This is the story of the Pacific and its people, of the peaceful seas and the lands and lives we touch, and their meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Pacific Stories, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and dedicated to a fuller understanding of the vast Pacific Basin. This broadcast series comes to you as another public service, with drama of the past and present and commentary by Hillis Mori of Stanford University. For many years a resident of Japan and author of the recent book, Japan's Military Masters. Japan's Dynasty of Terror, the Black Dragon Society. On a matted floor beside a glowing charcoal brazier in his Tokyo home, fits Japan's venerable and chastisement, the late and saint of political assassination. He sits in silent calm, looking benignly out through silver-rimmed spectacles. Through his white beard, his strong lower lip moves slowly. The end justifies the means. This is Nitsuru Toyama, 88-year-old Japanese super patriot, whose record of intimidation and murder stretches back more than half a century. Toyama is rarely seen, rarely speaks in public. Yet he is one of the most powerful men in Japan. A schoolboy may not know the name of the Prime Minister, but every schoolboy knows the name of Toyama. For although Toyama has played an important and decisive role in nearly every grave national matter for years, he has never been decorated for his efforts. For his work has always been behind the scenes. In 1892, Nitsuru Toyama was in jail in Osaka. It is still here. Yes, open it up. You are going to let me out? It keeps one field. What for? Close the cell door. Yes. All right. Come along, Toyama. This is very amusing. Very amusing indeed. We know it must be. Toyama has been in jail for over a century. He has been in jail for over a century. He has been in jail for over a century. He has been in jail for over a century. He has been in jail for over a century. He has been in jail for over a century. Toyama has been an enemy of Okuma for years. Toyama has been an enemy of Okuma for years. Yes. We also know that Okuma tried to bribe Toyama to get out of the country. But Toyama refused. Toyama could only do that because of the secret organization he has behind him. Toyama is a nobody. He has power, chief, or he could not have defied the foreign minister. Come in. Here is Nitsuru Toyama. Yes. Do you mind if I keep down? You are stand. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. Do you mind if I keep down? No. I will go then. You two officers remain here in the room. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Toyama. Do you know Marquis Okuma? I have heard of him. Did you know what happened to him? What happened to him? A bomb was thrown at his carriage. He was seriously injured. I support. One of his legs was blown off. He nearly died. Is that why you have arrested me? Why did they not arrest the one who threw the bomb? He committed suicide on the spot. That was unfortunate. Toyama, you sent that man to throw that bomb. I? I am just a poor... We have evidence that it was you. You are wasting my time. I must learn a lesson. How did you know the exact time Okuma's carriage would get to the place where it was bombed? Oh, this is Ido's. Okuma. Was he a friend of yours? Okuma was no friend of mine. Ha ha. Was he yours? Toyama, I have your entire police record here before me. You have been imprisoned before for terrorism. And now you are... Could I have a minute please? What is it, Lieutenant? Let me respond. Mm-hmm. Yes. You mean that... Let me see. I see. Aha. Yes, sir. It must be very engaging. Officer. Yes, sir. Take this man back to his cell. Yes, sir. That is all for now. Alright, Toyama. This way. Apparently, ha ha. His chief has a lot of interest in this. And certainly in our friend Okuma. From the black political alleys, threats poured in, and Toyama was released. Henceforward, Mitsuru Toyama was to be above and beyond the law. TORONTO Toyama had discovered a powerful weapon. Fear of assassination. More and more people were to come to know Toyama and his methods and to rest uneasy because of them. In his hometown, he formed a genyosha. And this small group, bound to him by personal ties, he welded into a gang. Ableist among his followers was Ryohir Uchida. And he it was who saw the need of a secret organization of greater scope. TORONTO In 1901, Uchida gathered a group of promoters for the new organization at his home. Besides Uchida, 13 others were present. The most venerable of whom was silent, tight-lipped Mitsuru Toyama. It is Japan's destiny to advance to the Amur River. The Amur River was then the boundary between Siberia and Manchuria. Russia has encroached on Manchuria. Our objective