Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo 9780674988507

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
1. Reformulating The US-Japan Alliance
2. Stabilizing Conservative Rule
3. The Waning of the Opposition Parties
4. The Collapse of the 1960 Coalition
5. New Directions in Literature and the Arts
6. Reshaping the Landscape of Expression
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Citation preview

Japan at the Crossroads

JAPAN AT THE CROSSROADS Conflict and Compromise after Anpo NICK KAPUR

Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2018

Copyright © 2018 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca First printing Book design by Dean Bornstein Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Kapur, Nick, 1980–­author. Title: Japan at the crossroads : conflict and compromise ­after Anpo / Nick Kapur. Description: Cambridge, Mas­sa­chu­setts : Harvard University Press, 2018. |   Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017058403 | ISBN 9780674984424 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Agreement ­under Article VI of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation   and Security between Japan and the United States of Amer­i­ca, regarding Facilities   and Areas and the Status of United States Armed Forces in Japan (1960 January 19) |   Protest movements—­Japan—­History. | Japan—­Foreign relations—1945–1989. |   United States—­Foreign relations—1953–1961. | Japan—­Civilization—­American   influences. | Japan—­Relations—­United States. | United States—­Relations—­Japan. |   Kishi, Nobusuke, 1896–1987. Classification: LCC HN723.5 K355 2018 | DDC 322.4/40952—­dc23 LC rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2017058403 Cover photo: Members of the Modern Drama Association (Shingekijin Kaigi) are attacked by right-wing ultranationalists of the “Restoration Action Corps” (Ishin Kōdō Tai) outside the gates of the Diet on June 15, 1960. The Mainichi Newspapers/AFLO.

Cover design by Graciela Galup

Contents

Introduction . 1

1 2 3 4 5 6

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance  . 35 Stabilizing Conservative Rule  . 75 The Waning of the Opposition Parties  . 108 The Collapse of the 1960 Co­ali­tion  . 134 New Directions in Lit­er­a­ture and the Arts  . 176 Reshaping the Landscape of Expression  . 218

Conclusion . 263 Abbreviations . 275 Notes . 277 Acknowl­edgments  . 309 Index . 313

Japan at the Crossroads

Introduction

An astounding scene greeted Japa­nese ­people turning on their radios and newly purchased tele­vi­sion sets on the eve­ning of June  15, 1960. As they watched or listened live in their living rooms, thousands of protesters, many of them students from Japan’s most elite universities, smashed down the gates of the symbol of Japa­nese democracy itself—­the National Diet Building in central Tokyo. Amid the harsh, eerie lighting of burning police vehicles and klieg lights brought in by tele­vi­sion film crews, wave ­after wave of unarmed protesters crashed against ranks of helmeted police officers armed with truncheons, attempting to force their way into the building housing Japan’s national legislature through the sheer force of their massed bodies. The desperate ­battle raged long into the night and ultimately left hundreds bloodied and battered, and a young female college student dead. It also threw Japan’s post–­World War II po­liti­cal settlement, as well as Japan’s place in the Cold War international system, into a state of profound uncertainty. The events of June 15 w ­ ere the climax of what ­were, by almost any mea­sure, the largest and longest series of popu­lar protests in Japan’s history—­a nationwide movement that ostensibly sought to prevent revision of the US-­Japan Security Treaty (Nichibei Anzen Hoshō Jōyaku, usually abbreviated “Anpo” in Japa­nese), the instrument that allows the United States to maintain military bases on Japa­nese soil. For a period of fifteen months, from March 1959 through June 1960, an estimated 30 million ­people from across the archipelago—­approximately one-­third of Japan’s population of 92.5 million—­participated in protest activities of some kind.1 What allowed the protests to grow so large? One ­factor was the larger po­liti­cal context. In addition to demonstrating popu­lar re­sis­tance to an . 1 .

japan at the crossroads inequitable treaty arrangement with the United States, the 1960 protest movement also reflected increasing dissatisfaction on the part of many Japa­nese citizens with the direction of Japa­nese domestic politics and culture ­under the leadership of the unpop­u­lar conservative prime minister, Kishi Nobusuke. Kishi’s Liberal Demo­cratic Party (LDP) held a large majority in the Diet and was threatening to achieve the two-­thirds supermajority required to amend Japan’s constitution, making the opposition socialist and communist parties increasingly desperate to arrest its power. Moreover, Kishi himself had a sordid past; he had served in the cabinet during World War II and was imprisoned for a time ­after the war as an accused war criminal. The painful memories of the disastrous war just fifteen years prior w ­ ere still fresh in p ­ eople’s minds, and what­ ever the merits of treaty revision, the fact that Kishi was the messenger sowed suspicion of his motives. A ­ fter Kishi seemed to confirm ­these suspicions by taking extreme steps to ram the treaty through the Diet in late May, the protests exploded in size and vigor and became a truly broad-­based mass movement to oust Kishi and “protect” Japa­nese democracy. Another f­actor was the sense of dislocation many Japa­nese felt as Japan rapidly transitioned from a largely agrarian nation to a heavi­ly industrialized, urbanized, mass consumption society. In the years immediately following Japan’s defeat in World War II, many Japa­nese citizens had suffered extreme privation due to severe shortages of food and basic necessities, but Japan’s economy rapidly recovered and by 1960 was in the midst of a long period of unpre­ce­dented economic growth. For more than two de­cades, from 1950 to 1973, Japan’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a staggering compound annual growth rate of nearly 10 ­percent per year—­a rate not approached again u ­ ntil China’s high growth rates in the 2000s. However, as economic growth accelerated, income in­equality began to rise.2 With the size of the economic pie clearly growing, workers began to demand a more equal share, leading to escalating l­ abor strife over the course of the 1950s. By 1960, Japan’s militant ­labor ­unions ­were at the height of their power and had the orga­nizational strength to serve as the backbone of a large nationwide protest movement. . 2 .

Introduction Meanwhile, Japan’s rapid development led to a host of disorienting societal transformations, including large-­scale migration from rural villages to newly rebuilt cities, the technocratic rationalization of the workplace and the mechanization of both farm and factory, and the unexpected sunsetting of legacy industries at a much faster pace than expected, all of which further fueled social and po­liti­cal upheaval. Similar transformations w ­ ere taking place in other nations around the world, but in Japan’s case, the shift from a defeated, heavi­ly bombed nation on the verge of starvation to an economic power­house in the span of one generation was particularly rapid, and therefore even more disconcerting. But the most crucial ­factor of all may have been new developments in visual media. The power of electronically transmitted photo­graphs and especially the new medium of tele­vi­sion allowed the anti-­treaty movement to become a shared national and even transnational experience, as stunning images of the protests and especially the bloody June 15 ­battle ­were transmitted across the nation and the world. At a time when tele­vi­sion sets ­were just beginning to proliferate, the anti–­Security Treaty uprising became one of the first ­great televisual spectacles, riveting the nation on a nightly basis as friends and neighbors gathered around TV sets to witness the protests beamed directly into their homes.3 Helmeted Japa­nese film crews brazenly waded into the thick of the protests, capturing stunning close-up views of the vio­lence. This footage was then transmitted around the world, where it was seen on nightly newscasts and in cinema newsreels. Although the 1960s are often remembered as a de­cade of explosive worldwide protests, this was more characteristic of the latter half of the de­cade, as Vietnam War protests, anti-­colonial and civil rights movements, student movements, and feminist and environmentalist movements gathered momentum over the course of the de­ cade. In 1960, however, comparatively few nations saw major protests, and none w ­ ere as well documented visually as the anti–­Security Treaty protests in Japan. Consequently, for many p ­ eople across the globe, the 1960 protests in Japan ­were their first encounter with film footage of large-­ scale public street protests, and the Japa­nese uprising became a source of inspiration for many ­later protest movements. Western protesters . 3 .

japan at the crossroads ­ ere particularly inspired by a Japa­nese style of protest march known in w En­glish as the “snake dance,” in which sequential ranks of protesters would link arms and careen back and forth across the street like a ­giant snake. In ­later years, Western protesters would often try (and usually fail) to imitate it at protests in their home countries, such as at the demonstrations against the 1968 Demo­cratic National Convention in Chicago.4 Within Japan, the impact of the protests can be mea­sured by the outsize emphasis so many ­people from both ends of the po­liti­cal spectrum would place on the events of 1960 in how they remembered and ­imagined their own life stories, in many cases endowing the 1960 clash with an importance similar to that placed on Japan’s 1945 defeat.5 An entire generation of Japa­nese who ­were anywhere between roughly fifteen and thirty years of age in 1960 continued to refer to themselves as the “Security Treaty generation” (Anpo sedai) for de­cades thereafter, with overtones of pride for having participated in this momentous shared national experience. But even ­those who ­were much older or younger always seemed to have a “1960 Anpo” story. Artists ­later claimed that the 1960 protests changed their art forever, environmental activists claimed their movement started with Anpo, and ­women’s liberation activists claimed that the protests inspired them to fight for ­women’s rights.6 With equal fondness did conservative Japa­nese politicians, such as ­future prime minister Miyazawa Kiichi, f­uture opposition leader Ozawa Ichirō, and ­future prime minister Abe Shinzō (who was only six years old at the time), look back in l­ater years and see the 1960 protests as an event of major importance in their lives. Abe in par­tic­u­lar tells a tale of learning about the protests on his grand­father Kishi’s knee, situating the 1960 crisis as the point of origin for his po­liti­cal awareness and indeed his entire po­liti­cal ­career ­going forward.7 But the reason so many dif­fer­ent types of ­people could lay claim to the alleged transformative power of the 1960 uprising was precisely ­because its meaning remained so stubbornly ambiguous. Much of this ambiguity stemmed from the lack of a clear victory for e­ ither side. On the one hand, Kishi succeeded in securing ratification of the treaty despite the massive demonstrations. On the other hand, the escalating vio­ lence of the street protests forced Kishi to resign and to cancel a planned . 4 .

Hundreds of thousands of protesters gather before the main gate of the National Diet on June 15, 1960. (Mainichi Shinbun / Mainichi Photo Bank)

japan at the crossroads visit to Japan by US president Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was already en route, a major humiliation for both leaders. Japan, which had been touted by both leaders in their Cold War rhe­toric as a shining example of a free-­market democracy in Asia, had now seen Kishi’s demo­ cratically elected administration toppled by extra-­parliamentary street protests led in many cases by openly anti-­capitalist members of Japan’s communist and socialist parties. What exactly this mass uprising and its ambiguous outcome portended for Japan’s ­future course as a nation became hotly contested in the days, months, and years that followed the vio­lence. The Eisenhower administration maintained that the protests ­were the handi­work of a few isolated communist sympathizers and did not represent the feelings of the majority of Japa­nese, a sentiment also voiced by Kishi. However, ­others vehemently disagreed, among them Edwin O. Reischauer, the Harvard Japanologist and f­ uture ambassador to Japan, who argued that the protest movement spoke to the dissatisfaction of a broad cross-­section of Japa­ nese society and demanded a thoroughgoing reformulation of the ­US-­Japan relationship. Many Japa­nese conservatives argued that Japan was now on the cusp of a communist revolution; in response to this fear, reformist members of the ruling LDP called for changes to the party’s structure and politics, and right-­wing fixers began building an army of ultranationalists and yakuza gangsters to prepare a counterrevolutionary force against such an eventuality. Some of the protesters themselves agreed, and eagerly looked forward to continuing the strug­gle and bringing the long anticipated revolution to fruition. Other protesters, focusing on the fact that the movement failed to stop the treaty, ­were overcome by a sense of hopelessness and failure (zasetsu kan), and turned away from traditional forms of po­liti­cal activism. At the same time, a younger generation of artists, writers, politicians, intellectuals, and environmentalist and feminist activists saw a silver lining in the failure of the protests, a chance to sweep away an older politics of rigid hierarchy and deference to traditional social norms, and build a new, more human-­centered politics based on re­spect for differences, individual self-­ expression, and personal responsibility. . 6 .

