CANR
WORK TITLE: Beverly Hills Spy
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Tokyo
STATE:
COUNTRY: Japan
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Los Angeles, CA.
EDUCATION:Duke University, graduated; University of California, Berkeley, M.B.A.; also attended International Christian University (Mitaka, Japan).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, entrepreneur, and investor. Previously, worked for early-stage startup companies.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Ronald Drabkin is an American writer, entrepreneur, and investor based in Tokyo, Kapan. He holds degrees from Duke University and the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, Drabkin worked for early-stage startup companies.
In 2024, Drabkin released his first book, Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor. It tells the story of Frederick Rutland, a double agent, who enlisted in the Japanese Navy and was known as Agent Shinkawa. Prior to his career as a spy, Rutland was a British aviation expert, who worked closely with the military. After being denied a promotion, Rutland became disillusioned and moved to Los Angeles and began working as a spy for Japan. His connections in the aviation industry gave him access to valuable information about the U.S. military and its capabilities. When the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence unmasked Rutland, he agreed to become a double agent on behalf of the U.S. Through the course of his work, Rutland hobnobbed with famous people, including Boris Karloff, Amelia Earhart, and Charlie Chaplin. After being accused of failing to prevent the Pearl Harbor tragedy, Rutland was imprisoned in the U.K.
In an interview with Robert Lee Brewer, contributor to the Writer’s Digest website, Drabkin explained that the seed for the story emerged when he learned that his father and grandfather had been spies for the U.S. government. He told Brewer: “It started with the idea of writing a book on my family history in espionage, but it has evolved into something completely different; in fact, my family barely appears in the book at all. The evolution started when, looking into possible associates of my grandfather, a curious thing happened. I sent a request to the FBI to see if they had a file available on Frederick Rutland, the British pilot and war hero who had become a spy for the Japanese Navy.” Drabkin added that, after perusing Rutland’s file, “I realized that this was just a really good story, and that it needed to see the light of day.” In an interview with Liz Ohanesian, writer on the Orange County Register website, Drabkin highlighted the connections between his own life and the story of Rutland, stating: “I have spies in my family. A good part of the story happens in Japan, and I have access to Japanese records because I’m in Japan. … It all came together. I wasn’t looking to write a book. I felt like I just had to tell people the story.”
Critics offered favorable assessments of Beverly Hills Spy. “This winning and dramatic biography pierces the veil of secrecy surrounding historical events,” asserted Philip Zozzaro in Booklist. A writer in Kirkus Reviews commented: “Drabkin’s expertly narrated yarn, based on a trove of recently declassified documents, is constantly surprising, and it’s just the thing for thriller fans who enjoy kindred fictions.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer suggested: “Drabkin writes with a novelist’s flair, roving between far-flung ritzy settings … and notable personages.” The same reviewer concluded: “Readers will be swept up.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 1, 2024, Philip Zozzaro, review of Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor, p. 13.
Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2024, review of Beverly Hills Spy.
ONLINE
Orange County Register Online, https://www.ocregister.com/ (February 27, 2024), Liz Ohanesian, author interview.
Publishers Weekly Online, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (December 20, 2023), review of Beverly Hills Spy.
Writer’s Digest, https://www.writersdigest.com/ (February 15, 2024), Robert Lee Brewer, author interview.
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.
QUOTED: "I have spies in my family. A good part of the story happens in Japan and I have access to Japanese records because I’m in Japan. ... It all came together. I wasn’t looking to write a book. I felt like I just had to tell people the story."
How the ‘Beverly Hills Spy’ author discovered a real tale of wartime espionage
The son of a spy, Ronald Drabkin tells the story of an LA-based British pilot who fed secrets to Japan ahead of Pearl Harbor.
Tokyo-based Ronald Drabkin is the author of “Beverly Hills Spy,” which includes information he found while researching his family history and came across a tale of spies in Hollywood leading up to World War II. (Courtesy of William Morrow)
Tokyo-based Ronald Drabkin is the author of “Beverly Hills Spy,” which includes information he found while researching his family history and came across a tale of spies in Hollywood leading up to World War II. (Courtesy of William Morrow)
Author
By LIZ OHANESIAN | Contributing Writer
PUBLISHED: February 27, 2024 at 8:40 a.m. | UPDATED: March 1, 2024 at 3:54 p.m.
Ronald Drabkin was researching his family history when he stumbled upon a tale of spies in Hollywood leading up to World War II.
The details were wild enough to prompt the Tokyo-based Drabkin, who works in tech, to write his first book, “Beverly Hills Spy.” Out now from HarperCollins, the book tells the true story of Frederick Rutland, a British pilot in the First World War-turned-spy who, while based in Los Angeles, gathered information for Japan that would ultimately lead to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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“How many people look into their family history, or their roots, and end up writing about something completely different?” asks Drabkin on a recent video call while he was in Los Angeles.
