The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 6 | Number 1 | Article ID 3299 | Feb 08, 2010

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Sorge's Spy is Brought in From the Cold: A Soviet-OkinawanConnection ゾルゲのスパイ正体を現すーーソヴィエトと沖縄のつながり

Edan Corkill, Chalmers Johnson

Sorge's Spy is Brought in From theCold. A Soviet-Okinawan Connection

Edan Corkill with an introduction byChalmers Johnson

Long reviled in his homeland and all butforgotten by Moscow, an Okinawan formerSoviet agent in Tokyo is finally accorded therecognition and respect that his devoted niecehas sought for so long

Introduction: The Case of Miyagi Yotoku

The Sorge espionage case concerns one of themost spectacular instances of clandestineinfluence in the history of internationalrelations. In the mid-1930s, the former SovietUnion enlisted the German national, Dr.Richard Sorge and four others in Tokyo,secretly to collect information on the likelypolicies of the Japanese government and to dowhat it could to alter them in favor of peace.This concerned above all whether Japan wouldjoin Nazi Germany in an attack on the U.S.S.R.Since Germany had already virtually defeatedRussia in the summer of 1941, had Japan joinedGermany it would have meant the probablevictory of the Axis powers over Russia. As itwas Russia and Japan maintained theirneutrality vis-à-vis each other until the finalmonths of World War II, one of the mostamazing achievements of Soviet espionage andsecret operations in history. Sorge did notsurvive the defeat of Nazi Germany, but theSoviet Union and its successors havecelebrated his achievements ever since.

Sorge found the following four individuals toassist him in his mission: Ozaki Hotsumi, seniorJapanese journalist on China and a clandestineconspirator hoping to prevent a Sino-Japanesewar; Max Clausen, who worked as a richbusinessman in Tokyo in the export-importindustry to cover his activities as the ring'schief radio operator for contacting Russia;Branko Vukelic, a senior journalist for theFrench Havas News Agency and a major sourceof information for the ring on trends ininternational relations; and Miyagi Yotoku, anart i s t f rom Okinawa who was l i v ing penuriously in Japan and assisting Sorge bytranslating Japanese documents into English.They were all crypto-Communists but each hadpersonal motives for being involved in the workof the Communist International, motives thatoften clashed with the official policies of theSoviet Union. The diverse functions, abilities,and networks of the five principal members ofthe ring never melded easily, and thecomplexities of their personalities andinteractions contributed greatly to theemergencies and misunderstandings that ofteninfluenced their work as spies. The Japanesegovernment hanged Sorge and Ozaki duringthe war, Vukelic and Miyagi died in prison, andonly Clausen survived the war.

Thus far in the history of the ring, we havecomprehensive biographies and analyticalstudies of the lives of the two most prominentmembers -- Sorge and Ozaki. But we knowrather less about Vukelic, Clausen, and Miyagi.Ideally we would like to know about theirfamil ies , motives for support ing the

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internationalist leftist movement, and doubts (ifany) about the overt leadership of thecommunists. We now have the excellent reportof the Japan Times' journalist Edan Corkill onwhat friends and descendants of Miyagi havediscovered about one of the most enigmaticfigures in the Sorge ring. Corkill's mostimportant informant on Miyagi was TokuyamaToshiko, today aged 81 and living in LosAngeles, who knew her famous uncle, Yotoku,for only a short period before the war whenthey were living in Okinawa, Nonetheless, shehas devoted much of her adult life to refutingthe official Japanese line that Miyagi Yotokuwas a "treasonous communist" in favor of thebelief that he was an idealist, deeply disturbedby the racial discrimination he encountered inCalifornia and by the official Japanesemistreatment of Okinawans. Miyagi alsodisliked the Japanese contempt for theillustrious history of the Ryukyu kingdom(contemporary Okinawa) before it was forciblyannexed into the Japanese empire. Theseattitudes had as much to do with his growingcommunist radicalism as Bolshevik ideology.