Introduction ­ ese three categories of reaction and response—­conservative counTh terrevolution, traumatic schisms within the original anti-­treaty protest movement, and the revolutionary fervor among a younger generation arriving on the stage in 1960—­would ultimately combine to transform ­US-­Japan relations and Japa­nese politics, society, and culture in fundamental ways that would make the type of massive protests seen in June 1960 increasingly less likely to recur. ­These pro­cesses played out over many months and even years in the aftermath of the 1960 protests, but already by 1965 or so, Japa­nese society was a dramatically dif­fer­ent space in which massive extra-­parliamentary street protests carried out by a broad-­based popu­lar movement would become less and less imaginable, and the styles and techniques of protest employed by the anti-­treaty movement would be replaced by new forms now associated with the worldwide “New Left” and the global counterculture that emerged in the latter half of the 1960s. The transformations that ­were precipitated or accelerated by the 1960 anti-­treaty movement in Japan continued to play out in the de­cades that followed, and continue to shape the contours of Japa­nese society, the US-­Japan relationship, and Japan’s role in broader world culture and politics up to the pres­ent day. In the immediate aftermath of the 1960 protests, the writer and critic Haniya Yutaka declared them to have been a “revolutionless revolution” (kakumei naki kakumei).8 Haniya, as a leftist, was bitterly disappointed at the failure of the movement to prevent ratification of the treaty, and lamented the fact that the movement did not evolve into a broader socialist revolution. However, the 1960 protests and their immediate aftermath did in fact constitute a kind of revolutionary moment, despite the lack of a thoroughgoing po­liti­cal revolution, paving the way for a US-­Japan alliance based on much greater mutuality, a new domestic politics in Japan of “tolerance and patience,” new types of social movements, and new forms of literary and artistic expression. At the same time, a broader conservative revolution began to unfold in Japan, moving Japa­nese society as a ­whole in a direction that was more restrictive of certain types of expression, less openly contentious, and more consensual. Th ­ ese seemingly countervailing trends combined and interacted with each other to produce the contradictions and . 7 .

japan at the crossroads ­ ssures that inhere in the Japan of the pres­ent day—­a vibrantly creative fi and expressive society whose popu­lar culture has found receptive audiences around the world, yet also a deeply conservative and risk-­averse nation where certain be­hav­iors, forms of dissent, and topics of conversation remain off-­limits. Ultimately, it is difficult to understand con­temporary Japan, or Japan’s current role in the international system, without understanding the momentous events of 1960.

A National Identity Crisis ­ very revolution has a backstory. To recognize which aspects of the 1960 E crisis, if any, w ­ ere truly transformational, and which ­were incremental changes, we must first consider the origins of the anti–­Security Treaty movement in the early postwar period. The 1960 clash ultimately arose out of the identity crisis into which Japan was plunged following its defeat in World War II. A ­ fter de­cades of escalating state nationalism premised on the notion that Japan was a sacred land ruled by a divine emperor culminated in the disastrous Asia-­ Pacific War, Japa­nese citizens ­were suddenly stripped of this worldview when their government surrendered to the Allied Powers on August 15, 1945, and Emperor Hirohito renounced his own divinity in a statement to the nation on January 1, 1946. With all the old certainties stripped away, what kind of nation would Japan become? The Allied Powers and especially the United States w ­ ere not about to let the Japa­nese decide for themselves. Following the surrender, Japan came ­under a military occupation, u ­ nder the command of American general Douglas MacArthur, that lasted from 1945 to 1952. The ­Mac­Arthur-­led “Supreme Command for the Allied Powers” (SCAP) pursued an ambitious program of social and po­liti­cal transformation designed to ensure that Japan would never again threaten world peace. Working closely with Japa­nese government bureaucrats, SCAP disbanded the Japa­nese military, purged war­time leaders, began breaking up the power­ful industrial conglomerates (zaibatsu) that had powered Japan’s war machine, dramatically increased landownership with a sweeping land reform, fragmented state police power by imposing local control, extended . 8 .

Introduction the right to vote to w ­ omen, and established an American-­style, decentralized public education system with textbooks rewritten to replace the ultranationalist war­time curriculum with a new “demo­cratic education.”9 In many ways the Occupation sought to remake Japan in Amer­i­ca’s own image, but in certain key re­spects, the Occupation authorities went beyond anything found in the American system. The Japa­nese Communist Party (JCP) was legalized, and new laws encouraged ­labor organ­izing and protected the right to strike. The crowning achievement of the first phase of the US Occupation was a new constitution, imposed on Japan by SCAP in 1947, which demoted the Japa­nese emperor from a divine ruler to mere head of state, offered explicit protections for ­women’s rights and ­labor ­union organ­izing found nowhere in Amer­i­ca’s own constitution, and, most famously in Article 9 (the so-­called Peace Clause), renounced forever the use of warfare as a sovereign right and promised Japan would never maintain military forces. However, as the global Cold War ramped up amid the Soviet occupation of Eastern Eu­rope and Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946, and especially ­after the fall of mainland China to the communists ­under Mao Zedong in 1949, US Occupation policies underwent a significant change in direction. The so-­called Reverse Course (gyaku kōsu) began in January 1947 when MacArthur announced that he would not permit a massive, nationwide general strike that ­labor ­unions had planned for February 1 in an effort to bring down the conservative, pro-­American cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. Thereafter, the emphasis of Occupation policy shifted decidedly from demilitarization and democ­ ratization to economic reconstruction and remilitarization in support of US Cold War objectives in Asia, and many of the more radical policies that SCAP had pursued in the Occupation’s initial phase w ­ ere jettisoned or partially undone. Among other reversals, thousands of purged war­ time leaders ­were depurged and allowed to reenter the government, plans for further anti-­trust actions against the old zaibatsu conglomerates w ­ ere scrapped, Japan was allowed to reinstate a national police force, a new edict stripped public sector ­labor ­unions of their right to strike, and the United States began pressuring Japan to remilitarize. The climax of the “Reverse Course” came in 1950, against the backdrop of the outbreak of . 9 .

japan at the crossroads the Korean War, when Japa­nese po­liti­cal and business leaders, with SCAP’s approval, arranged the firing of tens of thousands of communists and suspected communists from government and private sector jobs in the so-­called Red Purge (reddo pāji).10 In the lead-up to the purge, Japa­nese business leaders, again with SCAP’s connivance, had fomented “democracy cells” (mindō) within the Communist Party–­dominated ­labor ­unions, and as ­these ­unions collapsed amid the purge in 1950, the cells emerged to form a new ­labor federation called Sōhyō (an abbreviation for Nihon Rōdō Kumiai Sō Hyōgikai, the “General Council of Trade Unions of Japan”), which soon became the largest and most power­ful ­labor federation in Japan. Occupation authorities hoped that Sōhyō would act as a more moderate alternative to the previous version of the Japa­nese ­labor movement dominated by the communists, which had been extremely militant. ­These hopes would quickly be dashed, however, as Sōhyō took the lead in organ­izing a series of nationwide strikes for higher wages and increasingly became involved in po­liti­cal protests as well.11 Even ­after the Occupation officially ended in 1952, the “Reverse Course” continued ­under the auspices of conservative Japa­nese governments and, with the encouragement and aid of the United States, culminated in the mid-1950s with three major developments: the 1954 reformulation of the National Police Reserve into the Japan Self-­ Defense Forces, a de facto military technically deemed a police force to avoid conflict with Article 9; the passage that same year of a revised Police Law, which partially recentralized u ­ nder national control the disparate local police forces created by the Occupation; and fi­nally in 1955, the unification of the two major conservative parties—­the Liberal Party and the Demo­cratic Party—­into the conservative LDP (orchestrated by none other than Kishi Nobusuke himself, with advice and encouragement from the US Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]) for the purpose of presenting a united front against the socialists and communists. Thereafter, the LDP continued to receive covert monetary and po­liti­cal support from the CIA and, despite the reunification of the left and right halves of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) that same year, would go on to dominate the National Diet for de­cades. Meanwhile, the old zaibatsu conglomer. 10 .

Introduction ates ­were allowed to partially resurrect themselves in the form of so-­ called keiretsu—­informal networks of interlocking business relationships and cross-­shareholding among the newly in­de­pen­dent subsidiary companies of the dissolved zaibatsu.12 The US-­led Occupation thus bequeathed to postwar Japan a complex and contradictory legacy. On the one hand, the “Peace Constitution,” combined with a robust l­ abor movement, vigorous socialist and communist parties, and a vibrant civil society, ensured that progressive forces would have a symbol to rally around and the institutional and orga­ nizational wherewithal to support large-­scale mass movements. On the other hand, the “Reverse Course” provided conservative forces with momentum in their drive to restore aspects of the prewar system and enhanced policing power to ­counter leftist movements. Both sides had been given reason to believe that their concept of Japan’s national identity might win out in the end. Accordingly, the 1950s witnessed a long series of escalating clashes between t­hese two forces as the contradictions of the Occupation ­were hashed out in the Diet and on the streets, fi­nally culminating in the 1960 ­battle over revising the US-­Japan Security Treaty. The original US-­Japan Security Treaty had been forced on Japan in 1952 as a precondition for ending the US-­led Occupation and restoring Japan’s national sovereignty. Coming into force on April 28, 1952, in combination with the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which officially ended World War II in Asia, the security pact was unquestionably an “unequal” treaty that enshrined semicolonial status for Japan, with “subordinate in­de­pen­ dence” ­under US hegemony, by allowing the United States to keep the island of Okinawa and maintain thousands of military installations throughout the Japa­nese mainland.13 Among specific stipulations and omissions injurious to Japa­nese national pride, the treaty had no specified termination or renewal date, allowed US forces stationed in Japan to be used for any purpose in the “Far East” without any prior consultation with the Japa­nese government, made no mention of a US obligation to defend Japan if Japan ­were to be attacked, and explic­itly allowed US troops stationed in Japan to be used to put down “internal riots or disturbances” (presumably referring to leftist or communist-­inspired protests).14 . 11 .

japan at the crossroads Almost from the beginning, calls arose in Japan from both the left and the right to revise the humiliating treaty, and the Japa­nese government spent much of the next eight years pressuring the United States to permit a revision. In 1955, Japa­nese foreign minister Shigemitsu Mamoru led a del­e­ga­tion to the United States to press for treaty revision, but was coldly rebuffed by the original treaty’s architect and then–­secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Then when Kishi Nobusuke took over as prime minister from the ailing Ishibashi Tanzan in 1957, he announced that he would make revising the treaty the central goal of his administration. The Japa­nese population, however, was initially divided as to what role Japan should play in the international arena. In the wake of Japan’s defeat in World War II, the JCP u ­ nder charismatic leader Nosaka Sanzō had successfully presented itself as “lovable” and drew on widespread dissatisfaction with the prewar system that had led the nation to disaster, as well as the widespread ac­cep­tance of its claims that Japan’s communists had been the lone dissenters to militarism, to win thousands of new members and hundreds of thousands of sympathizers.15 Although not every­one supported the Communists, millions of other Japa­nese found themselves drawn to socialism, fueling the rise of the JSP, which was strong enough to hold power u ­ nder Prime Minister Katayama Tetsu from 1947 to 1948, and ­after breaking up briefly, re­united in 1955 and became a potent po­liti­cal force in the second half of the 1950s. Within this context, many left-­leaning Japa­nese initially hoped that as Japan gradually shook itself ­free of the legacies of defeat and occupation, it might draw closer to the communist bloc led globally by the ­Soviet Union (USSR) and more locally by the ­People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, over the course of the 1950s, as the rivalry between the Soviets and the Chinese for preeminence in Asia grew more and more heated, and ultimately developed into the naked conflict of the “Sino-­ Soviet Split,” the USSR and the PRC increasingly came to view Japan as another battleground in which to contend with each other for power. Each side cultivated its own warring factions within both the JCP and the JSP, as well as affiliated movements such as Sōhyō and the Japa­nese peace movement. In the midst of t­ hese developments, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s “secret speech” denouncing the policies of his pre­de­ces­sor . 12 .

