Agent Shinkawa Revisited: The Japanese Navy’s Establishment of the Rutland Intelligence Network in Southern California

Abstract

Frederick Rutland’s intelligence activities in interwar Los Angeles have been the subject of much analysis since the war. Interpretations range from the assertion of his biographer that he did essentially nothing illegal to the more recent claim that the technical information he provided to the Imperial Navy helped make the Pearl Harbor attack possible. This article uses recently declassified American documents and Japanese sources to shed new light on Rutland’s activities, his role in the wider Japanese intelligence apparatus, and the nature of his mission. Contra most previous analyses, these suggest that the Japanese Navy viewed Rutland as an agent with future potential for wartime rather than one who had already provided valuable services. Those included creating close relationships with high-profile Americans to get strategic information rather than technical intelligence. They also suggest that the Japanese Navy’s skewed view of Rutland prevented it from developing a more effective prewar intelligence network, with dire consequences.

On 23 July 1943 British war hero Frederick J. Rutland faced two MI5 interrogators in HM Prison Brixton in England for yet another interrogation. The stature of the men sitting across the table, long-time officer and Far East expert Courtenay Young and senior legal advisor J.L.S. Hale, indicated that Rutland was hardly the average wartime detainee.¹ Indeed, during World War I he had become the first person in history to fly an airplane off of a ship in battle and was now the only living recipient of the gold Albert Medal for bravery.² He had until recently been living in one of the wealthiest areas of Los Angeles, known for its popularity with Hollywood royalty and cut a high profile in the local press.³ Yet, for more than two decades, this war-hero-turned-local-celebrity had also been Agent Shinkawa of the Imperial Japanese Navy, accepting huge sums of money to establish a cover in the United States and feeding information back to his Tokyo connections. His return to wartime London two years before had not been entirely at his own volition.

Rutland admitted that much of what MI5 and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believed was true. He confessed that after World War I he had accepted a lucrative contract with Mitsubishi to help develop aircraft undercarriages for the Imperial Navy. He confessed to accepting large sums of money and standing by to assist in the event of war, in which case he would provide information on U.S. Navy vessels, aircraft production, and other local happenings. Preliminary plans were drawn up for him to signal across the Arizona border to Japanese agents in Mexico when war broke out, although these barely advanced from the drawing table. More concretely, there was evidence Rutland was able to pass information to the Japanese via their embassy in Mexico City using his cover as an aircraft sales representative and would continue to do so after the war started.⁴ To this extent, the case against Rutland seemed compelling, although, as his interrogators noted, there was initially no firm evidence he had ever spied against Britain itself—yet he had pointedly not ruled out the possibility in conversations with Japanese contacts.⁵

Yet Rutland protested that there was another side to his story as well. For more than a year, he claimed, he had been working as a double agent for U.S. Naval Intelligence, stringing the Japanese along (and taking their money) while feeding Tokyo minor titbits of information and keeping the Americans closely apprised. Further, Rutland argued, he had always been open about his activities, telling friends of his acquaintance with Japan and its Navy’s admirals; visiting Japan multiple times with no attempt at secrecy; and even spending his own funds to contact various U.S. intelligence agencies. The ultimate demonstration of his loyalty, he claimed, was that his arrival in England had been at his own request and was part of an elaborate plot to double cross the Japanese and gain valuable information for MI5 and MI6.⁶ He added that if the United States and United Kingdom had taken his offers more seriously, his strong relationship with the Japanese Navy and ability to “read Japanese faces” would have likely helped them to predict the attack on Pearl Harbor.⁷ Furthermore, the only reason he did not disclose his full activities to the British earlier was for fear of leakage. Would he have really undertaken these actions if he were, in fact, a Japanese spy? The interrogators pressed Rutland, pointing to his opulent Japanese-funded lifestyle in Hollywood. He bought an expensive house, hired a butler, and sent his children to expensive private schools. They asked him what the Imperial Navy expected from him during peacetime in exchange for all the money they gave him. He replied, “nothing.”⁸

The interrogators were not convinced. MI5 had evidence of suspicious activities, including communication using aliases, a darkroom for developing film in Rutland’s basement, mentions in their files of the arrested Japanese spy Itaru Tachibana, Rutland’s own statement he had met with Tachibana, and more. Informants even alleged he had been seen taking photos of the U.S. fleet and sent them to Japan.⁹ Young and Hale concluded to their superior, Ewen Montague (recently the mastermind of Operation Mincemeat) that Rutland “answered every question thoroughly, but that there is absolutely no doubt that Rutland is an unscrupulous liar.” The former war hero would end up detained under Defence Regulation 18B as a threat to national security immediately after Pearl Harbor.¹⁰

MI5 was aware there were awkward political calculations at play in this case as well. Until Pearl Harbor, Britain and Japan had not been at war and had been allies until the early 1920s. Under interrogation, Rutland freely admitted that he had an arrangement in the 1930s to help the Japanese with information about the United States should a war break out.¹¹ Yet, at the time of that agreement, it would have likely been legal for him as a British subject to do so. In the mid 1930s, Britain and the United States had not made any formal alliance and Japan had not yet joined the Axis powers. Rutland was a Royal Navy officer when the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Royal Navy were exceedingly close on all levels, including personal ones. Rutland’s biographer, Desmond Young, notes that in the pre–World War II period, the British Navy was so enamored with the Japanese Navy that officers frequently named their dogs “Togo” after the Japanese admiral.¹² Releasing Rutland would have the potential to open a number of awkward questions about the Anglo–American alliance, the prewar relationship between the Royal Navy and the Japanese Navy, and interwar technology transfer between these former allies. Thus, Rutland would remain in 18B detention until after the release of many British fascist leaders, including Oswald Mosley. After the war’s end he took his own life, bringing his story to an abrupt end and leaving many of these questions open for historians to unravel.

Rutland’s activities have been the subject of historical discussion—and speculation—in the decades since his death, with new articles regularly appearing as new tranches of documents have been declassified. The first author to deal with Rutland’s story, and still the only to undertake a full biography, was Desmond Young, whose 1963 Rutland of Jutland focused on the subject’s military heroism and portrayed him sympathetically. Young was an officer in the British Army in both world wars and included numerous testimonials of innocence from friends of Rutland. Although he conceded that Rutland was taking money from the Japanese government, he argued that these activities were far from illegal at the time. He stressed that Rutland was indeed researching the U.S. Navy by reading American newspapers and examining congressional reports and sending this information back to Tokyo, but he asserts those activities were not a crime.

Intelligence historians have been somewhat less generous. Pedro A. Loureiro, for instance, noted the appearance of Rutland’s name in various Japanese intelligence sources along with his claims to be a double agent, but stated that the U.S. documentary record was unable to confirm this claim at the time.¹³ Similarly, Anthony Best has traced the appearance of Rutland’s activities in various British intercepts of Japanese communiqués, concluding that while he was clearly operating on behalf of the Japanese, both the British and American governments sought to avoid the scandal of such a prominent figure being exposed as a spy. The result was a confused and ultimately inept handling of his case.¹⁴ Both authors refrain from drawing conclusions about the nature of the value of the intelligence Rutland provided to the Japanese. Similarly, Ken Kotani stresses the extent to which the Japanese Navy trusted Rutland and had great expectations for him to serve as a key information source, but argues that he seems to have not provided his paymasters much useful information.¹⁵

The release of an extensive series of MI5 files related to the Rutland case by the National Archives in 2000 led to a reevaluation of his case. In a notable 2006 article, Max Everest-Phillips expansively claimed that Rutland was a key Japanese agent who “did indeed facilitate Japan’s capacity to develop aircraft carriers, the technology that enabled Japan in 1941 to launch a ‘first strike’ attack on the U.S. Pacific,” although the associated citation admits the author was unable to find “any Japanese or other detailed source on the importance of his technical technology transfer.”¹⁶ Everest-Phillips goes further to imply the discovery of Rutland’s activities caused counterintelligence services to overreact to the threat of Japanese infiltration, with extreme consequences. According to Everest-Phillips, “The Rutland case cast a long shadow. The [resulting] Japanese spy fear created one of the more extraordinary miscarriages of justice in U.S. and Australian history when people of Japanese descent were interned in 1942 as potential spies and saboteurs.”¹⁷ Despite these assertions, historians seem to have barely advanced further than Rutland’s 1943 interrogators in determining the full extent of his contributions to Japanese naval technology, the nature of his activities in the United States, the motivations of this self-admitted agent, and the consequences of his actions. Rutland’s own statements, and those of his supporters, have muddied the record further: Rutland claimed if U.S. and British intelligence had just listened to him they would have likely been able to prevent Pearl Harbor. His protector in the U.S. Navy, Captain Ellis Zacharias, testified before Congress in 1946 that if his superiors had listened to him, they would have likely prevented Pearl Harbor as well. In contrast, Everest-Phillips essentially claims that Rutland was a major cause of Pearl Harbor. The truth remains as uncertain as it appeared to be in wartime London.