Among the many contributions made byTokuyama to our understanding of Miyagi'swilling participation in the Sorge ring is theinformation that he was born and raised inNago, Okinawa. This bit of data has come tohave great ironic significance in contemporarytimes because Nago is the site of the Americanmilitary base, Camp Schwab, and because theAmerican military has chosen it as the futurelocation of Marine Corps Air Station, Futenma(Okinawa) despite the enormous controversythis continued American presence hasgenerated. Even though during the war andafter Miyagi's arrest, the Japanese andOkinawans themselves shunned his relatives,today Nago takes credit for its early oppositionto America militarism and the idealist modelMiyagi exemplified. It is extremely doubtfulthat American soldiers based in Nago have anyidea that Miyagi Yotoku ever lived there or thathe devoted his life to fighting Japanese

militarism, just as his Japanese and Okinawandescendants today have finally becomemobilized to the threat to Japanese peace andprosperity posed by the American occupiersand their official Japanese allies.

Edan Corkill and his Okinawan informants havemade several important contributions to ourknowledge about not only Miyagi Yotoku butalso the misuse of Okinawan territory byJapanese and American militarists. I stronglyendorse h i s t rea tment o f Miyag i ascommunicated to him by Tokuyama Toshiko.We must now hope that his work stimulatessuccessors to come forward and reveal to usthe details of the recruitment, activities, anddestinies of Branko Vukelic and Max Clausen.We will then have a much fuller understandingof the role of the Sorge ring in the liberation ofthe Japanese people.

I am also amazed and gratified that 46 yearsafter I first published my book about Ozaki (AnInstance of Treason, Stanford University Press,1964) and 20 years after Stanford issued arevised and updated edition, Iwanami is re-translating the book into Japanese. I hope thisis a further sign that young Japanese are re-evaluating the role that the Sorge ring playedduring the war. CJ

Tokuyama Toshiko was 14 years old when shefound out that her uncle had been a spy, andthat he had just died in a prison in Tokyo. Itwas 1943 then, and she was too young to reallyknow what the word "spy" meant, let aloneallow it to alter her impression of the man sherespected like a father.

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Proud moments: Tokuyama Toshiko (above left, and below) at the Russian

Embassy in Tokyo on Jan. 13, 2010, as shereceived the Order of the Patriotic War

(Second Class) posthumously awarded toher uncle, Miyagi Yotoku, in 1964. She is

pictured above with a Russian militaryattaché and Omine Rinichi, a journalist

who helped her lobby Moscow to presentthe Soviet-era medal. (Yoshiaki Miura

Photos)

Of course, for most people around her, andmost of the Japanese population, in fact, theknowledge that between 1933 and 1941 MiyagiYotoku had spied for the Soviet Union against

Japan, and that he had been a member of oneof the most successful spy rings in history,meant only one thing: that this Okinawa-nativewas a traitor to be despised.

But Tokuyama, who is now 81, could neverbring herself to doubt her uncle. For the lasttwo decades, in fact, she and a small group ofsupporters have worked, and to a large extentsucceeded, in reversing history's appraisal ofMiyagi.

Was he a dedicated communist willing tobetray his own country for the good of theSoviet Union? Or was he a more complexcharacter: an idealist with a strong socialconscience, perhaps, or a pacifist hoping toavert war between the USSR and Japan?Gradually Tokuyama and others havechallenged the once prevalent view of Miyagias a "treasonous communist," and they havemanaged to present a more nuanced picture ofthe man. Their ef forts were given anunexpected, if slightly awkward, boost thismonth.

Two weeks ago, Tokuyama traveled from herhome in Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy inTokyo. There, in a low-key ceremony, she waspresented — on her uncle's behalf — with aSoviet-era medal, the grandly-named Order ofthe Patriotic War (Second Class). Russia'sbelated recognition of its former spy,prompted, some believe, by the intervention ofeither President Dmitry Medvedev or PrimeMinister Vladimir Putin, has precipitatedanother flurry of interest in the rapidly evolvinglegacy of a problematic man.

