The Japanese government helped the United States track down American deserters from the Vietnam War who hid in Japan with the aid of Japanese peace activists, former Japanese intelligence officers admitted for the first time in recent interviews with Kyodo News.
On Nov. 5, 1968, a U.S. deserter who was heading for the Soviet Union with two Japanese nationals was seized in Kushiro, eastern Hokkaido, by Japanese police, a former officer said. Police began to search for him at the request of a U.S. military spy who also accompanied him to Hokkaido pretending to be a deserter, he added.
The spy was sent by the U.S. military to infiltrate groups of deserters and their supporters, the former officer said, adding that the spy in the Hokkaido incident was called "Johnson," after then U.S. President Lyndon Johnson.