Introduction Joseph Stalin in 1956, as well as the Soviet invasion of Hungary ­later that year, sowed confusion within the Japa­nese left and contributed to growing disillusionment with the worldwide socialist movement, at least as represented by the Soviet Union and China. Other, more conservative Japa­nese known as the “liberals”—­especially business leaders and politicians associated with the po­liti­cal faction of conservative prime minister Yoshida Shigeru—­saw many advantages of Japan remaining ­under the US nuclear umbrella while benefiting from favorable trade policies and US defense appropriations in Japan, and hoped that Japan might remain firmly within the f­ree world camp as a close ally and partner of the United States. But as the preferential treatment of US interests became more glaring, even this group was eventually persuaded of the need to revise the terms of the Security Treaty in a direction of greater mutuality. Still a third group comprised an odd alliance of center-­left organ­ izations, most of Japan’s business world, and right-­wing nationalists, who hoped Japan would chart a “neutral” (chūritsuteki) course between the two Cold War camps, taking full advantage of trade with both sides. Business leaders ­were particularly attracted by the possibility of greater trade with mainland China ­under a neutralist policy, but many Japa­nese from across the po­liti­cal spectrum saw the presence of US military bases on Japa­nese soil as an infringement of Japan’s sovereignty and an unnecessary provocation to the Soviet Bloc that endangered Japan’s security. As disillusionment with the be­hav­ior of the major communist nations and frustration at American bases and nuclear testing continued to increase over the course of the 1950s, this “neutralist” camp continued to grow larger, such that by 1960 “neutralism” was arguably the most popu­lar conception of what Japan’s role in the world should be ­going forward. Indeed, a 1958 poll found that a full 68 ­percent of Diet members, including a majority 52 ­percent of conservative LDP members, agreed that Japan should chart a neutral course between the United States and the Soviet Union, as far as was pos­si­ble.16 Yet despite this broad-­based opposition to the US-­Japan Security Treaty, the US government was in no hurry to alter a pact so favorable to its interests. Over the course of the 1950s, however, the Japa­nese cause . 13 .

japan at the crossroads was helped in no small part by the escalating strug­gles between left and right in Japan. On May  1, 1952—­now remembered as “Bloody May Day”—­Sōhyō spearheaded a nationwide day of protest against the one-­ sided peace and security treaties that had come into force just three days prior. Altogether more than a million ­people participated in 331 protest gatherings across the country. Although most gatherings ­were peaceful, vio­lence broke out in Tokyo when protesters attempted to occupy the plaza in front of the Imperial Palace—­a traditional site for annual May Day protests that the government had recently announced would henceforth be closed to public gatherings. At first, the protesters succeeded in occupying the “­people’s plaza,” waving flags and singing songs. But when police arrived on the scene and attempted to clear the plaza, a bloody melee erupted that injured hundreds. Eventually, the police fired “warning shots” with their pistols, killing two protesters and wounding twenty-­two ­others. The fleeing protesters then overturned and set fire to dozens of American-­owned cars parked along the road, and with chants of “Yankee go home!” (yankii go homu), they attacked American bystanders, including reporters and GIs, three of whom w ­ ere hurled into the palace moat and stoned before they ­were saved through the intercession of other Japa­nese. Meanwhile in Kyoto, some 3,000 protesters attacked the district court and the city office, leading to a ­battle that left hundreds injured. Sporadic vio­lence continued across the country throughout the summer; anti-­American protesters clashed with police in Osaka in June, and Molotov cocktails w ­ ere hurled at police and American military vehicles in Nagoya in July.17 The initial wave of anger at the subordinate status imposed on Japan by the United States following the end of the Occupation soon burgeoned into a nationwide movement against US military bases. Japa­nese leaders had been stunned by the size of the force the United States insisted on leaving in Japan even ­after the military occupation ended—­a total of 260,000 troops making use of no less than 2,824 facilities throughout the nation (excluding Okinawa), occupying land totaling 1,352 square kilo­ meters.18 The first large-­scale protest against a US military base took place at Uchinada in Ishikawa prefecture on Japan’s northwest coast from 1952 to 1953. Uchinada was home to Japan’s second-­largest natu­ral sand . 14 .

Introduction dune complex, and efforts by local residents to prevent its designation as an artillery range galvanized nationwide sympathy and support. Thereafter, anti-­base protests sprouted up around the nation, including major strug­gles at Mount Myōgi in Gunma and the Ōtakane artillery range in Yamagata prefecture in 1953, and at the Kita Fuji artillery range near Mount Fuji in 1955, where local farm w ­ omen built homemade fortresses in the ­middle of the range and manned them around the clock with rotating teams for de­cades.19 The largest of all the anti-­base strug­gles took place in Sunagawa village, southwest of Tokyo, against a planned expansion of runways to accommodate jet bombers at nearby Tachikawa Air Base. Initially launched by farmers protesting expropriation of their land, the “Sunagawa strug­gle” lasted from 1955 to 1957 and became a nationwide media spectacle, receiving near-­daily news coverage and becoming the subject of documentaries, artworks, and reportage-­style photography. The strug­gle soon expanded rhetorically to encompass larger goals of upholding Japan’s pacifist constitution and opposing American imperialism, and escalated dramatically a­ fter the national student organ­ization Zengakuren (an abbreviation of Zen Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sō Rengō, the “All-­Japan Federation of Student Self-­Government Associations”) began busing in students from universities in the Tokyo area in 1956, leading to spectacular clashes with the police that earned the conflict the sobriquet “Bloody Sunagawa” (ryūketsu no Sunagawa) in the Japa­nese press.20 The Sunagawa protests marked an innovation in left-­wing protest tactics. Unlike the “Bloody May Day” combatants and other early 1950s protesters, who had armed themselves with baseball bats, wooden staves, rocks, pachinko balls, bamboo spears, and even Molotov cocktails, the student protesters at Sunagawa made a point of struggling against the police unarmed. In contrast to the earlier protesters, who w ­ ere widely viewed as violent hooligans, the sight of unarmed, youthful bodies beaten to a pulp by police batons was deliberately designed to elicit public sympathy and outrage and a broader base of popu­lar support outside far-­left circles. Ultimately, t­ hese tactics contributed to the success of the Sunagawa strug­gle, as runway expansion plans ­were in­def­initely shelved in 1957. The police, for their part, although they did use batons, no longer . 15 .

japan at the crossroads armed themselves with pistols, seeking to prevent deaths that might rile up excess sympathy for the protesters. Thus, even as left-­right clashes ­were becoming larger and in some ways more fiercely contested over the course of the 1950s, they ­were actually becoming less violent. Another crucial new development was the willingness of Zengakuren to break f­ ree of the JCP—­which had founded it in 1949, and with which it had been closely associated throughout the first half of the 1950s—to work together in alliance with the JSP and Sōhyō in a more broad-­based movement that explic­itly excluded the Communists. Both of ­these innovations set pre­ce­ dents that would guide the actions of the students in the 1960 protests.21 The triumph of the anti-­base movement at Sunagawa combined with other developments to give progressive activists a sense of momentum heading into the 1960 Security Treaty conflict. In the Lucky Dragon incident of March 1, 1954, a Japa­nese fishing vessel, Lucky Dragon No. 5 (Daigo Fukuryū Maru), was showered with fallout from the US military’s fifteen-­megaton “­Castle Bravo” hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, contaminating the boat’s catch, sickening its crew, and ultimately resulting in the death of the boat’s radioman seven months ­later from acute radiation poisoning. The incident became the inspiration for the original Godzilla film produced that same year, in which the titular monster is awakened from his slumber on the seabed by an American nuclear test. It also sparked a massive public outcry and launched a broad-­based anti-­nuclear and pacifist movement in Japan. A “National Council for a Petition Drive to Ban Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs” (Gensuibaku Kinshi Shomei Undō Zenkoku Kyōgikai), deliberately designed to be as apo­liti­cal as pos­si­ble, succeeded in mounting an eponymous petition drive that garnered an astonishing 30 million signatures by August 1955.22 This council evolved into a more formal organ­ization, Gensuikyō (Gensuibaku Kinshi Nihon Kyōgikai, the “Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs”), which played a major role in the 1960 anti-­treaty movement and has remained active to the pres­ent day. Another major incident roiled the US-­Japan relationship in 1957 when a US ser­viceman, William S. Girard, shot an empty grenade cartridge, apparently for his own amusement, at Sakai Naka, a h ­ ouse­wife and ­mother of six who was collecting spent shell casings at a US military . 16 .

Introduction base to sell for scrap. Sakai was killed by the impact, and the so-­called Girard incident ( Jirādo jiken) precipitated a major diplomatic crisis between the United States and Japan over the question of which nation had jurisdiction to put Girard on trial. Initially, the US position was that ­Girard was on “active duty” when the incident occurred and therefore should be tried by a US military tribunal ­under the terms of the Security Treaty. However, following a massive outcry in Japan, the Eisenhower administration backed down and, despite po­liti­cal and media backlash in the United States, allowed Girard to be tried in a Japa­nese court (which generously gave him nothing more than a three-­year suspended sentence). The Girard case also led directly to the Eisenhower administration’s announcement that it would draw down US troops on Japa­nese soil by 40 ­percent, and to its decision, ­after several years of staunch refusal, to accede to Kishi’s request to renegotiate the Security Treaty.23 Confronted by the growing anti-­base movement, as well as the anti-­ nuclear movement and outrage a­ fter incidents such as the Girard case, the US government and fi­nally the US military as well had been forced into the recognition that, treaty or not, US bases could be rapidly rendered unusable by popu­lar re­sis­tance, and hoped that acquiescing to treaty revision would help quell the rising tide of protest.24 It was thus deeply ironic that a treaty revision intended to salve Japa­nese national pride and stem the rising tide of anti-­American protests resulted in the largest popu­lar uprising in Japan’s history.

The 1960 Protests The protest movement against revision of the Security Treaty arose in tandem with Kishi’s efforts to revise the original pact. It took Kishi’s government nearly three years of painstaking negotiations with the Eisenhower administration and wrangling with rival factions in their own party to agree on the terms of the new treaty, with the final negotiations playing out over the course of 1959. Kishi had e­ very reason to believe that the new treaty would be broadly popu­lar and would secure his personal legacy. ­After all, both conservatives and progressives in Japan had been demanding treaty revision for nearly a de­cade. Moreover, the new, . 17 .

japan at the crossroads revised treaty ultimately gave the Japa­nese nearly every­thing they had asked for, ameliorating nearly all the deficiencies of the original by incorporating an explicit ten-­year term, ­after which the treaty could be unilaterally abrogated by ­either side with one year’s notice, establishing an explicit US obligation to defend Japan from attack, calling for prior consultation before major movements of troops based in Japan as well as broader economic cooperation between the two nations, and eliminating the odious clause allowing US troops to put down “internal disturbances.”25 However, Kishi made a crucial strategic blunder in October  1958 when, just as formal treaty negotiations ­were getting ­under way, he suddenly and unexpectedly introduced a bill to revise the Police Duties Law (Keishoku Hō) that would have significantly expanded police powers of warrantless search and seizure. Foreseeing the upcoming strug­gle over treaty revision, Kishi had hoped to enhance the government’s ability to obstruct and disrupt left-­wing protest movements. Foreshadowing his approach to passing the revised Security Treaty, Kishi waited ­until the end of a Diet session and then suddenly introduced the new bill without prior consultation with the opposition and called for a snap vote to extend the Diet session. This trampling of unwritten Diet conventions, not to mention the perceived reactionary character of the proposed revisions, which inevitably brought to mind unpleasant memories of the prewar police state, provoked a national uproar. In response, several left-­wing organ­izations united to form the P ­ eople’s Council for Opposing Mal-­Revision of the Police Duties Law (Keishoku Hō Kaiaku Hantai Kokumin Kaigi). This umbrella organ­ization ultimately grew to include a variety of less po­liti­cal organ­izations—­sixty-­five in total—­including ­women’s groups, religious groups, and cultural groups. By organ­izing several “united actions” (tōitsu kōdō) in the fall of 1958, the P ­ eople’s Council was successful in defeating the proposed revision of the police law by arousing and underscoring broad-­based national opposition to the bill. The movement against the Police Duties Bill provided a crucial impetus for the anti–­Security Treaty movement that was launched the following spring, and was its immediate progenitor. Most of the groups that . 18 .

Introduction ­ pposed the police bill remained in close contact, and on March 28, o 1959, re­united to declare the formation of a very similar, but much larger “­People’s Council” to oppose the new Security Treaty. The Police Duties Bill debacle also permanently damaged Kishi, as he came to be seen as devious and untrustworthy by many moderates, and rival factions in his own party, sensing weakness, stepped up efforts to undermine his authority.26 The massive anti–­Security Treaty movement that emerged from the police bill strug­gle and climaxed with the ­battle at the Diet on June 15, 1960, was the culmination of every­thing the Japa­nese left had learned in conducting the escalating strug­gles of the 1950s. The nationwide umbrella organ­ization that guided the movement, the ­People’s Council for Preventing Revision of the Security Treaty (Anpo Jōyaku Kaitei Soshi Kokumin Kaigi, abbreviated Kokumin Kaigi), was by far the largest such organ­ization yet, a grab bag of 134 preexisting left and center-­left organ­ izations, including anti-­bomb groups, anti-­base activists, the Socialist and Communist parties, ­labor ­unions, student groups, ­women’s socie­ties, child-­protection groups, pro-­China groups, peace groups, farmers’ cooperatives, and ­human rights organ­izations. The council even attracted a few business cooperatives that normally supported conservative ­causes.27 Or­gan­i­za­tion­ally, the Kokumin Kaigi was vertically or­ga­nized into a hierarchy of thousands of local “joint-­struggle councils” (kyōtō kaigi) that answered to forty-­odd prefectural joint-­struggle councils, which in turn answered to a central “board of directors” consisting of thirteen founding organ­izations, which took all major decisions on a consensus basis. The board most notably included the JSP, the Sōhyō l­abor federation, the National Federation of Neutral L ­abor Unions (Chūritsu Rōren), and the Zengakuren student federation (due to po­liti­cal differences, the JCP was excluded from the board but was granted “observer” status). The board also included several umbrella organ­izations formed over the course of earlier movements, including the anti-­bomb umbrella organ­ization Gensuikyō, the national anti-­base co­ali­tion formed during the Sunagawa protests, and the P ­ eople’s Federation to Protect the Constitution (Kenpō Yōgō Kokumin Rengō), founded in 1954 to oppose the formation of the Self-­Defense Forces; the Kokumin Kaigi was thus . 19 .

