Ronald Drabkin on Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor

Interview of Wednesday, 1 February 2024. Ronald Drabkin, author of Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor, the story of the WWI hero who became a fixture of high society in Golden Age Hollywood while acting as a double agent for the Japanese Empire as it prepared to attack Pearl Harbor. "Thanks to recently declassified FBI files, Drabkin discovered why the UK, US, and Japan would prefer to keep their dealings with Frederick Rutland, aka 'Agent Shinkawa,' secret forever.... The life of a spy has never seemed so addictive or harrowing. Drabkin takes an evenhanded approach, portraying Rutland as complicated-equal parts hero and villain. This winning and dramatic biography pierces the veil of secrecy surrounding historical events." - Booklist
Host and Interviewer is AFIO President James Hughes, a former senior CIA Operations Officer and Former NSA Associate Deputy Director of Operations.
The interview runs 19 minutes and includes several Q&As.
Key Moments:
00:35 - Intro of author Ron Drabkin
01:21 - Tell us a bit about Frederick Rutland's early life and career
02:25 - Why was the Royal Navy and the RAAF disinclined to promote his career?
03:01 - Did this play a part in his motivation to cooperate with the Japanese?
03:30 - What options did Rutland have? Go to Japan? Was he the only Brit to do this or was it a sanctioned program?
04:04 - How much did Rutland contribute to Japanese aircraft and carrier design?
05:22 - What led Rutland to move to Hollywood? What activities did he undertake there on behalf of the Japanese?
06:46 - Why was the U.S. West Coast so significant in terms of U.S. aviation?
07:25 - Who were some of the Hollywood luminaries Rutland met. What was their role in all this?
09:55 - What were the priorities of the FBI, the ONI, the State Department vis a vis Japan in 1940-41?
11:07 - How did the rivalry between the FBI and Office of Naval Intelligence impact the situation? How did the FBI react?
12:30 - What led to Rutland having to leave the U.S. and return to Britain?
14:47 - What kind of treatment did Rutland receive from the British after the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and Singapore?
15:47 - What was the end of the story for Rutland? Is there more to his incarceration in Brixton Prison?
16:27 - The FBI coverup you found in recently declassified files...how did that play out?
BIOS: RONALD DRABKIN is the author of "Beverly Hills Spy" and peer-reviewed articles on Japanese espionage. His obsession with espionage history started when he was as a child in Los Angeles where he vaguely understood that his father had been working for the US military in counterintelligence. Later he discovered that his grandfather had also been in “the business,” and it drove a voyage of discovery into previously classified documents on three continents. His career prior to writing was at early stage startups in the US, where he was an early adopter of Google and Facebook advertising. He currently lives in Tokyo.
JAMES R. HUGHES currently serves as the 17th President of AFIO. His service began January 2015. He had a career of US Government service spanning 37 years in numerous foreign countries with a particular focus in the Middle East. He started in U.S. Military Intelligence in the late 1960s and then joined the CIA’s Clandestine Service. He served overseas as a Chief of Station several times, and at CIA Headquarters in a number of senior management positions, including as Chief of the Near East and South Asia Division, in the Directorate of Operations [today’s National Clandestine Service]. He was also named the Associate Deputy Director of Operations (ADDO) at the National Security Agency, 1998-99. Following his retirement from the government in 2005, he joined EDS in Herndon, VA, as the Client Industry Executive for the U.S. Intelligence Community. After the HP acquisition of EDS, he continued to serve in a similar capacity until his retirement in 2012. His parents were missionaries in Turkey in the 1950s, where Jim spent his formative years. He is fluent in Arabic.
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