I'm not sure I follow all your reasoning...
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Scott Harrington wrote:
1. Yes, it was difficult after the war for all of them. But just imagine he had something called GOLD. There was a reason Japan was plundering Manchuria, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Burma, etc. And would 18 yo. Saito know or more importantly talk about this new cash flow.
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I don't know what it is Saito said, but Shioda is quite open about his activities in
Aikido Jinsei (which can now be read in English translation thanks to Jacques Payet--see the book review section on Aikiweb). During the war, after he was in China, he was sent to SE Asia. While there, he lived like a king and amassed a small fortune, although it is sounds like most of that came from dubious management of company funds. He does say he had everything he could think of gold-plated. However, when the war ended, he was placed in a camp of some kind run by the Allies until he was cleared to go back to Japan. While in the camp, he lost basically everything he had.
Now, it is possible that he stashed a fortune that he retrieved at some later time. But there is no reason to think that. He lived in near-poverty and near-starvation for a long time and relied on sponsors to support his dojo. All indications are that he didn't have "GOLD".
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Scott Harrington wrote:
2. My belief is Ueshiba's fame was a lot less than put on. I bought an Omoto Kyo book thinking they'd have some stuff on him and it was a one line sentence. One sentence.
I did run across a neat New age book in the late 30's about Supermen where they had a chapter on him, but really. Judo owned the market - just look at the number of books listed from 1900 to the war. Ueshiba had one hand made book and then a picture book before the war. Heck, Takuma Hisa's Soden (11 volumes) probably had a larger circulation. Anthony J. Drexel Biddle in the United States taught thousands hand to hand combat in the U.S. for both WWI and WW II, had a movie made about him, and still most people don't know who he was. Heck, if it wasn't for Stanley Pranin, Takeda Sokaku would be just a name in Draeger's book describing how Daito ryu was one of the arts that 'influenced' Ueshiba.
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Not sure how this applies. Ueshiba wasn't hypothetically investigated, he was in fact investigated.
Quote:
Scott Harrington wrote:
3. So Shioda is connected but he's poor; he soon starts breaking up red menace strikers and teaching police but his father is dead; he mentions seeing war atrocities in one of his books but they wouldn't really come after him.
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Yes. A lot of people saw war atrocities. Not much happened to most of them. Anyhow, seeing war atrocities and committing them aren't the same thing. Unless
Aikido Jinsei is
completely made-up, I don't think it sounds like Shioda was focused on killing or ripping off the local populations so much as chasing skirts and eating at good restaurants. Most of his war-time stories follow the pattern "and then I saw I my old friend X who I thought was dead and we went out and ate a feast like I hadn't had in a long time".