Occupied City (26 page)

I had been told in Khabarovsk that an informal approach had been made to the Americans to interview Ishii, Ōta and Kikuchi. Hence, my presence in Tokyo would be required to conduct the interviews. Comrade Vasiliev confirmed that a low-key approach had been made through the backroom staff of the American IPS. However, the G-2 (Intelligence) Section of the American GHQ had informed Comrade Vasiliev that any such request must be submitted in writing, detailing the reasons for the interrogations.

On my arrival, Comrade Vasiliev was therefore in the process of submitting a formal request to Maj. Gen. Willoughby, chief of G-2, to interrogate Ishii, Ōta and Kikuchi and I was able to assist in the preparation of the request:

‘At the disposal of the Soviet Division of the International Prosecution Section,’ we wrote, ‘there are materials showing the preparation of the Kwantung Army for bacteriological warfare. To present these materials as evidence to the Military Tribunal it is necessary to conduct a number of supplementary interrogations of persons who worked previously in the Anti-epidemic group (Manabu) N731 of the Kwantung Army. These persons are:

1. Lt. Gen. of Medical Corps Ishii, commander of the Anti-epidemic group N731.
   

2. Colonel Kikuchi, Chief of the 1st Section of the Anti-epidemic group N731.
   

3. Colonel Ōta, Chief of the 4th Section (and prior to that, chief of the 2nd Section) of the Anti-epidemic group N731.
   

‘These persons’, we continued, ‘are to testify about research work on bacteria carried out by them for the purpose of using bacteria in warfare and also about cases of mass murders of people as the result of those experiments. I believe that it would be expedient to take preliminary measures preventing the spreading of information concerning this investigation before the investigation is completed and the materials are presented to the Tribunal, i.e., to take from these witnesses certificates to the effect that they promise not to tell anybody about the investigation of these matters and to conduct the preliminary interrogations not in the premises of the War Ministry building.

‘In connection with the above-said, I ask you to render us assistance through the IPS in conducting the interrogations of the said persons on January 13, in premises specially assigned for this purpose, and after taking from them certificates containing promises not to speak about the investigation.

‘Besides that,’ we concluded, ‘I request you to provide the Soviet Division of the IPS with certificates of the whereabouts of Lt. Col. Murakami Takashi, former chief of the 2nd Section of the Anti-epidemic group N731, and Nakatome Kinzo, former chief of the General Affairs Section of the same group. These certificates are needed for the purpose of submitting them to the Tribunal.’

Both Comrade Vasiliev and I felt the letter carried just the right amounts of deference and contempt, promise and threat. Still, I could not help but feel – given all we know that they know and all they know that we know – that our knees were bent, our caps in hands. Then again, if the child does not cry, the mother cannot know it is hungry.
And as long as I get my hour with Ishii, I do not care if I have to beg.

January 12, 1947

Early this morning, before the light, I walked down to Tokyo Bay and I stood on the docks and waited for the dawn. As I watched the faint winter sun struggle up the heavy winter sky, I thought of the thousands of dawns I had seen, the thousands of miles I had walked, over these past ten years, to stand there on those docks, in this city, in that dawn, on this day.

And maybe it was the water and the light, maybe the hour and the season, but I was suddenly beset with childhood memories of post-revolutionary Petrograd in that eerie winter of 1917-18, when the city and its people seemed to have broken free of their moorings, when the city and its people seemed to be floating off somewhere unknown.

Roads are never straight for long; they twist and they turn, they rise and fall, fork and diverge. With or without maps, there are always choices to be made; always choices and always consequences, whether you stay or whether you go, choices and consequences, consequences and farewells.

All those farewells, some said and some unsaid, but all those people still gone, floating off somewhere, somewhere unknown, somewhere down the river, somewhere behind me.

For behind me this morning, on those grey docks, were the ruins of Tokyo, the ruins of Japan, of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, of our Russian Motherland and our Soviet Republics, of Germany and of Europe, all lain flat out behind me, everywhere and everyone collapsed, the cities and the people, the people still suffering.