japan at the crossroads an umbrella organ­ization for umbrella organ­izations. Closely following the model used during the police bill strug­gle, the Kokumin Kaigi’s main function was declaring certain dates to be days of “united action,” on which its member organ­izations would cooperate to conduct vari­ous protest activities throughout the nation. From its formation in March 1959 ­until it disbanded in July 1960, the Kokumin Kaigi presided over twenty-­ seven nationwide “united actions,” each one larger than the last. The development of the anti-­treaty movement can be usefully divided into three phases. In the initial phase, from the spring to the fall of 1959, the movement was primarily confined to hard-­core leftists and garnered ­little attention from the general public, staging relatively small, uneventful “united actions.” The ­middle phase of the movement began in fall 1959, following the release of the text of the new treaty on October 6. Notably, on November 9, large numbers of so-­called persons of culture (bunkajin)—­a diverse assortment of intellectuals, artists, writers, performers, and cultural critics—­joined the movement ­under the auspices of the newly founded Society for Criticizing the Security Treaty (Anpo Hihan no Kai). Then on November 27, on the occasion of the Kokumin Kaigi’s Eighth United Action, a small section of radical student activists of the “mainstream” faction of the Zengakuren student federation, in alliance with some of the more militant ­labor ­unionists from the Tokyo area, broke away from the orderly and carefully planned protest march and entered the grounds of the National Diet compound, where they sang protest songs and snake danced for several hours before peacefully dispersing. The November 27 Diet invasion aroused condemnation from many quarters, including from within the Kokumin Kaigi itself, but was also highly effective at attracting attention to the anti-­treaty movement and energizing and activating ­those forces on the left that had not yet fully mobilized, especially the younger generations within established leftist organ­izations. Its perceived “success” also whetted the appetites of the student radicals for an encore per­for­mance, planting the seed of the much larger Diet incursion in June of the following year. Further attention was garnered on January 16, 1960, when approximately 700 of the most radical students made a dramatic but ultimately failed attempt to prevent Prime Minister Kishi from traveling to the . 20 .

Introduction United States to sign the new treaty by occupying the Haneda Airport terminal and holding out for several hours against a police siege. Police ultimately succeeded in battering a path through the scrum, and Kishi was able to make it to Washington, D.C., to attend the signing ceremony with President Eisenhower on January 19. But the fact that the treaty was now signed and awaiting ratification only added urgency to the anti-­ treaty movement. In the Diet, the strategy of the opposition Socialist Party was to drag out debate on the treaty for as long as pos­si­ble, using a variety of parliamentary delaying tactics. The party hoped to give the anti-­treaty movement more time to gather support, and ultimately hoped to drag out the debate through the end of the Diet session in May, ­after which it was not unreasonable to hope that anti-­treaty and anti-­Kishi ele­ments within the LDP itself might succeed in ousting Kishi and shelving the treaty. Initially this strategy proved highly effective, as astute questioning by Socialist leaders highlighted some of the more questionable aspects of the new treaty. The Socialists ­were aided in their task by Kishi himself, whose penchant for giving surly and evasive answers caused the media, which ­until this point had been fairly solidly in f­ avor of treaty revision, to begin to question ­whether the revised treaty in its current form was ­really the best option for Japan, and to increasingly support the Socialists in their contention that more discussion was needed to “clarify” particularly vague points, such as the exact nature of “prior consultation” and the precise definition of the term “Far East.” By the end of April 1960, the Japa­nese left had essentially been fully mobilized. The successful overthrow of dictatorial leaders that month in two other US Cold War satellite states, Turkey and especially neighboring South ­Korea, proved that unpop­u­lar regimes could be felled by peaceful mass movements, further fueling the protests in Japan, and the April 26 united action saw a significant increase in the size of the protests. Then on May 1, an American U-2 spy plane pi­loted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR. The resultant furor led to the dissipation of the amiable “spirit of Camp David” that had prevailed between the United States and the USSR since the meeting between Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev the previous September, and ultimately resulted in the . 21 .

japan at the crossroads cancellation of the Paris Summit and Eisenhower’s planned trip to Moscow. It came to light that several U-2 spy planes w ­ ere based in Japan, and with tensions rising between the f­ ree world and communist camps, it seemed a particularly inopportune time to be entering into a military alliance with one of the two sides. Not surprisingly, turnouts at the Kokumin Kaigi’s protests remained high through the first half of May. Meanwhile, Kishi, recognizing that both his own cabinet and the revised treaty risked extinction if the Diet w ­ ere allowed to recess, began quietly laying plans of his own. Having been repeatedly rebuffed in his efforts to bring the treaty to a vote on the floor of the Diet, in no small part ­because of the uncooperative stance taken by disgruntled factions within his own party, Kishi deci­ded that more desperate mea­sures would be needed. On April 14, he established a top-­secret “Anpo Ratification Special Mea­sures Committee” (Anpo Shōnin Tokubetsu Taisaku Iinkai) within his own faction, rather aptly nicknamed the “Anpo Kamikaze Squad” (Anpo Tokkōtai), to map out a strategy for forcing the treaty through the Diet at any cost. Although debate continued for more than a month, from this point onward Kishi had clearly already given up on the debate and was committed to taking “special mea­sures” to ram the treaty through before the end of the current session.28 With the Diet session scheduled to end on May 26 and Eisenhower scheduled to arrive in Japan on June 19 for a visit commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of US-­Japan friendship (1960 being the one hundredth anniversary of the first Japa­nese embassy to Amer­i­ca), Kishi put his plans into action on May  19, 1960, exactly one month before Eisenhower was scheduled to arrive. That morning, in a sudden “sneak attack” that the leftist intellectual Hidaka Rokurō would ­later compare without irony to the devastating Japa­nese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the LDP suddenly moved to extend the Diet session for fifty days.29 In response, Socialist Diet members and their burly, recently hired “secretaries” launched a sit-in in the hallways to prevent Speaker of the Lower House Kiyose Ichirō from reaching the rostrum to call for a vote. Barricaded in his office for several hours, Kiyose repeatedly appealed to the Socialists over the Diet building loudspeaker system to cease their disorderly be­hav­ior. Meanwhile, the Kokumin Kaigi called for an emer. 22 .

Introduction gency protest and demonstrated its orga­nizational strength with its ability to gather several thousand protesters outside the Diet on very short notice. At 11:00 p.m., Speaker Kiyose took the drastic mea­sure of summoning 500 police officers into the Diet building. In front of the eyes of a stunned nation watching a live feed on NHK tele­vi­sion, the police physically removed each struggling Socialist Diet member from the building, one by one. It was only the second time police had ever entered the Diet chambers, and the first and only time they ever physically removed Diet members.30 Fi­nally, at 11:48 p.m. Kiyose, with the assistance of the police, was able to ­battle his way through the melee to the lower ­house rostrum and gavel for a vote, upon which the Diet session extension was immediately passed by ­those LDP members pres­ent. It was then that the second part of Kishi’s “sneak attack” was put into action. At midnight on May 20, just minutes ­after the extension was approved, Kiyose gaveled the new Diet session into order and immediately called for a vote on the treaty itself. In a famous and indelible image, the NHK tele­vi­sion camera captured the LDP Diet members raising their hands to vote their approval, and then swung dramatically to the right to show that all the seats in the other half of the chamber, where the opposition parties normally sat, ­were empty. Every­one had been expecting Kishi to try to extend the Diet session, but few ­people, even within his own party, had realized that he was also planning to ratify the treaty at the same time. This was a crafty maneuver ­because ­under Diet rules at the time, any treaty passed by the lower ­house would automatically be approved a­ fter thirty days, even without action by the upper ­house, as long as the Diet remained in session during that time. By passing the treaty through the lower h ­ ouse on May 20, Kishi ensured that the treaty would automatically be ratified at midnight on June 19, just in time for Eisenhower’s arrival in Japan ­later that day. The maneuver may have been a bit too clever, however, as it not only made Kishi appear to be groveling before Eisenhower but also closely linked the fate of the treaty and the related protests to Eisenhower’s visit, which previously had not been viewed as particularly related to the specific issue of treaty ratification. The timing of Kishi’s maneuver therefore . 23 .

japan at the crossroads

The lower ­house of the Diet is half empty as the Liberal Demo­cratic Party approves the Security Treaty with only members of its own party pres­ent. (Mainichi Shinbun / Mainichi Photo Bank)

ensured that the protests would thenceforth take on more of an anti-­ Eisenhower, anti-­American tinge than they had previously displayed. This so-­called May 19 incident sparked an intense nationwide uproar, as many ­people who had previously had no interest in the treaty issue or even favored treaty revision felt deep outrage at Kishi’s “undemo­cratic” actions. It was upon this dramatic railroading of the treaty through the Diet that the protest movement entered its third and final phase. Im­mense street protests became almost a daily occurrence in Japa­nese cities, and the movement quickly swelled beyond the close direction of the Kokumin Kaigi to include a variety of unaffiliated actors and spontaneous actions. ­After May 19, the member ­labor ­unions of the Sōhyō federation no longer had any difficulty finding enough volunteers to supply their allotted quotas of demonstrators and indeed w ­ ere generally over their quotas thereafter. Support for the protests was r­ unning so high that Sōhyō was able to or­ga­nize three massive, nationwide general strikes of unpre­ce­dented size on June 4, 15, and 22, even including the techni. 24 .

Introduction cally illegal participation of public sector ­unions, and the Kokumin Kaigi was able to put hundreds of thousands of additional protesters into the streets at ­will. A defining characteristic of the third stage of the protests a­ fter May 19 was that they had become less of an anti-­treaty movement and more of an anti-­Kishi movement. Kishi was physically unattractive and had never been particularly popu­lar with the masses. Moreover, his choice of tactics on May 19, which at best could be called “high-­handed” and w ­ ere generally called far worse, served as a vivid reminder of aspects of his past that nobody had entirely forgotten—­namely, that he had served as vice minister of munitions in the Tōjō Hideki cabinet at the height of the Pacific War, and a­ fter defeat had been imprisoned by the US Occupation as a suspected class-­A war criminal in the infamous Sugamo Prison in Tokyo pending trial before being depurged as part of the “Reverse Course.” It was a tribute to Kishi’s genius for backroom politics that he was able to overcome such a damning personal history to rise as high as the premiership less than a de­cade ­after being released from prison. However, as brilliant as he was at backroom wheeling and dealing, he was almost equally unbrilliant at forging connections with the average citizen, especially in an increasingly televised age. When his personal history was placed in context with his determined efforts to break the leftist Japan Teachers Union (Nikkyōsō) and revise Article 9 of the constitution, along with his mishandling of the 1958 Police Duties Bill, it was a relatively easy sell for his opponents to paint the treaty revision as part of an insidious master plan by Kishi to remilitarize Japan and return to the prewar system. Among his other flaws, Kishi had never been particularly ­adept at maintaining friendly relations with the Japa­nese press, and ­after the May 19 uproar the media smelled blood and turned on him with a vengeance, with even conservative newspapers such as the Nihon Keizai Shinbun and the Sankei Shinbun calling for his immediate resignation and the dissolution of the Diet. Meanwhile, the Japa­nese business world (zaikai), increasingly concerned about the disruptive effect the ever-­ larger protests might ultimately have on business and Japan’s international . 25 .

japan at the crossroads trade, began to put intense back-­channel pressure on Kishi to resign as soon as pos­si­ble.31 In a surprising turn, it also emerged in ­later years that several conservative fixers with intimate connections to the business world, including Tanaka Seigen, Moriyama Masamichi, and Matsunaga Anzaemon, as well as several ­others whose names have never been revealed, ­were secretly funneling money to the radical mainstream faction of the Zengakuren. ­These fixers, several of whom also had ties to or­ga­nized crime, seemed to have been rivals of another group of fixers, headed by Kishi’s associate Kodama Yoshio, that supported the treaty. Moreover, they and their unknown business-­world backers particularly appreciated that the Zengakuren mainstream, despite its Marxism, was both virulently anti-­ Kishi and virulently anti-­JCP. The fixer Tanaka Seigen ­later recalled, I wanted to break up the forces on the left, ­because if the Communist Party ­were to have channeled the energies of ­those students [to their own ends], they would have been able to do terrible ­things. The quickest way to do it was by sowing internal discord. . . . ​That is why I initiated contacts with the Zengakuren mainstream. I also figured, we ­really need to take down the Kishi cabinet.32

By this point the anti-­treaty / anti-­Kishi movement had gathered such support and momentum that even ordinary citizens, with no affiliation to any par­tic­u­lar organ­ization, began joining the protests. Much was made in the media of white-­collar workers leaning out of their office win­ dows to call out their support to the protesters, and h ­ ouse­wives joining in marches with their baby carriages. It was at this stage that the capacity of the new medium of tele­vi­sion to bring the protest movement into the living room played its most significant role. By June, newspaper reports described how schoolchildren had begun playing “demonstration,” marching around the schoolyard shouting the ubiquitous chant Anpo hantai! (Down with Anpo!), and the well-­known po­liti­cal scientist Ishida Takeshi reported even a kindergartner asking him, “Why d ­ oesn’t Kishi just resign already?”33 With massive protests occurring almost daily, a Yomiuri Shinbun editorial punned that in Japan, “democracy” (demokurashii) had come to mean “living by demonstration” (demo-­kurashi).34 . 26 .