Tokuyama's affection for "Uncle Yotoku" haslasted a lifetime, but it grew out of just fourmonths they spent in each other's companywhen Miyagi returned to his native town ofNago in Okinawa in 1937.

The catalyst for his visit was the 60th birthdayof his father, Yosei (Toshiko's grandfather), andit represented one of the first times that the

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surprisingly itinerant extended Miyagi clan hadall come together in one place.

Even the patriarch of the family, Yosei, hadspent much of his life abroad, chasing workopportunities on farms in the Philippines,Hawaii and finally California. He had been amember of the first generation of Okinawans toventure to the United States, having arrivedthere in around 1906. Before heading abroad,he and his wife, Kamado, had two sons, onealso named Yosei (Toshiko's father) and Yotoku.By 1919, both boys had joined their father inthe United States — Yosei found work on afarm and Yotoku studied painting.

In 1928, the younger Yosei returned toOkinawa and stayed there just long enough tofind a wife and have one child — the nowelderly Toshiko. Soon after that he went backto the U.S. and then Mexico, leaving hisdaughter in the care of his parents. It was withthem that she was living, aged 9, when heruncle visited from Tokyo in 1937.

Stamp of honor: Richard Sorge, theSoviets' Tokyo masterspy executed in

Tokyo in 1944, was commemorated on this1965 4-kopeck Russian stamp.

Tokuyama remembers him clearly. "He was sokind and gentle," she recalled, adding thatwhile he was in Okinawa she often watched himas he did a little work as an artist.

"He made two paintings during those fourmonths," Tokuyama recalled. "One was aportrait for a neighbor and the other was afuneral portrait," she said.

Miyagi had been working as an artist in Tokyo,too — it had become an effective cover for theclandestine work that in 1933 brought himback from California to Japan: spying.

Miyagi can't have been too comfortable inOkinawa in 1937. He had left his colleagues —

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in particular, Ozaki Hotsumi, a journalist withthe Asahi Shimbun newspaper, and his boss,Richard Sorge, a Russian with a Germanpassport who was working as a journalist — atthe very time that the political situationbetween Japan and China was reaching boilingpoint.

So much was happening that was of vitalimportance to Moscow: Regular military flare-ups between the Japanese and Chinese; thethreat of Japanese incursions into Siberia; andthe so-called Anti-Comintern Pact concluded inNovember 1936 between Nazi Germany andJapan that united the Soviet Union's westernand eastern neighbors against it.

Tokuyama remembers the day that Yotoku'ssojourn in Okinawa was cut short. Sorge, shesaid, sent a letter demanding the prompt returnof his protege to Tokyo. "After he read it,Yotoku got my cousin to burn the letter,"Tokuyama said.

Miyagi was gone shortly afterward, leavingbehind two promises he was destined to break.One was to return a bag he borrowed from apainter friend, Terada Takeo, who went on tobecome a leading artist after the war. Theother was to return to Okinawa to paintportraits of his niece and his other relatives.

Miyagi's adoption of the communist causeoccurred while he was living in the U.S. in the1920s, but the seeds of his proletarian socialconscience had been sown as he grew up inOkinawa.

In his testimony to the Japanese police after hiseventual arrest, in 1941, Miyagi explained, "Igained my first political consciousness at thea g e o f 1 4 o r 1 5 a s I l i s t e n e d t o m ygrandfather."

What his grandfather told him was about thehistory of their island home, which had beenpart of the Ryukyu Kingdom before it cameunder the influence of southern Japanese

domains during the Edo Period and wasformally annexed by Japan in 1879.

"My grandfather taught me that one should notoppress the weak," Miyagi told his policeinterrogators. "This provoked in me anantagonism toward the arrogant officials andphysicians who came to Okinawa fromKagoshima (the Kyushu city from whereOkinawa was administered)."