This article utilizes recently declassified FBI files, MI5 source material, Japanese accounts rarely used by past historians writing in English, and American press reports to present a more nuanced and complete account of Frederick Rutland’s activities in both Japan and Los Angeles in the interwar period. As seen, prior histories have referred to Rutland as either an innocent businessman caught up in geopolitical events or a nefarious enemy agent lurking in the bushes outside naval facilities, yet both of these portrayals are incomplete. In fact, the evidence suggests that Rutland was in fact playing both sides off the other, happily receiving money from the top levels of the Japanese Navy for his services setting up an information net in California, while later courting U.S. Naval Intelligence and offering his services as a double agent. Rutland was not a low-level agent, nor was he a sleeper agent biding his time for the outbreak of war. There is no evidence he was a key contributor to Japanese military technology development in the fifteen years before Pearl Harbor.

Yet the evidence does establish that, at least initially, Japanese Naval Intelligence planned to have Rutland and his to-be-developed network to be not only a key source of information, but their only source of human intelligence on the U.S. mainland during a future war. The Japanese Naval brass believed Rutland’s true worth lay in his ability to become so well connected in the United States that he would be able to provide invaluable information on ship movements, aircraft production, American attitudes towards war with Japan, and more.¹⁸ Rutland was known and trusted by the heads of Japanese Naval Intelligence and key members of the Japanese Admiralty, very highly compensated, in frequent contact with the director of Japanese Naval Intelligence during the run-up to the war, and was certainly involved in prewar espionage.¹⁹ In addition, past scholars have generally ignored another facet of Rutland’s activities; namely, the very public persona he maintained. Throughout the decade, he was quoted in the Los Angeles Times and other publications commenting on international finance, world events, and even his trips to Asia. This public profile suggests that he not only cared little about concealing his activities but also saw himself as somewhat of an agent of influence for the Japanese. The financial benefits of these arrangements can easily be seen in Rutland’s larger-than-life, almost James Bond–esque lifestyle in 1930s Los Angeles.

American documents released in 2016 reveal that these complicated and ambiguous activities left the U.S government with a dilemma when the FBI discovered the extent of Rutland’s activities in the months before Pearl Harbor. While many of Rutland’s activities had long been known to both the American and British governments, his high-profile lifestyle, press connections, and general fame made him difficult to arrest for espionage. In addition, the fact that he was not a U.S. citizen but a British subject, and a well-known war hero, made his case even more difficult. In the end, the United States opted to simply send Rutland back to London and let his own government deal with him, with the resulting confusion that began this article. But Rutland’s absence was keenly felt by the Japanese Navy after Pearl Harbor, which had counted on him to provide information during time of war and were therefore flying somewhat blind. In sum, Rutland’s case is not only more complicated than past historians have realized, but also an intriguing example of pre–World War II geopolitics colliding with wartime exigencies and shifting alliances, in this case catching one of Britain’s World War I heroes in the middle of a trap he himself had set.

JUTLAND, JAPAN, AND THE L.A. OPERATION

Frederick Joseph Rutland was born in 1886 and joined the Royal Navy as a “second class boy” at age 15 in 1901. He rose through the ranks quickly, eventually becoming an officer and, boldly, a pilot in the earliest days of aviation. He became internationally famous at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May–1 June 1916, when he was able to fly a seaplane from the HMS Engadine during the battle, perform reconnaissance under fire, and return to land and be winched aboard, to report on the enemy fleet’s position.²⁰ This was the first time in history any airplane had ever been launched from a ship in battle. Rutland won the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for the feat. After returning to the Engadine, he performed yet another amazing act of heroism. When an injured sailor fell overboard, Rutland clambered down the side of the moving ship to the water via a rope, swam to the man, and had the two of them pulled aboard. For this, he was awarded the Gold Albert Medal, First Class for extreme and heroic daring in saving the lives of others.²¹ Later, Rutland was awarded a bar to his DSC for his work in creating new tactics, including antisubmarine patrols and flying planes off the first aircraft carrier.²² He also was awarded “Their Lordships Appreciation” for experimental flights of a Sopwith Pup from a platform attached to a turret of the battlecruiser Repulse.²³

After moving to Hollywood, Rutland would leave the Americans he met the impression of British upper-class wealth. The FBI agents who tailed him described him as “poised, highly intelligent, and giving the impression of affluence and breeding.”²⁴ The intelligence was real, but the breeding was affectation. Rutland was not, as biographer Young stated, “one of those dashing young naval officers of good family who ride hard to hounds, play polo in Malta and are the life and soul of cocktail parties in a foreign port.”²⁵ In reality, he was born the son of a day laborer and had no formal education. Indeed, he was one of the very rare enlisted men in the Royal Navy who passed the exam to become an officer and a pilot. In the class-conscious British Navy, this would have been a strike against him with his fellow officers, but it would not be the only one. After World War I, Rutland and a neighboring officer became besotted with each other’s wives. Rutland would divorce his wife and marry the neighbor’s, but in the meantime this adultery scandal was another black mark against Rutland’s reputation.²⁶ Rutland saw little future in the postwar British military and began seeking opportunities to leverage his fame elsewhere. He found one when he was approached by a Japanese naval attaché in December 1922.²⁷

Rutland was under suspicion in Britain for his Japanese connections from the start.²⁸ In 1922, MI5 noted in his file that Rutland did not disclose his meetings with the Japanese attaché to his superior officer. The attaché arranged Rutland a job in Japan with Mitsubishi, teaching Japanese aviators how to conduct deck landings on aircraft carriers.²⁹ After a transfer to the newly created Royal Air Force, Rutland retired in 1923 and moved to Japan the following year to take the position, drawing a “very high salary.”³⁰ He remained in the country for four years, establishing a network that included senior officers in the Japanese Navy. Visiting British naval officers noted, and found suspicious, Rutland’s presence as a VIP at a Japanese military parade, sitting next to the chief flying officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Torao Kuwabara.³¹ This was an era of relatively good relations between Britain and Japan, and there were others who helped the Japanese in similar ways at the time; for instance, the 1921–23 Sempill Mission had the explicit mission of developing Japanese naval technology and capacity.³² Yet, even in this amiable climate, Rutland’s activities stood out. Reports filed by British diplomats from the mid 1920s comment on Rutland betraying his country, calling out his loose morals (references to his “supposed wife” since they were not yet remarried) and even that he “talks a lot and is likely to give himself away soon.”³³

Rutland returned to England in 1928, taking a much less glamorous job at his brother-in-law’s firm. Yet his network with the Japanese Navy higher ups remained intact. The Japanese naval attaché in London in 1931, Shiro Takasu, was the same person who had helped recruit Rutland to Japan in 1923.³⁴ In December 1932, Rutland began discussions with Takasu about taking a position with the Japanese Navy itself.³⁵ They initially discussed having the position in London, but Takasu convinced Rutland to move to Los Angeles, where the Japanese Navy would be most in need of information during a future war.³⁶ Takusu was soon replaced with a new attaché, Arata Oka, who was a heavy drinker. Following a day-long binge, Oka lost a briefcase containing confidential documents that mentioned Rutland, among other agents. The satchel made its way to MI5, where officers duly updated their already-extensive file on Rutland.³⁷ This spurred the British to monitor Rutland’s communication throughout the 1930s to the maximum extent possible.³⁸ For his part, Rutland accepted the post and then traveled to Los Angeles via a ship that stopped in Japan and Dairen (now Dalian), where he was able to meet with various Japanese Admiralty representatives, including a captain, to nail down details of his work in Los Angeles.³⁹ Within a decade, Rutland had gone from venerated British war hero to Japanese agent. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1933 to begin his mission.

