5: Kobayashi’s Friday Night Soirées
Mexico City, the Old Town
Friday, 31 January 1941
Kobayashi always missed Nagano this time of year; most of the season’s snow would be in the mountains and the cool and clean air of winter would be a pleasant change after the hot Japanese summer. But in Mexico City, the air was dry and chilly and the altitude was always trying, especially for Kobayashi’s wife Akiko who hates the thin dry air of the Mexican winter.
On the last day of January, Kobayashi had received his first shipment of boxes from Tokyo. The labels specified “phonograph records,” and that was true—each of the five boxes when opened did present the viewer with a collection of 78 rpm phonograph records, each of Bakelite and about as thick as a man’s small finger. However, removing the three phonograph records in each box revealed the real contents—two million U.S. dollars in used $100 bills.
Before sending some of the first batch of bills from the Bank of Japan, Kobayashi had the embassy buy and install an old-fashioned safe with only three keys. One key he gave to the urbane ambassador, hidden inside his beloved original German copy of “On War”—he knew the ambassador would lose the key if Kobayashi had simply given him the key, so the book ruse seemed sensible. The second key he kept. The third key he buried in the yard, while his wife watched. The frost was in the ground so it took time with the gardener’s pick, but after 30 minutes the job was done.
The five boxes arrived each month at the end of the month until Kobayashi telegraphed Tokyo to send no more—he was collecting boxes faster than he could buy favors, and favors were cheap in Mexico. At the peak, he counted over 46 million dollars in his safe—enough to buy a small country or start a war, he mused.
Thus, Kobayashi set to work and was busy throughout all of 1941 dispensing gifts large and small to just about all the Federal politicians and most Federal judges in Mexico City.
It did not take very long at all to establish “friendships” with the Mexicans. Actually, once word got out about Kobayashi’s “stipends,” “consulting fees,” “honorariums,” and “speaking fees,” people—and influential people at that—had actually started to drop by the embassy unannounced to visit with the Senior Diplomatic Attaché, to offer him any services he may be in need of.
“Nothing is too small, and if you need my help, well you know we Mexicans are all friendly and peace-loving people. We just want to make our country stronger.”
Starting in April, Kobayashi and the ambassador started hosting getting-to-know-you dinners, initially once a month, then twice a month and by July, once a week—the Friday night soirée quickly became the event to be seen at. All recipients of Kobayashi’s generosity would appear at least once a month, and sometimes once a week. Here, the bait was not Mammon but flesh—Kobayashi ensured there were always at least 30 girls—his “geishas” as he called them; mostly Mexican, with a few bored blonde adventuresses from Europe. Kobayashi had provided all the girls with false, but realistic looking, business cards that the girls could readily pass out to a potential client in full view of the client’s wife or current mistress. Then on the following Monday or Tuesday, the client would drop by, “strictly on business, you will understand Señor Kobayashi,” was the most common refrain.
This worked very well with one minor problem when one of the girls—against Kobayashi’s express instructions—had been moonlighting and caught a particularly nasty dose of the clap from three U.S. sailors, which in the small and intimate circle of Mexico City’s diplomatic elite spread like wildfire. The girl was cured, and then fired. With little difficulty, Kobayashi was able to divert the blame to the ambassador at the Canadian embassy, whose wife was known to be extra-ordinarily ugly.
By July, Kobayashi had established an “institute”—more of a clubhouse actually, but the title on the brass plate outside the double glass doors with the black wrought iron institute monographs (designed by Akiko), was “Mexico-Japan Institute for Trade and Friendship.” The office Kobayashi had chosen had itself made the newspapers as one with the largest and most spacious lobbies—the lobby was a full two stories high. The leading quality paper, El Universal, sent two reporters and a photographer.
In the middle of the back wall sat two receptionists who had been selected because of their height—in flats both were a good head taller than Kobayashi, and they towered over him in when they wore heels; a second requirement was having the most beautiful legs in Mexico City. Kobayashi dressed them in black sling backs and the tightest knee-length black pencil dresses imaginable. From the knees down, visible to all the world, were the finest calves ever to grace womanhood.