Miyagi headed to California in 1919, afterdiscontinuing his studies at OkinawaPrefectural Normal School due to a chestailment. Like many Okinawans who crossed thePacific at the time, he hoped to find equality,freedom and opportunity in the United States.He did, to an extent, but he also found thatmany Americans looked down on him and hisfellow Asian migrants. Around 1925, in LosAngeles, he established the Shakai MondaiKenkyukai (Association for Research into SocialProblems), a platform to try to improve theirsituation.

The group eventually changed its name toReimei Kai (Society of the Dawn), and around1927 it came under the influence of theCommunist Party of the United States.

Nevertheless, Miyagi's political activitiesappear to have been tempered by his interest inart. Skilled at drawing since childhood, he hadstudied at two art schools since arrivingAmerica: the California School of Fine Arts(now the San Francisco Art Institute) and theSan Diego Public Art School. And it appearsthere were some in his adopted country whorecognized his talent. In the January 1930edition of the New York-based journal, "The ArtDigest," he is singled out in a review of anexhibition of 24 young Los Angeles-basedJapanese artists: "Y. Miyagi is young, only 27years of age. He has worked (in the UnitedStates) for the last ten years. He provides, inmy opinion, the 'clou' of the show. He cannotbe classified in any school. His portrait of alady is beautifully designed and placed in the

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frame with rare sensitiveness. The sympathetic,intelligent and beautiful head is finely modeledand interpreted."

A year before that article, in 1929, Miyagi hadfound a way to combine his two passions. Heand some friends joined together to form thePuroretaria Geijutsu Kai (Proletarian ArtsAssociation) – and although it is difficult toascertain exactly how this affected his artisticoutput, it seems likely he had resolved to puthis artistic talent to use as a means for socialactivism.

Meanwhile, as the artist Miyagi was beginningto flirt with communism in California, the manwho was to become his boss, Richard Sorge,was plying his trade of espionage in Shanghai.While working as a journalist there for theGerman newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung, heestablished contacts with members of theChinese Communist Party and reported toMoscow on the rising tension between theChinese and the growing number of Japanesesoldiers then being stationed in the country.

Sorge was recalled to Moscow in 1932, and itwasn't long before his handlers in the RedArmy's Fourth Department (its military-intelligence wing), set in motion a plan to havetheir Asia specialist sent to the country thathad emerged as the most important in theregion — Japan.

But as Sorge didn't speak any Japanese, it wasclear he would need a Japanese assistant whowas also fluent in English – if not Russian orGerman – and committed to Soviet ideals. Thesearch led to the U.S., then to California — andfinally to a promising painter-cum-activistnamed Yotoku Miyagi.

Tokuyama, Miyagi's niece, is well versed onhow her uncle responded to the request fromMoscow, channeled through the AmericanCommunist Party in autumn 1932, that hereturn to Japan as a spy.

"He refused," she said. "He had no experiencein spying and he asked them to find someonemore suitable."

When they pressed him, she continued, "hesought a commitment that it was only for ashort time, and that as soon as a replacementwas found he would be able to quit." Needlessto say, a replacement was never found.

Miyagi left America in October 1933, found aplace to stay in Tokyo and laid low. Then,following instructions he had been given in LosAngeles, he became an avid reader of a localEnglish-language newspaper called The JapanAdvertiser — a publication that seven yearslater was acquired by The Japan Times.

Art and artifice: A painting ofInagamurasaki, a coastal promontory near

Kamakura, south of Tokyo, by MiyagiYotoku. His work as an artist was

convenient cover for his key role in theSorge spy ring, and also provided him with

a wide range of useful contacts. (NagoMuseum)

Some time between Dec. 6 and 9, 1933, Miyagicame across the classified advertisement hehad been told in Los Angeles to look out for inthe Wanted to Buy section: "Ukiyoe prints byold masters. Also English books on samesubject. Urgently needed. Give details, titles,

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authors, prices to Artist, c/o The JapanAdvertiser, Tokyo."

He answered the advertisement and so came tobe in contact with an intermediary, BrankoVukelic, who arranged his first meeting withSorge.

