Kodama was born in Nihonmatsu, the fifth son of a down-and-out businessman. In 1920 he was sent to live with relatives in Korea. The experience was unpleasant; he was made to work in a series of grueling industrial jobs, but they sensitized him to the needs and wants of the workers. His flirtation with socialism was brief, however. As Japan embraced political nationalism, so, too, did Kodama. In 1932 he formed the Dokuritsu Seinen Sha (Independence Youth Society), an ultra- rightist youth group that attempted to assassinate various opposition cabinet members and Prime Minister Admiral Makoto Saito. Kodama was arrested and sentenced to serve three and a half years at the Fuchu Penitentiary. In the 1930s the government made good use of Kodama's talents. Touring East Asia on behalf of the Japanese government, according to U.S. intelligence sources, he set up a massive network of Manchurian spies and informants spread across China. During WWII his organization bought and sold radium, cobalt, copper, and nickel-- vital necessities for the Japanese war effort. At times he would barter heroin for minerals and metals. It was, in Kodama's words, "an organization with no thought of profit." By the end of the war in 1945 his industrial empire was worth $175 million. The grateful Japanese hierarchy awarded him with a promotion to rear admiral. Kodama was only thirty-four at the time.
Following the Japanese surrender, Kodama was listed as a Class A war criminal, a designation given only to cabinet officers, ultra-nationalists, and high-ranking military men. He served two years in Tokyo's Sugamo Prison before being granted general amnesty. The reason for his release had more to do with his fervent anti-communism than the allies' desire to prosecute key figures who fueled the Japanese war machine. Kodama possessed valuable inside information about Communist insurgents in China and Japan, and as the second wealthiest man in Japan, his illegal fortune opened many doors. In 1955 the Liberal Party merged with the Democratic Party to form the LDP, or Liberal-Democratic Party, which has guided Japan's political destiny ever since. In a few short years Kodama emerged as its principal spokesman and the most powerful individual in the coalition.
From the beginning Kodama relied on the yakuza to carry out strong-arm tactics against political opponents. In 1949 he directed the Meiraki-gumi into battle with militant labor unions which threatened a work stoppage at the Hokutan Coal Mine. The U.S. CIA also found Kodama useful. In 1949, for example, CIA operatives in East Asia gave him $150,000 to smuggle a shipload of tungsten out of China. The ship never arrived. The cagey Kodama pocketed the money and told embassy personnel the vessel had sunk in transit. Kodama Yoshio was a criminal visionary who streamlined and modernized the yakuza. He strengthened the LDP by forging a coalition of the Kakusei-kai gang and the Inagawa- kai in October 1972. It was Kodama's greatest coup, and it came to pass after nine years of careful planning and deliberation. Kodama Yoshio, far from being a street criminal himself, condemned the actions of juvenile gangs. "There are too many petty hoodlums," he complained. "It made me angry to see them loitering around and causing trouble to the passersby. That is why I tell the oyabun to rectify their own character first and control the petty hoodlums themselves." His standards did not apply to the higher levels of organized crime, however, which he successfully integrated into the mainstream of Japanese politics.
Kodama emerged as Japan's most powerful figure in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He commanded the respect of the government and the yakuza alike and was worth millions of dollars. In 1976 the empire began to teeter in the wake of damaging revelations about $2.1 million in payoffs given to Kodama by officials of the Lockheed Corporation who were seeking an advantage in the Japanese market. Facing stiff competition from Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas in foreign markets, Lockheed solicited Kodama's help in selling their new wide-bodied passenger airplane, the TriStar L1011. Kodama relied on familiar yakuza techniques to force the resignation of Tetsuo Oba, president of All Nippon Airways. At a stockholders' meeting, Kodama packed the room with "sokaiya" - financial specialists - who leaked information about an illegal $1 million loan which had been paid to Oba. In disgrace, ANA's president stepped down to be replaced by a candidate favorable to Kodama's interests. The Lockheed scandal slowly unfolded after July 1972 when Kakuei Tanaka became prime minister. In 1976 Lockheed's president, Carl Kotchian, appeared before a U.S. Senate investigating committee to answer questions about the sale of the TriStar aircraft. The scandal created an uproar in the Japanese press. Tax officials began probing Kodama's financial affairs, resulting in his eventual arrest. The Tokyo police, armed with reams of paper, accused him of evading an additional $6 million in taxes for business deals unrelated to Lockheed. So deep were the wounds that a young film actor named Mitsuyasu Maeno attempted a kamikaze mission against Kodama's house on Mar. 23, 1976. Maeno deeply admired Kodama, but was stung by the evidence of wrongdoing. So he decided to crash his plane into the roof of Kodama's home in the Tokyo suburb of Setagaya.
The attack was a failure. Maeno lost his life. Kodama survived, only to face a worse ordeal. The aging "kuromaku" was indicted for bribery, perjury, and violation of the exchange laws, but due to his failing health the trial was postponed. He suffered a stroke on Jan. 17, 1984, and died quietly. In one of his last interviews, Kodama said that it was his final punishment for serving a U.S. aircraft company that had taken the lives of so many Japanese during WWII. Kodama's memoirs, written during the three years he spent behind bars after the war, best summed up his life. It was called I Was Defeated. See: Inagawa Kakuji; Jirocho Shimizu no; Machii Hisayuki; Nakasone Yasuhiro; Ogawa Kaoru; Osano Kenji; Sasakawa Ryoichi; Taoka Kazuo; Toyama Mitsuru; Yakuza.