Tokyo Underworld

by Robert Whiting

  The Japanese had a well-known philosophy of life that related to such goings-ons. They called it tatemae and honne (principle and reality), which, to give one interpretation, meant: Say what is necessary to maintain face before society, and then do what you want on the sly. The duality of human nature was, of course, universal, but the contradictory aspects of man’s behavior were more recognized and seemingly more marked in Japan, where there is such a surface premium on wa. Japanese professional baseball stars would sign for modest salaries each year, declaring to the press how important self-sacrifice and the concept of ‘the team’ were, all the while taking huge secret bonuses under the table – an arrangement which helped ownership keep the rest of the payroll down. Nowhere was this dichotomy between words and deeds more astonishing than in a striking new building up the street from Nicola’s where Zappetti’s old gangster friend Ginza Machii had set up his headquarters.

  From his perch in Roppongi, Zappetti watched in awe as the one-time street fighter climbed to heights of power and legitimacy most underworld figures only dreamt about. The leisure industry magnate had unveiled his crowning glory in July 1973, on a sidestreet corner less than a minute’s walk from Roppongi Crossing, a new billion-dollar membership club called the TSK.CCC Terminal; the first three initials stood for Toa Sogo Kigyo (Eastern Mutual Enterprise) – Machii’s post-Olympic corporate name, carefully chosen to match the initials of the gang’s old acronym itself, while the second set represented Celebrities Choice Club. Housed in a six-story edifice of polished Italian marble and stone, it was by common agreement the most elegant building in all of Tokyo and, observers said, the ultimate symbol of Japan’s postwar recovery – more impressive even than the cluster of new earthquake-proof high-rise office buildings and hotels in western Shinjuku, which was by now beginning to resemble L.A.’s Century City.

  Contained in the building’s 19,000 square meters was an array of Dionysian delights – a cabaret, a disco, restaurants specializing in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Continental cuisine, banquet halls with authentic rococo, Spanish, German and Roman motifs, wedding salons, private lounges with deep leather armchairs, tatamied mah-jongg parlors, and a sauna imported from Finland. The lobby and various sitting areas were outfitted with expensive furnishings imported from Europe and the Middle East, while priceless ancient Korean vases, porcelains, stoneware and calligraphy were showcased in alcoves along the building’s many lushly carpeted corridors and caverns. On display in the main vestibule, lit by an enormous chandelier, was a giant Picasso.

  Machii, now in his fifties, had personally overseen every aspect of the design, which, with its incongruous blend of Eastern subtlety and Western garishness, was an appropriate metaphor for what was happening in Japan in general. The popular weekly magazine, Shincho, summed up the public verdict: ‘The most glorious, splendidly appointed undertaking in all of Asia. It sings to the spring of our world.’ Added the English periodical The Tokyo Weekender, which did a large spread on the opening, ‘Truly one of the most exciting enterprises anywhere.’

  The opening ceremony, attended by a Who’s Who’s of Tokyo celebrities and politicians, was an exercise in unintended hyperbole. The chairman of the Tokyo Bar Association gave the keynote address, describing the oft-arrested host with the missing fingertip as a ‘decent and successful businessman’. This paean was followed by similar bromides from the presidents of the great Mitsukoshi and Seibu department stores, the president of Tokyu Railways, and the political editor (and future president) of the Yomiuri Shimbun, who were all incidentally members of the TSK.CCC operations committee. Even the Greek ambassador stopped by to lead a toast and drop an encomium or two.

  Machii’s climactic welcome speech could have been borrowed from Dale Carnegie. He talked of benefiting his fellowman and declared he had built the TSK.CCC not to make a profit but rather to create an ‘oasis for human communication in the desert of modern society’.

  ‘A free society is liable to cause the loss of intimate human relationships as it progresses,’ he had said, ‘which is why the world needs a place like the TSK.CCC – a place where people can relax and communicate and understand each other’s responsibilities and sense of values.’ Nick, sipping a glass of beer in the back of the room, wondered what Maurice would have thought.