The venue for that fateful encounter was an artmuseum in Ueno — probably the TokyoMetropo l i tan Ar t Museum. Sorge ' sidentification was a black necktie; Miyagi's wasa blue one. And, just to make sure there was nomistake, they had each been supplied withconsecutively numbered $1 bills.

Despite having no training, Miyagi took tospying quickly. By the time of his trip toOkinawa in 1937, he had become anaccomplished pro.

For one thing, he had established a surprisinglydiverse network of informants: YasudaTokutaro, a Tokyo physician who quizzed hisprominent patients for information; YamanaMasazano, a former member of the CommunistParty who Miyagi dispatched to variouslocations to make observations of militaryfacilities; Yabe Shu, a secretary to an ImperialArmy general named Issei Ugaki; and others.

Miyagi's success in cultivating informantsstemmed in part from his commitment to thecommunist cause. If he was merely a left-leaning artist in the late 1920s, by 1936 he haddeveloped into quite an ideologue, reportedlyexpressing his disapproval of one Manchuria-based collaborator by saying that "According tomy standards, he was not a genuine communistbecause he was going to Manchuria to makemoney."

Despite his stringent standards, Miyagi'snetwork ultimately became so diverse that heeven received notice of orders placed forJapanese soldiers' uniforms — useful indetermining whether the troops were to bedispatched north, to cold climes, or south.

His other job was to translate Japanese reportsand newspaper articles into English for hisboss, Sorge.

However, the first task that awaited Miyagiwhen he returned to Tokyo in mid-1937 was toanalyze the reasons for a recent flare-upbetween Chinese and Japanese forces in China— the epochal, so-called Marco Polo BridgeIncident.

Miyagi's ultimate advice to Sorge was that theconfrontation — which came about after aJapanese soldier went missing during night-time maneuvers — was largely engineered bythe Imperial Japanese Army to direct attentionaway from domestic problems in Japan, andalso to provide an excuse for further expansionof Japanese territory beyond that alreadygrabbed in the northern region of Manchuria.Sorge duly relayed the information to theSoviet Union by radio.

Family secrets: Members of the Miyagifamily gathered in Nago, Okinawa, in 1937,during the spy Miyagi Yotoku 's visit to hishome town at the time of his father's 60th

birthday. His niece, Tokuyama Toshiko,then aged 9, is in the center of the frontrow, between her grandfather, Yotoku's

father, Yosei, and her grandmother,Kamado. Her uncle Yotoku, then already a

key member of Sorge's spy ring for four

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years, is on the far right. The writing onthe photo reads: "In commemoration of the60th birthday of Miyagi Yosei." (Tokuyama

Toshiko Phtoo)

To the extent that the incident mushroomedinto eight years of war in China, Miyagi'sanalysis was spot on.

For Sorge and his handlers in Moscow,however, there was another particularlyinteresting dimension to Miyagi's report: thatJapan's latest engagement with China madenorthward military incursions into Sovietterritory unlikely, at least for the moment.

As it turned out, Japan refrained from engagingthe Soviet Union militarily for about one year.Then, in May and June, 1939, near the town ofNomonhan on the Manchurian- Mongolianborder, the Emperor's forces launched a small-scale attack.

Sorge and his spies were unable to forewarnMoscow of the move, but once hostilitiesbegan, they swung into action.

Their key objective was to determine whetheror not the attack was the first part of a large-scale push, or merely a tentative prod.

Working with one of his newest recruits, anImperial Army corporal named KoshiroYoshinobu, Miyagi determined that Japan wasnot committing large numbers of troops to thecampaign and, most importantly, that noreinforcements were being sent from Japan.Hence, the conclusion was reached that thiswas not the start of a concerted campaign, andSorge was able to convey as much to his Sovietmasters.

Moscow, however, was unwilling to take anychances, and directed more than enoughresources to counter the Japanese. BySeptember 1939, they had prevailed.