Kobayashi paid the two women three times what they requested and expected, and he received complete loyalty and discretion. Needless to say, the recipients of Kobayashi’s gifts dropped by in droves, sometimes singularly, but more often in twos or threes, to crudely ogle and whisper. A few had the courage to request an introduction from Kobayashi, but Kobayashi would simply shrug and tell the requester it was—sadly—not possible.
On the third floor, Kobayashi had hired a team of five people, a salesman who formerly sold Cadillac cars to the Mexico City elite, three lawyers, and an advertising man. All Mexico City-born and -bred, and—apart from the salesmen—all with university degrees. From this group, Kobayashi created what was to become the “Peace, Friendship, And Fidelity Agreement Between Mexico And Japan.” On the 1st of October, the President of Mexico welcomed the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Konoe, and both signed the agreement. When Konoe asked Kobayashi about the astonishingly warm welcome he had received, Kobayashi simply told the Prime Minister that all Mexicans were very friendly. What neither premier knew was that the agreement had a secret annex that stipulated that Mexico would attack the United States and would reclaim Arizona and New Mexico if any form—the secret annex was quite clear about this—if any form of hostilities should break out between Japan and the United States. Also stipulated in the secret annex was the provision of 20 million per month to Mexico, in U.S. 100-dollar bills, of course.
Regarding the meeting of the two premiers, the New York Times carried one column, on page eight.
6: Big André’s Suggestion
Montreal
Thursday, 6 February 1941
Kobayashi’s cohort in Montreal, Oonishi by name, could not be more different from Kobayashi—tall, gangling, thin, a chain smoker, never married and a lover of whisky, with or without the “e.” Akiko knew from experience that three small glasses of sake and her husband’s face would glow red like a glowing coal in a winter fire; Oonishi, in contrast, seemed to live on whisky and he was not choosy—Japanese, naturally enough, was his favorite, the 21-year-old Suntory Hibiki as his personal favorite, but American bourbon, Irish and Scotch all were welcome friends to Oonishi. Oonishi’s strategy was the same as that of Kobayashi—buy favors. But Oonishi’s tactic was the opposite. A formal agreement was not possible, especially after Canada’s 1935 trade agreement with the United States. But what was possible was to stir up the embers of the Québécois discontent. Discontent that was often barely hidden, and sometimes not hidden at all.
With Oonishi’s friendly, boozy ways, he was seen by one and all as safe, friendly and unthreatening, albeit a little loud at times. But Québécois in their rough ways did not resent this in the slightest; actually, it made him a welcome change from the Anglos from Toronto and Ottawa with their superior airs. Paradoxically, Oonishi’s French was that of the upper class of Paris, and while this seemed in direct contrast to his plebian manner, the Québécois were quite taken by it, as their French was universally ridiculed by Parisians, as all Québécois well knew. The paradox was rewarded with Oonishi’s nickname—Bien-Aimé, as in Well-Loved, the people’s name of Louis XV of “Après-Moi-Le-Déluge” fame.
“Bien” trolled the bars near the Army transportation depots and near the roundhouses of the Canadian Pacific railroad. Striking up friendships, well lubricated by the unexpected luxury of top-
shelf liquors, was simplicity itself—these bars were strictly male and strictly working class. Occasionally—on the anniversary of a mythical ancient festival Oonishi would concoct—it would be open bar all night long, and all bar owners loved the way Oonishi would pay the day before the Honorable Anniversary in American currency. It was child’s play itself for a trained and disciplined agent like Oonishi to simply listen and grade the grumbling of the working men. Most complaints were dreck, but occasionally Oonishi detected a speck of gold. This was the case with Big André, a very short man with big shoulders, and—like all short men—a chip on his shoulder.
