Arthur Masaki Kaneko's grandfather was the first Japanese granted citizenship in the State of California. His grandfather owned the Golden State Hotel, tracks of orange orchards, and helped start the Rafu Shimpo-a Japanese language daily paper. Kaneko's father came to the United States as an infant and became an honor student, an All-Southern California Quarterback, and was voted valedictorian of his high school class.
Despite their successful start in America, tragedy struck the Kaneko family. His father passed away when Kaneko was very young, and then his mother died when he was eight. In her will, she specified that he should be sent to Japan to live with his grandmother. In 1920 he left to live in Nagano-ken, Japan, and though he knew no Japanese, he attended elementary school.
After 10 years, he returned to the United States with an interest in architectural design, but by that time had lost most of his English. He continued his studies at evening school at the University of California, Los Angeles, but in March 1941 he was drafted and was sent to the Artillery Training Center at Camp Kelly near San Diego.
During his training, he received orders to go the S-2 headquarters. He interviewed with Capt. Kai Rasmussen who told him of plans to establish a Japanese language school for the Army.
A few months later, the Army transferred him to 4th Army Headquarters, Presidio, San Francisco:

> And there I met John F. Aiso, Private Aiso, and myself. Our boss was David, he was a Captain then. Captain Swift. He was in charge of us. Our job was to edit teaching material, was to have been printed by the San Francisco Printing, and also Nagano Tokuhon was being printed by these same printers. [Oral History]

While they prepared to open the first Military Intelligence Service Language School, Colonel Rasmussen offered to discharge Kaneko and Aiso from the Army to become civilian instructors. Aiso accepted, but Kaneko felt he did not know enough Japanese to teach. He wanted to 'properly' learn Japanese. After over two months of their preparation, the school opened on November 1, 1941.
After graduating, Kaneko worked as an instructor at Camp Savage, Minn., for two years. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he worked with Col. Rasmussen to recruit new Japanese-American students from the detention camps:

> They were having many problems internally. Many violence was taking place. So one of the arrangements was that when I arrived at the post, they will give me a safe quarter, the headquarters for my, where I sleep.... Somehow word gets around, I think it gets around from the admin office area, so that the guys would go there and beat him [a potential recruit] up.... Because of this condition at Heart Mountain, my interview and testing began from 12 midnight to about 6 o'clock in the morning. [Oral History]

In June 1944, he transferred to Camp Ritchie in Maryland to work for the Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section (PACMIRS). When the Pentagon reluctantly decided that Nisei could be commissioned, Kaneko went to the Officer Candidate School (OCS). He protested:

> I said, "Sir, I decline." He [Kaneko's commanding officer] says, "Goddamn it, Japanese American has a chance to go there, to Army, these ... open the OCS to you, you people, you go!" Oh, so I had to go. I didn't want to go. No! ... I don't know why they kept me there, but, you know, somehow I endured that ordeal and graduated Second Lieutenant. [Oral History]

He returned to PACMIRS where he translated Japanese documents that detailed new weaponry and machinery:

> When we go through the document and uncover something new in a weapon we will prepare a description of this new equipment and we take it to Fort Aperby Technical Center, which had test all equipment.... So all these things were translated right away and then sent back out to the field, so that they will be aware of this new weapon. [Oral History]

When the war ended in 1945, PACMIRS changed to the Washington Document Center. By this time, the United States wanted to track information about eastern Soviet Union. Kaneko began translating Japanese documents that contained that information, including documents on the the Trans-Siberian Railway, river systems, and other important developments.
In 1947 the U.S. government made a series of changes to the military and intelligence organizations. Congress enacted the National Security Act that established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Instead of choosing as a translator in Japan for the war crimes tribunals, Kaneko left the Army, signed-up for the reserves, and began working for the CIA where he stayed for 27 years.