Introduction Shortly a­ fter the protests ended, Shimanouchi Toshiro, an official at the Japa­nese embassy in Washington, D.C., who had been in Japan at the time of the protests, spoke to the sweeping extent of the support the movement garnered in its final stages when he told representatives from the US Department of State that the motivations of the protesters could best be described by a series of increasingly larger concentric ­circles. . . . ​Anti-­American sentiment, he said, was essentially confined to the communist hard core. . . . ​The next largest circle represented the neutralists. The third and next larger circle represented ­those opposed to the Security Treaty. The outer or largest circle represented ­those opposed to Prime Minister Kishi. The latter group, he said, represented practically every­one.35

As Shimanouchi alluded to, while most of the nation was protesting against Kishi, the JCP and its sympathizers ­were ­doing their best to direct the protests t­ oward what they viewed as the primary e­ nemy: American imperialism. Thus while the Kokumin Kaigi and the Zengakuren mainstream directed their protests at Kishi’s official residence and the Diet, the JCP-­linked Zengakuren “anti-­mainstream” and ­labor ­unions with close ties to the JCP preferred to hold their protests outside the American embassy. ­After May 19, the communists seized on the fact that Eisenhower was scheduled to arrive on the day the treaty would be automatically ratified, and sought to direct the protests ­toward preventing Eisenhower’s visit. Thus when Eisenhower’s press secretary, James Hagerty, arrived at Haneda Airport on June 10, the car carry­ing him, Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II (the nephew of the general), and an aide encountered a crowd of more than 6,000 protesters blocking their way just outside the airport gates.36 In what became known as the “Hagerty incident,” the protesters rained blows on the car with their placards and flagpoles, rocked it back and forth, cracked its win­dows, and smashed its tail lights. Leaders climbed on the roof and led the crowd in chants of “Hagerty, go home!” (Hagachii gō hōmu) and “­Don’t come Ike!” (donto kamu Aiku) and choruses of “Internationale,” ­until the car roof began to cave in. Riot police w ­ ere called in to try to clear a path for the car to escape, but ­were resisted with a fierce round of rock throwing. . 27 .

White House press secretary James Hagerty and US ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur II are rescued from a mob of protesters by a US Marines he­li­cop­ter. The sign held by the protester reads “Down with the Security Treaty” (Anpo hantai). (Mainichi Shinbun / Mainichi Photo Bank)

Introduction Fi­nally, ­after more than an hour, the three men managed to escape via a US Marines he­li­cop­ter.37 Although a suggestion by Socialist Party chairman Asanuma Inejirō that MacArthur and Hagerty had deliberately driven into the crowd as a provocation was widely ridiculed by the Japa­nese press, a declassified embassy dispatch from MacArthur to the Department of State ­later revealed this to have been true.38 In any case, the Hagerty incident, particularly insofar as it represented a grave discourtesy to guests of the Japa­nese nation, came as a profound shock and represented a turning point a­ fter which public opinion, especially as reflected in editorials in the mainstream press, first began to turn against the protest movement.39 A second, even larger shock resulted from the bloody clashes at the Diet on June 15. That day, as part of the Kokumin Kaigi’s 24th United Action, Sōhyō or­ga­nized its second nationwide general strike, involving 6.4 million workers, with an estimated 30,000 shops closing down for the day in sympathy, 8,000 in Tokyo alone. As usual, a massive daylong protest was held at the Diet. But this protest would be dif­fer­ent from ­those that had come before. The Zengakuren mainstream, having tried on several occasions earlier in the spring to replicate their invasion of the Diet grounds of the previous November, only to be turned back repeatedly by a greatly strengthened police presence, vowed that nothing would stop them from invading the Diet this time. Around mid­afternoon, the students began massing at the main gate of the Diet. However, they found that it was too heavi­ly fortified, barricaded with rows of paddy wagons and guarded by a detachment of 5,000 police officers. Meanwhile, a column of approximately 1,000 artists, thespians, writers, and critics assembled at Hibiya Park ­under the auspices of the Anpo Hihan no Kai and marched to the Diet. At 5:15 p.m., as the column was marching from the Main Gate of the Diet to another gate to pres­ent petitions to sympathetic Socialist Party Diet members, the marchers ­were attacked by a large group of right-­wing counterprotesters from the “Imperial Restoration Action Corps” (Ishin Kōdō Tai). The bulk of the assault fell on members of the Modern Drama Association (Shingekijin Kaigi), who ­were attacked by burly men wielding wooden posts embedded with nails in addition to having their column of marchers rammed . 29 .

japan at the crossroads

Members of the Modern Drama Association (Shingekijin Kaigi) are attacked by right-­wing ultranationalists of the Imperial Restoration Action Corps (Ishin Kōdō Tai) outside the gates of the Diet on June 15, 1960. (Mainichi Shinbun  / ​ Mainichi Photo Bank)

head-on by two trucks emblazoned with right-­wing slogans. The attackers ­were heard to yell, “­We’ll kill you!” (koroshite yaru) and “Beat them dead!” ­ eople (fifty-­one men and twenty-­nine (tatakikorose). In total, eighty p ­women) suffered injuries, including eleven who w ­ ere hospitalized for three weeks or more. Most injuries ­were to the back of the head, and one actor suffered permanent hearing loss. Just minutes ­later, on the other side of the Diet compound, the student radicals smashed through the South Gate and swarmed into the Diet. The police fell back and the students proceeded to give speeches and sing songs for more than an hour. But just a­ fter 7:00 p.m., the police massed and retaliated, driving the students back t­ oward the gate. It was during this initial counterattack that a Tokyo University undergraduate, Kanba Michiko, was trampled to death. News of her death spread quickly, and enraged the students. The ­battle shifted to the Main Gate again, where the students repeatedly attacked and counterattacked long into the night. Fi­nally at 1:00 a.m., the police ­were given permission to . 30 .

Introduction

Student activists beaten unconscious by police are gathered outside the Diet for transportation to hospitals on the night of June  15, 1960. (Keystone / Stringer /  Hulton Archive Collection / Getty Images)

take more forceful mea­sures and o ­ rders to clear all protesters. Around 1:15 a.m., the police set upon the students, as well as a number of bystanders including middle-­aged professors and reporters, with truncheons and tear gas. Photo­graphs from that night show the youthful bodies of the students, having been beaten bloody and unconscious, being carried away to ambulances. The Diet compound was strewn with rocks, shoes, broken placards, and pools of blood and w ­ ater, as well as eigh­teen wrecked paddy wagons the students had overturned and set on fire. The June 15 incident horrified much of the nation, and most appalling of all was the death of Kanba Michiko. Although Kanba was neither the first nor the last person to be killed in a ­battle with police during the postwar period, her death was particularly shocking ­because she was from the upper-­middle class, the ­daughter of a university professor, and she was a student at the elite Tokyo University. Thus, her death was seen . 31 .

japan at the crossroads to be particularly wasteful in a way that, say, a mineworker’s might not have been. Most importantly, however, she was female. ­Until 1922, ­women in Japan had been barred by law from participating in po­liti­cal meetings of any kind, and even in the 1950s, ­after they had been theoretically liberated by the 1947 constitution, w ­ omen had typically been prevented from participating in protest marches, on the excuse that it was too dangerous. One reason w ­ omen’s rights activists found the 1960 protests so inspiring was that, b ­ ecause they w ­ ere viewed as a peaceful, broadly supported movement to protect democracy, many activist w ­ omen ­were fi­nally allowed to participate in protest marches for the first time in their lives (although in most cases, they w ­ ere required to march at the rear, for safety). The unspoken subtext to the shock voluminously expressed over the general “vio­lence” of June 15 was that whereas such violent clashes might be tolerated to an extent if they had involved only men, vio­lence could not be countenanced when it involved ­women—­Kanba Michiko in par­tic­u­lar, but also the theater actresses from the Modern Drama Association who had been battered by the right-­ wing counterprotesters. In any case, the escalation perpetrated by the students and right-­wing hooligans on June 15 fi­nally provided the shock necessary to bring down the Kishi cabinet. From the end of May through the first half of June, despite the increasingly massive displays of popu­lar dis­plea­sure, Kishi had remained unbowed, refusing to resign or dissolve the Diet and insisting that Eisenhower’s visit go on as planned, even in the face of growing concerns in both Amer­i­ca and Japan, and even a­ fter the Hagerty incident. On May 28, Kishi had given a defiant press conference at which he declared, in a prefiguration of Richard Nixon’s famous “­silent majority” conception, that his duty was to listen not to the protesters but to the “voiceless voices” who he was confident silently supported the Security Treaty. ­There was certainly some truth to Kishi’s claim. Even at their largest extent in June 1960, by no means did all Japa­nese citizens become involved in the movement. If a third of the population participated in some form, and perhaps another third took an active interest regardless of ­whether they supported or opposed the movement, the remainder . 32 .

Introduction showed l­ittle or no interest in the treaty revision pro­cess or the protest movement. Thus Kishi was not wrong when he noted that even as protesters surrounded the National Diet on a daily basis, the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo was full of p ­ eople and baseball games at nearby Kōrakuen Stadium still drew large crowds.40 Buoyed by his confidence that the masses ­were on his side, Kishi held out for an entire day following the June 15 bloodshed, conferring with his cabinet deep into the eve­ning of the 16th. According to several eyewitness accounts, the head of the National Police Agency, Kashiwamura Nobuo, informed Kishi that in light of the recent vio­lence, he did not have confidence that the police could guarantee President Eisenhower’s safety. Enraged, Kishi responded that if the police w ­ ere not up to the task, he would have to call out the Self-­Defense Forces to suppress the protesters and protect Eisenhower. Indeed, Kishi informed the Americans that one regiment (about 2,000 men) in the Tokyo area had already been placed on alert and that he planned to mobilize an entire division for Eisenhower’s visit.41 However, Defense Agency chief Akagi Munemori was strongly opposed, arguing that deploying the Self-­Defense Forces would be a provocation that might instigate a popu­lar uprising. Lacking the support of the two key figures of his defense chief and the head of the national police, Kishi was forced to give in, announcing that he would ask Eisenhower to “postpone” his visit, and indicating that he himself would resign following the final ratification of the treaty. Meanwhile, the mainstream media, having steadily attacked Kishi for nearly a month, now turned decisively against the protest movement. On June 17, the seven major Tokyo newspapers (the Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Sankei, Nihon Keizai, Tokyo, and Tokyo Times newspapers) issued a  joint statement titled “Wipe Out Vio­lence, Preserve Parliamentary Democracy,” composed in a manner that assigned at least equal blame for the crisis to the protesters as to the Kishi cabinet, which was ultimately run by forty-­eight daily newspapers nationwide.42 ­Later that same day, the four most impor­tant big-­business organ­izations—­Keidanren, Nikkeiren, the Keizai Dōyūkai, and the Japan Chamber of Commerce—­ issued a statement of their own, similarly titled “Wipe Out Vio­lence and Restore Parliamentary Democracy.”43 . 33 .

japan at the crossroads At the same time, however, the death of Kanba Michiko gave the movement a martyr, and images of police brutality sparked outrage among the movement’s supporters. The Kokumin Kaigi aimed for maximum mobilization in support of a final push to stop the treaty, and on June 18, the day before the treaty was due to be automatically passed by the upper h ­ ouse, the protests reached their greatest size. In Tokyo alone an estimated 330,000 demonstrators jammed the streets around the Diet. At first the protests ­were as boisterous as usual, but as the final deadline of midnight, June 19 approached, the crowds became solemn, as they realized that despite all their efforts, the movement had failed to block the treaty. It was, in the words of the writer and critic Takeda Michitarō, “a kind of magnificent funeral for the entire postwar experience.”44 Many of the protesters sat where they ­were in silence ­until dawn before fi­nally ­going their separate ways, stunned that the expenditure of so much energy and enthusiasm had seemingly all been for naught. Sōhyō held another nationwide general strike on June 22, and the Kokumin Kaigi held a few more united actions, but with the June 23 exchange of the official instruments of ratification (which had to be smuggled to Kishi for his signature in a candy box to avoid detection by the protesters mobbing his residence), and then with the resignation of Kishi himself on July 15, the energy went out of the movement and the protests died away.45 However, the wide-­ranging impact of the 1960 Anpo protests on US-­Japan relations and Japa­nese politics, society, and culture was only just beginning.