The nature of Rutland’s arrangements with Naval Intelligence were straightforward and were subsequently established in a series of meetings between Rutland and Oka in 1935. Remarkably, these took place in London, requiring Rutland to travel from the United States and face potential scrutiny. The men agreed that Rutland would meet annually with Japanese agents in various locations in the Americas and Asia. More frequent communications could be conveyed by Japanese naval officers traveling between Japan to Los Angeles, but otherwise would be via letters sent by ship to a dead drop address in Japan. To reduce the risk of detection, they would keep the frequency of letters low.⁴⁰ Significantly, Rutland insisted that no communications be transmitted via London due to fear that American authorities might come to believe he was acting as a British agent.⁴¹ He also insisted on a hefty compensation package. The new director of Naval Intelligence, who was none other than Takasu, complained to Oka that “constant repetition of his demands for pay are not only postponing the matter but may invite the suspicions of the British.”⁴² Finally, it was agreed that in the event of war between Japan and the United States, Rutland would head to Ottawa, Canada and report to the Japanese embassy there—an arrangement that interestingly assumed that Japan and the British Empire would still be at peace. Takasu confirmed Rutland’s alias would be “Shinkawa” for his eyes only, and also specified that communications with Rutland would not loop in the Japanese embassy in Washington to further evade detection.⁴³

Rutland told Oka that he could write letters from Los Angeles to Japan by simply sending them via Japanese ships, and it appears he often did so when a Japanese ship was in port in Los Angeles. Initially, Oka arranged to have Rutland send the letters to Japan addressed to his wife, Ikuko Oka, at her home address in Tokyo.⁴⁴ Letters back from the Japanese Navy to Rutland would be mailed from the return address of an “American friend who lives in Yokohama” and, later, possibly using his 19-year-old son, Fred.⁴⁵ Involving a teenager in the plot was quickly seen as untenable, and thus the American friend emerged as the best contact. Rutland subsequently told Oka to have Japanese intelligence instructions sent to him from the return address “A Manley, 252 Yamate Cho, Yokohama,” with the salutation “Dear Fred” and signed “Auggie.”⁴⁶ Rutland maintained a post office box in Manley’s name in Los Angeles. This is a significant point and a surprisingly astute bit of spy craft by Rutland that confused the FBI’s investigations and still appears in some later historiography. FBI reports, for instance, refer to Rutland as “Major Frederick J Rutland, alias Augie Manley.”

Yet “Augie Manley” was not an alias. Manley was a long-time friend of Rutland who gave him the green light to use his name and address in this communication scheme. Manley was born in Yokohama, Japan, to American parents in 1880.⁴⁷ He worked for Cornes and Co., which was established in 1861 and, in 2021, claims to be the oldest foreign trading company in Japan.⁴⁸ Manley lived on The Bluff, the district of Yokohama overlooking the harbor, where foreigners, mostly traders and their families, had lived since the 1860s.⁴⁹ Soon after Rutland moved to Japan to work for Mitsubishi in 1923, he bought property and built a house on the same block as Manley.⁵⁰ These men were therefore both former neighbors and friends. It was also a perfect cover; as the employee of a trading company, it would not be unusual for Manley to have addresses in both California and Japan and to be in correspondence with business associates on both sides of the Pacific. To this extent at least, Rutland tried to cover his tracks with some success. In 1940, the FBI had the U.S. postmaster and Western Union monitor Rutland’s mail.⁵¹ He received letters at home from local friends, the United Kingdom, and Singapore, but none from Japan. Presumably, those letters were in fact being sent to the “Manley” post box and thus evaded detection.⁵²

Oka was busy during his time in the United Kingdom. Another of his recruits was Herbert Greene, the nephew of William Greene, secretary of the Admiralty and the brother of novelist and MI6 agent Graham Greene. To complement the recruitment of Rutland, who was known as “Shinkawa,” or “New River,” Oka gave Greene the code name “Midorikawa,” literally “Green River.”⁵³ Looking at Rutland, Greene and another recruit, Lord Sempill, it is clear that the Japanese Navy placed a premium on recruiting famous and influential Britishers for their espionage purposes.

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL: BUILDING RUTLAND’S NETWORK

By 1933, Rutland was a highly compensated employee of the Japanese Navy and, as noted, was in personal communication with the director of Japanese Naval Intelligence and other high-ranking Navy officers. His initial objective was to set up and build his sources and network in the United States while reporting continually to Tokyo on U.S. war preparations.⁵⁴ These activities paid handsomely for Rutland. In his first year in Los Angeles, MI5 reported that he was offered compensation of £6,200 (more than $600,000 in 2021) in setup costs for the U.S. operation, most of which appears to have gone into Rutland’s pocket and toward personal expenses. This extraordinary level of compensation for a basically untested agent became a constant concern in the wires between the Japanese attaché in London and Tokyo. In 1935, Rutland’s compensation was reduced to £3700, excluding expenses, which still amounted to more than 12 times the average American salary at the time.⁵⁵ The paymaster for the Japanese Navy after Rutland moved to Los Angeles was Eiichi Ono, father of singer Yoko Ono.⁵⁶

Enjoying his sudden largesse, Rutland adopted an opulent lifestyle that would have befitted Ian Fleming’s fictitious James Bond. He bought a house on one of “The Bird Streets,” an exclusive area in the Hollywood Hills, paying in cash.⁵⁷ The imposing house had a swimming pool and the Rutlands employed a butler and had two cars.⁵⁸ His children attended exclusive private schools, he joined various social clubs, and “always picked up the check” when dining and drinking with associates.⁵⁹ These connections helped further his official cover as an international businessman and stockbroker. He established the firm of Rutland, Edwards and Co. with an office on 6th Street near the Los Angeles Stock Exchange. Friends at the British United Services Club (BUSC)—a key part of his plans, as will be seen—later recalled that he was a mysterious character and the only stockbroker who joined an exclusive club but never tried to sell anyone any stock.⁶⁰

Rutland appears to have offered Japanese Naval Intelligence remarkably little in return for these niceties. Admittedly, the U.S. Pacific Fleet was based out of San Diego until 1940, and there is evidence that Rutland’s initial mission was simply to keep tabs on the fleet’s movements and keep Tokyo apprised of information floating around the dockyards.⁶¹ There was also the matter of aircraft production that, Tokyo realized, would become a key factor in a future war. U.S. warplane production was centered in Southern California, with Douglas Aircraft, Hughes, Lockheed, and Northrop all headquartered in the area. As a famous British aviator, Rutland would have been uniquely able to chat with American airmen and aircraft manufacturers to understand capabilities and readiness of American aviation at clubs including the BUSC and the Del Monte, both of which he frequented.⁶² To further learn about U.S. wartime capabilities, Rutland similarly became friendly with executives at the Lockheed and Douglas aircraft plants, to the extent that he provided recommendations for employees they should hire.⁶³

Throughout this period, Tokyo was convinced that Rutland was one of their most important assets in the United States.⁶⁴ He later claimed in his London interrogation that the Japanese naval brass “uniquely trusted him,” and this may not have been hyperbole. This was in part due to the meteoric rise of the connections he had made during the previous decade. Torao Kuwabara, for instance, the chief flying officer seen sitting with Rutland at a military parade in 1925, later became an admiral on the Imperial Navy General Staff.⁶⁵ Their close relationship is evidenced in an intercepted letter Kuwabara wrote Rutland during a trip to England in 1926.⁶⁶ Oka later ran planning departments, was promoted to vice admiral and joined the Navy’s General Staff.⁶⁷ As already noted, Takasu, the one-time naval attaché in London, returned to Japan to become the director of Naval Intelligence, where he personally oversaw the installation of Rutland in Los Angeles. Indeed, a 1935 telegram intercepted by the British confirms that the Japanese Navy assumed that, in the event of war, Rutland and the network he would build would be their only source of information on the U.S. mainland.⁶⁸

