Stephen Mercado - Japanese Spy Gear & Special Weapons on biological and other weapons used in WWII

Interview of Monday, 3 November 2025 of Stephen Mercado discussing his new book "Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito’s Scientists and Technicians Served in WWII and the Cold War"

TOPIC: In this episode Stephen Mercado and James Hughes discuss "Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito’s Scientists and Technicians Served in the Second World War and the Cold War"
War, and the threat of war, spurs governments to invest in secret military technologies and weapons. Imperial Japan, ahead of the Second World War, was no exception. After the First World War, Japan set up the Noborito Research Institute: a division of scientists and technicians to invest in overt and clandestine warfare. Mercado dives into this history in his new book Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito’s Scientists and Technicians Served in the Second World War and the Cold War. At Noborito, Japanese scientists researched fanciful weapons, like balloon bombs and death rays; covert techniques like poisons and counterfeiting—and more insidious activities, like biological weapons.
The interview runs 36 minutes and includes several Q&As.
Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Spy-G...

BIOS: STEPHEN MERCADO is a retired officer of the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise (originally the Foreign Broadcast Information Service). A researcher primarily interested in Japanese intelligence history and Asian open-source intelligence, he earned a master’s degree in international affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is the author of "Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito's Scientists and Technicians Served in the Second World War and the Cold War" (Pen & Sword Military, 2025), "The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Elite Intelligence School" (Brassey’s, 2002), a dozen articles and several dozen book reviews. He has twice won a CIA Studies in Intelligence award for his writings.

JAMES R. HUGHES currently serves as the 17th President of AFIO. His service began January 2015. He had a career of US Government service spanning 37 years in numerous foreign countries with a particular focus in the Middle East. He started in U.S. Military Intelligence in the late 1960s and then joined the CIA’s Clandestine Service. He served overseas as a Chief of Station several times, and at CIA Headquarters in a number of senior management positions, including as Chief of the Near East and South Asia Division, in the Directorate of Operations [today’s National Clandestine Service]. He was also named the Associate Deputy Director of Operations (ADDO) at the National Security Agency, 1998-99. Following his retirement from the government in 2005, he joined EDS in Herndon, VA, as the Client Industry Executive for the U.S. Intelligence Community. After the HP acquisition of EDS, he continued to serve in a similar capacity until his retirement in 2012. His parents were missionaries in Turkey in the 1950s, where Jim spent his formative years. He is fluent in Arabic.

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