. 34 .

chapter one

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance

The events of june 1960 in Japan caused an uproar in the United States. The protests in Japan made the front page of newspapers across the nation for several days in a row, with par­tic­u­lar attention paid to the attack on James Hagerty’s car and, above all, the cancellation of President Eisenhower’s visit on June 16. Renowned Associated Press po­liti­cal reporter John  M. High­tower declared the cancellation a “diplomatic catastrophe” that “threatens the ­future of the United States–­Japan ­Alliance,” and James Reston, the respected New York Times po­liti­cal columnist, declared that “at best the United States has lost ‘Face’ in the Far East; at worst it has lost Japan”—­a serious charge just a few years ­after Senator Joseph McCarthy had pilloried US government officials for “losing” China. Letters poured into newspapers around the country decrying the “insult” to Amer­i­ca’s national pride and Republican congressman Craig Hosmer of California called for a nationwide boycott of Japa­nese goods.1 Eisenhower himself was reportedly outraged by Kishi’s cancellation of his invitation to Japan. According to a Washington Post reporter sitting close to Eisenhower at a parade in his honor in Manila, when the news of the cancellation was whispered to him, Eisenhower paled with rage, “clenched his teeth, thrust out his jaw, and uttered . . . ​a bit of Army language.” ­After all, Eisenhower had gambled on Kishi’s promise that the visit would be carried out without incident, despite months of mounting pressure from congressional Demo­crats to consider calling it off in light of the growing protest movement. Eisenhower had been determined to press on with the visit at all costs b ­ ecause he had touted becoming the first sitting US president to ever visit Japan as the replacement for his . 35 .

japan at the crossroads canceled trip to Moscow. As the new centerpiece of his “goodwill tour” of Asia, it was to have been the crowning achievement of his presidency and his final chance to burnish his legacy before leaving office. Eisenhower’s po­liti­cal enemies sought to use the stunning turn of events to their own advantage. Senator Hubert Humphrey, Demo­crat of Minnesota, questioned why it had been necessary to rush through the ratification of the Security Treaty at a time of heightened Cold War tensions, and condemned the administration’s “lack of coordination on foreign and military policies.” Senate Majority Whip Mike Mansfield of Montana gave a speech on the Senate floor, calling for calm and counseling against a boycott of Japa­nese imports, but blaming Eisenhower’s lack of attention to foreign policy and mishandling of the U-2 crisis for fanning the flames of anti-­Americanism in Japan. Meanwhile, Demo­cratic Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson pointedly reminded the press that “­there have been serious reservations about the trip [to Japan] from the beginning” and declared, “It is evident that this is a time to re-­examine our policies and to determine ­whether they are effective.”2 However, with just a few months remaining in his presidency, Eisenhower was in no position to reexamine policies or make major changes to the structure of the US-­Japan relationship, and even less so was Kishi, having promised to resign by July 15. Accordingly, it would be up to the incoming John F. Kennedy administration to work with the newly installed Ikeda Hayato cabinet to reevaluate and rearticulate the fundamental compromises undergirding the US-­Japan alliance. US-­Japan relations during the Kennedy and Ikeda administrations have been largely ignored by historians, thanks to a perception that nothing of g­ reat import happened between the two nations in the early 1960s.3 Both Kennedy and Ikeda had their time in power cut short by their untimely deaths, and the general historical consensus has been that both leaders rather uneventfully continued the policies they had inherited from Eisenhower and Kishi, which ­were in turn inherited and duly continued by their successors, President Lyndon Johnson and Prime Minister Satō Eisaku (Kishi’s younger ­brother). As one historian summarizes, ­these years . 36 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance ­ ere not crucial years for Japanese-­American relations; both parw ties ­were preoccupied with other affairs; the Japa­nese accented the building of their economy and the expansion of their [trade] ­connections. . . . ​The United States was involved in domestic turmoil related to civil rights and a presidential assassination and in foreign m ­ atters with the traumatic Cuban missile crisis, a deepening preoccupation with Vietnam, and assorted international issues like the nuclear test ban treaty.4

­Under this interpretation, efforts by the two nations to repair the rift caused by the 1960 Security Treaty crisis, such as Kennedy’s unorthodox nomination of Harvard scholar Edwin O. Reischauer as ambassador to Japan, Ikeda’s 1961 visit to the United States, and the slogan of “equal partnership,” have typically been portrayed as merely rhetorical and symbolic gestures, smoothing over hurt feelings in a relationship that was other­ wise fundamentally sound. A historian of Japan has written that “the prevailing image of Ikeda as being dif­fer­ent from his pre­de­ces­sor does not square with the facts. . . . ​Taking into account not image but a­ ctual policies, Ikeda . . . ​did not differ so much from Kishi.” According to another historian, the Kennedy-­Ikeda period could best be summarized by the phrase “Nothing of consequence tran­spired,” a phrase that described “not only . . . ​Reischauer’s five years in Tokyo, but . . . ​Kennedy’s foreign policy ­toward Japan. In the brief age of Camelot, Japan did not rate highly in American foreign policy,” and insofar as anything was accomplished with regard to US-­Japan relations, “success was stylistic, not substantive.”5 This kind of assessment, despite its widespread ac­cep­tance, underestimates the transformative impact of the 1960 crisis. In fact, Kennedy and Ikeda oversaw a significant readjustment of the US-­Japan relationship in response to the protests, achieving a foundational compromise whereby Japan staunchly supported US foreign policies throughout the world in exchange for protection of its economic access to US markets. This compromise moved the US-­Japan alliance in the direction of much greater mutuality, and thus marked a fundamental shift from how it had functioned in the eight years since the end of the Occupation, u ­ nder President Eisenhower. . 37 .

japan at the crossroads

From Brutal Proddings to “Equal Partnership” In fairness, Eisenhower had long been a strong supporter of pro-­Japan policies, albeit within the narrow frame of his Cold War worldview. In the rhe­toric of the “domino theory” that became a hallmark of his administration’s foreign policy, Japan was a “mega-­domino,” and Eisenhower worried aloud in public statements that “losing Japan” the way China had been “lost” would allow the Pacific Ocean to become a “communist lake.” In fact, Eisenhower’s personal lobbying of protectionist congressmen in his own Republican party was crucial to securing Japan’s entry into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) ­free trade system. Eisenhower also proved willing to adapt his policies t­ oward Japan over time. In response to the Girard case, he played a key role in pushing for a reduction in US ground forces in Japan, and his support for revising the Security Treaty thereafter proved essential for securing a revision that significantly addressed major Japa­nese concerns. But despite Eisenhower’s personal rec­ord of sporadic but consistent support for Japa­nese interests, his administration, taken as a w ­ hole, tended to make major decisions affecting the course of the US-­Japan alliance in a unilateral fashion, with ­little or no consideration for Japa­nese feelings or any real effort to seek Japa­nese input in a genuinely consultative manner. This disinterest reflected a belief, as expressed by Eisenhower’s first ambassador to Japan, John Allison, that “they need us at least as much if not more than we need them.” As a result, the inequalities of the US-­Japan relationship ­were constantly highlighted, and Japa­nese from across the po­liti­cal spectrum felt increasingly oppressed by American policies and alienated from their own leaders, insofar as they continued to support the American line.6 Part of Amer­i­ca’s image prob­lem arose from the fact that Eisenhower preferred to keep his distance from the diplomatic pro­cess and leave the majority of face-­to-­face dealings with the Japa­nese to his brusque secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Dulles had been Harry Truman’s leading advisor on Japa­nese affairs during the final years of the US Occupation, and was the primary architect of the “unequal” 1952 Security Treaty that spawned so much resentment in Japan. Dulles therefore retained much . 38 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance of the Occupation mind-­set in his dealings with Japan, and also proved staunchly opposed to any revision of the treaty he had designed. When Japa­nese foreign minister Shigemitsu Mamoru requested a meeting with Dulles in April 1955 to discuss pos­si­ble revision of the treaty, the secretary of state refused to even meet with him. When Dulles fi­nally consented to a meeting in Washington in August, the American account recorded him bluntly telling Shigemitsu that discussion of treaty revision was “premature” b ­ ecause Japan lacked “the unity, cohesion, and capacity to operate ­under a new treaty arrangement.” ­Future prime minister Kishi, who was a member of the del­e­ga­tion and pres­ent at the meeting, recalled with bitterness, Fi­nally, ­after we had spoken with Secretary of State Dulles about a variety of issues regarding US-­Japan relations, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu hesitatingly said, “We feel that the current US-­Japan Security Treaty is not very suitable, and we would like to hear your thoughts on the possibility of revising it into a more equal treaty.” In response Secretary Dulles just snorted, “Is the Japan of t­ oday power­ful enough [to make such a request]?” and rejected Japan’s proposal right ­there on the spot.7

On a ­later occasion, when US Ambassador to Japan Douglas Mac­ Arthur II cabled Dulles and conveyed now–­prime minister Kishi’s overtures on the possibility of treaty revision, Dulles gruffly cabled back his “concern” that humoring Kishi on treaty revision might “build up unwarranted expectations” and advised MacArthur to “consider the desirability of seeking less frequent meetings” with the prime minister. Meanwhile, Dulles was not shy about pressing his own demands on his Japa­nese counter­parts. In par­tic­u­lar, he made it a personal crusade of sorts to pressure Japa­nese leaders into increasing defense spending, constantly lecturing Japa­nese ambassadors and foreign ministers on the subject using, in his own words, “proddings approaching the brutal.”8 With such a point man, it was no surprise that the course of US-­Japan relations did not always run smoothly during the Eisenhower years. The situation was not helped by the fact that Eisenhower had Dulles meet with Japa­nese del­e­ga­tions even when they came to Washington, D.C., the . 39 .

japan at the crossroads unavoidable implication being that they ­were not impor­tant enough to be worth the president’s own time. It was Dulles who played the lead role in negotiations with Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru in November 1954 and with Kishi in September 1957, with Eisenhower appearing only briefly for rounds of golf and handshaking. It was not ­until Kishi’s second trip to Washington in January 1960, with the treaty signing requiring Eisenhower’s presence and Dulles having passed away the year before, that Eisenhower had significant face-­to-­face discussions with a Japa­nese prime minister for the first and last time. Another symbol of the Eisenhower administration’s dismissive approach to Japa­nese interests was a consistent refusal to even consider repeated requests by the Japa­nese to establish a joint US-­Japan commission to consult on economic issues. Pressured by per­sis­tent demands from Japa­nese business leaders, Yoshida had repeatedly pressed for the creation of such a committee, as did Kishi, but even Kishi, during his final visit to Washington in January  1960, “could not disabuse Eisenhower and his top advisors of the entrenched Republican credo that economic affairs ­were best handled by private-­sector groups.” In a meeting with Kishi on January 19, the new secretary of state, Christian Herter, once again dismissed suggestions for a joint government committee by citing vague concerns about American anti-­trust laws, and would only allow for the possibility of private business leaders setting up some sort of committee on their own, outside government control.9 As supercilious as Dulles and Herter could be, Eisenhower’s second ambassador to Japan, Douglas MacArthur II, was possibly even more imperious. In a conversation with Eisenhower ­toward the end of his tenure, MacArthur told the president that he had come to consider the Japa­nese a “­great ­people” but even ­after four years in Japan found them “difficult to understand, being so dif­fer­ent from us.” He routinely laced his cables with derogatory language t­oward his Japa­nese counter­parts and insults directed at vari­ous Japa­nese public figures, such as calling the president of Tokyo University “rodent-­like” for voicing support for student protesters, and became infamous for summoning Japa­nese leaders to the US embassy in Tokyo and subjecting them to lengthy, monological harangues.10 . 40 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance By the end of his stay in Japan, MacArthur’s approach to diplomacy was increasingly viewed by the State Department as a potential liability. In June 1960, Herter telephoned Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs John Steeves to air his concern that “MacArthur might perhaps be ­going a ­little too far in telling the Japa­nese what they ­ought to do.” Steeves responded that the Far Eastern Affairs Bureau shared Herter’s concerns. The bureau, he said, “had gotten use[d] to Mac­ Arthur working in this manner,” but he agreed that “we should keep an eye on this to make sure MacArthur ­doesn’t get too far out on a limb.”11 An editorial in the leading Japa­nese news daily Asahi upon the occasion of MacArthur’s final departure from Japan sounded a similar note. While thanking MacArthur for his efforts and conceding he had been ambassador to Japan during a difficult period in US-­Japan relations, the editorial concluded on a strongly critical note: If we had to say which, the Ambassador was the type who, rather than listening to what Japa­nese ­people had to say, preferred to lecture them. . . . ​Among Japa­nese ­people, however, the feeling that “silence is golden, eloquence is silver” is quite strong. Even when your opinion is requested, and especially when the ­matter at hand does not concern you, the strong tendency is to consider the other person’s feelings and choose one’s words carefully. In order to increase understanding between Japan and Amer­i­ca, and especially between individual Japa­nese and individual Americans, ­going forward it would seem impor­tant to mutually reflect upon this ideal and more cooperatively strive to attain it.12