These high-level connections and expectations were reflected in the Japanese Navy’s treatment of their British agent. When Rutland was subsequently heading through Manchuria and Japan on the way to set up in Los Angeles, the Japanese Navy assigned two captains and a lieutenant commander to meet him and discuss particulars—a much higher-level delegation than would normally be expected to pass instructions to a low-level agent.⁶⁹ During Rutland’s subsequent trips to Tokyo he stayed in the Imperial Hotel, a well-known VIP destination famous for its Frank Lloyd Wright design.⁷⁰

Given his prominence in Naval Intelligence’s plans, Rutland took few steps to conceal his activities or his Japanese connections. This aspect of Rutland’s activities has been surprisingly underexamined by past historians and sheds important light on how he viewed his mission. Rutland deliberately made himself highly visible in Los Angeles society, choosing a downtown location for his brokerage and, as early as February 1936, he was quoted in the Los Angeles Times on the stock market.⁷¹ There were also numerous mentions of Rutland in other regional papers, including the San Fernando Valley Times. Given the number of brokers who could conceivably comment on the economy, these appearances suggest that Rutland was cultivating connections within the Los Angeles press community—an endeavor that was undoubtedly helped by the proximity of his office to well-known downtown watering holes. He later went so far as to allow his Asian “business trips” to be covered in local papers and even facilitated the coverage.⁷² Before departing for Shanghai in 1939, for instance, the Los Angeles Times published an article about the “bon voyage” pool party that Mrs. Rutland threw for her husband at their house, with reporters invited.⁷³

This attention was no accident. Rutland explained to Oka that, to do the job the Japanese wanted, he needed to be in one place and put himself in the middle of high society. In 1934, the Japanese naval attaché suggested that Rutland could move from Los Angeles to San Francisco in time of war because troops would ship out from San Francisco to the Pacific. Rutland explained that he could only be effective in Los Angeles, where he had his network.⁷⁴ One aspect of this lay in his belief that former British officers—a group with which he had unique credibility—might provide an important information source. Rutland initially suggested to Tokyo that he would be able to gather information using retired British naval officers, and as noted he was an active member of the BUSC.⁷⁵ Yet it is unclear what he may have gained through these connections. An undercover FBI agent attended a 1940 club meeting and confirmed that Rutland and various BUSC members were on amiable terms, but he could find no obvious evidence Rutland was working with any of them.⁷⁶ This was far from conclusive, and, as Desmond Young notes, Rutland would often invite British and American naval officers to weekend badminton parties at his house.⁷⁷ Whether these were purely social occasions, intelligence-gathering operations, or both, is unclear, but intercepted Japanese communiqués suggest Rutland was asked to keep an eye on the attitudes of U.S. leadership on international events, which he was seen as uniquely able to accomplish.⁷⁸ Rutland also stated one of his duties was to contact Tokyo if war appeared imminent.⁷⁹

Apparently unconcerned with the possibility of surveillance, Rutland hosted meetings at his house with Japanese agents Tachibana, Toraichi Kono, and their American source Al Blake, and thereby was thus in attendance when topics of conversation included taking pictures of U.S. Navy ships for transmission to Japan.⁸⁰ Kono was well known as the long-time butler of Charlie Chaplin and had recruited Blake.⁸¹ Kono and Blake had known each other for more than 20 years, since they had both acted in the 1918 Chaplin film Shoulder Arms.⁸² A MAGIC intercept later showed a suggestion that the Japanese government pay Kono $25,000 as a bribe to not testify against Tachibana following his arrest.⁸³ In contrast, Blake cooperated with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the FBI to help make the arrests happen. He later wrote the detailed story of Tachibana and Kono that appeared in Esquire among other places.⁸⁴ The FBI confirmed his story as reasonably accurate, although he inflated his own contributions and removed some details for national security reasons, including removing Rutland’s name.⁸⁵ Blake, like most of the people in this story, was quite motivated by making money. He later sued the Hearst Corporation for libel over its portrayal of him in the Los Angeles Examiner.⁸⁶

Rutland’s society profile, willingness to be covered by the press, and devil-may-care attitude almost certainly reflected some degree of arrogance and a thrill-seeking mentality that Desmond Young documents. It was also undoubtedly a means to convince Japanese Naval Intelligence that he enjoyed the confidences of prominent Americans and Brits alike and would therefore become a valuable asset in the event of war. Yet there was another reason Rutland felt a sense of impunity: by the late 1930s he was working with U.S. Naval Intelligence as well. Whether this was an act of sheer self-preservation or something more would raise confusing questions for the FBI, MI5, the Anglo-American press, and historians in the decades since.

DOUBLE AGENT

By 1939, the Japanese Navy had spent astonishing amounts of money and innumerable time on the Shinkawa operation but had little concrete to show for it.⁸⁷ In addition to meeting with Japanese agents and working to establish a network that might eventually bear fruit, Rutland does appear to have undertaken some activities using his business cover to benefit the Imperial Navy. In 1933, for instance, a Japanese firm requested he purchase railway signals and other items of military significance.⁸⁸ In 1937, he wrote to a Japanese Navy contact about the possibility of licensing the technology for a fuel gauge used in U.S. submarines.⁸⁹ In 1936, he took a position as a sales agent for the Security Aircraft Company (later moving to Fletcher Aircraft) and sold several trainer planes to Mitsubishi in Japan.⁹⁰ This was a logical position for one of aviation’s pioneers to take, not dissimilar to Charles Lindbergh’s association with Trans World Airlines in the same period. Security Aircraft was located next to Douglas, so the position also likely helped him keep tabs on aircraft production.⁹¹ Yet Rutland’s primary motivation in taking this role was not to sell planes or even transfer technology to Japan, but to give him cover for travel to both Mexico and Japan.⁹² The need for travel to Asia was obvious, but it was Mexico that would play a key role in Rutland’s fate.

Back in 1935, Oka and Rutland had established that, in the event of war, Rutland would gather intelligence and deliver it to the Japanese embassy in Ottawa. However, by 1940 the plan had changed to have him gather his information in Los Angeles and then go to Mexico City to pass information to the embassy there. The planned nerve center of the Japanese espionage operation was Mexicali, a smaller city on the border that, despite its rural location and small population, with few educated Japanese, would be of great benefit because of its “proximity to the intelligence network in Los Angeles, and would be even more so if Japan needs to withdraw its officials from the United States.”⁹³ Kiyoshi Yamagata, the Japanese ambassador to Mexico, met with the Japanese counsel at Mexicali, Fujio Kato, and recommended him to create the communication link with Los Angeles. Soon afterward, an FBI informant mentioned Rutland was investigating a new business venture in bottling, and on 21 October 1940, the same informant reported that Rutland was investigating sending something across the border in conjunction with this scheme with Mexicali as the destination.⁹⁴

Rutland made several trips to establish the contingencies of the Mexico plan. In addition to a trip to Mexico City, Rutland may have taken his car over the border to Tijuana to meet Japanese agents stationed in a brothel called the Molino Rojo, with FBI agents closely in tow.⁹⁵ Never at a loss for creativity, Rutland proposed ideas for communicating with the Japanese Navy during a war, ranging from signaling over the border from an abandoned mine high in the mountains to simply mailing letters to a dead drop mailbox in Ireland.⁹⁶ The notion of signaling over the border seemed farfetched, as Rutland himself later admitted, yet he argued it was a good way to show the Japanese that he was “on the job.”⁹⁷ He even visited a bank in Arizona to obtain a loan to drain land and build a road to a property owned by a partner to facilitate the signaling operation.⁹⁸ It is hard to determine whether Rutland really thought this scheme was possible, if he was trying to show the Japanese his dedication, or if Rutland, who enjoyed exploring the United States by car, was simply taking Japanese money to have an adventure in the desert. Regardless, it became his primary interest.

