Chapter 66 Section five

What Rastovorov's face looks like, it is said that the Japanese public security authorities are well aware of it.He had been in Tokyo for three years and had been to Tokyo before that.In fact, when the incident happened, because Japan signed a peace treaty with the United States, the representative office of the Soviet Union had lost its legal right to exist, so the name "former representative office" was used in news reports.Due to the above circumstances, the so-called original representative office has only 33 staff members, because the Japanese authorities tacitly allow staff members to return to the Soviet Union, while restricting new entry.

Moreover, these 33 members of the original representative organization have lost their functions as diplomats and only have the status of expatriates.In short, both the Japanese authorities and the U.S. embassy in Japan regarded the personnel of the Soviet representative agencies as spies. (See Rastovorov's testimony before the U.S. Senate below.) Therefore, the Japanese security authorities sent people to each of them to monitor their actions.Rastovorov must have been photographed by the authorities during his stay in Japan. Moreover, Rastovorov has been "in exile" in the United States for seven months, and the United States must have taken many photos of him.If he had been allowed to take pictures of him when he met with reporters at the State Department, the Japanese authorities would have been able to assert that the photos published in the newspapers were of him, but the news reports only described him as "wearing a brand new gray summer suit, tie, leather shoes, etc. It's totally American," without a picture of him, so it's impossible to tell if it's really him.

The prosecutor sent from Japan to investigate Rastovorov, when asked by reporters "Is it really Rastovorov you saw?" It’s him.” There was no need to answer so vaguely.As mentioned earlier, the Metropolitan Police Department must have quite a few photographs of Rastovorov, and just by checking them, it would be easy to determine whether it was him or not.It should be said that the wording of this answer is very strange. At that time, the reason why Kashiwamura and Yamamoto went to the United States on business was to investigate the police system.After the news that Rastovorov held a press conference in the State Department was released, the authorities let the people of the whole country know that they were going to the United States to investigate the "Rastovorov incident".

Besides, when the newspapers of Japan and the United States published this news at the same time, they were vague about what kind of intelligence activities Rastovorov carried out; The title of secretary is just a cover, but his identity is actually a lieutenant colonel.As soon as he heard that "on the surface he is a diplomat, but in fact he is an intelligence officer", everyone would think that he must have planned a serious conspiracy. But if you think about it carefully, there are many cases like this in various countries.When going abroad as a staff member of an embassy, ​​if you want to engage in intelligence activities, it is best to conceal your identity.And as a secretary, you have much more room for action than as a military attache in a embassy or embassy.Sometimes he received orders not from the embassy system but from another system in the country.This is not only the case in the Soviet Union, but almost all other countries are like this-even Japan also uses this as a criterion.

For example, there are some facts: senior officials of the Japanese public security organs are sent to foreign embassies with the title of counselor or second secretary; Conceal your identity. However, the purpose of the United States announcing this matter must be to impress the Japanese people: "Second Secretary Rastovorov is actually a Soviet lieutenant colonel who planned a very serious conspiracy in Japan." Consider, then, the published content of the "Rastovorov Incident".Briefly speaking, as he himself confessed, the motive for his "death" was the purge of Beria, his immediate superior in the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs. "This incident made it clear to me that the citizens of the Soviet Union could no longer trust even those leading figures who had hitherto been challenged by anyone, and I intuitively demanded that I return home. There was some 'secret' reason which I could not explain to me." It seems that Rastovorov's only motive for fleeing was a premonition of danger upon his return, and it can be regarded as his real reason. motivation.However, when he "made up his mind never to return to the Soviet Union", was he affected by other external factors?

Before Rastovorov answered questions from reporters, the State Department issued the following statement: "The U.S. government has decided to accept Mr. Yuli Ya Rastovorov, former intelligence officer of the Political Department of the Soviet Union's representative office in Japan, as a political asylum. Acting Secretary of State Smith informed the Soviet Ambassador to the United States of this decision on the 13th. Mr. Robin. However, the ambassador refused to accept this notification from the United States government. Not to mention the ambassador himself, even his representative did not come to the State Department."

The Acting Secretary of State Smith mentioned here was Lieutenant General Peter Smith, then Deputy Secretary of State.He would have served as the first director of the CIA, its founder and the supreme authority on American espionage.This fact is informative. Rastovorov said he "did not get information from American military or civilian sources" during his stay in Japan.He said he had no contact with US military agencies in Japan. However, when he fled, he first went to contact the US agency.Although he claimed to have no contact with the U.S. intelligence agency, the fact that he relied on the assistance of the U.S. agency when he escaped made one think that he had been in contact with this clue from the U.S. side.

Rastovorov wrote: "The foreign language I know best is English. I know Americans better than British people, so I see the United States as my destination. Initially, I would consider going to the American embassy, ​​but thinking that would be a public opinion dangers to the world, which I think must be avoided at all costs." The reason why he said that he could not let the outside world know was simply because he hoped that this matter would always be done in secret.The reason was that if the news leaked out, he was afraid that his wife and eight-year-old daughter who stayed in the Soviet Union would be persecuted.He said: "Either they pretend to be drowned, or they use other methods to make people disappear without knowing the details-is there any way to go to the United States as a new person like this to live safely? I began to think about it. All kinds of plans. I think if I do this, my family will not be persecuted.”

Rastovorov, who claimed that he had never obtained any information from the Americans, offered assistance to an unknown link between the United States and Japan—one of the most important links in secret work. The request to flee by oneself means something unusual.In other words, he is not "unaware", but knows about the US agency.

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