Kempei Tai: The Japanese Secret Service Then and Now

by Richard Deacon

Deacon, Richard

Genres: History, Japan, Nonfiction, Espionage

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1982

About the author

George Donald King McCormick (11 December 1911 – 2 January 1998) was a British journalist and popular historian, who also wrote under the pseudonym Richard Deacon.

Reviews

[carl theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disinformation is a key part of the intelligence game and British author Richard Deacon, if that is indeed his real name, oh wait it’s not! His real name is Donald McCormick.

While it is not unusual to have a pen name in the literary world, the trail on finding out about Deacon/McCormick was at least half the fun of reading this book about the Japanese Secret Service.

Dating back to the 1500s, Japan had a culture of Secret Societies, which became a way of getting things done beneath the surface of everyday life, and a way for the warlords, who ruled a divided Japan, to keep tabs on each other. These societies evolved into a secret service of sorts and provided the basis for modern intelligence services.

It is a fascinating tale how the Kempei Tai aided various Japanese victories through the years. After the Russian defeat at Port Arthur (1905) by the Japanese, they had the Russian Navy so spooked about torpedo boats, that Russian warships mistakenly sank British fishing vessels in the North Sea thinking they were being attacked by the Japanese! Thousands of miles from Japan.

It is interesting to have a British author’s perspective on USA-Japanese relations, especially in the spy game. However Deacon occasionally makes some curious comments, for example, he blames a good part of the start of Word War 2, how’d you like that on your shoulders? on a US Navy Codebreaker, who in 1923, cracked the Japanese code, enabling the USA to pressure Britain into breaking their alliance with Japan, therefore seeding conflict in the East.

On another note, he comments that TE Lawrence was a 'somewhat pathetic and compulsive liar’. That got my curiosity up and I started researching the author. Comments ranged from the polite ‘he knows a good yarn when he sees one’ to out an out fabrication of facts in his books and though he was a popular writer and published many books, one summary is that he had a
‘fraudulent career’.

Wow, so I finished reading Kempei Tai with a different view on what I was reading, maybe some of it was true? I hope it was, it sure was interesting !

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am an Indonesian, and for historically aware (and very old) Indonesian people, the name of Kempei Tai is enough to cause trepidation. The infamous Japanese Secret Police, they were one of the experts of Intelligence in the world, in the mold of Gestapo and NKVD, they were tasked with various intelligence duties. As this book pointed out, the tradition of spying and intelligence gathering in Japan was different from the western world. While in the latter it was viewed as the works of scoundrels and rakes, in Japan it was an honorable and prestigious job, that gained traction as Japan lurched towards ultranationalism and expansionism.

While the book was titled Kempei Tai, this book discussed the history of Japanese intelligence activites, rather than talking about one particular institution. From the earliest known use of intelligence gathering in Japanese Warring Period or Sengoku Jidai, it went on describing Japanese espionage activities on various places and times from its encroachments of China up to its defeat in World War II. After the war, the fulcrum of the espionage activity shifted from military to economy, that Japan used its intelligence capability to support its industrial and commercial ability, enabling it to copy western technology and manufacturing it with better quality and cheaper cost, at least until before China awakened as the next industrial giant.

Over all, although the book is quite old, it was quite informative in describing the whole meaning to Japanese intelligence and espionage history, the importance of spying activity to Japan's history, and its own uniqueness when being compared to other similar institutions.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though it was published in 1983 and a little outdated, the information was enlightening. It surprised me just how brilliant the Japanese were prior to WWII. I mean, their ciphering capabilities were unmatched. After WWII they spent much more on education than defense and their innovations surpassed any other country. I was not aware that Mitsubishi had its origins back in 1616. Today they base their great success on diversity. That's something our government can learn from.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book but cannot say it was very readable. This is largely due to the author using a lot of source material verbatim and ending up with a mixture of many styles. It also seemed lacking in overview, which might have helped put all the pieces into perspective. Perhaps there is not enough known about all the secret societies and secret police to have a good overview, he warned me in the introduction that it was a difficult book to write given the lack of source material.

Still, it was interesting to get away from the pro-western, pro-Allied point of view and see history from a Japanese perspective. It makes sense that the enormous technological change after the Meiji restoration was accompanied by a revolution in intelligence services, one that followed the precepts of Sun Tzu and attempted to make up for centuries of isolation by collecting as much information as possible about the entire world.

[Seth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Agonizing. I would probably appreciate it more now that my brain can penetrate the fog of intricately detailed dry academic history, but my memory is agonizing.