must be to agitate for war with Russia. We must name our society in such a way that our purpose is clear. The Chinese name of the Amur River, Heirong Chang, means black dragon. And this name we shall take. We shall call ourselves the Black Dragon Society, the Kukuriyo Kai. And nothing shall stop us. Uchida Less than a month after the meeting at Uchida's house, a public inaugural meeting was held in a Tokyo restaurant. In the next several years, the ranks of the Black Dragon Society filled rapidly. The undercover agitation for war with Russia was intensified. Yes? It is Okachi. Come in. Oh, deeply for coming to your room like this, printito. But the mailman just brought this book and I thought... What is it? It is another book by Uchida. The Black Dragon Society. Let me see it. Dafa. Russia going to ruin. Mm-hmm. It is even more informative than a magazine they have been publishing. That magazine was suppressed. It is now being published under another name. On the Tida is distributing maps showing the Russian encroachments in Manchuria. Toyama is behind this. His name is never mentioned, but everyone knows that Uchida is... Toyama is really the one who established the seminary to train the young to speak Russian. They are determined to start war with Russia. There is no need to fight Russia. For years now I have said that we can divide influence over China and Korea. I know, printito, but what is that noise outside? I told you ten minutes ago. I told you ten minutes ago. No, no, he wrecked the house. He wrecked the house. Get out of the way. Come on. Out of the way? What kind of insurance is this? I will put a stop to it. Shemata, what is the reason for this? These men pushed me aside when I entered the door. Printito? What do you mean by... I am Mitsuri Toyama. Come in, men. You, get out of here. My place is with printito. Put him out. It would be more pleasant for all of us, printito, if you were more courteous. You mean that you five will kill me on the spot if I am not? We have come here to talk, Eirito. You, as a foreign minister, should know Kono here? I had not expected to meet the president of the Rowa House of the Diet this way. Explain it to him, Kono. Printito, sooner or later, Japan must fight Russia. This is dictated by heaven. High officers of the army and navy have decided on quick attack. Everyone knows you are against war with Russia. I am for dividing spheres of influence over China and Korea with Russia. The military has decided to attack, and you... That is enough, Kono. Printito is now informed. Printito, what we wish to know is, are you or are you not for war? Well, I... Printito, who is the greatest in Japan, the emperor? On that we all agree. He is the greatest personage under the emperor. Uh, that would be, uh... Do you wish to be Japan's greatest statesman? I understand, Toyama. Let me shake your hand. It is in the interest of our emperor, and our state. Now we are united, and now we will crush the Rakimov. In a surprise attack, a powerful Japanese naval squadron under command of Admiral Togo has destroyed the Russian fleet of Tsuchima between Japan and Korea. Cracking veteran foe by Admiral Togo, follower of Toyama. Then a declaration of war. Printito had been persuaded by Toyama, and victory was in the hand of Japan. Toyama had played his cards well. The Black Dragon Society became a deadly secret power before and during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Japanese, not in its circles, learned to talk in hushed voices. Utsuda himself organized the Manchurian bandits who fought against the Russian soldiers. But operations on such a scale require money, a great deal of money. The house of Yasuda has vast interests in Manchuria. That would explain the operations against Russia. But what of all the other operations of the society? The army has a special military intelligence force. And other secret funds are available from the government appropriations for the administration of Korea and the Kwantung-West Territory. That perhaps is why Toyama himself has so much money. Toyama personally just recently he sold some mining rights for 700,000 yen. Where did he get those mining rights? It is not necessary to know precisely where the Black Dragon Society gets its money. It seems to be top evidence that 26 million people... In the years between the Russo-Japanese War and the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in China in 1911, the Black Dragon Society sank into leprosy. The Chinese revolution revived it. Sunia Chen has joined forces with Marshal Yuan Shikai. China is now united. This is Utsuda again. Japan must expand her arm. Utsuda, as Toyama's disciple, was rousing the Black Dragon once more. We must