The Eisenhower administration’s policies, particularly the emphasis on securing Japan’s entry into ­free trade agreements, had played a significant role in facilitating Japan’s postwar recovery. However, an enduring Occupation mind-­set and a resulting dismissive or even imperious attitude in conducting relations with Japan left many Japa­nese feeling bullied and belittled. Although the vast majority of Japa­nese ­were not fundamentally anti-­American in outlook, the glaring lack of mutuality in the US-­Japan security arrangements was further underscored by the brusque nature of US diplomacy, adding fuel to the fire of the anti-­base and . 41 .

japan at the crossroads anti-­bomb movements. ­These movements and events such as the Girard incident eventually awakened Eisenhower and the State Department to the need to approach US-­Japan relations with a somewhat softer tone, leading to negotiations to revise the Security Treaty and the introduction of a new rhe­toric of “equal partnership.” However, this realization had come very late, and even then, the hoped-­for mitigating effects of the new treaty ­were undermined by the administration’s continued resort to old habits, such as rejecting Japa­nese suggestions out of hand and lecturing Japa­nese leaders on the correct course of action. Worst of all was Eisenhower’s insistence on continuing the June 1960 trip to Japan at all costs. Hoping to use the ratification of the treaty as a prop in the war of words and symbols with the Soviets, Eisenhower had ignored the many voices in both Japan and the United States calling for a postponement, which ultimately resulted in a far more humiliating cancellation amid violent, seemingly anti-­American protests. Kishi blamed the protests entirely on a small minority of communists, and insisted that the majority of Japanese—­the so-­called voiceless voices—­were on his side and the side of treaty revision. Of course, this was not entirely true, as by the end of June large numbers of ordinary Japa­ nese had become involved in the movement to oust Kishi and protect Japa­nese democracy. But while a small minority of Communist Party–­ affiliated groups did try to give the protests an anti-­American cast, in keeping with party dogma that Japan’s main ­enemy was American imperialism, the vast majority of protesters had no par­tic­u­lar objection to Eisenhower’s visit, and many of them w ­ ere deeply embarrassed when the actions of a small, radical minority forced its cancellation. Thereafter, American business and po­liti­cal leaders, and especially Eisenhower himself, received “floods of letters” from Japa­nese citizens, apologizing on behalf of the Japa­nese nation and offering assurances that the majority of Japa­nese ­people viewed the United States favorably and ­were grateful for all the assistance it had provided Japan.13 Buoyed by ­these letters and Kishi’s reassurances, the Eisenhower administration determined that despite the violent protests in Japan, the humiliating canceled visit, and Demo­cratic calls for a rethink of foreign policy, no change in US policy t­oward Japan was in fact necessary. On . 42 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance June 24 (the day ­after the treaty was ratified), Ambassador MacArthur cabled the State Department with his assessment of the recent protests, and saw no reason for a change: “We believe strongly that [the] main lines [of] our pres­ent policies ­toward Japan are well conceived and should be continued.” Similarly, in a conversation that same day with French ambassador Hervé Alphand in Washington, Herter insisted ­there would be “no change what­ever” in US policy ­toward Japan as a result of the protests. When asked if US economic policy ­toward Japan might change, “the Secretary remarked that this was already very liberal.” The June 24 edition of the “Toner Notes”—­a daily summary of internal executive-­ branch discussions compiled by White House aide Albert Toner—­succinctly summarized the position of the Eisenhower administration: “Although confidence in Japan has been severely shaken, the prob­lem is in Japan, not in the US.” The note concluded that “Japa­nese business leaders should therefore try to encourage their p ­ eople to demonstrate that Japan is not undependable.”14 Three days ­later on June 27, Eisenhower himself publicly expounded this stance in a speech on his “Far East” trip that was broadcast nationwide on both radio and tele­vi­sion. Although he touched on the vari­ous other Asian nations he had visited, Eisenhower spent approximately a quarter of the speech attempting to explain why his visit to Japan had been canceled and why this was not the fault of his policies. In this regard, he found it useful to echo the Kishi line that the protests in Japan ­were almost entirely the work of a “violent and disorderly minority” of communists. Eisenhower concluded that “­these disorders w ­ ere not occasioned by Amer­i­ca,” and therefore, “We in the United States must not fall into the error of blaming ourselves for what the Communists do; a­ fter all, Communists w ­ ill act like Communists.” A primary objective of t­ hese communists, according to Eisenhower, “was to weaken confidence between our ­peoples and to persuade the United States to change its basic policies t­ oward Japan.” Accordingly, US policies t­ oward Japan should not be altered, as this would constitute “a tremendous victory for International Communism.” This position was enshrined in a State Department postmortem of the Japan visit debacle, dated July 1, which concluded, “The main line of US policy need not, and should not, be affected by the recent developments in Japan.”15 . 43 .

japan at the crossroads Although the use of terms like “basic policy” and “main lines” by Eisenhower and other administration officials rhetorically allowed for the possibility of some slight adjustment of US policy in response to the protests in Japan, no such policy adjustments w ­ ere ever contemplated, and the use of demands, threats, and pressure tactics continued throughout the remainder of the Eisenhower presidency. A cable on July 18, 1960, from Herter to MacArthur, for example, instructed MacArthur to warn newly installed Prime Minister Ikeda that “US business leaders ­will be watching Japan very closely in an effort to determine the reliability of Japan as a field for investment and source of imports.” Herter continued, “We recognize . . . ​that any pressure on our part . . . ​could be unhelpful and misconstrued as undue interference. Nevertheless, Ikeda should be aware that his leadership in ­handling ­these prob­lems ­will be closely watched ­here.” Herter also wanted Ikeda to know that as a consequence of the Security Treaty crisis, the US would get even tougher on Japan regarding the always thorny issue of trade with China: Prior to the May-­June crisis . . . ​any GOJ [Government of Japan] action [­toward greater trade with China] would have been placed in [the] context of intercourse with [the] Chi[nese] Com[munist]s by other ­Free World allies and accepted. . . . ​However, in the aftermath of [the] cancellation [of the] President’s visit . . . ​[the] GOJ should be aware that moves in the direction of trade or technical agreements with [the] Chi[nese] Com[munist]s may be interpreted by US opinion as further evidence [of a] drift ­toward neutralism.

Herter suggested that dire consequences would result ­unless Ikeda loudly repudiated neutralism and reaffirmed Japan’s allegiance to the ­free world camp: “If [a] favorable image of Japan [­were] not restored,” it would “inevitably affect economic ties and total US-­Japan relations.” Herter concluded, “While we wish [to] avoid placing any direct pressures on Ikeda, we hope you can quietly lead him to [an] awareness . . . ​that his actions, which ­will be closely observed and fully reported ­here, could have [an] impor­tant impact on ­future ties between [the] US and Japan.” MacArthur reported that he had duly passed on ­these threats to Foreign Minister . 44 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance Kosaka Zentarō in a meeting on July  27, and to Yoshida Shigeru and Ikeda at a lunch on July 28.16 In late August, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs J. Graham Parsons and Japa­nese ambassador Asakai Kōichirō met in Washington to discuss the impact of the protests on US-­Japan relations. Parsons was insistent in telling Asakai, “We want to continue our pres­ent policies t­ oward Japan, and ­there is no question of changing ­those policies.” Ultimately, Parsons “did not think that relations between the two countries had been hurt in any significant way” by the protests, but he did concede that they might have represented an early “warning” of ­future difficulties. In keeping with the practice of issuing veiled threats to the Japa­nese, Parsons warned Asakai that many Americans “[had] obtained [the] impression that Japan [is] somehow unstable and unreliable,” and that “without taking steps to correct revealed weaknesses . . . ​ [the] ability of both governments to develop [the] Japanese-­American partnership along mutually useful lines would be seriously impaired.” However, Parsons stressed that “[the] main burden must fall on [the] Japa­nese for ­handling internal prob­lems and US steps could only be of [a] marginal and supporting character.”17 On August 29, MacArthur sent a lengthy dispatch to the State Department in which he presented a detailed assessment of the ­causes of the recent protests and their impact on US-­Japan relations. Ultimately, MacArthur placed the blame on the “dry rot of Marxism” in Japa­nese society. In MacArthur’s view, this was a “deeply rooted malady” that could not be cured by changes in US policy: “The Embassy sees no way of attacking it directly and feels that it is entirely the Japa­nese Government’s prob­lem.” The only ­thing the United States could do was to continue existing policies of providing po­liti­cal and economic support to the ruling conservatives.18 A final sign that Eisenhower administration officials ­were unwilling to consider any changes in the US-­Japan relationship came in September, when new foreign minister Kosaka Zentarō arrived at the head of the last Japa­nese del­e­ga­tion to visit the United States ­under Eisenhower’s watch. At his first meeting with Herter, Kosaka broached the subject of the . 45 .

japan at the crossroads long-­standing desire of Japa­nese business leaders to form a joint Japan­US economic committee at the governmental level, suggesting that this was needed to fulfill Article II of the new treaty, which promised greater “economic collaboration” between the two nations. Before Herter could respond, Parsons and MacArthur immediately cut in and brushed aside this idea with a variety of vague excuses.19 However, despite the recalcitrance of the Eisenhower administration’s old “Japan hands,” the 1960 Security Treaty protests had already set events in motion that would lead to a fundamental shift in US policy t­oward Japan. In October 1960, the final month of the heated presidential campaign between Kennedy and Richard Nixon, Harvard University professor Edwin O. Reischauer captured the attention of the foreign policy community with an incendiary article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Broken Dialogue with Japan,” in which he criticized the Eisenhower administration’s ­handling of the Security Treaty negotiations and the massive protests that followed. Reischauer, considered the “dean” of Japa­nese studies in the United States, had traveled to Japan in the immediate aftermath of the crisis and had spoken to numerous acquaintances and contacts in an effort to get a true sense of Japa­nese feelings ­toward the United States. It was a m ­ istake, Reischauer argued, to blame the protests on a communist plot, as Eisenhower had done. American leaders had failed to realize that genuine frustration with the United States was rampant among “the bulk of Japan’s intellectuals and college students—­that is, the would-be ideological pathfinders and the generation to which the ­future of Japan belongs.” The anti-­treaty protests, Reischauer felt, represented not a communist success but an American failure—­a failure to reach out to the Japa­nese ­people and understand their legitimate concerns: “Never since the end of the war has the gap in understanding between Americans and Japa­nese been wider than over this incident,” he concluded. “­After 15 years of massive contact, Americans and Japa­nese seem to have less real communication than ever.” Only skillful diplomacy, Reischauer suggested, could repair this “broken dialogue.”20 Reischauer’s article enraged Eisenhower administration officials. Reischauer was still in Japan at the time of publication, and MacArthur angrily summoned him to the US embassy in Tokyo, where he showed Reischauer . 46 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance secret embassy dispatches he felt disproved Reischauer’s assertions. Meanwhile, Parsons wrote Reischauer a letter in which he politely but stiffly expressed his opinion that Reischauer had no idea what he was talking about. In any case, Reischauer had now, wittingly or unwittingly, thrown down the gauntlet, and rumors began to circulate that if Kennedy (a Harvard gradu­ate) ­were to win in November he might select Reischauer as ambassador to Japan, even though the two men had never met.21 With Kishi having resigned and with key ele­ments of the Eisenhower administration so opposed to making any changes in the conduct of ­US-­Japan relations, it would fall to the incoming Ikeda and Kennedy administrations to re­adjust the relationship in response to the Security Treaty crisis. The two new leaders ­were similar in their efforts to proj­ect a sunny optimism that their nations ­were moving forward into a bright ­future. Both leaders set ambitious goals for the de­cade of the 1960s: Kennedy promised to land a man on the moon by 1970, and Ikeda promised to double Japan’s GDP in the same time frame ­under the slogan “National Income Doubling.” The Washington Post called Ikeda “the JFK of Japan,” while Ikeda slyly noted that since he had taken office first, JFK was ­really the “Ikeda of Amer­i­ca.”22 Moreover, both leaders broke with their pre­de­ces­sors in viewing the anti-­treaty protests as a significant crisis in US-­Japan relations that required serious efforts to ameliorate. Taking over from Kishi in mid-­July, Ikeda made “restoring international trust” in Japan one of his top priorities. Having come to power ­after a lengthy ­career as a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance, Ikeda was somewhat more closely connected than Kishi to segments of Japan’s business community, and was therefore more sensitive to the concerns of business leaders that hard feelings in the wake of the protests and the cancellation of Eisenhower’s visit had damaged their economic interests. In 1960 the United States was already Japan’s largest trading partner by a wide margin, with Japan exporting well over $1 billion in goods to the United States each year. Although the kind of or­ga­nized, nationwide boycott of Japa­nese goods advocated by Representative Hosmer did not eventuate, some American businesses and consumers expressed their anger by taking action on their own, canceling or delaying o ­ rders and refusing to buy Japa­nese goods. Stores in Los Angeles reportedly ­removed . 47 .