Drabkin grew up in L.A., where his father was a Cold War-era counterspy. “He didn’t talk about it because they don’t talk about it,” Drabkin notes, while adding that his father’s mission was to pursue Soviet spies in U.S. industries like aerospace.
After the death of his father, Drabkin called the FBI to see if he could get information on his dad’s life as a spy. In the process of gathering information, he came into recently declassified information on Rutland.
“Anybody can contact the FBI and say, ‘Do you have a file on a certain person?’ And the FBI will answer you,” Drabkin explains. “They’ll either say, ‘Here’s a file’ or they’ll say, ‘We have nothing for you.’ They won’t say, ‘We just declassified something hot.’”
In this instance, the FBI had just declassified something extremely hot. And since this was early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Drabkin was stuck at home with time to dig into Rutland’s file. The more research he did, the more he realized that this was a story that was essentially buried in decades-old newspaper archives.
“A lot of the old newspapers tell the story really nicely,” he says. “I got a bunch of pictures of the spy, Rutland, and his kids and they’re all from papers like the Long Beach Press-Telegram from the time.”
Drabkin knew this was a good story. “The more I looked into it, the crazier the story got,” says Drabkin. “What’s this? Charlie Chaplin! What’s this? Pearl Harbor!”
And as it turns out, his family was adjacent to the action. At the time of Rutland’s dealings, Drabkin’s grandparents had a downtown Los Angeles lunch counter about a block away from the Japanese consulate where spies were based. “One block from the Japanese Consulate there was Grandma doing a lunch counter and you could get a burger, milkshake and shot of whisky,” says Drabkin.
Drabkin knew that he was in a good position to write the book. “I have spies in my family. A good part of the story happens in Japan and I have access to Japanese records because I’m in Japan,” he explains. “It all came together. I wasn’t looking to write a book. I felt like I just had to tell people the story.”
The spy Rutland grew up with financial struggles and joined the Royal Navy at a young age. With time, he showed a talent for flying and a keen understanding of aircraft and carrier design. When his military career stalled, he looked towards the Imperial Japanese Navy for opportunities and, ultimately, fell into the spy game, a lucrative endeavor that brought him to Los Angeles.
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Rutland’s story is unusual for a few reasons. For one, he was flamboyant in a way that real-life spies typically aren’t. He lived up in the Bird Streets of the Hollywood Hills, in a home Drabkin spotted on Zillow recently for around $14 million. His social circles included L.A.’s rich and famous.
As Drabkin explains, that’s not the typical spy life. “Most spies are not like James Bond. My dad was someone, you wouldn’t notice he was there. The more typical spy is someone like this. They can go into a crowd, you won’t see them there and they’ll notice everything,” says Drabkin. “The James Bond in plain sight is pretty unusual, but the story of Frederick Rutland and the spies in Los Angeles – it was absolutely in plain sight.”
The kind of information Rutland acquired, mainly related to aviation technology, isn’t always considered espionage, Drabkin notes, and these days the U.S. and Japan do share technological information. “It’s fine because the two countries are friends,” says Drabkin. “However, other countries, when they come and try to get California technology, it turns into espionage.”
QUOTED: "It started with the idea of writing a book on my family history in espionage, but it has evolved into something completely different; in fact, my family barely appears in the book at all. The evolution started when, looking into possible associates of my grandfather, a curious thing happened. I sent a request to the FBI to see if they had a file available on Frederick Rutland, the British pilot and war hero who had become a spy for the Japanese Navy."
"I realized that this was just a really good story, and that it needed to see the light of day."
Ronald Drabkin: On New Historical Discoveries Leading to New Directions
Author Ronald Drabkin discusses the process of writing his new nonfiction espionage book, Beverly Hills Spy.
ROBERT LEE BREWERFEB 15, 2024
Ronald Drabkin is the author of 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 U.S. 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 U.S., where he was an early adopter of Google and Facebook advertising. He currently lives in Tokyo. Find him on Facebook.
Ronald Drabkin: On New Historical Discoveries Leading to New Directions
Ronald Drabkin
Photo by Aiko Suzuki
In this post, Ronald discusses the process of writing his new nonfiction espionage book, Beverly Hills Spy, his hope for readers, and more!
Name: Ronald Drabkin
Literary agent: The Watermark Agency
Book title: Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero and Spy Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor
Publisher: William Morrow
Release date: February 13, 2024
Genre/category: History/Espionage/True Crime
Elevator pitch: In the spirit of Ben Macintyre’s greatest spy nonfiction, the truly unbelievable and untold story of Frederick Rutland—a debonair British WWI hero, flying ace, fixture of Los Angeles society, and friend of Golden Age Hollywood stars—who flipped to become a spy for Japan in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Ronald Drabkin: On New Historical Discoveries Leading to New Directions
Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]
What prompted you to write this book?