Both Miyagi and journalist Ozaki — who by

then, extraordinarily, had been working for twoyears as an adviser to Prime Minister KonoeFumimaro (who had recently resigned) — nextpredicted that the unfortunate outcome of theso-called Nomonhan Incident would likely deterthe Japanese from messing with the Sovietsagain. This and other analysis enabled Sorge toadvise his handlers, in September 1941, thatJapan would not invade the USSR.

Some historians have suggested that this wasone of the most important pieces of intelligencegained in any theater of World War II, becauseit allowed the Soviets to divert troops from theeastern regions of the USSR to the west, wherethey could fend off, and ultimately repel, aGerman invasion that at one point took theNazis to within sight of Moscow.

Sorge of course was not entirely reliant onMiyagi and his other Japanese collaborators.

Crime scene: Tokyo Metropolitan ArtMuseum in Ueno prior to its rebuilding in

the 1970s. Research by Yoneda Tomoko, anartist who has made a series of

photographs about the Sorge spy ring,suggests that Miyagi first met Sorge here,

in December, 1933, before going on towork for him until he was arrested in1941. (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum)

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One of his greatest achievements — as asupposedly German journalist in Tokyo — wasgaining intelligence on Operation Barbarossa,the blitzkrieg advance that launched the Naziinvasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.Through his contacts in the German Embassy,he reportedly gave Moscow prior warning ofthat operation — and even correctly predictedits starting date to within days.

However, that intelligence — which shouldhave accorded Sorge enormous kudos inMoscow — had been, unknown to him then,largely ignored. The reason was that his initialhandler, the one-time head of the Red Army'sFourth Department, Ian Berzin, had fallen foulof the Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin, and beenexecuted in 1938 in one of Stalin's manymurderous and paranoid purges. Suspicionthen fell on all Berzin's agents, and soon Stalinreportedly decided that Sorge was a doubleagent. After that, it is unclear how much of theinformation he provided to Moscow was actedupon.

By 1941, however, Sorge and his associateshad more to worry about than how they wereperceived in Moscow.

In September that year the Tokubetsu KotoKeisatsu (Special Higher Police) arrested one ofMiyagi 's associates, who one of theirinformants had told them was a spy. In asuccessful bid to clear her own name, thatassociate denounced Miyagi, who then namedOzaki and Sorge. By the end of October, all themembers of Sorge's spy ring had been roundedup, and they had all made confessions.

Miyagi, who had never fully recovered from thechest ailment he suffered in childhood, died inSugamo Prison in Tokyo in the middle of histrial in 1943. He was 40 years old. Ozaki andSorge were tried, convicted of spying andeventually hanged, in 1944.

The tug-of-war struggle over Miyagi'sreputation began almost as soon as he had

passed away.

News of his demise and of his involvement in aspy ring arrived in his hometown of Nago inlate 1943, in the form of a short notice in theAsahi Shimbun.

The local reaction was swift and ruthless.Miyagi was denounced as a traitor. The townoffice erased his family-registry entry, meaningthat he had officially never existed, and thetownsfolk ostracized his mother —TokuyamaToshiko 's grandmother, Kamado.

"I was still a student and I had friends atschool, so it was OK for me," Tokuyamaexplained. "But my grandmother had a terribletime."

Miyagi's niece never wavered in her support forher uncle. "We didn't even know what a spywas when we first heard the story," Tokuyamasaid. "It didn't matter what people said. To me,he was always my uncle and I never doubtedhim."

Vindication: At the Russian Embassy inTokyo on Jan. 13, 2010, Russia's

Ambassador to Japan, Mikail Bely,presents Tokuyama Toshiko with the Orderof the Great Patriotic War (Second Class)

awarded posthumously to her uncle,

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Miyagi Yotoku, in 1964. (Yoshiaki MiuraPhoto)

Nevertheless, things didn't improve for themembers of the Miyagi clan who remained inOkinawa. By 1958, Tokuyama had had enough.On May 1 that year she left the island to joinher father, who was then in Mexico.

"Because of the way the people in Nago weretreating my grandmother," she said, "I decidedI would never return."