  The office of the gangster-turned-philanthropist was a further testament to how far he had risen in the so-called straight world. On one wall was a certificate of honorary citizenship in the city of Los Angeles, along with a photograph of Machii and a former California state assemblyman named Kenneth Ross, his partner in a US oil venture that would grow to thirty-four wells in Texas, New Mexico, and other states. On another was a plaque from ROK President Park Chung Hee for ‘meritorious service in promoting friendship between South Korea and Japan’ – referring perhaps to the casinos and cabarets that Machii had built in the Republic of Korea and his new Kampu Ferry Line connecting western Japan with the South Korean port of Pusan. Also displayed were letters of commendation from dignitaries around the globe, including members of the US House of Representatives, who swelled the chorus of praise for his role in normalizing relations between Japan and the ROK.

  Machii had even delivered an impromptu lecture to reporters on the lofty theme of Pan-Asianism. Noting that even he had suffered decades of hardship because he was a ‘third national’, and that Japanese society was still far from being open and free (‘If Rikidozan were alive today,’ he wondered aloud, ‘would he proclaim his Koreanhood? I doubt it.’), Machii urged that Japanese start honoring their joint Asian heritage with Koreans and Chinese.

  ‘Get over this complex toward the West and especially toward America,’ said the honorary citizen of L.A. ‘By copying America in music and dress so much, you are aspiring to a false lifestyle. Love Asia first and be yourself.’

  Over the next couple of years, the TSK.CCC became one of the busiest social spots in the city, limousines arriving every evening with VIPs of all types – government leaders, business executives, entertainers, diplomats and US Army officers. It outdrew the American franchised Playboy Club, which had recently opened up in a tony new ten-story edifice facing Roppongi Nicola’s from across the strip. Underneath it all, however, were indications something else was also going on. The soft, deep leather armchairs of the TSK.CCC lounge were frequently occupied by crew cut-wearing, hard-bitten men in sunglasses, eyeing the lobby for signs of trouble, while in the rear office, the aging captains of the old guard sat idly scrutinizing visitors from behind gunmetal gray desks – as they performed mundane tasks like ordering chopsticks. The boss himself lived in the fortress-like penthouse, accessible only through a tightly guarded security gate and a locked private elevator.

  Whenever Zappetti went to pay his respects, a pair of tight-lipped strongmen with fireplug necks would check him for hidden weapons before unlocking the elevator and taking him upstairs. Two more gangsters would greet him at the landing, then escort him down the hall – an elegant passageway of inlaid stepping-stones and Japanese lanterns – to a heavy metal door bearing the shape of a lion’s head in perforated brass. There, yet another set of hoods would open the door from inside, lay out slippers, and usher him to a rooftop terrace adjoining a tennis court where the Master of the House, clad usually in kimono, would serve coffee. More henchmen scanned the Roppongi skyline, on the lookout, perhaps, for snipers.

  The juxtaposition of cosmopolitan business veneer and underworld menace could be jarring, as an American businessman and Zappetti associate named Richard Roa would readily attest. Roa was a quality control systems engineer who had come to Japan in 1968 to work for the US military and then stayed on in Tokyo to go into the PR business. He had been hired by the TSK.CCC to put together a multilanguage brochure that would introduce potential overseas investors to a new leisure center the company was developing in Nasu, where the Imperial Family kept its summer vacation home. The project required Roa to meet several times a week with the vice-director of overseas projects, a dimi
nutive, dark-suited man in his fifties named Junji Tanaka.

  Tanaka was Machii’s interpreter and one-time chauffeur. He had learned his English as a young man working in the motor pool of a US military base, and he had learned it well enough to help put together the Machii–Ross oil deals in the United States, as well as to arrange the purchase of a beautiful home in Beverly Hills for his boss. He could also type 100 words a minute.

  One night, after a conference at TSK.CCC, Roa had gone out drinking by himself in Roppongi, barhopping along narrow back streets. He wandered into a closet-sized place named Cupid that had a bare concrete floor and nude photos on the wall, sat down on a vinyl-covered stool, and ordered a beer. An anorectic, middle-aged woman with a heavily painted face slid alongside him and plied him for a drink. Roa, in a tipsy, generous mood, bought her a mizuwari (highball), then another, plus a second round for himself. Then he got up to leave and was presented with a bill for 60,000 yen, enough to pay for 100 drinks at most other bars. When Roa protested, a very unpleasant-looking man with scars on his face appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed Roa’s shirt, demanded the money, and called to someone in a rear room for help. The woman seized one of Roa’s arms and held tightly.

