东芝向苏联出口潜艇机床丑闻

On March 19, 1987, the Pentagon announced that it had learned the Soviet Union acquired machine tooling for making submarine propeller blades from Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, better known as a major electronics manufacturer. Between the machine tools the Soviets acquired from Toshiba and Norwegian weapons maker Kongsberg, the Soviets were able to make their submarines harder to detect, identify, and track.

One of the results of scandal was the U.S. Government banning its own use of Toshiba computers and certain other products from Toshiba until the end of 1991. The Japanese government was unhappy with the ban, but did not intervene. This Cold War scandal is largely forgotten today but was a major incident at the time.

How Toshiba sold nuclear submarine tech to the Soviet Union

NATO could identify and detect Soviet submarines like this Yankee II from 200 miles away. Using technology from Toshiba, the Soviets reduced that to 10 miles on later submarines.

In the late 1970s, a US Navy employee named John Walker was acting as a double agent. From information Walker gave the Soviets, they learned NATO could identify and track first-generation Soviet nuclear submarines at a distance of 200 nautical miles, approximately the distance from Washington DC to New York.

Unable to solve the problem with their own technology, the Soviets sought to purchase western technology to allow them to quiet their submarines.

In early 1980, the Soviets contacted Wako Koeki, a Japanese intermediary trading company in Moscow. Large Japanese companies used such intermediaries to identify business opportunities in the Soviet Union. These intermediaries could get around bans that prevented selling certain technologies to hostile countries.

The Soviets found a 9-axis milling machine in Toshiba’s 1980 catalog. They requested nearly $100 million worth of milling machines through Wako Koeki. Hitori Kumagai handled the negotiations with the Soviets, then flew to Japan to work with Toshiba.

Some of the technology actually belonged to Kongsberg, a Norwegian company. Toshiba looped Kongsberg into the deal. The companies then worked out five contracts over the course of 1981, and falsified paperwork to make it look like it was less-sophisticated equipment for use in building civilian ships.

Delivery started in the spring of 1983, and by the end of 1984, Toshiba and Kongsberg fulfilled their end of the deal. They delivered all of the promised equipment, ensured it was operational, and the Soviets started making quieter propellers.

With the new propellers built on the new machine tools from Toshiba and Kongsberg, NATO couldn’t detect newer-generation Soviet nuclear submarines unless they were 10 nautical miles away, which was a substantial problem for NATO.

How NATO uncovered the nuclear submarine scandal

NATO and the United States might have never known if it weren’t for Hitori Kumagai, the original broker of the deal. Kumagai expected a raise after the $100 million deal concluded. Not only did he not get the raise, but Wako Koeki, the intermediary company, fired him after 22 years of working with the Soviets and its allies, 10 of those years in Moscow. This was a severe violation of Japanese corporate ethics.

Kumagai retaliated by notifying authorities in Paris in December 1985. When this didn’t get results, he contacted the US Embassy in Japan. When the Japanese government didn’t respond to the embassy’s inquiry, the U.S. Government asked Norway to investigate Kongsberg’s involvement in January 1987. Norway discovered wrongdoing on the part of both Kongsberg and Toshiba. Confronted with the Norwegian evidence, the Japanese government then launched its own investigation. Meanwhile, Norway proceeded to liquidate all but the military production part of Kongsberg.

Fallout from the Toshiba submarine scandal

On April 30, 1987, the Japanese Police searched Toshiba Machine’s premises. On May 27, two executives of Toshiba Machine were arrested for violating the Foreign Exchange Law, a Japanese domestic law, for falsifying the nature of what they were exporting to the Soviet Union. Toshiba Machine subsequently underwent trial.

In June 1987, the Japanese government formally apologized to US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

On March 22, 1988, the Tokyo District Court fined Toshiba Machine 2 million yen, and two executives received prison sentences. Toshiba chairman Shoichi Sawa and president Ichiro Watarisugi resigned.

Developing new technology to counteract the Soviet’s nuclear submarine advances as a result of the Toshiba scandal cost approximately $30 billion. So the US government ceased its own use of Toshiba products until 1991. And I remember a conservative lawyer I knew in 1992 being very disturbed when I told him the CD-ROM drive in his new PC was made by Toshiba. Toshiba made good CD-ROM drives. But he remembered the Toshiba nuclear submarine scandal and wanted nothing to do with the Soviet Union, and Toshiba by extension.

Incidents between US allies and the Soviets weren’t unusual during the Cold War. In 1987, Soviet allies were caught hacking into US university computers.

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.