But in front of me, across that bay, across the ocean, I knew there was America; an America not in ruins, for America has no ruins. America does not know invasion. America does not know siege.
America does not know surrender. America does not know defeat. America does not know suffering as the rest of the world knows suffering.

Between their West and our East, there is not only a curtain, there is a vastness – across plains and over mountains, from the sea to the sky – a vastness and a sorrow. Two worlds now divided, as Comrade Andrei Alexandrovich Zhadanov observed, into the Imperialistic and the Democratic.

And this city and these people would seem to have made their choice, to have chosen their side. And once again, they seem to have chosen the wrong side of the river; once again, the wrong moorings. And though I have been here only three days, this Occupied City is a hard place to like, and its people – both the Occupiers and the Occupied – arouse in me no sense of either fraternity or sympathy.

But as the great Nikolai Vassilyevich Gogol once wrote, ‘It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.’

January 15, 1947

The Americans have been stalling but, finally, early this morning I went to the War Ministry with Comrade Colonel Lev Nicholaevich Smirnov and our interpreter. Comrade Smirnov, along with Comrade Colonel Mark Raginsky, has only recently arrived in Tokyo to assist our prosecution team at the IMTFE, now that the Nuremberg trial has concluded. And though this was the first time I had met Comrade Smirnov, I had of course read in newspapers and other reports of his heroic words as one of our prosecutors at Nuremberg.

The Americans were represented by Lt. Col. McQuail of G-2, Major Keller of the Chemical Warfare Service, a D. L. Waldorf from the International Prosecution Section, and their own interpreter who was very obviously also from G-2.

Of course, the meeting went entirely the way we had predicted it would; Lt. Col. McQuail asked us to explain what information we had which led the USSR to want to interrogate the subjects Ishii, Kikuchi and Ōta. So it was time for us to show our hand, so to speak, as we knew would happen.

Comrade Smirnov began by giving brief details of the capture, ranks and responsibilities of our prisoners Karasawa and Kawashima
(during which the Americans feigned disinterest). Comrade Smirnov then began to detail the information obtained from our interrogations of the prisoners, mainly being the extensive experiments in BW at the Pingfan Laboratory and its associated field experiments, using Manchurian and Chinese bandits as materials, of whom approximately 2,000 are believed to have died as results of these experiments at Pingfan.

It was most interesting and very telling to note the reaction of the Americans to the evil catalogue of horrific murders and gruesome torture through perverted experimentation that Comrade Smirnov detailed for them:
NOTHING
. This proved to us that ‘our friends’ were either already familiar with these details from their own interrogations and sources, or completely devoid of all moral feeling. The only question that Lt. Col. McQuail remembered to ask Comrade Smirnov was in regard to Pingfan; to what extent had it been destroyed and by whom?

To this question, Comrade Smirnov replied that Pingfan had been completely destroyed by the Japanese themselves in their retreat and in an obvious attempt to cover up all evidence. All documents were also destroyed. So thorough was the damage, that our own experts did not even bother to photograph the ruins.

It was hard not to laugh at them,
and also ourselves,
but then Comrade Smirnov let them know we were not there to joke around, to play the fool for them.

‘The Japanese’, he said, ‘have committed a horrible crime, killing 2,000 Manchurians and Chinese, and Ishii, Kikuchi and Ōta were involved. Furthermore, the mass production of fleas and bacteria is very important. At the Nuremberg trials, an expert German witness testified that the spreading of typhus by fleas was considered the best method of BW and it would now seem that the Japanese have this technique. So it would be of value to the USA as well as the USSR to get the information. So it is our request that the Japanese be interrogated without being told they are liable to be charged and prosecuted as war criminals, and that they be made to swear not to tell anyone about the interrogations.’

With these remarks, the meeting concluded with the usual false promises and outright lies of quick replies and further meetings, of consultation and cooperation.

At the door, while the Colonels were trading boasts, this man Waldorf from the IPS suddenly whispered, ‘Tell me honestly Comrade, how long have you really known?’

‘Since the summer of 1938,’ I told him.

‘So long?’ asked Waldorf. ‘But how?’

‘Chyornye voronki,’
I said, knowing then that tonight I’ll dream again of the
chyornye voronki
.