  Roa was a physically big man in his early forties who hailed from a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn, but he decided he was not sober enough to put up a fight. He paid the 60,000 yen, which was all the money he had on him, and walked home.

  At the TSK.CCC the next day, he related the unpleasant experience to Tanaka.

  ‘Where’s the place?’ asked Tanaka. ‘Show me.’

  Roa took him outside, around the corner, down a side street, and pointed to the Cupid, now tightly shuttered in the noontime sunlight. Tanaka sighed and wagged his finger.

  ‘Roa-san,’ he said. ‘You have got to be more careful.’

  Two days later, Roa was at home when a call came from the TSK.CCC. Could he please come at once? There was an urgent matter to discuss. When Roa arrived by cab half an hour later, Tanaka was waiting in the lobby and took him to an upstairs mah-jongg room. He sat Roa down on the tatami in front of a low-slung table, picked up a phone, and grunted into the receiver.

  A few minutes later, a sallow-faced middle-aged man wearing a suit and tie was shoved into the room and the door closed behind him. Roa watched, mouth agape, as the man dropped on his hands and knees and began crawling across the floor to where Tanaka stood glowering, hands on hips.

  ‘Not me,’ Tanaka growled, pointing to Roa. ‘That’s the guy over there.’

  The man shifted direction, crawled over to where Roa sat, and fumbling inside his coat, produced a brown envelope. He held it out to Roa in both hands, palms facing upward, bowing his head so deeply at the same time that his forehead touched the floor.

  ‘Suimasen/I’m sorry,’ he said, in a guttural, barely audible voice. Then he crawled back to Tanaka, bowed his head again, and waited.

  ‘Get out of here,’ Tanaka commanded.

  The man crawled backward across the room to the door, reached behind him, and turned the doorknob. Then he backed himself out. From his seat at the mah-jongg table, Roa could see the man pull the door shut, still on his knees in the hallway.

  ‘Count the money,’ Tanaka said.

  Roa opened the envelope to find six crisp new 10,000-yen bills.

  ‘That was the manager of the Cupid,’ said Tanaka, answering Roa’s unspoken question. ‘We own it.’

  Roa was stupefied. He had never seen such a vivid exercise in raw power.

  ‘Now I know where I am,’ he thought to himself.

  It also dawned on Roa that the TSK had made an unnecessary concession. Not wanting to become any more obligated than he already was, Roa treated Tanaka to a night on the town, blowing the entire 60,000 yen and more.

  Tanaka never mentioned the incident again, and when the Nasu project manual was finished, Roa respectfully declined the offer of a permanent job with the TSK.CCC. He figured he was better off that way. And he was right. The company was about to implode in the biggest scandal ever in the history of US–Japan relations.

  LOCKHEED AND LITTLE NAPOLEON

  The director general of the TSK.CCC, Yoshio Kodama, was an elusive figure who kept a low public profile and did not eat a lot of pizza. He was involved in a number of shady lucrative deals with Machii – real estate and land development projects like the one in Nasu where mob muscle was needed to persuade recalcitrant farmers to sell their land, as well as assorted ventures on the Korean peninsula – casinos, hotels, cabarets – where his gangland associate was well connected. (Police noted a substantial increase in the use of metamphetamines when the Kampu Ferry, owned by the TSK group, began operations. The ROK was manufacturing about 70 percent of the shabu, as it was called, that was sold in Japan and consumed by an estimated million consumers – mostly overworked students, cab drivers, salary-men, and bored housewives.)