By this time, the Japanese Navy was actively moving staff, funds, and contingency espionage plans to Mexico in anticipation of war. By November 1940, Japan had an intercept team in Mexico targeting U.S. Navy communications.⁹⁹ In his memoirs, the Japanese naval attaché in Washington, Yuzuru Sanematsu, recounted that in June 1941 he received a transfer of $1 million for espionage purposes at a Japanese bank account in New York City. He was dismayed about a large influx of cash because it could be noticed and was concerned that the United States would freeze Japanese assets. Sanematsu therefore decided to move $600,000 in cash immediately to Mexico and South America. He had a very challenging time doing so. With the clock to detection ticking, he could only withdraw a maximum of $50,000 in cash per weekday. Further, he needed the banks to let him withdraw the money in $100 bills, which were essential because his plan was to have staffers stuff bills in their underwear, conceal them in a haramaki belt, and attach them to their chests for transport to Latin America. Through experimentation he determined that one man could carry $150,000 per trip. The cash was ultimately moved within a month.¹⁰⁰

This urgency reflected not only the intensifying international situation but also the U.S. government’s increasing interest in Japanese activities. Until 1940, the FBI was largely preoccupied with communist infiltration and, later, pro-Nazi and fascist-emulating groups like the German American Bund and the Silver Legion. Capitol Hill’s main investigative body, the House Committee on Un-American Activities chaired by Congressman Martin Dies, Jr., took little interest in possible Japanese subversion, instead focusing on many of the same targets as the Department of Justice. Yet, as increasing evidence emerged that the Japanese were engaged in espionage operations of their own, the FBI began to pivot its operations. As noted, MI5 had been carefully watching Rutland since the 1920s, rightly concerned about what this retired officer might be giving the Japanese even if his own technical knowledge was decades out of date by this point. His MI5 dossier already numbered in the hundreds of pages, bolstered by Government Communications Headquarters intercepts of Japanese naval communiqués. Yet, in this era before Anglo-American intelligence sharing, little of this was provided to the FBI or U.S. Naval Intelligence. Remarkably, the FBI was seemingly unaware of Rutland’s activities until September 1939, when a tip was phoned into their Los Angeles office.¹⁰¹ Following surveillance and wiretapping, it appeared relatively easy to the G-Men to bring down the legal hammer on this obvious Japanese agent. Yet, in August 1940, J. Edgar Hoover’s men received a surprising letter from the Southern California ONI head, Captain Ellis Zacharias, asking them to hold off on taking any action. Rutland, Zacharias told them, was a double agent and should be left alone.¹⁰²

This claim was not only surprising to the FBI but remains controversial in the historiography. Everest-Phillips, for instance, gave little credence to Rutland’s relationship with Zacharias.¹⁰³ Much of this initial skepticism stemmed from the fact that Zacharias himself was a polarizing figure in the Navy of the era. In the early 1920s he became one of the first officers to be sent to Japan to learn the language, making him an Asian regional expert in a period when there were few in the armed forces. Known as a “loose cannon” and “not a member of the Good Old Boys Club” of the Navy, Zacharias was self-assured and would bypass official channels when he thought he was right. He later became known for doing broadcasts in Japanese to the Japanese people in mid-1945 urging the country to surrender. Following controversy over his statements, including an anonymous column he wrote in the Washington Post, he was forced to retire immediately after the war ended.¹⁰⁴ After the war he would become well known for his “warning about Pearl Harbor” that was ignored.¹⁰⁵ One can sense that Rutland and Zacharias might have been kindred spirits of sorts, or even personal friends. Both were highly ambitious and self-promoting Navy officers who were Japanophiles and had lived in Japan in the 1920s. Both found the class systems of their respective navies impeding their promotion; Zacharias is believed to be the only Jewish graduate of the Naval Academy in the 1902–1912 period.¹⁰⁶ Both would later loudly proclaim that Pearl Harbor would have been averted if top brass had listened to them. In essence, both were outsiders within their own worlds who would not respect their chain of command if they felt strongly about an issue.

Zacharias’ intervention on Rutland’s behalf temporarily lowered the heat. Following discussions with ONI, the FBI determined that Rutland had been getting “inconsequential information” from ONI to feed to the Japanese. The Bureau proposed interviewing Rutland with the aim of turning him into an informant, but they did not do so on ONI’s recommendation.¹⁰⁷ In fact, Rutland later claimed in his MI5 interrogation that the only reason he did not disclose his activities earlier to the FBI was because in March 1940 Zacharias had told him it was better to stay silent.¹⁰⁸ Yet the FBI still had more questions than answers. Additional investigation revealed that Rutland had been well known to the U.S. State Department from his time in Japan in the early 1920s.¹⁰⁹ The State Department attaché in London subsequently reported to Washington that Rutland was in fact working for the Japanese government and “for anyone else who would pay him to be a spy,” and that they had enough evidence on Rutland to shoot him, although the British assumed this latter statement was metaphorical.¹¹⁰ The FBI and State Department thus had zero doubt of Rutland’s guilt but immense frustration at the interference of Zacharias and ONI.

In June 1941, this delicate balancing act was brought to a dramatic climax with the arrest of Japanese agent Itaru Tachibana in Los Angeles.¹¹¹ Tachibana, who had been posing as a language student, met with Rutland in June 1940 and passed him information about the operations being established south of the border. Following Tachibana’s arrest, the FBI confiscated numerous files mentioning Rutland’s name, along with a piece of paper containing his home address and the license plate of his car, along with a request for a meeting and message to be conveyed to the Japanese Admiralty.¹¹² Both the FBI and MI5 concluded that this evidence showed Rutland was engaged in espionage work for the Japanese and was an active security threat, whatever ambiguities might have previously existed.¹¹³ Tachibana was swiftly deported and Rutland’s days in the United States—and as a free man—were numbered.

What happened next left an uncomfortable legacy for both MI5 and the FBI that has only recently been revealed. At this point, Rutland posed a dilemma for both the U.S. and British governments. There was little doubt that he had been working as a Japanese agent for years, but beyond that the situation was less clear. As Rutland’s biographer noted, the Japanese were indeed paying Rutland, but sending Tokyo information about the U.S. Navy from reading newspapers, talking to people at social clubs, and taking pictures was not necessarily illegal in peacetime so espionage charges would have been a challenge to prove in court. Complicating things further, Rutland was not a U.S. citizen and could not be charged with treason.¹¹⁴ In addition, his high profile in Los Angeles and close association with the press would have guaranteed extensive and embarrassing coverage of the story if legal action was taken. With the debate over U.S entry in the war in Europe raging, and J. Edgar Hoover always eager to protect the FBI’s public reputation, there was simply no reason to risk controversy. As the British put it, the public arrest of Rutland would have been a “first class scandal which would have done us great damage in the United States.”¹¹⁵

Details of Rutland’s removal from the United States remain sparse and largely classified, but he was taken to the United Kingdom by plane on 30 September 1941.¹¹⁶ In an period when U-boat wolfpacks prowled the Atlantic and plane travel was a rare commodity, the fact that Rutland received this treatment is testimony to the importance with which the British government treated his case. Almost 20 years later, the FBI conducted an internal inquiry into the circumstances of Rutland’s removal, evidently in response to the suggestion that agents might have somehow compelled or even kidnapped him in contravention of Bureau guidelines and the law. It concluded that two personnel from the British embassy approached Rutland and encouraged him to return to avoid the indignity of being arrested, although the agents involved in the inquiry were not convinced that the Bureau’s actions had been entirely above board.¹¹⁷

Bizarrely, the awkwardness of his case also meant that Rutland was initially a free man in wartime London. MI5 had ample proof he had been spying on the United States but no proof he was spying against the United Kingdom. Indeed, in the days after he landed, the indefatigable Rutland talked his way into meetings with busy wartime leaders, including the director of National Intelligence, a former air chief marshal, a squadron leader, and the Ministry of Aircraft Production in turn to offer various services.¹¹⁸ He even offered to double-cross the Japanese by going back to Mexico to feed them false information. This outlandish scheme was rejected, and MI5 directed him to stop contacting members of the armed forces.¹¹⁹ The day after Pearl Harbor, MI5 took the opportunity to remove Rutland from the scene by convincing the Home Secretary to order his detention under Defence Regulation 18B.¹²⁰ The former war hero now sat in Brixton Prison with a medley of Nazi sympathizers, Blackshirts, and suspected Nazi agents, with essentially no legal recourse.

