Author unveils treasure trove of hidden stories about postwar Japan

In the introduction to his new book, author Robert Whiting focuses on a range of foreigners who he says have been "heretofore unknown or vastly underreported." He is right. How many people, even among well-versed readers of works on Japan, have heard of restaurateur Johnny Wetzstein, who offered all-American hamburgers and an upstairs room catering to more sensual appetites; the bellicose inebriate, Vladimir Granby Auscus, a yakuza-affiliated gangster and former White Russian; or Charles Kades, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Occupation hierarchy, who, while conducting postwar reforms under General MacArthur, was also conducting an affair with a married Japanese viscountess?

This is where Whiting's book, "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders Who Shaped Modern Japan," comes in. Even in a tome of wide scope at nearly 400 pages, there are bound to be omissions among Whiting's selected gallery of villains, undercover agents, con artists, manipulative hostesses, and occasional philanthropists.