats and lawyers , all of whom had had prewar ties with the Japanese elite . They opposed the SCAP policies calling for the renunciation of military capability . After the end of the Korean War , and economic repercussions for Japan , the Yoshida government fell . The U . S . Ambassador in 1954 , not intelligence officials , urged the conservative parties to name Kishi as Prime Minister . Another official who had been purged after the war , Hatoyama Ichiro , was selected . Hatoyama was reluctant to rearm , and wanted peaceful relations with China and the Soviets . These positions infuriated John Foster Dulles , United States Secretary of State in the Eisenhower Administration , whose brother Allen was Director of Central Intelligence . The Eisenhower Administration ' s support of Kishi became more and more obvious , when he made a state visit in 1957 , addressing Congress and played golf with Eisenhower , While detailed documentation has not been declassified , if it esists , indicates that early in 1958 , Shaller states that Eisenhower , making what he and his aides earlier called a " big bet , " authorized the CIA to provide secret campaign funds to Kishi and other members of the Liberal Democratic Party . The Administration agreed to renegotiate the 1951 security treaty and end the Occupation . In return for the right to use Okinawa as a base for nuclear forces , the U . S . renegotiated the treaty . While the Kennedy administration continued the secret payments , Although the Kennedy administration in 1961 continued secret payments to the LDP and other parties , " it viewed trade expansion as a better way to stabilize Japan and bind it to the United States . " Kodama Yoshio . Kodama was Kishi ' s cellmate in Sugamo Prison , from which they were released in 1948 , before other convicted criminals were executed . In 1928 , he founded a right - wing group , the " Dokuritsu Seinen Sha " ( Independence Youth Society ) . It tried to assassinate both opposition leaders and Prime Minister Saito Makoto , for which Kodama was sentenced to 3 . 5 years of imprisonment . By the 1930s , he had been rehabilitated by the Japanese and formed both an intelligence network in Manchuria and an extensive system for purchasing strategic materials , such as cobalt , copper , nickel and radium , sometimes bartering drugs for materials . Kodama called it " an organization with no thought of profit , " but , by the end of the war , it was worth $ 175 million and the Japanese government made the former prisoner a rear admiral . . After the war , Kodama began to pour part of his fortune into the careers of Japan ' s most conservative politicians , and he became a key member of a CIA operation that helped bring them to power . He worked with American businessmen , OSS veterans , and ex - diplomats to pull off an audacious covert operation , bankrolled by the CIA , during the Korean War . This operation obtained tungsten needed for U . S . munitions , for which the United States Department of Defense paid $ 10 million , with underwriting of $ 2 . 8 million from the CIA . According to Weiner , the operation left Kodama in bad odor with the CIA ' s Tokyo station . " He is a professional liar , gangster , charlatan , and outright thief " , the station reported on 10 September 1953 . " Kodama is completely incapable of intelligence operations , and has no interest in anything but the profits " . The relationship was severed , and the CIA turned its attention to the care and feeding of up - and - coming Japanese politicians - including Kishi - who won seats in the Diet , Japan ' s parliament , in the first elections after the end of the American occupation . " Tsuji Matsunobu . The recently declassified CIA documents explain why one of the most notorious Japanese war criminals was never indicted or even held . Arisue recruited Colonel Tsuji Matsunobu into clandestine U . S . service . Tsuji , claiming the authority of Imperial General Headquarters , ordered a wide range of atrocities including the Bataan Death March . " U . S . officials also investigated the possibility that , late in the war , the Japanese Army expropriated three tons of gold from French Indochina with the idea that it would be used at a later date to finance the resurgence of the Japanese military establishment . Reports indicated that Tsuji , who spent a great deal of time in Southeast Asia , had distributed part of this haul to his officers and told them to hide it away from Allied hands . CIA documents released through the IWG explained the puzzlement of many Japanese , who wondered why Tsuji was never charged for crimes sometimes worse than those that led to the gallows for others . Even after his release , he remained a " person of interest " , but was not found to be interrogated . " He avoided capture first by hiding in Southeast Asia , later sheltered by Chang Kai - shek on mainland China , then secretly in Japan , including as a guest of Kodama . When the United States