by Gus Russo
Thus, ten weeks after the outbreak of war, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave to the secretary of war the power to exclude any persons from designated areas in order to secure national defense objectives against sabotage and espionage. More specifically, the order mandated the detaining of all persons believed to be a possible danger, especially the West Coast nisei. Over the objections of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, whose Bureau was tasked with arresting religious and community leaders, all 120,000 West Coast Japanese were placed in temporary facilities and given less than two weeks to make arrangements for the sale of their property before being transported to concentration camps in the desert Southwest, where they would spend the next three and a half years. The incarcerations initiated a lifelong, and historically significant, behind-the-scenes feud between Hoover and Warren/1" Interestingly, during his tenure as chief justice of the Supreme Court (1953-69), one of Warren's favored law clerks was Ken Ziffren, son of Paul.37
Like a man without a nation
In a camp of concentration
With a stamp of degradation and shame
To a place they call it Manzanar by name
VAN DYKE PARKS, "MANZANAR"38
Initially, the Japanese were given a mere forty-eight hours to leave their homes for transport to temporary holding stations. Said one victim, "The evacuation was unquestionably harsh and pitifully unjust. To command bewildered women with children suffering in mental agonies through internment of their husbands by the FBI to pack and evacuate in forty-eight hours was inhumanly harsh and unjust . . . Children were crying, boys and girls dashing in and out to help their mothers on whose shoulders the world came crashing."39 (The roundup was so thorough that for the next four years the movie moguls had to settle for Caucasian actors made up to look oriental for the spate of war movies that followed. Peter Lorre's portrayal of "Mr. Moto" and Paul Muni as an Asian peasant were most memorable.)
After a few days of that humiliation, the "detainees" were ordered onto transport buses with no room for their few salvaged belongings. One federal official reported on what was left behind at the Japanese community on Terminal Island in Los Angeles harbor: "One of our workers who was on the island the day after the evacuation said that fishing nets, fishing trucks, rubber boots, household goods, and all kinds of equipment, enough to fill at least eight trucks, had been abandoned."40
The government then delivered the nisei to "relocation centers" in desolate interior regions of the West where they were housed in hastily built, barbed-wire-ringed desert barracks, the largest in California (Tule Lake, 19,000) and Arizona (Poston, 17,814). Ironically, some of the Japanese were housed in the same Owens Valley (the Manzanar Camp) that had had its water stolen four decades earlier by Mulholland et al.—forcing the military to find ways to bring water back to the valley to sustain the prisoners. *
Surrounded by armed guards in barracks that measured 20 by 120 feet, the internees were divided into four or six rooms, each from 20 by 16 to 20 by 25 feet, with two families of six each often sharing but one room. A visiting reporter from the San Trancisco Chronicle described the quarters at Tule Lake: "Room size—about 15 by 25 . . . Condition—dirty." The rooms had no running water, and some center's evacuees lived without electric light, adequate toilets, or laundry facilities. Mess halls planned for about three hundred people had to handle six hundred or nine hundred for short periods.
And then there was the weather.
The detainees endured temperatures as low as 35 degrees below zero in winter and 115 above in summer. In July, evacuees doused their cots with cool water in an effort make sleep possible. In the Arizona camps, dust storms regularly sent torrents of sand through wide cracks in the poorly constructed barracks. Nisei Monica Sone described a dust storm on her first day at Minidoka Camp: "We felt as if we were standing in a gigantic sand-mixing machine as the sixty-mile gale lifted the loose earth up into the sky, obliterating everything. Sand filled our mouths and nostrils and stung our faces and hands like a thousand darting needles. [Inside] the dust poured through the cracks like smoke." One visiting journalist to the Manzanar barracks wrote that "on dusty days, one might just as well be outside as inside." Of course, the outside held the additional thrill of rattlesnakes and other poisonous desert wildlife.41
As if the nisei collective memory needed more trauma, there was one last insult to weather: when they emerged from their concentration camps over forty months later, all their possessions were gone.
