Koji Ariyoshi
Koji Ariyoshi was born on January 30, 1914, at Koma, T. H. He attended the University of Hawaii from 1937 to 1940, and the University of Georgia during the 1940-41 term, where he received his bachelor's degree in journalism.
In 1941, Office of Strategic Services head William J. Donovan opened the door for communist infiltration of the United States intelligence service by asking Eugene Dennis of the CPUSA Politburo to provide veterans of the Spanish Civil War who could be used behind enemy lines. The American communists consulted with Moscow who advised that American communists could join the OSS as individuals but not as an organized group for fear of having the communist networks discovered.[1] Koji Ariyoshi was one of the Communist Party members that penetrated the OSS.[2]
In January 1944 Ariyoshi departed for the China-Burma-India theater where he was assigned to work with the Chinese Communists, consequently coming in contact with Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and Zhou Enlai (Chou En-Lai). Ariyoshi was commissioned a second lieutenant in June of 1945 and remained in the same type of work until January 5, 1946, when his request to be discharged in China was granted. Subsequent to his discharge, he became employed with the Office of War Information as a field representative.
The Honolulu Record
Koji Ariyoshi established the Honolulu Record after World War II.
Ariyoshi's reaction concerning his experiences in Communist China were reflected in an article appearing under his name in the February 1947 issue of Spotlight on the Far East, published by the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy, which had been cited as a Communist subversive organization on the Attorney General's list by Truman Attorney General Tom C. Clark. In this issue Ariyoshi wrote a guest column in support of the Chinese Communists. The March and June 1949 issues of Far East Spotlight, successor to Spotlight on the Far East, lists Ariyoshi as a consultant to the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy.
The Hawaii Star of April 23, 1948, reflects that a progress report on the New York Chapter of the Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee (HCLC) was made by Koji Ariyoshi, one of the founders of this chapter, at an HCLC meeting in Honolulu on April 20, 1948. The HCLC was cited as being a Communist subversive organization by the Attorney General of the United States on April 28, 1949. The HCLC was also cited as a subversive organization initiated and operated by Communists for the sole purpose of expanding the influence of the small Communist minority in the Territory of Hawaii by the Committee on Un-American Activities in a report to the House of Representatives on June 23, 1950.
In 1951, Ariyoshi was arrested along with John and Aiko Reinecke, Jack Hall of the ILWU, and others for Smith Act violations.
References
- ↑ The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors, Chapter 9 : Target OSS Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, Washington, DC, Regnery, 2000, pp. 283-292.
- ↑ The Stealth Candidate, Transcript, Cliff Kincaid and Herbert Romerstein, May 22 2008, p. 17.
External links
- From Kona to Yenan By Koji Ariyoshi, The Political Memoirs of koji Ariyoshi, Alice M. Beechert, Edward D. Beechert.