dropped its war crimes charges against him in 1950 , he returned to the public scene , publishing two books about his wartime and postwar experiences that quickly became best sellers . " Before his rehabilitation , he was involved in G - 2 planning of covert activities to assist the Chinese Nationalists against the Peoples Republic of China . Note that direct confrontation with China , even through Chiang Kai - Shek as a proxy , was against Truman Administration policy , a conflict that led to MacArthur ' s ( and Willoughby ' s ) dismissal . By 1950 , when there were no charges outstanding against Tsuji , Arisue asked him to expand Japanese intelligence operations into Southeast Asia . Tsuji had met many of the former Imperial Japanese Army officers associated with this operation while he was in Singapore . Many of the other officers would not work with Tsuji and lobbied successfully to have Arisue replace him with former Shanghai kenpeitai Chief Tomita Bunichi . Through Hattori , Tsuji became involved in planning one of Willoughby ’ s most ambitious operations , a Chinese Nationalist invasion of mainland China . In January 1951 , G - 2 began toying with the notion of encouraging Chang Kai - shek ’ s forces to invade south China and establish contact with Chinese anti - communist resistance forces . Willoughby ’ s subordinates approached Hattori and requested that he and Tsuji prepare the operational details of such a plan . Hattori , whom the CIA believed was a key figure in getting the war crimes charges against Tsuji dropped , now sought to put Tsuji ’ s military expertise to work for G - 2 . Planning proceeded through early March , with Tsuji taking the lead . From the CIA ’ s perspective , Willoughby put undue trust in both Hattori and Tsuji . Tsuji , who had himself become enmeshed in rearmament plans , purportedly stated in 1951 that it was necessary to “ deceive the ally prior to the enemy . ” The agency ’ s analysts also saw “ a serious danger that American military personnel in G - 2 , GHQ will be taken in by [ Hattori ’ s group ] . ” In any event , the planning came to very little , as Willoughby learned in March 1951 that news of the preparations leaked to the Communist Chinese , and the idea was shelved . By 1952 , Tsuji and Hattori decided that cooperation with the Americans was the best way to rapidly rearm Japan , a position unpopular with many other ex - officers . Backed by Kodama and others , they disagreed with Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru ’ s policy of exclusively relying on U . S . military protection instead of rebuilding Japan ’ s own army . . . . In July 1952 , Hattori hatched a plot to conduct a coup by murdering Yoshida and replacing him either with the more sympathetic Hatoyama Ichiro or Ogata Taketora . While Tsuji initially supported a coup , Tsuji convinced Hattori to hold off his coup d ’ etat as long as the conservatives ( of the ironically named Liberal Party ) were in power . In other words , SCAP ' s staunchest political ally in Japan was protected by one of Japan ’ s most well - known alleged war criminals . Nevertheless , the group did consider murdering other government figures to send a message to Yoshida . Hatoyama succeeded in deposing Yoshida in 1954 , but it is unclear what role , if any , Hattori and Tsuji played in this . In 1952 , Tsuji was elected to the Diet and began a flamboyant career in politics , until his mysterious disappearance in 1961 during travel in Southeast Asia . Ryuzo Sejima . Ryuzo Sejima was intimate with the group of Hattori Takushiro , Tsuji Masanobu and Kodama Yoshio , etc . . After Ryuzo Sejima returned from the Soviet Union to Japan on August 18 , 1956 , he worked with them . Kodama Yoshio and Ryuzo Sejima became intimate with Park Chung - hee and the Korea Central Intelligence Agency ( KCIA ) of South Korea in 1960 ' s . Especially , because Ryuzo Sejima and Park Chung - hee were the relations of the senior and the junior at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy , Ryuzo Sejima became intimate with Park Chung - hee . By the way , Hisayuki Machii was also intimate with them . Hisayuki Machii cooperated in kidnapping of Kim Dae - jung . Ryuzo Sejima was able to become intimate with Chun Doo - hwan from the relations of Ryuzo Sejima and Park Chung - hee in 1980 because Chun Doo - hwan had been worshiping Park Chung - hee . When Yoshio Kodama died on January 17 , 1984 , Ryuzo Sejima was also intimate with the U . S . Government and the CIA as if Ryuzo Sejima succeeded the work of Yoshio Kodama . Ryuzo Sejima became the honorary post to govern NTT in June , 1986 . Ryuzo Sejima managed the telephone records etc . of users of NTT and offered those information to the United States side . Brent Scowcroft etc . had come in contact with Ryuzo Sejima . The Japan Forum For Strategic Studiesscandal was established on March 1 , 1999 . Ryuzo Sejima became the chairman of the Japan Forum For Strategic Studiesscandal .