Oddly enough, just one year before Tokuyamaabandoned Nago, a chain of events was set inmotion that would ultimately lead to a sharpreversal in her uncle's reputation.

In 1957, the French film director Yves Ciampimarried Japanese actress Keiko Kishi. Threeyears later he made a film about Sorge and hisfellow spies, titled "Qui êtes-vous MonsieurSorge?" ("Who are you Mr. Sorge?"). Releasedin Europe in 1960, the film also came to theattention of then Soviet Premier NikitaKhrushchev, who saw it in Moscow inmid-1964.

Ironically, at this point in history, Sorge's talewas largely unknown in the Soviet Union — thelingering result of him having been denouncedby Stalin. (The story was better known in theU.S., as the Occupation forces in Japan lookedinto it after the war, and released a report in1949.)

Khruschev's reaction to the film is recorded inthe memoir of a former Red Army generalnamed Vyacheslav Bunin, portions of whichwere translated into Japanese and published in2003 by the private Japan-Russia HistoricalResearch Center under the title "Isshun"("Moment").

According to Bunin, Khruschev saw the filmand asked, "Why didn't we know anythingabout his activities? He's our spy. Why didn'twe make such a great movie about him?"

The Soviet Premier commissioned a report andin late 1964 the Presidium of the SupremeSoviet decided that the long-forgotten RichardSorge would be made a "Hero of the SovietUnion" — the nation's highest honor. Thefamilies of both Sorge and another deceasedRussian member of the group, Branko Vukelic— who had arranged the first meeting betweenSorge and Miyagi — would also be awarded theequivalent of ¥1.5 million each.

It was also decided that Ozaki Hotsumi andMiyagi Yotoku would be honored with theOrder of the Patriotic War — an award forservice in World War II. However, the next-of-kin of the Japanese spies were not informed ofthis.

Mastermind: Soviet spy Richard Sorgepictured in Japan in 1940, a year before his

arrest. (German Federal Archive)

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The Soviet awakening to Sorge's storyprompted a new wave of interest in the spy ringin Japan. One of the journalists to startsnooping around was Rinichi Omine, afreelancer who, like Miyagi, hailed fromOkinawa.

In 1990, Omine played a role in organizing anexhibition of paintings by Miyagi Yotoku thatwas held in Nago and Naha, Okinawa.According to Omine, it was this event thatstarted to sway local opinion about the son theyhad renounced.

"When I first went to research Miyagi inOkinawa, the whole atmosphere was bad," the72-year-old journalist recalled. "He was seen asa traitor. Some people said they had nothing totalk about. Others threw buckets of water atme."

But then, articles and essays written tocoincide with the exhibition started filling outthe details of Miyagi's life, in particular, thefact that his adoption of communism hadstemmed in part from a desire to resistdiscrimination against Japanese and otherAsian migrants in the United States.

In 2003, further reconsideration of Miyagi's lifewas made in a symposium held in Nago tocommemorate the centenary of Miyagi's birth.The event, which was organized by Omine andothers, was sufficient to tempt his nieceTokuyama back to Okinawa for a brief visit.

In 2006, a monument to the painter-spy waserected in a small park near Nago Museum.Articles in local newspapers at the time hailedhim as "an artist who longed for peace,"explaining that his ultimate goal in spyingagainst his country was to avoid war between itand the USSR.

"With the monument, I felt we had managed torestore Miyagi's reputation in Japan,"Tokuyama said.

What played on Tokuyama and Omine's minds,however, was Miyagi's reputation in Russia, thecountry , or at least the present -daymanifestation of the country for which he gavehis life.

Particularly grating was the fact that the Sovietmembers of the spy ring had been turned intonational heroes.

About two years ago, Omine and Tokuyamabegan sending letters to Russia to try toascertain what had happened to the awardsthat the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet hadearmarked for Ozaki and Miyagi in 1964.

Drawing on Bunin's writings, they directedtheir inquiries to Vyacheslav Sivko, president ofthe Regional Public Fund for Support of Heroesof the Soviet Union and Russia, in Moscow.