But tonight I will not dream of the
black ravens
of Harbin, driven by the Japanese, to kidnap the Chinese. No, tonight I will dream of other black vans, driven by me. Tonight, I will be driving again down the streets in my second hand leather jacket, streets that lead to forests, forests that lead to graves, and these streets will not be Chinese streets, these forests not Chinese forests, these graves not Chinese graves, the streets will be Russian streets, the forests Russian forests, and my cargo will be Russian cargo, Russian citizens for Russian graves.

January 18, 1947

Was at the cinema in the ballroom below the Foreign Press Club. I went with Comrade B.G. and Comrade B.A. to see
Rhapsody in Blue
. Afterwards, we were joined by two of the American correspondents and we drank and argued once again about who won the war, and who will win the next one.

At the end of the evening, when we had all drunk too much, one of the Americans said to me, ‘So, Comrade, did you enjoy the movie? Do you like Gershwin?’

‘No,’ I said,
but it was a lie for, although I did not like the film, I do like Gershwin.

February 9, 1947

Inquiring daily for decision. Told via IPS channels that our request is still being considered. Of course, from our intercepts of their communications we are fully aware as to the truth of the situation: Uncle Sugar Sugar Roger is being given the good old American-style runaround.

February 27, 1947

Comrade Vasiliev had a ‘full and frank exchange’ of opinions with their Colonel Bethune in regard to our request to interrogate former Lt. Gen. Ishii, et al. First of all, Comrade Vasiliev demanded to know whether or not the interrogations would be permitted. Colonel Bethune stated – through his G-2 interpreter – that no decision had been made as to whether or not the interrogations would take place. Comrade Vasiliev then asked if the location of the subjects – Ishii, et al. – were known. Colonel Bethune stated that if they were in Japan they could be found ‘presumably’.
At this point in this ludicrous charade, I very much wanted to take out my pen and a piece of paper and write down Ishii’s address for him.
Finally, Comrade Vasiliev insisted that the USSR merely wanted information pertaining to war crimes and agreed to make available to American interrogators the documents and the witnesses which we have, if desired. But Colonel Bethune merely reiterated that when the interrogations had been authorized by ‘a higher authority’, then the IPS would be notified. Comrade Vasiliev was not placated and demanded to see Gen. Willoughby in person to resolve the issue. Of course, this demand was denied.

March 7, 1947

Increasingly unpleasant exchanges between ourselves and ‘Our American Friends’ at GHQ. Comrade Lt. Gen. Kusma Derevyanko, our member of the Allied Council for Japan, submitted a memorandum in regard to the ‘stalemate’; there are five Japanese prisoners of ours who ‘our friends’ would like turned over to them for war crimes. Similarly, we request that ‘our friends’ turn over Ishii, et al., for war crimes. As usual, we have been told to wait ‘while Washington is consulted’.

April 12, 1947

Comrade Lt. Gen. Derevyanko finally received a written reply from Willoughby:
Despite no clear-cut war crimes interest by the USSR in acts allegedly committed by the Japanese against the Chinese, permission is granted for SCAP-controlled Soviet interrogations of
Gen. Ishii and Cols. Kikuchi and Ōta as an amiable gesture toward a friendly government. It should be noted, however, that the permission granted in this instance does not create a precedent for future requests, which shall continue to be assessed on their individual merits
.

No doubt now the real waiting will begin while Our Amiable Friends’ in GHQ debrief Ishii and his gang.

May
9,
1947

Today was a day of the greatest jubilation for today was Victory Day in the Soviet Union, marking the end of the Great Patriotic War. But has the Great Patriotic War ended? I remember when the tide turned at the Front, how our newspapers blared forth fanfares, and how our evening skies were lit up by ever more extravagant displays of fireworks. And I also remember looking up at that sky, at those fireworks one night – where? Was I still in Moscow? – and, feeling only sorrow, only anger, I heard from somewhere someone whispering, ‘Be careful, this victory is not what you think it is at all, you will have to answer for it and pay the due retribution …’ And then, of course, I silenced myself; my duty, of course, is to rejoice. Rejoice! Rejoice!