dispatch troops to China to avenge the insults to the Japanese... The agitation for new aggressions were now in the wind. The Japanese government is taking a lukewarm view of what is happening in China. What happened in China is of the greatest importance to Japan. Hear the bill of fact. The shadow of the Black Dragon fell across the key men in the government who were not of the same opinion as Toyama and Utsuda. Mori Taro Abe, director of the Political Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Office, has been cut to death Beside the body of Mr. Abe, the murderer spread out the map of China. Squatting beside it, committed Harikiri. The headquarters of the Black Dragon Society have been raided. Nothing was found. The matter is officially closed. Prime Minister, Count Kato, has been found killed. Ryohei Utsuda has been arrested on suspicion of instigating a young man to commit the murder. Ryohei Utsuda, who has been held 18 months in jail on suspicion in connection with the murder of Prime Minister, Count Kato, has been released. He was not tried. Tanji Matsui, an elderly banker, has been shot to death. A document written by the murderer to justify the assassination is being circulated by the Black Dragon. The matter is officially closed. A thousand eyes kept a constant vigil on the national political scene. On all matters concerning what they construed to be Japan's manifest destiny. Among the members of the secret society were persons of all grades of radical patriotism. Behind them, with no title but holding the reins, was always Mitsuru Toyama. And chief aide to Toyama in the agitation of Manchurian expansion was Komei. When the Japanese military were planning the invasion of Manchuria, they called in Komei. Now you summon me for advice. You shall listen to me in 1925, General. Japan was not ready to move in Manchuria in 1925. I organized a rebellion against Changsou Lin, the greatest power in Manchuria in 1925. If you had supported me then Manchuria would be under Japanese control now. We value your knowledge of Manchuria. We have as much information on China, the Philippines and India as we have on Manchuria. Our own people are active there, Mr. Komei? Some of them. But most of our best sources are dissatisfied nationals. We have patients in nearly all cities in Asia. Crooks, farmers, covering men, priests, hawkers, even dentists and barbers. That will be avoided in the future. Our immediate interest is Manchuria. Mr. Komei, it is important that you know... With the help of the Black Dragon Society, the invasion of Manchuria was planned. The ideas, the concepts of the Black Dragon Society were finding a more general acceptance. Its leaders perceived that the scope of its thinking must be extended beyond the limits of the society itself. A broader appeal was necessary. Accordingly, on June 28, 1931, the Tsai Nippon Shato, so that's what they call the new society, isn't it? Yes, the great Japan Production Party. They say they have 100,000 members. If Uchida is at the head of it, it is no mere political party. Uchida says that it is a rebel party based on Japanism. If there's an organization to force the Nazi ideas of Japan... It is my opinion that Uchida is combining the nationalist and the fascist and the socialist to climb to power to take over completely Toyama's for the abolition of political parties. He wants imperial rule, the way of the Emperor. So this means that he plans to use this great Japan Production Party to help him gain that end. After the Dai Nippon Shato was organized with the Black Dragon Society as its nucleus, Japan struck in Manchuria. The sudden ferocity of the attack, the military precision of the invasion, the ruthless seizure of control shocked the world. The League of Nations sent an investigating committee under Lord Lytton. They questioned Khomei, and the Black Dragon Society leader frankly told them... Manchuria is the doorstep on which Japan must plant her foot to enter China's Huffle in order to run it for the welfare of Japan and the world. This was the policy of Japan's militaries, and the Black Dragon Society was leading the way. The Japanese occupied all of Manchuria, changed its name to Manjokuo, set up the puppet Puyi as Emperor Kang Tek, and plotted a drive from Manchuria into China proper. Conservative Japanese opposed this move. I cannot permit the wholesale extension of the war into China. This action would go beyond the original plan. This was Premier Unokai, who had formerly worked with Toyama. Premier Unokai fell with many other Japanese conservatives in the bloody assassinations of 1932. Among those arrested and found guilty of being accomplices of the assassins was Toyama's 33-year-old son