The Sell - Offs
The issue of the nisei's abandoned property was dealt with in the same harsh manner as the prisoners themselves. Suddenly without employment, they could not afford mortgage payments or indefinite storage for their possessions. Given mere days to sell their homes, businesses, and all the belong ings they could not carry, their plight defined a "buyer's market." Victims told Congress's Tolan Committee of their losses:
• The $125 sale of a new pickup truck with $125 worth of new tires alone.42
• A federal official collected solid stories of victims "selling three- and four-hundred- dollar pianos for five and ten dollars, of selling new refrigerators and new stoves for small amounts."43
• One Japanese American sold his strawberry-farming operation for $2,000; the purchaser resold it for more than $10,000. 44
• Nisei owners of an ice cream parlor had a $10,000 inventory plus $8,000 in equipment, but sold it all for $1,000. 45
One victim lamented, "It is difficult to describe the feeling of despair and humiliation experienced by all of us as we watched the Caucasians coming to look over our possessions and offering such nominal amounts knowing we had no recourse but to accept whatever they were offering."46 And not all property losses were monetary. The army forced victims to sell, give away, or euthanize family pets.47
But for speculators with deep pockets, the real bargains were in houses, undeveloped nisei land, and commercial property such as stores, warehouses, and hotels. In February 1942, one American official directing internments noted that victims could "either turn over their business to their creditors at great loss or abandon it entirely." This official referred to "commercial buzzards" who took "great advantage of this hardship, making offers way below even inventory cost, and very much below real value."48 Initially, the Federal Reserve Bank had authority to act as a go-between, matching prospective buyers with Japanese American sellers. If sellers wished, the Federal Reserve Bank would act as their agent and liquidate property on their behalf. In the rush to make a sale, property was unloaded for a fraction of its value.
Los Angeles mayor Fletcher Bowron assured a U.S. congressman, "Property within this city formerly occupied or used by the Japanese will not remain idle or fall into a state of disrepair."49 And a May 1942 congressional report noted, "Liquidation of real and personal property held by evacuees is proceeding at a rapid pace." Nisei who owned property that could remotely be viewed as in a strategic location, such as near a port or a military base, were in an even worse position. Once Executive Order 9066 was in effect, and the military had designated the land that the Japanese held to be strategically vital, all Japanese property claims to the land were null and void; in many cases, the military either kept the land for its own use or sold it to presumably loyal white farmers. A representative of a grower association in Salinas said, "We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We might as well be honest. We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown man."50 What gives credence to the allegation of a hidden Anglo agenda to take over the Japanese land is the obvious and damning fact that the United States did not inter Germans and Italians, with whose homelands we were also at war.
When the Japanese were released from the camps in 1945, they were not quickly reimbursed for their property losses, and when they were finally "compensated," the dollar figure was puny. The Federal Reserve estimated that the direct property seizures from the nisei were worth $400 mi
llion (in 1942 dollars), approximately $2.7 billion today, and the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians estimated the total income and property losses at between $810 million and $2 billion (inflation-adjusted). Insultingly, in 1948 Congress passed the Evacuation Claims Act, which gave the detainees seventeen months to make a claim from a paltry $31 million fund. Kotkin and Grabowicz wrote, "For the most part, the war all but wiped out Japanese-owned business in California, long the goal of many Anglos."51
Enter the Supermob
Despite their best efforts, the Japanese could only sell a fraction of their holdings in the brief time allotted. Thus, on March 11, 1942, FDR signed Executive Order 9095, establishing the Office of Alien Property. This new office, under the umbrella of the Department of Justice, spent the next few years seizing, inventorying, and finding buyers for millions of dollars' worth of property taken not only from the Japanese but also from German nationals. Even more disturbing, many of the seized properties were sold via no-contest sealed bids, overseen by a key appointee of President Harry Truman. When Truman became president after FDR's death just weeks after his 1945 inauguration, he undertook the cronyism typical of a new leader, making payback appointments favored by key power brokers and supporters. Predictably, he made a number of appointments at the suggestion of one of the most powerful pols in America, Colonel Jack (Jake) Arvey, and one of those appointments would have a profound impact on the success of the Supermob's Western investments, and the tragic plight of the nisei.