In Oonishi’s one-time cipher reports to Tokyo he described how André’s complaints were systemic, not simply operational—into his cups, André would complain about the hated Anglos and the “Yankees” as he always called the Americans, “you know, Bien, the Yankees are the bosses in Canada, it is the fucking Yankees who control Canada, they tell those ball-less wonders in Toronto what to do and the Anglos simply do it. Total piss-ants. We French need to do something, ‘cos the fucking Anglos will do dick.”
Oonishi nodded, said little, apart from agreeing with these words of profound wisdom.
“Yes, many Japanese feel the same way—that the Americans are trying to rule the world.”
“Right! Rule the fucking world, that’s just what those cunts are trying to do; fucking cunts!” André pounded his fist on the bar.
Oonishi sighed, “If there was just something we could do.”
“Don’t worry Bien, I will think of something.”
Oonishi ordered another round—André was drinking his beloved Molson, while Oonishi, in a patriotic flourish, was drinking—or pretending to drink—Canadian Club. Oonishi steered the conversation to André’s favorite topic, and a topic that he genuinely did know well: Walschaert versus Stephenson valve gear, or more specifically the wonders of Walschaert.
To make engineer, André had to bribe the examiner with $1,000 of Oonishi’s money as Andre was well under the minimum height requirement. As making engineer was André’s life-long dream—“since I was five”—Oonishi was now André’s very best friend—“ask me to do anything and I will do it for you.”
André expounded on the manifold benefits of Walschaert valve gear,
“You see, Bien, with the Walschaert valve gear, a steam locomotive is more efficient. We engineers (he paused for effect), all want to save as much coal as possible, while still keeping on time. With the old Stephenson gear, it is hit or miss—no control.”
Oonishi waited for the obligatory barb, and did not have to wait long,
“Of course, those fucking southern cunts only adopted Walschaert after we Canadians did.”
Oonishi listened intently, not because of his agent training in working an asset, but because André held more than a spec of gold.
“The valve gear is the brain of a modern steam locomotive—all else is just steel and brass and copper, but the control is all in the valve gear. Disable or damage the valve gear and the locomotive is dead.”
On hearing this last sentence, Oonishi looked up at the door as a rare woman entered. She was a working girl from the docks on the river, well past her prime, and she made her way to a table at the back where four lumberjacks sat.
“Yes, that is fine, but removing a piece of the valve gear is of no use, even your American friends are not that stupid—they could easily replace it.”
André’s face instantly flushed,
“No, no, no. Totally wrong. Totally wrong, Bien.”
“You see, the trick is to add a holed coin to the upper oiler.”
Oonishi played the fool and looked as stupid as he could, “So?”
“So? Fucking so? I tell you what-the-fuck so.”
André assumed a conspiratorial crouch over the bar and moved just a little closer to his benefactor.
“I can make a coin that will allow the loco to get onto the main line, travel for two or three hours. And then...”
Oonishi’s face was that of a timid 15 year old school boy getting a tutorial from the senior master.
“And then,” André smiled, put his fists together and made a motion as if to wring a chicken’s neck.
“But how can you be so sure?”
“Look, I am an engineer (another pause for effect) and in advanced training class we are trained on the flow rate of lubricating oil for all points of the valve gear. As a warning to all of us, one of our instructors started the valve gear on the training chassis in the morning class and he reduced the oil flow to the upper oiler by exactly one-third. Sure as Yankees are pigs, the upper oiler seized right on time at two in the afternoon.”
“So these are special coins, right?”
André looked at Oonishi as if speaking to a simple child, he sighed, “Yeah, really special—take a Canadian quarter, drill a 3/8th inch in hole in it, and Bien, you have your special coin.”
“Oh, I am sorry Engineer Maloit, I am just a lay person, you are the engineer,” Oonishi said with as much candor as he could muster. Enunciating André’s formal title was all that was needed to make the little man Oonishi’s marionette.
The engineer simply nodded, “That is fine my friend, you are not an engineer, you could not possibly know this.”
They went back to drinking as the whore left with two of the lumberjacks.