Hideo, who was head of one of the societies incorporated into the great Japan production party less than a year before. Toyama and Hideo set their sights far beyond the borders of Japan. They set their sights on white imperialism. Mussolini is a barbarian. He is making war on the Abyssinians. Don Mussolini is another example of white imperialism, a threat on the helpless natives of Abyssinia. We must protest. We must make our voice heard. This was the sentiment of the Black Dragon Society in 1935. Meantime, Black Dragon leaders were rising in the political tangle of Japanese politics. Look, look at this in the newspaper. Coco Hiroto has been appointed to head the cabinet ministry as premier. Coco Hiroto, he is the first member of the Black Dragon Society to rise to such a high post. Now we can expect a more ruthless national policy than ever before. And within the secret Black Dragon circles? It is a great victory for us, Toyama. We have a storm behind us. Now we shall command. But Toyama had not counted on all of the ramifications of Japanese politics, nor on the international situation. In Europe, Nazism under Hitler was rising. Soon Hitler and Mussolini had joined. And presently, entrepreneur Koki Hiroto, Japan committed itself to the Romulan anti-comintern axis. But Uchita, it is only a matter of months since we have the Black Dragon protested against Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia. Now we are joined with him. There was no answer. The cabinet headed by Hiroto, the Black Dragon, fell in less than 12 months. The Japanese military had taken over. The military, using Black Dragon Society techniques inside Japan as well as outside, disposed of its long-standing enemies. The communists, the politicians, the liberals, the palavering diplomats, the free press. After Pearl Harbor, the venom of the Black Dragon spread out over the world. The police of Rio de Janeiro have arrested another member of the Japanese Black Dragon Society, who is sending information to Japan from a radio transmitter hidden in the false bottom of a fishing boat. The police are tracing down the... In San Francisco, authorities have arrested two more members of the Japanese Black Dragon Society as a result of a raid. Officers in North Anglia have taken into custody three Japanese members of the Black Dragon Society, alleged to be using Japanese language schools to spread... A wisp of smoke perled upward from a charcoal brazier. Titi decided on a matted floor in his Tokyo home, his little white-bearded Japanese, his sharp eyes looking out through silver-rimmed spectacles. Mitsuru Toyama sits in deadly calm, his strong lower lip moves slowly. The Black Dragon Society has shown the way. The Japanese military has at last adopted the principles and the practices of the Black Dragon Society. Japan has courageously attacked and invaded every foreign power in the Pacific. Today, the Japanese flag flies throughout the greater East Asia, from the Amur River to Australia, from the Dutch Indies to the Bay of Banga. For more than 60 years, Mitsuru Toyama and secret societies such as the Black Dragon have played an important and insidious role in the shaping of the policies of Japan. And here to tell the significance of this dynasty of terror is Hillis Laurie of Stanford University, for many years a resident of Japan and author of Japan's Military Masters. The next voice you will hear will be that of Mr. Laurie. We take you now to San Francisco. We Americans have no counterpart of many things Japanese. Certainly we have no equivalent of Japan's notorious Black Dragon Society. Japan is a land of strange paradoxes. It is, for example, a land of regimentation, of law, of an all-powerful police, who scrutinize the daily lives of the Japanese and for whom the term thought control is precisely what it says. It is a land where the people bow low to the police officers, who twice a year invade the privacy of their homes to see if their houses are clean. But it is also a country that has a long tradition of violence inherited from feudal days, a land where secret terrorist societies have flourished. And the assassin's sword or the swift ratatatat of a submachine gun has killed those in power who dared block the grandiose schemes of Japan's so-called divine destiny. In feudal days, Japan had the ronin and the soshi. The ronin were samurai who had lost their feudal lord and who roamed the countryside avenging by death any who allegedly had insulted the honor of their dead master. Roughly speaking, the soshi were freelance violence brokers brought by any who had the price. The modern counterpart of the ronin and the soshi are Japan's gangster patriots, found particularly in Japan's secret