Tru man and Arvey
"The most human president, for whom I have affection like that for my father, is Harry Truman," Jake Arvey once said. "I am prouder of his friendship for me than I am of any political associations I have."52 Arvey's tribute was not an understatement, for the ward powerhouse believed Truman saved his life during World War II. "I was a member of the 33rd Division which was supposed to make the invasion of Japan," Arvey wrote. "We might have been annihilated—[Truman's] dropping of the bomb averted that."53 Less than a year before, Arvey and his "Bloody 24th Ward" minions had used Outfit muscle to turn out the widest margin of victory of any ward in the entire country for the 1944 Roosevelt-Truman ticket: 29,533 for FDR to 2,204 for Dewey. In that effort Arvey assigned two of his ward's most notorious committeemen, Peter Fosco, and Arthur X. Elrod, who had gained notoriety for, among other things, turning out absurd Democratic electoral pluralities in the precinct where he was captain, to seal the deal. Fosco was an admitted close friend of Outfit boss Paul Ricca and a dominant figure in the Building Laborers' Union, where he manipulated the city's labor force with the likes of Curly Humphreys and Sid Korshak. Elrod had come up in the 1920s as a business front and bail bondsman for the North Side Moran gang. He later worked as a private secretary for North Side gunman and vice king Jack Zuta, who became the most notorious brothel owner in Chicago*
The Truman-Arvey relationship grew stronger due to their beliefs concerning the Jewish homeland. Arvey had been passionate about a pending UN resolution on the founding of the state of Israel and had worked tirelessly in the Israel bonds movement.54 Cook County state's attorney Ralph Berkowitz recalled, "Jack Arvey told Truman that if he does not recognize the state of Israel, then he couldn't guarantee that he could carry the Twenty-fourth Ward [in the 1948 presidential election]. Let alone the county and the state. When Truman came around and endorsed the resolution on March 16, 1947, Arvey delivered. "I worked harder for him in '48 than I have ever worked for a candidate in my life," Arvey recalled.55
In 1948, Arvey's push was considered critical to Truman's eventual victory, with Truman's campaign chairman saying that they would only declare victory when they won Illinois. Truman carried the state of Illinois by 33,612 votes (.9 percent). However, his margin of victory in Cook County, where Elrod's precinct gave Truman a 300-to-l victory, was 200,836 votes (9 percent). When the final count was tallied, Truman received 303 electoral votes, with 266 needed to win. Illinois had 28 votes. Irv Kupcinet, not only Korshak's dining pal, but also a close friend of both Truman's and Arvey's, wrote, "Arvey's work . . . laid the groundwork for the surprising victory of Harry Truman in 1948 . . . [Arvey] worked night and day for Truman's nomination at the 1948 convention."56
(Left to right) Jake Arvey, Averell Harriman, Estes Kefauver, Harry Truman, Richard Daley (Corbis/Bettmann)
When Truman appeared at a party in Chicago after the election, Elrod presented him with the precinct tally sheet displaying the ludicrous totals. Truman jokingly asked Elrod, "Who was the one?" To which Elrod replied, "I don't know, I'm still looking for him."
Two years later, Elrod and Fosco organized a torchlight parade for Truman, with Elrod acting as chauffeur for Sid Korshak's friend Vice President Barkley in the motorcade* In 1952, the IRS investigated Arvey for possibly having been given tax concessions because he was so close to Truman.57
Part and parcel of the Arvey-Truman symbiosis was Truman's obliging of Arvey's wishes when it came to federal appointments. At Arvey's urging, Truman appointed Arvey protege Michael Howlett, then the Illinois secretary of state, to be the regional director of the Federal Office of Price Stabilization. Another Truman-Arvey appointment was that of Chicago attorney Daniel F. Cleary to the chairmanship of the War Crimes Commission.
But by far the most controversial Truman-Arvey appointment now appears to have been a major boost for the investment wishes of the old Capone mob and their allies in the Supermob, giving them their turn at the California land grab.