While a completely reasonable assumption on the part of André, in this case the engineer was wrong—two years earlier this precise illustration had been given to Oonishi in the test area of the sprawling locomotive works in Yokohama. And on that day, the instructor had used an American quarter and had even used a 3/8th inch drill—from one of the two drill sets in the locomotive works that was not metric. The results were the same.
Next to his beloved locomotives and drinking on Oonishi’s wallet, André’s other fascination in life was greyhound racing, or more specifically losing money betting on three-legged greyhounds. As fate would have it, André lived within walking distance of one of the two indoor greyhound tracks in Montreal. It was not uncommon for André to seek out his friend on a Monday evening and seek “a little loan,” which Oonishi was more than happy to provide. By Thursday the loan had been forgotten. Oonishi slowly fed André’s habit with a simple expedient:
“André, could I ask you do to me a favor? Could you take this $100 and wager it for me. With you, it is more like an investment than a wager.”
André would always beam at this, and would happily agree. In this way, Oonishi encouraged André to attend every meeting.
By late November, Oonishi friends in the bar warned him that André was “owing some very nasty people a lot of money, so be careful, Bien.”
While working André, Oonishi also recruited five other engineers—one for each of the other mainline roundhouses of the Canadian Pacific railroad. In addition, at the bars servicing the thirsty mechanics of the army motor pool depots, Oonishi had slowly recruited 12 mechanics, and like all men, these men had their own foibles and not a few of these foibles were weaknesses: one mechanic was running a wife and three different mistresses at the same time; one was always drinking at work, and always getting caught and always surviving only because of Oonishi’s “loans” used to bribe his accusers; one loved to steal from the depot—“everyone does it”—and the depot police would visit his house at the most inopportune times (the depot police got anonymous tips by telephone, the caller speaking impeccable French); one loved the high life in Montreal where he particularly liked to employ the services of the high-end whores, generally more than one at a time.
Of course, like the six engineers, the 12 mechanics were each in their own cell—independent and self-standing agents; the loss of one would in no way impinge on any other agent.
Like André and his Walschaert gear, the 12 mechanics all had their own ideas about the best way to disable a truck, from the simple to the fantastic. As was to be shown on the second week in December, one of the most effective approaches was simply to snip th
e bowden cable of the truck’s choke with a small pair of bolt cutters—wire cutters could be used but in practice it proved to be difficult, whereas a small pair of bolt cutters—it was the proverbial hot knife through butter. In the frigid Canadian winter, trying to start a gasoline engine without a choke would typically flatten the battery and with 48 trucks in a pool, all trying to be mustered at once, well the effect was chaos.
Three of the other mechanics used the tried-and-true sugar in the fuel tank. This worked extremely well, especially after Oonishi had specified the finest icing sugar—poured faster and dissolved faster than regular sugar. A patriotic variant used by two other mechanics was Canadian maple syrup.
Running and protecting and nurturing and controlling all these agents was exhausting—Oonishi was out every night, sometimes visiting two bars in one evening. However, Oonishi’s little black book was full. All he needed was the signal from Tokyo.
7: The Well-Read War Plan
Washington
Wednesday, 2 July 1941
The city was uncharacteristically quiet as the exodus from the capital was all but complete for the Friday holiday. A few stayed in the sweltering heat and humidity of the middle of the torpid summer. After lunch, the President was talking to his two favorites in his Brains Trust—Harry Hopkins and Rex Tugwell, seconded for the next six months from his day job working for the Little Flower in New York City. The discussion moved to Japan and the possible actions the Japanese might take.
Professor Tugwell was describing how he had just re-read Senator Beveridge’s 1900 speech.
“That old GOP war horse?” the President snorted.
“Yes, Mr. President, but his views are actually close to your own.”
The President’s always-moving eyebrows rose.
“Do tell, Rex.”
“There is a copy here for you. I’ve underlined in pencil the more important passages.”
The Goddess Of Fortune Page 6