As with many 18B detentions, this itself caused a minor scandal. Insisting on his innocence, Lord Admiral Roger Keyes raised the issue of Rutland’s detention in the House of Commons in 1942.¹²¹ Yet, despite this intervention and others, the former war hero remained in detention until December 1943 and was under close surveillance afterward.¹²² Embittered and with his reputation in tatters, he committed suicide in 1949. His suicide note to his son stated that “my life has been an adventurous one, always full of excitement. I have always told myself that so long as life was worth living, I would live it to the full, and when it no longer held any real interest it would be time to go.”¹²³

CONCLUSIONS

The arrest of Tachibana and the end of Rutland’s operation made a major impact on Japanese intelligence capabilities in the United States. Even if Rutland had only provided small morsels of intelligence (perhaps even information or disinformation deliberately being fed by Zacharias) before 1940, Japanese sources make clear that he was viewed as the key to a future intelligence network after the war began. If nothing else, the Imperial Navy’s reliance on Rutland and heavy investment of time and resources in him distracted and blinded its leaders to the need to develop additional intelligence assets and networks. This is not to suggest that the Imperial Navy did not develop other agents on the West Coast of the United States, but it is to say that the Rutland case ultimately prevented the development of a potentially more effective intelligence apparatus. It also led to Japanese intelligence taking new risks: After the deportation of Tachibana, the L.A. consulate was instructed to gather information on the U.S. fleet and cable it to the Japanese Navy directly because the activities of their intermediaries had been suppressed in a series of “incidents,” presumably including Rutland’s removal from the scene.¹²⁴

This impact is noted in the postwar reflections of Japanese intelligence officials themselves, including Eizou Hori, an intelligence officer on the U.S./UK desk at Imperial General Headquarters during the war. In his memoirs, he recounted that:

The biggest hole during the war in Japanese intelligence was on the American mainland. The Japanese military had spent lots of money to establish an information net, depending only in small part on Japanese. That information net was all destroyed. With the hole created, Japan had no idea what ships were sailing from San Francisco, U.S. military production trends, troop mobilization, aircraft production. You can argue this was a large reason for Japan’s loss of the war.¹²⁵

The full extent of Rutland’s contributions to the Japanese war effort remain uncertain. As Kotani has noted, the trajectory of Rutland’s career can be viewed as something of a “barometer” of Japanese naval priorities in the interwar period: focusing on aviation technology in the early 1920s; moving to espionage operations in the 1930s; and increasingly preparing for war as 1940 approached. Rutland was a key part of all three of these phases. While most historians have focused on his role in helping develop naval technology for the Imperial Navy, it is clear his mission in Los Angeles involved far more than stealing secrets. Through his high-profile lifestyle, relationship with the press, and open discussion of his “business” in Asia, it seems evident he saw himself as able to keep a pulse on the U.S. government, press, and Navy at the highest levels. If his mission had simply been to glean secrets from boozy American officers at clubs and snap photos of naval vessels, inviting Times reporters to backyard parties and buying an expensive home would hardly be the way to ward off scrutiny.

Rutland may well have purchased some items of military use to the Japanese Navy and presumably gathered some useful information in his meetings with navy officers and aircraft manufacturing executives in bars and clubs. Yet the available evidence does not support the claims that he was a major facilitator of the Pearl Harbor attack by Everest-Phillips or others.¹²⁶ One could perhaps claim that his aviation instruction in the 1920s contributed to the build-up of Japanese naval capability, as did his technical advice, yet it is important to note that he was only one British subject out of at least two dozen doing so. Further, since he left the RAF in 1923, his most recent knowledge was nearly two decades old by the morning of Pearl Harbor.

The ambiguities surrounding the Rutland case are further evident in the archival record. In 1960, the son of Lord Admiral Roger Keyes, also Lord Roger Keyes, reopened the issue in the British press more than a decade after Rutland’s death.¹²⁷ As noted, the FBI subsequently opened a small-scale internal review of its involvement in response to inquiries from a British journalist. The journalist had recently interviewed Zacharias who had assured him that Rutland was innocent. In turn, the FBI made it clear that “they did not think much of Zacharias.”¹²⁸ In this context, Zacharias claiming Rutland was “innocent” could take on many meanings. Rutland was indeed feeding information to Zacharias, and if Zacharias believed Rutland was taking money from the Japanese and not giving them anything meaningful in return, one could believe Zacharias would see him as innocent. FBI documents regarding Zacharias are heavily redacted and were only released to the public in 2016, suggesting that additional archival material may shed further light on the nature and extent of Rutland’s relationship with the ONI.

Regardless, the Rutland case serves as an important reminder of the nuances that can surround counterintelligence cases. Many or even most of Rutland’s activities were technically legal at the time although they certainly posed a threat to U.S. national security, and the fact that he was not an American citizen added a layer of legal ambiguity in the pre–Pearl Harbor period. His identity as a foreigner and a perpetual outsider among even the British officer class made him the ideal mark for exploitation by a foreign intelligence service and later made him a likely candidate to become a double agent. Finally, the fact that he did little to conceal his activities and deliberately cultivated a larger-than-life persona suggests that these activities were as much about funding his opulent Hollywood lifestyle as ideological commitment. Despite his obvious shortcomings as an agent, his personal associations and connections with men who would become the leadership of Japanese Naval Intelligence led them to place great confidence in an agent who proved to be of comparatively little value at the expense of developing sources and networks that might have been of greater long-term value. Ultimately, Rutland’s ineptitude as a Japanese agent may well have proved to be his greatest contribution to the eventual Allied victory.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ron Drabkin

Ron Drabkin is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor who is active in supply chain, consumer Internet, and education technology. He also mentors Japanese start-ups. His interest in the topics in the article comes from growing up in Los Angeles where his family members were active in intelligence in the mid-1900s. The author can be contacted at [email protected].

Bradley W. Hart

Bradley W. Hart is an Associate Professor at California State University, Fresno. He is the author or coauthor of three books, the most recent of which is the award-winning Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States. The author can be contacted at [email protected].

Notes

1 Memo summarizing interrogations by Hale, 25 July 1943, 574A, KV 2/336, UK National Archives, Kew.

2 “Briton Called Spy for Japan in US,” New York Times, 22 July 1942.

3 E. Press, Clipped Wings: How the Bird Streets Celebrity Enclave Fell from its Lofty Perch, 27 July 2018, https://therealdeal.com/la/2018/07/27/clipped-wings-how-the-bird-streets-celebrity-enclave-fell-from-its-lofty-perch/

4 Memo by Agent HM Kimball for Mr. Foxworth, 30 July 1941, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

5 Memo to Commander Montagu, 18 October 1941, KV 2/332.

6 Letter from Rutland to Hale, 13 November 1941. KV2 2/332, p. 51. Also in KV 2/336.

7 Rutland statement to interviewers Stott, Birkett and Russell, KV 2/333, p. 29 (marked p. 34). These interviewers were the advisory committee for Regulation 18B, noted in Hansard: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1941-04-22/debates/2c084dff-1431-4013-a7f6-fdef7d29e90a/Detentions

8 Statement of the Case, Article 8. KV 2/333, p. 35

9 Case History, Activities in America. P.2 (P.56) KV 2/336.

10 Recommendation for a Restriction or Detainment Order, 8 December 1941, KV 2/332.

11 Interrogation of Rutland, Meeting at Kinnaird House, 27 October 1941. KV 2/332, p. 49. Also in Case History, KV 2-336.