"Ex-Chicagoan in Control of Enemy Assets"
CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEADLINE, JUNE 1, 1947
On June 1, 1947, Assistant Attorney General David Bazelon, who had been a top Democratic Party fund-raiser in the 1944 elections, was promoted to custodian of Alien property, prompting him to declare, "I am probably in a sense one of the largest businessmen in the country. On top of that I'm my own lawyer."58 Once installed, Bazelon hired Pritzker's son, Jay A. Pritzker, who became the special assistant to the director in the Alien Property office.59 Jay was, like Paul Ziffren, a former classmate of Bazelon's at Northwestern. It was now clear why Abe Pritzker had been "grateful" to Bazelon and therefore gave him his Franklin stock. Jay's acceptance of the new post raised eyebrows, since the wealthy Pritzker heir was lowly paid and resided in the pricey Willard Hotel for the duration of his one-year employment. Speculation arose that since Jay's bill at the Willard dwarfed his meager paycheck, there must have been some other purpose for his taking the position. That contention was buttressed when, according to congressional investigators, Jay utilized his new insider information to purchase stock in a knitting-machine His $73,000 investment was said to be worth $1 million.60
David Bazelon, director of the Office of Alien Property (Corbis/Bettmann) manufacturing company that had been vested (seized) by the Alien office.
Bazelon's assessment of his new clout was not an understatement. The Office of Alien Property (OAP) confiscated 415 businesses with a total valuation of $290 million in tangible assets alone, and over six thousand German patents (worth exponentially more than the businesses) that would be given to U.S. businesses. One congressman spoke of the businesses and capital under the control of the OAP, saying, "They are the biggest plums in the entire Truman administration."61 Journalist Robert Goe wrote, "The Alien Custodian could use his discretion as to whether properties were put out for sealed bid, or negotiated . . . it is clear that there is much room for preferential treatment by the Custodian."
Preferential treatment is exactly what happened, and, not surprisingly, among the earliest recipients were Paul Ziffren and other "connected" Chicagoans. When the FBI searched the Alien Property Custodian Office files five years later, it found letters showing that Ziffren and Bazelon had been interested in obtaining four commercial buildings in L.A. from the OAP at least as early as August 23, 1946. Even prior to that, in April 1941, when Ziffren and Bazelon were at the Gottlieb firm, Ziffren had inquired of the Treasury Department about the regulations concerning "freezing the funds o
f certain foreign countries."62 This was a full two months before the United States actually froze the funds of the enemy Axis powers, in solidarity with those already at war with Germany, leading to speculation that Ziffren had insider information of what was about to occur. The FBI further learned that "Bazelon and Ziffren had been involved in numerous transactions over a period of years and frequently had made each other partners in such transactions."63
According to a U.S. Department of Interior report of 1944, 216 hotels in California were seized from the nisei by the government. By war's end, that number had risen to 1,265. It was the responsibility of David Bazelon to find buyers for these properties, the most highly valuable being in California, which was in the midst of a postwar boom. A number of the choicest parcels went to Bazelon's best friend, Paul Ziffren, in partnership with his regular unsavory clique.
Almost immediately after Bazelon assumed his new post, Jake Arvey's great friend Colonel Henry Crown purchased a twenty-six-thousand-acre abandoned coal mine in Farmersville, California, from the OAP for $150,000.64 The coal alone on the property was valued in the tens of millions.
Another purchase from the OAP seizures was the Los Angeles Warehouse Properties Co. on 326 N. San Pedro Street. This was a massive building and lot, previously owned by a Japanese national, purchased in January 1948 by Bazelon's best friend, Paul Ziffren, and seven partners. One of the senior partners, Ben Weingart, was a major purchaser of alien land, including dozens of parcels and hotels in the Wolfskill tract, the skid row area of L.A. Weingart also acquired Japanese properties in Whittier, Santa Ana, Pasadena, Southgate, Bakersfield, Fresno, and Stockton.65 In the late 1940s, Weingart bought thirty-five hundred acres of land north of Long Beach and oversaw the building of seventeen thousand homes on the site, thus giving birth to the city of Lakewood. Weingart also built the Lakewood Shopping Center, the first large-scale shopping center in the country.*
