Published on August 17, 2019.
Based on the Mitrokhin Archive, which records Soviet KGB intelligence activities, this essay discusses operations targeting the Japan Socialist Party, the Japanese Communist Party, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, industry, and Japanese newspaper companies.
Through alleged KGB agents in newspapers such as The Asahi Shimbun, The Yomiuri Shimbun, The Sankei Shimbun, and Tokyo Shimbun, the spreading of false information, the use of newspaper articles to transmit intelligence, and the recruitment of reporters through money or compromising material, it criticizes the vulnerability of Japan’s mass media to foreign information operations.

August 17, 2019.
How much direct support did the KGB provide to the Japan Socialist Party and the Communist Party, what kinds of agents did it infiltrate into the government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and what kind of influence did the activities of those agents have on Japanese politics?
This is a chapter I published on April 10, 2018, under the title, “The Mitrokhin Archive is, literally, a ‘highest-level, super-first-class source’ on the Soviet KGB’s intelligence activities.”
The Soviet Union has collapsed, but today, if one replaces the Soviet Union with China and the Korean Peninsula, everything that Asahi, NHK, and others are doing should make perfect sense.
As an article on the Mitrokhin Archive, I think the blog I just found online, titled “The Reality of Foreign Intelligence Operations Directed at Japan’s Mass Media,” at kironitatsu.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-83.html, is more accurate, including in the way it is written, than the Wikipedia article I introduced in the previous chapter.
The electronic magazine Genshi Vol. 4 was recently released, and in it, Satoshi Fujii writes shocking content about intelligence operations by the Soviet KGB.
I will introduce its contents, including quotations from it.
Mitrokhin was a former KGB officer who defected from the Soviet Union to Britain in 1992, immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When he defected to Britain with the help of Britain’s intelligence agency MI6, he handed over to MI6 confidential documents packed into no fewer than “six large containers.”
The Mitrokhin Archive is, literally, a “highest-level, super-first-class source” on the Soviet KGB’s intelligence activities.
The American FBI evaluated the Mitrokhin Archive as “the most complete and wide-ranging intelligence ever received,” and the American CIA likewise described it as “the greatest treasure trove of counterintelligence information since the war.”
In other words, when Mitrokhin defected from the Soviet Union to Britain, he brought out an enormous volume of confidential documents amounting to six large containers.
With that much material, it may be only natural that, if carefully analyzed, the full picture of Soviet intelligence activities would come into view.
That is why the CIA probably called it “the greatest treasure trove of counterintelligence information since the war.”
Now, this large volume of documents, amounting to six containers, was subsequently analyzed mainly by MI6.
For the analysis, the wisdom of the world was gathered, including top researchers from the Intelligence Seminar at Cambridge University, which specializes in academic research on the history of intelligence activities.
The contents of that analysis were compiled into general books titled The Mitrokhin Archive and The Mitrokhin Archive II, and today they are sold as ordinary English-language books that anyone can obtain.
These books summarize what kinds of intelligence activities the KGB conducted in countries around the world, including the United States and Britain.
And the overview of KGB activities in our country, Japan, is contained in one chapter titled “JAPAN” in The Mitrokhin Archive II.
Astonishingly, the overview of KGB activities toward Japan is also summarized there.
So what kind of content was actually included?
In that chapter, “JAPAN,” there are analysis results concerning points such as how much direct support the KGB provided to the Japan Socialist Party and the Communist Party, what kinds of agents it infiltrated into the government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, what kind of influence the activities of those agents had on Japanese politics, and furthermore, by what methods it conducted industrial espionage and what kinds of benefits the Soviet Union obtained through it.
So KGB activities extended not only to the political world but also to the industrial world.
That means that, while efforts were being made to control the Japanese government in ways favorable to the Soviet side in diplomatic negotiations with the Soviet Union, industrial spies were also very active.
Now, were operations against Japan limited only to the political and industrial worlds?
In fact, in addition to these, there seems to have been one more important target of operations.
What was it?
Among such information, the operations that the KGB carried out against the “mass media” are also clearly recorded.
I see.
So measures toward the mass media were also being carried out.
Then what kinds of measures were taken?
“Mitrokhin’s files list the names of at least five Japanese journalists who were active as KGB agents in the 1970s.
This does not include publications of the Japan Socialist Party.
・A reporter for The Asahi Shimbun, code name ‘BLYUM’
・A reporter for The Yomiuri Shimbun, code name ‘SEMYON’
・A reporter for The Sankei Shimbun, code name ‘KARL’ or ‘KARLOV’
・A reporter for Tokyo Shimbun, code name ‘FUDZIE’
・A senior political reporter at a major Japanese newspaper, code name ‘ODEKI’”
It is being made clear that KGB agents were active and engaged in information operations not only in The Asahi Shimbun, but also in The Yomiuri Shimbun and The Sankei Shimbun, which have a strong “anti-Soviet” image.