terrorist groups, a veritable maze of interlocking organizations, the best known as the Black Dragon Society. They look upon themselves as a sort of unofficial department of justice, watching lest Japan's honor be offended and threatening death to those who block their imperialistic ambitions. Political assassinations in Japan have always been given consideration. One might call them political weapons, a weapon most frequently used in time of a crisis. Japan's modern government was born in a bloodbath of political assassinations. They have recurred sporadically throughout her modern history. And with the opening of the decade of the 1930s and the demands of the extremists for aggression abroad, political assassination of those who opposed their ambitious dreams became epidemic. This psychology of political assassination is peculiarly Japanese. Let us look into the mind of a Japanese contemplating such an act. Perhaps his decision is the decision of one of Japan's terrorist gangs, or it may possibly be the product of his own distorted mind. In that case, he moves quietly among his friends, inquiring, would it not be better for the higher infest of Tenno, son of heaven, and the welfare of the state, if our premier, or possibly the Lord Keeper of the Imperial Seal, or even an army officer, or say a too moderate inspector general of education, could no longer obstruct the true imperial way? If in the course of his questioning he becomes convinced that this assassination would promote what he personally considers to be the best interest of the emperor, he sharpens his sword, or in a more modern style, secures a submachine gun. Shortly thereafter, newspaper headlines report another of Japan's political assassinations. The assassin has reasoned, I know that I have violated the law, but I am prepared to stand the most extreme punishment, because I feel that by my lawless act I have promoted the true will of the emperor. The Japanese people are deeply sympathetic to this sort of reasoning. After Marcus Okuma lost a leg from the bomb thrown by a disciple of Toyama, Okuma expressed admiration for Toyama's staunch patriotism. In the last decade, the courts praying the assassins have often resembled a carnival sideshow, where the murderers were treated as prisoners of honor, their defendants lauding their purity of motive with mystical furbore. Petitions totalling a million signatures, many written in blood, poured in a steady stream into the diet, the cabinet, and the courts, begging clemency for the assassins. Some generals in Japan's army grumbled that the assassins were even brought to trial at all. It was not until the army revolt of 1936 that the army was shocked into the belated realization that this accepted Japanese philosophy that political assassination, yet cloaked in such mystical phrases as promoting the true will of the emperor, could be in fact a sword that cuts two ways. In July of that year, a military court executed the first death penalty of either a civil or military court since the renewal of political assassinations six years earlier. It must not be forgotten that in Japan political assassinations accomplish political ends. Each assassination in these recent years ultimately increased the power of extremists. When Japan struck at Pearl Harbor, the most rabid patriots in Japan's secret terrorist societies could find little fault with the extremist leaders of the army whom they had helped to place in power, and who at last in control gambled all in their bed to extend the rule of their son of heaven over greater Asia. Should the allied armies invade Japan, we must expect a nucleus of Japan's Black Dragon Society to go underground. Unless eradicated, they will be the ones who secretly will build from a defeated nation a stronger Japan, which like a second Germany rising out of Versailles, will try again in the years ahead to realize its dreams of world power. Thank you, Hillis Laurie. You have just heard the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company, and dedicated to a fuller understanding of the vast Pacific Basin. A reprint of tonight's Pacific Story program is available at the cost of ten cents. Ten cents in stamps or coins to the University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The address again, University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is written and directed by Arnold Marklis. The musical score is composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso. Your narrator, Jane Whitman. This program has been presented as a public service by the National Broadcasting Company and the independent radio stations associated with the NBC network. This is the National Broadcasting Company.