My obsession with espionage history started when I was a child in Los Angeles, where I vaguely understood that my father had been working for the U.S. military in counterintelligence. Later I discovered that my grandfather had also been in “the business,” and it drove a voyage of discovery into previously classified documents on three continents.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Five years. It started with the idea of writing a book on my family history in espionage, but it has evolved into something completely different; in fact, my family barely appears in the book at all.
The evolution started when, looking into possible associates of my grandfather, a curious thing happened. I sent a request to the FBI to see if they had a file available on Frederick Rutland, the British pilot and war hero who had become a spy for the Japanese Navy. The FBI replied with a copy of the file. I noted his file had just been declassified, and I realized that I may have been the first person outside of the bureau to see it. Cracking the file open, the first thing I saw was a memo from FBI Director J Edgar Hoover. The memo instructed the FBI agents to not mention to anyone that Rutland had been a double agent, working for the U.S. Navy, because it would be very embarrassing to the FBI if that secret leaked.
As I dug into the FBI file, I realized that this was just a really good story, and that it needed to see the light of day. Further research in the U.S., U.K., and Japan filled out more and more of what had happened. The next evolution of the book turned into a biography of a glamorous, complicated man, who made some bad decisions and ended up stuck in a life of espionage that was getting more and more disastrous as the fatal moment of Pearl Harbor approached.
The final evolution of the book was thanks to my editors. They encouraged me to tell a bigger picture story of espionage, Hollywood, and the run-up to Pearl Harbor, primarily though Rutland’s eyes.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The process for getting pictures for the cover and photo insert is very challenging for a writer of nonfiction that takes place in the 1930s-40s. It is the responsibility of the author, not the publisher, to obtain the permissions.
For the paid photo sites, the cost to get a license to use a single picture is often $200-$300, and you need maybe 20 for a photo insert. Surprisingly, getting rights from a nonprofit organization to use a photo can be even harder than getting one from a company. For example, many of the museums in Britain now charge roughly $100 license fee for each 5000 copies of your book you sell. Therefore, if your book ends up becoming a bestseller, they will come after you, sending you a bill which is the cost of a new car for each picture you use.
There were also family pictures that I wanted to use, but for a person with maybe 30 living descendants, even finding out who owns the copyright gets really challenging.
Ronald Drabkin: On New Historical Discoveries Leading to New Directions
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I kept having to update the book when I found new information! And a lot of the discoveries were fascinating, like the discoveries on Frederick Rutland and Amelia Earhart, or more details on what Rutland did with the Japanese Navy.
As just one example, information on Hollywood in the 1930s is all over the newspapers of the period. In 2021-2022, many of these old newspapers were only available on microfilm, in libraries that were mostly closed due to the pandemic. In 2023, the Hearst corporation put newspapers from the period online, and there I found dozens of articles with information on specific parties that spies and movie stars attended together.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope they will enjoy the tour of Hollywood stars, spies, and Pearl Harbor. And I hope they will think about two things:
Missed chances to prevent the Pearl Harbor attack
How a person who has done bad things may try to redeem themselves.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
I would ask them how they balance what they want to tell people with what the reader is looking for.
Ronald Drabkin
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ronald Drabkin
Born Los Angeles, California
Alma mater Duke University
University of California, Berkeley
Ron Drabkin is an American writer, entrepreneur, and angel investor. Based in Tokyo, he is the author of Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor.[1]
Early life and education
Drabkin grew up on the westside of Los Angeles.[2] He graduated from Duke University and attended International Christian University in Mitaka, Japan prior to earning an MBA at UC Berkeley.[3]
Career
Drabkin began his career in Silicon Valley. He commuted between the US and Japan before moving to Tokyo to work for an education start-up.[4] In 2017, following his father's death, Drabkin discovered that both his father and grandfather had backgrounds in counterintelligence.[5][6]
Intending to write about his family history, he requested files from the FBI on Frederick Rutland, who he suspected was an associate of his grandfather's. The file on Rutland, a British pilot and war hero who had become a spy for the Japanese Navy, had just been declassified. Drabkin, who said he may have been the first person outside of the bureau to see Rutland's FBI files, decided to write about him after reading his story. He conducted research in the United States, Japan, and the UK.[4][7]
His book about Rutland, Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor, was published by Harper-Collins in February 2024.[8][9]
QUOTED: "This winning and dramatic biography pierces the veil of secrecy surrounding historical events."
Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor. By Ronald Drabkin. Feb. 2024. 272p. Morrow, $29.99 (9780063310070); e-book (9780063310094). 940.5426.
Government secrecy is a catchall term, guarding against the revelation of embarrassing incidents, criminal acts, and intelligence operations. Thanks to recently declassified FBI files, Drabkin discovered why the UK, U.S., and Japan would prefer to keep their dealings with Frederick Rutland, aka "Agent Shinkawa," secret forever. In the British Royal Navy, Rutland distinguished himself in WWI for acts of bravery and grace under fire, but class elitism kept him mired in the lower ranks. So, proficient in airplanes and electronics, he took his expertise to the Japanese Navy. He became a useful asset as he relayed information on British aircraft and later, the U.S. defense industry, after he relocated to California in the 1930s. As the world marched on to WWII, Rutland seesawed in his allegiances, becoming a threat to Allied and Axis powers alike. 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.--Philip Zozzaro
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Zozzaro, Philip. "Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 11, 1 Feb. 2024, p. 13. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A782529247/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4dcdca48. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.
QUOTED: "Drabkin's expertly narrated yarn, based on a trove of recently declassified documents, is constantly surprising, and it's just the thing for thriller fans who enjoy kindred fictions."
Drabkin, Ronald BEVERLY HILLS SPY Morrow/HarperCollins (NonFiction None) $29.99 2, 13 ISBN: 9780063310070
A beguiling tale of espionage and double-dealing in the years leading up to World War II.
He was known as Agent Shinkawa, a spy for the Imperial Japanese Navy. His real name was Frederick Rutland (1886-1949), a hero of early British aviation. As Drabkin relates, Rutland turned to Japan for work after having been passed over for promotion as one of the proletariat, even as another pilot "of a superior class realized his skills were no match for Rutland's." Rutland had worked out practical solutions to launching warplanes from aircraft carriers, and, as early as 1920, the Japanese were both planning on using that new technology to forge a Pacific empire and preparing for war with the U.S. Rutland was particularly useful once he set up shop in Beverly Hills, plying pilots, aircraft manufacturers, and military officers with booze and letting them do the talking. Drabkin's cast of characters is surprising: The bon vivant Rutland got actionable intelligence out of Amelia Earhart and had dealings near and far with the likes of Charlie Chaplin (the target of a Japanese assassination attempt), Boris Karloff (an unlikely but real counterspy), Graham Greene's brother, and Yoko Ono's father. It wasn't long before the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence caught on to Rutland, who became a double agent to save his own skin, gaining protection from J. Edgar Hoover's FBI in the bargain. Both ONI and the FBI missed out on a trail of clues that might have prevented the attack at Pearl Harbor, in which Rutland was implicated enough to spend time in a British prison. Drabkin's expertly narrated yarn, based on a trove of recently declassified documents, is constantly surprising, and it's just the thing for thriller fans who enjoy kindred fictions of the Alan Furst variety.
Strap in for a narrative that demands a suspension of disbelief--and richly rewards it.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Drabkin, Ronald: BEVERLY HILLS SPY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777736886/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=45c54993. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.
QUOTED: "Drabkin writes with a novelist’s flair, roving between far-flung ritzy settings ... and notable personages."
"Readers will be swept up."
Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor
Ronald Drabkin. Morrow, $29.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-063-31007-0
Drawing on recently declassified files, historian Drabkin debuts with a riveting account of Frederick Rutland (1886–1949), a British WWI hero who spied for the Japanese on the eve of WWII. As a celebrated naval aviator—he was the first Royal Navy pilot to take off and land a plane from a ship in battle—Rutland developed a taste for publicity and a lifestyle beyond his reach. Overlooked in the peacetime British military, he offered his services to the Japanese Navy, who needed his technical knowledge to develop a carrier strike force. The Japanese later helped Rutland relocate to Los Angeles to spy on the U.S. Navy and develop an agent network. With the Japanese government funding his lavish lifestyle, he rubbed elbows with the most famous English actors in Hollywood at the time, including Alan Mowbray and Boris Karloff, who out of concern over Rutland’s behavior eventually contacted the FBI, and Charlie Chaplin, whose former butler Toraichi Kono became a key player in Japan’s espionage network. Shortly before the Pearl Harbor bombing, Rutland turned coat again, but his warning about the impending attack went unheeded by a distrustful FBI. Drabkin writes with a novelist’s flair, roving between far-flung ritzy settings (Hollywood, London, Tokyo) and notable personages (from J. Edgar Hoover to Amelia Earhart). Readers will be swept up. (Feb.)
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Reviewed on: 12/20/2023
Genre: Nonfiction
Compact Disc - 979-8-212-89838-6
MP3 CD - 979-8-212-89839-3
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