And regarding The Asahi Shimbun, there is reportedly the following statement.
“The KGB has great influence over Japan’s largest newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun.”
What does it mean that “the KGB has great influence over The Asahi Shimbun”?
This indicates that the aforementioned agent inside The Asahi Shimbun, “BLYUM,” had great influence within The Asahi Shimbun, or that there may have been multiple agents inside The Asahi Shimbun besides BLYUM.
I see.
That is probably the appropriate way to think about it.
Then, overall, how many agents were active inside Japanese newspaper companies?
“By the autumn of 1972, the resident officers of Tokyo ‘LINE PR’ had 31 agents and had concluded 24 secrecy agreements.
In particular, because the Japanese are among the most enthusiastic newspaper readers in the world, by feeding false statistical information and the like into newspapers, the Center attempted to instill impressions favorable to the Soviet political leadership.”
Satoshi Fujii’s note: “LINE PR” is an intelligence organization inside the KGB.
If one considers how many reporters inside Japanese newspaper companies actually handle articles related to Russia, should this number not be seen as quite large?
When writing articles, they probably check with in-house “Russia experts,” but if all such “Russia experts” were agents, then it may not necessarily be wrong to think that the influence of those operations extended across all Russia-related articles produced by the newspaper companies.
Then were the operations toward the media only for manipulating Japanese public opinion?
Apparently not.
Among media personnel, some with particular connections have the privilege of accessing government information that is not easily disclosed to the general public.
The KGB made use of these media privileges for its operations.
“During the period from 1962 to 1967, when the resident officer in Tokyo, the main base of Japanese intelligence information, was absent, the most successful agent was a journalist at Tokyo Shimbun, code name ‘KOCHI.’
He had access to rather high-level gossip, though probably not confidential documents, from the Cabinet and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
I see.
So even the movements of senior government officials were firmly grasped.
Then how did the Soviet Union report the information obtained in this way back to the home country?
Here we learn that even a surprising method was used.
“Articles written by the journalist ROY were extremely valuable for communicating intelligence information.”
Astonishingly, newspaper pages themselves were being used as a means of transmitting intelligence information.
The Japanese government and the mass media were treated with considerable contempt.
And agents in the mass media had yet another role.
“He, Satoshi Fujii’s note: the aforementioned agent ROY, made efforts to recruit KHUN, who was also a partner in intelligence activities in Japan and conducted intelligence activities in China.”
Ordinary Japanese reporters were also being organized as agents.
Then how did such reporters become agents?
“Most of the KGB agents belonging to the media were probably motivated mainly by money.”
Perhaps the starting point was something like becoming friendly, eating meals together, and being told, “You have taught me many things, so I will treat you today,” but in the end, it became a relationship in which they received money.
And while there were many such cases, of course not all cases were like that.
The following kind of case is also written about.
“Mitrokhin’s material states that, regarding ‘SEMYON,’ during a visit to Moscow in the early 1970s, ‘he was recruited on the basis of compromising material.’
This consisted of currency exchange on the black market and immoral conduct, one of the KGB’s ‘honey traps.’”
“SEMYON” refers to the aforementioned KGB agent inside The Yomiuri Shimbun.
In other words, the KGB set a trap, obtained a weakness, and turned him into an agent.
It seems that Japan’s mass media are far too lacking in vigilance toward foreign intelligence activities.
Because of that, information is controlled in the direction foreign powers wish it to flow, and as a result the interests of the Japanese people are routinely damaged.
Is it not the case that, being thoroughly immersed in “pacifist education,” they act as mass-media people without even considering the natural assumption that foreign countries will conduct operations against Japan with malicious intent?
Now, when we read newspapers every day and think of countries that we suspect may be exerting strong influence over reporting, many people probably think of China, South Korea, North Korea, and the United States more than Russia.
Of course, the government must be cautious about intervening in how the mass media should be, but I think it may actually be necessary for the government to pursue the mass media based on concrete evidence.
For example, the fact that more than 200 million yen in donations had been made from the Democratic Party side to organizations connected to North Korea was something that then-Prime Minister Kan Naoto himself admitted in the Diet, but it was not widely taken up by the mass media, and I think even now the majority of the people remain unaware of this fact.
By presenting such facts as examples, I believe the government itself should raise the question of whether foreign influence has deeply penetrated the mass media, and whether this has greatly distorted reporting.
And through such actions, I believe that at the very least it is important to cause trust in today’s mass media to collapse.
Those who think that the current state of Japan’s mass media, weak against the information operations of foreign powers, is strange, please click.