Tokyo and Washington went to great pains in 1996 to conceal the existence of a CIA office in Tokyo, saying that the news could hurt Japan-U.S. relations, according to newly declassified U.S. documents. 

The revelation was contained in the 80,000 pages of documents previously withheld from the public following the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

The document, which is dated March 1996, is titled “Official Acknowledgement of Tokyo Station.”

It is related to the CIA, which has conducted intelligence operations around the world, and disclosed its activities in Japan.

It records an internal exchange among U.S. authorities regarding whether to release documents that would publicly disclose the existence of CIA’s “Tokyo Station” in Japan in the course of the release of information surrounding the assassination.

According to the document, then Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale and others communicated to the United States that they “strongly oppose release to the public of any reference to the existence of a CIA station in Japan.”

It continued, “Such action could have adverse consequences for U.S.-Japan relations at a time when a number of difficult security and economic issues remain unsolved.”

The document points out that “the Japanese government does not publicly admit that it collects intelligence, and as a corollary, does not admit to having liaison relationships with U.S. intelligence agencies.”

Therefore, “Any official confirmation that contradicted earlier Japanese government denials of CIA presence in Japan would be used as a club by the left to attack LDP support for the U.S.-Japan mutual security treaty and the presence of U.S. forces in Japan,” it states.

“With a state visit by the U.S, president fast approaching and delicate negotiations over U.S. bases in Okinawa likely to continue into 1997, this would be a particularly bad time to open the door to additional questions about U.S. activities and intentions in Japan,” the document adds.

In 1994, the New York Times reported that the CIA had given money to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the 1950s and 1960s, which became a major controversy at the time.

The document touches on the issue: “Acknowledgement of CIA presence would also revive old controversies that have largely receded from the headlines. In 1995, the press made a major issue of CIA funding for the LDP in its formative years.”

Any credence given to this story would be a serious political liability to the LDP, the document states.

Therefore, then Foreign Minister and LDP president Yohei Kono “personally asked Ambassador Mondale that the U.S. government not release documents on this subject,” it states.

The document states that Kono explained to Mondale that “the LDP can deal with rumors and even unconfirmed leaks, but official confirmation of CIA activity in Japan would be an entirely different affair, threatening to damage both the conservative political leadership as well as the U.S.-Japan security relationship.”

The document adds that Kono “explicitly impressed on the Ambassador Mondale the need for the U.S. government to hold the line against disclosure.”

The document was, in fact, released in 2017 at the latest, but previously the words, “Japan,” “Tokyo,” and “LDP” were whited out. 

Now, for the first time, these words are all clearly visible.

In 1995, Kono stated at an Upper House Budget Committee meeting, “We have no knowledge of whether or not the CIA exists in Japan, and whether or not the CIA is operating in an organized manner.”

But according to the document, Kono was asking the United States not to officially acknowledge CIA activities in Japan at the time.

Kono’s office on March 31 said that the 88-year-old former speaker of the Lower House, who retired from politics in 2009, “could not be interviewed (on the matter) because it was from 30 years ago and his memory is not certain.”

The CIA is believed to have been active in various locations, including Japan, against the backdrop of the U.S.-Soviet conflict during the Cold War and other factors.

Documents from the 1960s reveal that the CIA at that time had deployed about 3,700 personnel outside the United States, and that 47 percent of the political section staff working in U.S. embassies in various countries were intelligence personnel.

In addition to European cities such as Brussels, Helsinki, Luxembourg, Oslo, Madrid, Stockholm and Geneva, there were documents from the 1990s indicating that the CIA had stations in countries such as India, Tunisia and Morocco.

The CIA had requested that such information be withheld from the public, taking into consideration the circumstances of these governments and their relations with neighboring countries.

Ken Kotani, a professor at Nihon University who specializes in intelligence and international relations, said that the CIA’s presence in Tokyo had been known from official documents and various historical studies.

The historical value of this document is that “it reveals that even in the 1990s, both the U.S. and Japan were trying to conceal its existence,” he said.

In 1995, there were reports that Japanese communications were tapped into by the CIA during automobile negotiations between Japan and the United States.

Kotani believes that at the time the document was produced, the United States was afraid of further deterioration in relations between the two countries.

“If information gathering in the other country were to come to light, it would ruin their friendly relationship,” he said.

Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

Therefore, many of the files disclosed at this time by order of U.S. President Donald Trump contain materials from around that time.

Included in the trove are also relatively recent official documents created in the process of declassification, which began in stages in 1992.

(This article was written by Ryo Takano, correspondent, and Naoki Matsuyama.)