Originally published on May 21, 2019, this article examines the Levchenko Affair to reveal the reality of Soviet KGB intelligence and influence operations in Japan, and the fatal weakness of Japan’s security structure caused by the absence of both an anti-espionage law and a state secrets protection law.

2019-05-21
Because Japan has neither an anti-espionage law nor a state secrets protection law, the government cannot effectively deal with the activities of foreign intelligence agencies, and its means of acting against Japanese collaborators are also limited,” thus pointing out the weakness of Japan’s counterintelligence system.

The chapter I published on 2018-04-25 under the title, “In his testimony, Levchenko stated, ‘Most Japanese are astonishingly indifferent to the reality and objectives of Soviet espionage and subversive operations against Japan,’” had entered the real-time best ten.
The Levchenko Affair.
The Levchenko Affair refers to the case in which covert activities in Japan conducted by Stanislav Levchenko, a major in the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), were exposed.
On July 14, 1982, Levchenko revealed these operations at a secret hearing of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
It sent shockwaves through Japan and abroad.
Background.
Defection.
After graduating from the Institute of Oriental Studies at Moscow University, Levchenko worked at the Fisheries Research Institute before joining the KGB.
After completing Japanese-language training and other preparation, he was assigned in February 1975 to the KGB’s Tokyo station.
His cover position was that of Tokyo correspondent for the Soviet international affairs weekly Novoe Vremya.
At the KGB Tokyo station, he engaged in active measures as a member of the PR section, and just before his defection he was acting chief of the PR section, directing five operatives.
On October 24, 1979, he defected to the United States and sought political asylum.
He left his wife in Tokyo and one child in the Soviet Union.
See “Stanislav Levchenko.”
Exposure.
On July 14, 1982, at a secret hearing of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chaired by Edward Boland, he exposed Soviet active measures against Japan.
The content of his testimony was conveyed to Japan on December 2 of that year, and on December 9 it was made public together with related materials in the committee report titled “Soviet Active Measures.”
In addition, on December 10 of that year, Levchenko himself held a press conference in Washington, and based on the same testimony, American KGB specialist and Reader’s Digest editorial board member John Barron published KGB Today: The Hidden Hand in May 1983.
Levchenko had been sentenced to death for aggravated treason in absentia by a Soviet military court in August 1981, but he obtained American citizenship in 1989.
Contents of the testimony.
Levchenko’s activities.
While in Japan, Levchenko was assigned to the active measures division.
He made contact with people in politics, business, and the media, and sought to steer Japanese public opinion and policy in a pro-Soviet direction.
Ultimately, one objective was also to damage Japan-U.S. relations.
Agents.
Inside the KGB, collaborators in active measures were called “agents,” and there were the following four categories.
During Levchenko’s time in Tokyo, at least 200 Japanese were regarded as KGB agents.
Real agent.
A person completely under KGB control.
Trusted contact.
“A person to be trusted.”
A person with influence in politics, business, academia, or the media, who knowingly cooperates with the KGB by providing various kinds of information to the Soviet side or spreading disinformation domestically.
Friendly contact.
“A friendly person.”
A person who is not yet a full-fledged collaborator, but who is on friendly terms with a KGB officer posing as a journalist or businessman.
Developing contact.
“A person with potential.”
A person whom the KGB judged promising after making contact several times.
Levchenko’s agents.
Levchenko directly handled about ten Japanese agents and also paid them compensation.
As those agents, he disclosed a total of 33 code names, including 9 real names.
Those identified by real name as agents included nine persons, such as former Labor Minister Hirohide Ishida, code-named “Hoover,” former Japan Socialist Party Chairman Seiichi Katsumata, code-named “Gyaber,” Shigeru Ito, code-named “Grace,” Socialist Party Representatives Takuzo Ueda, code-named “Uranov,” and Takuji Yamane, deputy managing editor of the Sankei Shimbun, code-named “Kanto” (all titles as of 1979).
All nine Japanese denied the allegations, saying such things as “utterly groundless” and “I have no knowledge of this.”
Among the agents identified only by code name were media figures, university professors, influential business leaders, Foreign Ministry officials, and persons connected with the Cabinet Research Office [Note 1].
He also named eight KGB operatives who dealt with the agents, including former KGB Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Kovalenko, then deputy director of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, as well as Yerokhin and Griyanov, both chiefs of the KGB Tokyo station during 1975 to 1979.
Active measures.
Levchenko gave several concrete examples of active measures.
After the death of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in January 1976, a document presented by the Sankei Shimbun in its January 23 morning edition, in the “Today’s Report” column, as information from a certain source and described as Zhou’s alleged will, was in fact a KGB operation.
“Nazar” and “Rengo” in the Foreign Ministry had supplied large quantities of copies of secret diplomatic cables and other materials.
“Schweik,” a public security-related figure, was passing public security information through “Ares,” a media-related figure.
Point made.
In his testimony, Levchenko stated, “Most Japanese are astonishingly indifferent to the reality and objectives of Soviet espionage and subversive operations against Japan.
KGB operations against Japan are being carried out persistently and with meticulous care.
Because Japan has neither an anti-espionage law nor a state secrets protection law, the government cannot effectively deal with the activities of foreign intelligence agencies, and its means of acting against Japanese collaborators are also limited,” thereby pointing out the weakness of Japan’s counterintelligence system.
Japan’s investigation.
In late March 1983, the police sent two officers from the Foreign Affairs Division of the Security Bureau of the National Police Agency and the First Foreign Affairs Division of the Public Security Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department to the United States, where they secretly questioned Levchenko.
They also conducted fact-finding inquiries, including interviews with persons alleged to have been agents.
On May 23 of that year, the National Police Agency announced its findings, stating that “the agents with whom Levchenko had direct contact numbered 11, including members of the Diet, but because of obstacles such as the statute of limitations and the lack of physical evidence, no investigative lead sufficient to build a criminal case could be obtained.”
It concluded that “among the 11 agents there were no real agents, and at most they were no more than ‘trusted contacts’ or below, and there was no fact that information contrary to the national interest had leaked from these people,” and at the same time ended the investigation.
However, it judged the content of the testimony itself to be “highly credible.”
The Foreign Ministry, which had come under grave suspicion over the alleged leakage of secret diplomatic cables, conducted its own investigation, including efforts to identify the persons called “Nazar” and “Rengo,” but by the end of May that year it concluded that “there had been no leakage of classified information.”
The Soviet response.
In 1981, the Soviet court thoroughly denounced Levchenko as “a traitor and a liar,” and Ivan Kovalenko, head of the Japan desk in the International Department of the Soviet Communist Party, also denounced him in his book as “a liar with mental problems.”
Furthermore, KGB agents Svetlana Ogorodnikov and Nikolai Ogorodnikov attempted to track Levchenko down in the United States, but these efforts were exposed in the Richard Miller spy case.
Notes.
Annotation.
^ Tsuneo Watanabe, chairman of the Yomiuri Shimbun Group headquarters, stated that when then Chief Cabinet Secretary Masaharu Gotoda asked that a Yomiuri Shimbun reporter involved in the Levchenko Affair be dismissed, he “transferred him after some time had passed so that it would not appear that we had punished him exactly as the government said” [1].
Quoted above from Wikipedia.