Itaru Tachibana
Itaru Tachibana (立花 止, Tachibana Itaru, 1903-1954) was a Japanese spy active in the United States.
USC PhD student Pedro Loureiro wrote that Tachibana's arrest by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "became the most publicized and sensational Japanese espionage case in the United States during 1941."[1]
Education and training
Tachibana graduated from the
Espionage
Tachibana began attending the university in September 1940. He received the rank of commander from the Japanese authorities in December of that year. His studies at USC ended in February 1941.[3]
Tachibana collected information about U.S. military installations on the West Coast;[4] the ONI later determined 70% of the information collected was already publicly available.[5] Tachibana himself stated that he did not experience difficulty collecting information since "the United States up to the very last operated on a peacetime basis with practically no restrictions on communications and the like."[1] He asked nisei (second-generation Japanese American) women to be with him on trips to lower suspicions from outside parties; he never informed them of the true reasons he took the trips.[5]
The Eleventh Naval District (11ND) was based in
Counterintelligence, prosecution, and departure
Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) employee Henry Claiborne, a lieutenant in the Navy, in early June of that year, gave notice to the Los Angeles office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that the ONI had begun monitoring Tachibana as the agency believed that he was acting as a foreign agent for Japan; the FBI chose not to open its own investigation while the ONI investigated.[3] 11ND's district intelligence office also opened an investigation on Tachibana as it was suspecting he was trying to damage U.S. naval operations. Loureiro wrote that this office "directed and carried out most of the counterintelligence operations."[7]
Initially the FBI was hesitant to pursue prosecution due to diplomatic issues as Tachibana was a known affiliate of the Japanese government.
The
Aftermath
In September 1941 he entered the Third Bureau of the Japanese Navy, which handled intelligence matters. The High Command of the Navy assigned Tachibana to the group that managed the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941; according to Loureiro, what he learned about the U.S. Navy "was an important factor" in his placement.[1]
Loureiro wrote that the Tachibana arrest "effectively" ended the Southern California Japanese naval spy ring and taught U.S. authorities the Japanese Navy's contacts and what information the Japanese Navy desired.[7]
References
- Loureiro, Pedro (1989). "The imperial Japanese Navy and espionage: The Itaru Tachibana case". . - Published online on January 9, 2008
- Drabkin, Ron (2021). "Agent Shinkawa Revisited: The Japanese Navy's Establishment of the Rutland Intelligence Network in Southern California". . - Published online on April 9, 2021
Notes
External links
- "Federal Bureau of Investigation. Itaru Tachibana espionage case". University of Southern California Digital Library.
- "Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Itaru Tachibana and Toraichi Kono espionage case". University of Southern California Digital Library.
- "A 1941 FBI Raid Reveals a Network of Japanese Spies in LA". America's Hidden Stories: Pearl Harbor Spies. Smithsonian Channel. 2019-03-01.