12 D. Young, Rutland of Jutland (London: Cassell, 1963), p. 76.

13 P. Loureiro, “PreWar Japanese Espionage,” 16 June 2015, https://www.slideshare.net/PedroLoureiro12/prewarjapaneseespionagepedroloureiro (accessed 16 November 2020). Louriero is a historian in the U.S. Department of the Navy. At the time of this article, the documents that conclusively demonstrate this relationship had not yet been declassified.

14 A. Best, “Intelligence, Diplomacy and the Japanese Threat to British Interests, 1914–41,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2002), pp. 85–100.

15 K. Kotani, Nihongun no interijensu: Naze jōhō ga ikasarenai no ka (Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 2007), pp. 96–98.

16 M. Everest-Phillips, “Reassessing Pre-War Japanese Espionage: The Rutland Naval Spy Case and the Japanese Intelligence Threat before Pearl Harbor,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 21, No. 2 (2006), pp. 258–285, at p. 265; footnote 38.

17 Ibid., p. 277.

18 Case History by MI5 frequent trips, p. 2 (p. 56 in the file), KV 2/332. FBI was tailing him on the last one on 31 July 1941.

19 Rutland’s main thesis as derived from intercepts, in the case history. KV 2/337, p. 27 or p. 5.

20 Young, Rutland of Jutland, pp. 1–3.

21 Ibid., pp. 7–9.

22 Ibid.

23 Case History, undated, KV 2/332, p. 16. Ironically, the Repulse was sunk by the Japanese Navy in 1941 off Singapore because it was lacking air cover.

24 FBI Memo dated 1 November 1940 by agent EL Cochran. Supervising agent in charge name not legible, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

25 Young, Rutland of Jutland, p. 10.

26 Rutland Case History, p. 24. KV 2/332.

27 Cases in connection with the Air Ministry, memo to Commodore Newell. KV 2/328, p. 15.

28 In 1923, the Air Ministry and Admiralty noted that under no circumstances should he be employed again by either. Memo from Group Captain Stammers, 8 October 1941, KV 2/331, p. 78.

29 Case History, undated, KV 2/332, p. 16.

30 Case History, undated, KV 2/332, p. 17. See also letter dated 8 June 1925, KV-2-328, p. 22 where it mentions the very high salary.

31 Case History, undated, KV 2 328/27; K. Budge, “Kuwabara Torao (1887–1975),” The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (2009), http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/K/u/Kuwabara_Torao.htm (accessed 14 November 2020).

32 “The British Aeronaval Technical Mission to Japan (the ‘Sempill Mission’), 1921–1923 (n.d.), https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205092638 (accessed 4 November 2020). Sempill was also found by MI5 to be paid by the Japanese government for espionage.

33 Memo to SG Menzies, 11 August 1924, KV 2/328, p. 36; Memo from J.O. 22 July 1934 KV 2/328, p. 47, Memo from a source not legible, 18 September 1934. KV 2/338, p. 32.

34 Profile of Shiro Takasu, IJN. FE1142, KV 2/332, p. 10.

35 Letter from Rutland to Takasu, 16 November 1932, KV 2/328, p. 9.

36 “Takasu would not hear of any location other than Los Angeles” in the case files, KV 2/337, p. 23.

37 Case History from MI5. 30 September 1941, p. 55. KV 2/332.

38 Memo in Rutland’s interrogation, p. 11, KV 2/332. 25 October 1941.

39 Shinkawa Final Arrangements, Telegram from Japan Naval Attaché London to DNI Tokyo, 30 August 1933, KV 2/338, p. 5, p. 55.

40 Telegram from Naval Attaché London to DNI Tokyo, 18 June 1935. KV 2/339, p. 28.

41 Telegram from Naval Attaché London to DNI Tokyo, 4 June 1935, KV 2/339, p. 39.

42 Rutland request to DNI embedded in the Telegram from Naval Attaché to DNI Tokyo, 22 May 1935, addressed as “Dear Takasu.” KV2-339, p. 52; Telegram from DNI Tokyo to Naval Attaché London, 29 June 1935, KV 2/339, p. 18.

43 Change in Alias, Telegram from DNI Tokyo to Japanese Naval Attaché London. KV 2/338, p. 47; Telegram from DNI Tokyo to Naval Attaché in London, 29 March 1934, KV 2/338, p. 60.

44 KV 2/339.

45 KV 2/339, Telegram from Arata Oka, Japanese Naval Attaché in London, to DNI Tokyo.

46 KV 2/332.

47 Registration as an American Citizen, Consul General of the United States in Japan, issued 8 June 1909, www.ancestry.com (accessed 24 October 2020).

48 “About Us.” (n.d.). https://www.cornes.co.jp/en/aboutus/ (accessed 24 October 2020).

49 R. Thomas, “Winding Back the Years in Yokohama's Yamate District” (n.d.), https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/12/14/travel/yokohamas-yamate-district/ (accessed 24 October 2020).

50 Young, Rutland of Jutland, p. 83. Also mentioned in Kew intercepts.

51 Letter from Special Agent Arthur Cornelius to Los Angeles Postmaster Mary Briggs, 16 October 1940, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

52 Manley had lived his whole life in Japan. He and his wife sailed to the United States in 1939 and in 1940 were living in San Francisco (immigration record, Empress of Canada, 25 March 1939; 1940 U.S. Census). After the war started, they moved to Colorado to prevent Mrs. Manley from being impacted by the evacuation of Japanese and Japanese Americans (FBI report by Robert Hawley, 20 July 1943, prepared for SAC EJN Pieper, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File). Following interviews, the FBI did not find any reason to investigate the Manleys further.

53 K. Kotani, Japanese Intelligence in World War II (Oxford: Osprey, 2009), Chapter 3.

54 Telegram from DNI Tokyo to Japanese Naval Attaché London, 11 May 1935, KV 2/338, pp. 4 and 20.

55 “The 200 Year Pound to Dollar Exchange Rate History—From $5 in 1800s to Today’s $1.29” (n.d.), https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/articles/1325/the-200-year-pound-to-dollar-exchange-rate-history-from-5-in-1800s-to-todays.html (accessed 4 November 2020).

56 P. Rowe, “Spy Story: A 1930s Scandal Seduces Local Writer,” 20 September 2012, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-spy-story-1930s-scandal-seduces-local-writer-2012sep19-story.html

57 Joint Tenancy Deed, 18 July 1935. Retrieved from the Los Angeles County Clerk Office, 10 July 2020.

58 Young, Rutland of Jutland, p. 90.

59 Ibid. First-person interview with author’s friends who were presidents of the British United Services Club.

60 Ibid., p. 91.

61 The Pearl Harbor Visitors Bureau, “The History of the U.S. Pacific Fleet“(n.d.), https://visitpearlharbor.org/history-U.S.-pacific-fleet (accessed 24 October 2020).

62 The Del Monte still exists in 2020 under a different name. “Townhouse & The Del Monte Speakeasy” (n.d.), https://maps.roadtrippers.com/us/venice-ca/food-drink/townhouse-the-del-monte-speakeasy; Rutland Case History. KV 2-333_1 (accessed 29 November 2020), p. 44.

63 FBI Memo dated 12/5/40 by agent RB Hood to J. Edgar Hoover; FBI Memo dated 11/1/40 by agent EL Cochran. Supervising agent in charge name not legible. Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

64 “Over the last year he has provided no information of value.” Memo from Japanese Naval Attaché London to DNI Tokyo, 1 May 1935. KV 2/338, p. 13; “The last year was wasted on war preparation,” Memo from Japanese Naval Attaché London to DNI Tokyo, 8 May 1935, KV 2/338, p. 16.

65 Budge, “The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia.”

66 Letter from Kuwabara to Rutland, 19 June 1926, transcribed in KV 2/337, Case history 286a, p. 5 or p. 27.

67 Oka Arata no gaiyou. (n.d.), https://www.weblio.jp/wkpja/content/%E5%B2%A1%E6%96%B0_%E5%B2%A1%E6%96%B0%E3%81%AE%E6%A6%82%E8%A6%81 (accessed 29 November 2020).