Sivko's reply, which Tokuyama received inJanuary last year, wasn't encouraging.

"In response to your inquiry, a specialist in theDepartment of Awards at the President of theRussian Federation explained to us that in thecase of your uncle, who was awardedp o s t h u m o u s l y , t h e c o r r e s p o n d i n gOrder/Certificate of the President of the USSRwas issued, but the actual medals anddocuments for them have not been produced,because the relevant person was no longeralive."

Not easily discouraged, Omine decided thatthere was only one course of action remaining:writing directly to President Dmitry Medvedevand Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

With the help of a recently acquired Russianfriend, Vera Varshavsky, and Tokuyama'sdaughter, San Diego-based Noriko Chung, theletters were prepared and sent in mid-2009.They were deliberately blunt, pointing out inparticular Tokuyama's disappointment at theperceived unequal treatment of the Russianand Japanese members of Sorge's team.

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The response came in late December. Ominereceived a letter from the Russian Embassy inTokyo saying that the original medal intendedfor Miyagi Yotoku — an Order of the PatrioticWar (Second Class) — along with i tsaccompanying certification, had been"discovered" in a government building inMoscow. Both the medal and certificate wereawaiting collection at the Tokyo embassy.

Omine and Tokuyama wasted no time. Omineflew in from his home in Okinawa; Tokuyamafrom hers in Los Angeles.

It was on the morning of their init ialappointment at the Russian Embassy that theyspoke to The Japan Times.

In his excitement, Omine had left both theEmbassy's letter and the charger for his digitalcamera at home. Tokuyama, by contrast, wascomposed, but nevertheless thrilled at thethought of receiving the medal.

"When I get the medal I will take it down toNago and donate it to the Nago Museum,where Yotoku's paintings are kept," she said."They have all his things now."

The ceremony took place on the afternoon ofJanuary 13 — exactly 67 years since Miyagidied and 46 years since the Soviets hadoriginally decided to honor him. The medalitself was a red enamel star emblazoned with ahammer and sickle and an inscription inRussian that read "The Great Patriotic War."The Russian Ambassador commended Miyagi'scontribution to the "defeat of fascism," as astout-looking military attache looked on. Afterthanking the Russians, Tokuyama Toshikoturned to the 20-odd Japanese journalists whohad witnessed the ceremony.

"My uncle, Yotoku," she stated, "just wanted tocontribute to peace."

Those interested in reading more about theSorge spy ring may care to consult: An Instanceof Treason by Chalmers Johnson (StanfordUniversity Press, 1964; 2nd edition 1990),Stalin's Spy by Robert Whymant (I.B. TaurisPublishers, 1996) Target Tokyo by GordonPrange and others (McGraw-Hill, 1984).

Edan Corkill is a staff writer in the arts,entertainment and features department of TheJapan Times. This is a revised and expandedversion of an article that appeared in The JapanTimes on January 31, 2010. His articles at TheJ a p a n T i m e s c a n b e a c c e s s e d h e r e(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/JTsearch5.cgi?term1=EDAN%20CORKILL).

Chalmers Johnson is the author of An Instanceo f T r e a s o n(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0804717664/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) and of three books on thecrises of American imperialism and militarism.T h e y a r e B l o w b a c k(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805075593/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (2000), The Sorrows ofE m p i r e(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805077979/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (2004), and Nemesis: TheLast Days o f the American Republ ic(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805087281/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (2006). All are available inpaperback from Metropolitan Books. He wrotethis introduction for The Asia-Pacific Journal.

Recommended citation: Edan Corkill andChalmers Johnson, "Sorge's Spy is Brought inFrom the Co ld . A Sov ie t -Ok inawanConnection," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 6-1-10,February 8, 2010.

See also Roger Pulvers interview with DirectorShinoda Masahiro on his film "Spy Sorge(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ff20020424a1.html)".

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(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805075593/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)

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(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805077979/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)

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(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805087281/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)

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