  What only a handful of people knew, however, was that Kodama had once again become a secret sales agent for Lockheed. The aircraft maker was in trouble. It had lost a key sales race in 1968 when the Japan Self-Defense Force opted for the new McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom and was facing a further decline in sales of military aircraft with the coming end of the Vietnam War. Lockheed needed the burgeoning civilian market in Asia to survive, and to get it the company needed Japan. With Japan Air Lines and All Nippon Airways preparing to buy a new generation of wider-bodied planes, Lockheed launched a massive three-year sales effort on behalf of its new Tri-Star passenger jet, signing up Kodama’s public relations firm, Japan Public Relations, to a consultancy contract … and thus tapping once more into the underground government.

  Kodama started off by lobbying his old friend, Kenji Osano, the tycoon extraordinaire who happened to be the largest individual shareholder in JAL and ANA and who was also said to be the single most influential decision maker in the selection of civilian aircraft in Japan. Osano was a big, bald-headed man described by one journalist as a ‘restless gorilla’ who, like so many of his peers, had risen from shady Occupation beginnings (Osano’s forte had been black market gasoline). He was also partners with Kodama and Machii in several ROK business ventures and was not averse to under-the-table payments and other forms of arm twisting. He set about engineering a scandal which would result in the ouster of a certain ANA executive who was steadfastly opposed to buying the Tri-Star.

  Lockheed president Carl Kotchian made several trips to Tokyo to concentrate on the sale, staying at a luxurious suite in the Okura where, as one reporter wryly noted, his total bill must have exceeded the cost of one Tri-Star. He met secretly with Kodama several times at out-of-the-way spots – in parked cars and in darkened office building stairwells – to receive progress reports. At the same time, as added insurance, he plotted with top executives of Lockheed’s Japan representative, the Marubeni Corporation trading house, who had its own direct route to the office of the prime minister, then occupied by newly elected Kakuei Tanaka. Tanaka, an earthy, horse trader’s son who had just replaced Eisaku Sato in the top spot, would take the art of political corruption and king-making, already highly refined in Japan, to a new level.

  Back in the United States, Lockheed representatives went a step further and lobbied the White House for help. In September 1972, US President Richard Nixon and Tanaka met in Hawaii. Nixon suggested Tanaka could help reduce the burgeoning US–Japan trade deficit, then about $1.3 billion, by buying US aircraft. Tanaka responded by pledging Japan to buy $320 million worth of large civilian aircraft from the United States.

  According to some Japanese reports, Nixon then suggested the Japanese chief of state might also use his influence to get ANA to buy the Tri-Star, which Tanaka was in a position to do since Osano, the ANA’s leading shareholder, was a close friend as well as his biggest campaign contributor. The reports of the Nixon request were unconfirmed but not difficult for journalists to believe since Nixon came from California, where Lockheed was based, and employed 60,000 people. In fact, he had a
lready rescued Lockheed from bankruptcy a year earlier by pushing a $250 million loan guarantee through Congress.

  Whatever the truth, in the fall of 1972, ANA, in a move that shocked everyone, suddenly dropped previously announced plans to replace the airline’s aging Boeing 727s with new McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s and formally decided to purchase a fleet of Lockheed Tri-Star 1011s instead. This was all the more surprising given the fact that the airline company had already made down payments on three DC-10s.

  Evidence later came to light that Lockheed had employed middlemen to pay some $12.5 million, much of it in bribes, to various Japanese government officials and political leaders in order to ensure the sale of $700 million worth of aircraft in Japan. The money was funneled through Kodama and the trading house executives, who earned several million dollars in commissions and service fees. Some of the more questionable disbursements were delivered in secret nighttime transfers of wooden orange crates and suitcases full of cash, conducted in underground garage lots, deserted side streets, and even the parking lot of the Hotel Okura, directly across the street from the residence of the US ambassador. Half a billion yen worth of loot went directly to Tanaka, while other emoluments went to the secretary-general of the LDP, officials in MITI and the Ministry of Transportation, ANA executives, and Osano himself.

  As we have seen, such payoffs were almost standard operating procedure in Japan. Most of the nation’s postwar prime ministers, in fact, despite their ceaseless talk of trust, integrity and the democratic process, had had run-ins with the law over corruption. Both Tanaka and Osano had done time in their younger days for bribery and embezzlement, respectively, and Tanaka himself had once said, ‘You can’t be called a man if you are afraid of going to jail once or twice.’