68 Telegram from Japanese Naval Attaché London to DNI Tokyo. No. 36, 9 May 1935. KV 2/338, p. 8; Rutland’s letter to Roger Keyes, 3 November 1942, KV 2/335, pp. 51, 55.

69 Telegram from DNI Tokyo to the Japanese Naval Attaché; London, 26 August 1933, KV 2/338, p. 9.

70 Left for the Imperial Hotel, 1939, KV 2/337, p. 2 (labeled p. 30). Booked the Imperial Hotel, 1933, KV 2/337, p. 21.

71 Wesley Smith, “The March of Finance, British buying of American Securities, Broker Describes Difference in Market Operations,” Los Angeles Times, 9 February 1936.

72 “Rutland to Leave on Trip to Japan,” Los Angeles Times, 25 November 1936.

73 “Voyageurs Honored,” Los Angeles Times, 1 March 1939.

74 Memo from Japan Naval Attaché London to DNI Tokyo, 17 March 1934. KV2-338, p. 68.

75 Case Summary, KV 2/333, p. 44 (p. 5); Young, Rutland of Jutland, p. 90.

76 FBI Memo dated 11/1/40 by agent EL Cochran. Supervising agent in charge name not legible.

77 Young, Rutland of Jutland, p. 90.

78 Shinkawa’s Duties. Telegram from DNI Tokyo to Naval Attaché London, 20 March 1935, no. 61, KV 2/338, p. 20.

79 Rutland statements in interview a month after he was detained to Stott, Russell and Birkett, KV 2/333, p. 11.

80 Notes from JLS Hale on Meeting at Kinnaird House, 27 October 1941, KV 2/332_2, p. 30.

81 T. Matthews, Shadows Dancing (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), p. 68.

82 Shoulder Arms (n.d.), https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0009611/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm (accessed 9 November 2020).

83 D. D. Lowman, Magic: The Untold Story of US Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast during WW II (Eagle Mountain, UT: Athena Press, 2001), p. 145.

84 A. Hynd, “Mr. Kono and Mr. Blake,” Esquire, 1 January 1944. https://classic.esquire.com/article/1944/01/01/mr-kono-and-mr-blake (accessed 19 November 2020).

85 Federal Bureau of Investigation. Itaru Tachibana and Toraichi Kono espionage case, Pedro Loureiro Collection. (n.d.). http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll12/id/19941 (accessed 19 November 2020), p. 403. Blake refers to a “house in the Hollywood Hills,” which is Rutland’s.

86 P. York, “Blake v. Hearst Publications Incorporated,” 19 June 1946, https://casetext.com/case/blake-v-hearst-publications-incorporated (accessed 29 November 2020).

87 Kotani, Japanese intelligence in World War II, Chapter 3.

88 Rutland Case Files, KV 2/333, bullet #51, p. 46. Timeline of Rutland’s activities, quote from Rutland’s partner Edwards, number 109. KV 2-332.

89 Report of Special Agent A Legrand to the Director of the FBI. 30 September 1943, p. 17. Letter from Rutland to K Sonoda, found in a manila envelope in Rutland’s house when the FBI searched it on 11 September 1943. Letter dated 17 December 1937. Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

90 KV 2/332, p. 14; Memo from EH Cochran to the Director of the FBI. 14 October 1940, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

91 Kotani, Japanese Intelligence in World War II, Chapter 3.

92 Rutland statement to GE Daniel, 14 October 1941, KV 2/331.

93 Matthews, Shadows Dancing, Chapter 1.

94 Memo to the FBI Director from the Los Angeles office, October 25, 1940, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

95 FBI agents followed Rutland on his trip to Mexico City via Brownsville, Texas. Memo by MC Spear for Mr PE Foxworth, 31 July 1941, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File; Magic Intercept STS 112.

96 KV/2/334.

97 Answers Rutland gave to his interrogation by the FBI, as quoted by memorandum by JLS Hale, 23 July 1943, KV 2/336, marked p. 2, file page 11.

98 Notation in the Memorandum for Stott, 14 June 1943, KV2-336, p. 53.

99 E. J. Drea, MacArthur’s ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War against Japan, 1942-1945 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), p. 13.

100 Y. Sanematsu, “Joho Sakusen ni Tsuite (Zensho) [Regarding Intelligence Operations (Volume 1)].” Military Archives, the National Institute for Defense Studies, December 1956, pp. 201–207.

101 FBI Memo from AH Belmont to Mr. Parsons, 16 September 1960, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

102 Telegram from FBI Los Angeles office to FBI Headquarters 23 August 1940, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

103 Everest-Phillips, “Reassessing Pre-War Japanese Espionage,” p. 274.

104 D. Pfeiffer, “Sage Prophet or Loose Cannon?” (2008), https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2008/summer/zacharias.htm (accessed 29 November 2020).

105 E. M. Zacharias (n.d.), https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/research-guides/modern-biographical-files-ndl/modern-bios-z/zacharias–ellis-m-.html (accessed 29 November 2020).

106 Pfeiffer, “Sage Prophet or Loose Cannon?”

107 DM Ladd, Memorandum for the Director, 22 July 1942, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

108 Letter from Rutland to Roger Keyes, 3 November 1942, KV 2/335, p. 054.

109 DM Ladd, Memorandum for the Director of the FBI, 22 July 22.

110 Notes from JLS Hale on Meeting at Kinnaird House, 27 October 1941, KV 2/332, p. 30.

111 “Japan Navy Officer Held in Spy Plot,” Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1941, p. 1. Details on files found in Tachibana and Okada are in the FBI memo by AD Horn, Synopsis of facts, 17 June 1941, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll12/id/19941, pp. 60–80.

112 P. Loureiro, “The Imperial Japanese Navy and Espionage: The Itaru Tachibana Case,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence (1989), pp. 105–121. doi:10.1080/08850608908435094. Published online 9 January 2008; DM Ladd, Memorandum for the Director of the FBI, 22 July 1942; Memo from Young to Armitage. 12 August 1942. KV 2/335, p. 84, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll12/id/19941 p.207 and p. 238.

113 Memo from Loftus Brown to Courtenay Young, 28 August 1942, KV 2-335, p. 71. Addendum from Loftus 28 August 1942, KV 2/335, pp. 72–74.

114 Young, Rutland of Jutland, pp. 91–98.

115 Letter from JBS Hale to Duff Cooper, 23 November 1942. KV 2/335, p. 47.

116 Report MI5 received from the FBI, 2 December 1941. KV 2/332, p. 28.

117 FBI Memo from AH Belmont to Mr. Parsons, 16 September 1960, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

118 File on Rutland, KV 2/337, p. 1.

119 Unsigned Letter to Rutland, 17 November 1941. KV 2/332, p. 49.

120 Order from Hale with DR Form 8. 8 December 1941, KV 2/332 p. 22.

121 Young, Rutland of Jutland, p. 174.

122 Memo from Courtenay Young, 16 December 1943. KV 2/-336, p. 39.

123 Young, Rutland of Jutland, p. 180.

124 Section on the Continental United States. Japanese Intelligence and Propaganda in the United States during 1941. Office of Naval Intelligence, 4 December 1941, http://www.mansell.com/eo9066/1941/41-12/IA021.html (accessed 24 October 2020).

125 E. Hori, Daihon'ei sanbō no jōhō senki: Jōhōnaki kokka no higeki (Tōkyō: Bungei Shunjū, 1989), p. 97.

126 Everest-Phillips, “Reassessing Pre-War Japanese Espionage,” p. 264.

127 FBI Memo from AH Belmont to Mr. Parsons, 16 September 1960, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.

128 Rutland request to DNI embedded in the Telegram from Naval Attache to DNI Tokyo, 22 May 1935, addressed as “Dear Takasu.” KV2-339, p. Parsons, 16 September 1960, Major Frederick Joseph Rutland, alias Augie Manley; Espionage, FBI File.