japan at the crossroads “Made in Japan” labels that “proved a sales detriment ­because of resentment against the Japa­nese over anti-­American uprisings.” In Jacksonville, Florida, a bicycle shop owner promised to stop selling Japanese-­made bicycles and closed out his remaining stock at half price. In Miami, a federation of one hundred electronics shops banned sales of Japa­nese tele­vi­ sion and radio parts, and in Boston, the city employees ­union voted to boycott all Japa­nese goods, citing Japan’s “deliberate insult to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Although t­hese types of actions w ­ ere generally described as “sporadic,” many of the Japa­nese firms exporting to the United States in 1960 w ­ ere small and medium enterprises that could ill afford the cancellation of even a single order. For example, an association of small-­scale rubber goods manufacturers asked the Japa­nese government for a ¥200 million loan to stave off bankruptcies due to contract cancellations and shipping deferments, and a shoe manufacturer in Yokohama had a contract worth $100,000 canceled and another contract postponed, forcing it to lay off 230 of its 460 employees. Prime Minister Kishi, however, was less than sympathetic. Japa­nese businessmen could have done much more to stop the recent “mob vio­lence,” he told the media. “But most Japa­nese businessmen ­were too occupied with their jobs and believed the government could cope” all by itself.23 Even before taking power, Ikeda sought to draw a contrast between himself and Kishi. In his July 10 statement announcing he would run for party president, Ikeda declared, “In my view the chaotic state of affairs which since mid-­May has shaken the social order of our nation and under­ mined Japan’s trustworthiness on the international stage calls for deep self-­reflection. I believe that our most urgent task is to rectify this state of affairs as soon as pos­si­ble.”24 Similarly, Ikeda’s foreign minister, Kosaka Zentarō, recalled, “In the immediate aftermath of the Security Treaty riots, repairing US-­Japan relations was our single biggest concern.” The priority Ikeda placed on this concern was exemplified by the party manifesto for the November general election, composed primarily by Ikeda’s right-­hand man, Ōhira Masayoshi, which opened by asserting that the disorder that developed in relation to the revision of the Security Treaty . . . ​destroyed the international trust our nation had gradually

. 48 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance built up over many years. The eyes of all the p ­ eoples of the world are upon us. . . . ​We must show that we are a nation that truly values liberty and civil rights, and that the Japa­nese ­people, in their harmony, solidarity, and cooperativity, are a race that can make a positive contribution to the peace of the world and the well-­being of mankind, and in this way restore or even increase international trust [in Japan].25

­ oing beyond mere rhe­toric, the Ikeda government took immediate G steps to strengthen ties with the United States. Japa­nese ambassador to the United States Asakai Kōichirō was recalled to Japan in July to gather information about the protests and confer with the new Ikeda administration, whereupon Ikeda personally instructed him to inform the Americans that “full cooperation with the United States in e­ very re­spect” would be his most basic policy. Returning to the United States, Asakai requested a meeting with Secretary of State Herter but was instead granted an audience with U ­ nder Secretary of State  C. Douglas Dillon at the end of August. Asakai duly informed Dillon that “according to Prime Minister [Ikeda], strengthening US-­Japan relations ­will be the fundamental policy of the new cabinet.” To make sure the message was received, Ikeda then dispatched Foreign Minister Kosaka himself to Washington in September. Kosaka reiterated to Herter the Japa­nese government’s “deep feelings of regret” for the cancellation of Eisenhower’s visit, but also insisted that “the Ikeda Government feels that it is not sufficient merely to express regrets . . . ​deeds are necessary.” In other words, rhe­toric alone would not be enough, and Kosaka assured Herter that “the Ikeda Government recognizes that they must cope with . . . ​basic prob­lems in Japa­nese society.”26 The new Kennedy administration elected that November similarly saw a need to take concrete steps to improve US-­Japan relations. The new administration inherited Eisenhower’s view that keeping Japan in the ­free world was of crucial importance to winning the Cold War, and also that the United States might “lose” Japan to communism if US policies ­were inadequate. But whereas Eisenhower administration officials believed the “main lines” of their Japan policy w ­ ere sound and no major changes ­were necessary, Kennedy had ridden into office on promises to sweep away the “tired, old ideas” of the aging “Eisenhower crowd” and . 49 .

japan at the crossroads replace them with a new brand of “can do” activism more appropriate for the 1960s.27 Thus in contrast to the Eisenhower administration, which had considered Japan impor­tant but had designed its rhe­toric and policy to appeal primarily to the American p ­ eople, or aimed it at the Soviet Union, the Kennedy administration directed most of its Japan policy at the Japa­nese ­people themselves, in a manner consistent with Kennedy’s campaign pledges to win the hearts and minds of the non-­Western world. When Kennedy took office in January 1961, one of his first actions as president was to invite Prime Minister Ikeda to visit the United States that summer, as the first foreign leader Kennedy would host during his presidency. Kennedy also hoped to succeed where Eisenhower had failed by becoming the first sitting US president ever to visit Japan, and initiated discussions with the Ikeda government about a presidential visit to Japan in early 1962. Kennedy’s decision to resume atmospheric nuclear tests in light of renewed Soviet tests, however, forced him to postpone the visit to a less po­liti­cally sensitive time. Instead, Kennedy sent his ­brother, Attorney General Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, who visited along with his wife Ethel in February 1962 and won over a skeptical Japa­nese press and public with his warmth, sincerity, and youthful energy. In par­ tic­u­lar, Bobby scored a public relations triumph during a nationally televised speech at Waseda University in Tokyo. When Zengakuren student activists showed up and attempted to shout him down, he invited one of the protesters up on stage and held an impromptu debate. Bobby’s calm, cheerful demeanor amid the pandemonium and his willingness to take the student’s questions seriously won him admirers across Japan and extensive praise in the Japa­nese media. Meanwhile, President Kennedy never gave up his dream to travel to Japan himself, and plans ­were made for him to fi­nally make the long-­awaited visit in January 1964. However, Kennedy’s assassination in November yet again delayed the first visit to Japan by a president currently in office; Secretary of State Dean Rusk went in Kennedy’s stead, and Japan’s long wait to host a sitting US president would extend another de­cade, ­until Gerald Ford’s visit in 1974. Kennedy also made efforts to reach out to the Japa­nese public on a personal level, consenting on two occasions to personal interviews with Japa­nese newspapers, something no prior American president had done, . 50 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance and initiating plans to establish a scholarship in his name for Japa­nese students to visit the United States, funded in part by the proceeds of the sales of his books in Japan. The scholarship scheme was arranged by Hosono Gunji, a personal acquaintance of Kennedy’s and president of the Japan Institute of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo. Hosono had been invited to attend Kennedy’s inauguration and ­later made several visits to the White House, often acting as an unofficial channel between Kennedy and Japa­nese business leaders and politicians, for whom he carried personal letters back and forth.28 Kennedy’s most significant move to reach out to the Japa­nese ­people, however, was his nomination of Reischauer as ambassador to Japan. Given Reischauer’s lack of diplomatic experience, it was a bold choice, but one that ultimately proved apt. Previous ambassadors to Japan had typically been c­ areer diplomats in the mold of Allison and MacArthur, with ­little or no prior knowledge of the culture, let alone the Japa­nese language. Reischauer, in contrast, had been born and raised in Japan (the son of missionary parents), spoke Japa­nese, and was married to a Japa­ nese ­woman from a prominent Japa­nese ­family—­his wife, Haru, was the grand­daughter of two-­time prime minister of Japan Matsukata Masa­ yoshi. Moreover, he had devoted his ­career to studying Japan’s culture and history. Reischauer’s nomination was vehemently opposed by Rusk, Parsons, and many o ­ thers the State Department. Not surprisingly, ­career diplomats resented being passed over for a diplomatic neophyte, but nominating Reischauer also ­violated an unofficial State Department norm that diplomats with foreign-­born wives not be assigned to their spouse’s home nation for fear that they might be prejudiced in that nation’s f­avor or subjected to such an accusation. The move also raised the ire of conservative Republicans, who resented Reischauer’s criticism of Eisenhower’s Japan policy. The conservative po­liti­cal commentator Raymond Moley harshly criticized the appointment as “a nomination pleasing to leftists” in his nationally syndicated column, and Republican congressmen promised to grill Reischauer at his confirmation hearing. As a result of this fierce opposition, Reischauer’s official appointment was held up for nearly a month ­after it was first announced.29 . 51 .

japan at the crossroads What ultimately saved the nomination was the staunch support of Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright, the power­ful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the fresh memory of the 1960 protests. Reischauer recalled that Kennedy’s p ­ eople, foremost among them U ­ nder Secretary of State Chester Bowles, whom Kennedy had put in charge of ambassadorial appointments, had seen his “Broken Dialogue” article and “had deci­ded that since we’d not done very well in the spring of 1960, it’d be good to have a person more deeply knowledgeable about Japan and particularly a person with a knowledge of the Japa­ nese language as Ambassador.” Bowles himself recalled that despite the opposition arrayed against Reischauer, he was “anxious to get somebody ­there who was not a Foreign Ser­vice officer with the old viewpoint of Asia. . . . ​I went back to the President and said, ‘Now look, ­you’ve got to ­really stick with this ­thing.’ ”30 News of Reischauer’s appointment was lauded in Japan by commentators on both the left and the right. Foreign Ministry officials publicly praised the move, arguing that Kennedy having gone out of his way to appoint Reischauer despite opposition from the Washington establishment was a clear indication that he attached greater importance to Japan than previous administrations. Meanwhile, a representative from the JSP expressed optimism that Reischauer would attempt to understand their point of view without tarring them with Cold War ste­reo­types.31 When Reischauer fi­nally arrived in Japan on April 19, he was given a welcome akin to that of a conquering hero. All the runways at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport ­were cleared so that his plane could touch down exactly at 6:40 p.m., just in time to have his brief public statement broadcast live nationwide on the 7:00 p.m. newscasts. As he came down the gangway, he was mobbed by a crowd of more than 600 enthusiastic well-­wishers, including representatives of the left-­wing po­liti­cal parties and even a party of right-­wing nationalists. He then read his prepared statement, thrilling the ex­pec­tant Japa­nese nation by noting (in Japa­nese!) that since he had been raised in Japan, his new posting felt “like coming home.”32 Indeed, Reischauer’s ambassadorship proved unpre­ce­dented in many ways. In contrast to previous US ambassadors to Japan, who remained . 52 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance in Tokyo and dealt only with top leaders in En­glish through translators, Reischauer reached out to ordinary Japa­nese, traveling the country visiting schools, touring factories, speaking to ­labor ­unions, and meeting with scholars. Reischauer famously declared his intention to visit all forty-­seven Japa­nese prefectures, and impressively made it to thirty-­nine by the time his posting ended in 1966. In keeping with the spirit of his article in Foreign Affairs, Reischauer also made it his personal mission to repair the “broken dialogue” with disaffected Japa­nese intellectuals, granting numerous interviews to leftist publications and publishing several articles u ­ nder his own name in left-­leaning Japa­nese journals in which he defended and explained American policy.33 Reischauer also had unpre­ce­dented access to the US president for an ambassador to Japan. Although Kennedy and Reischauer had never met prior to Reischauer’s appointment, Kennedy was extremely impressed by Reischauer’s advice and counsel during Ikeda’s 1961 visit, and thereafter made a point of meeting one-­on-­one with Reischauer to discuss the Japan situation for a few hours each time Reischauer returned to the United States. Reischauer also had backdoor communication channels to the president through National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, with whom he had been acquainted when Bundy was dean at Harvard in the 1950s, and ­later through Robert Kennedy, who was extremely impressed with Reischauer’s ­handling of his January 1962 visit. Reischauer recalled, “From then on I always had a very close relationship to the Attorney General, and . . . ​if I ­really had something that I just had to get to the President . . . ​I could always do it that way, which was extremely useful.”34 Reischauer made the idea of an “equal partnership” between Japan and the United States his personal catchphrase and played a crucial role in placing the concept at the center of the Kennedy administration’s Japan policy, constantly stressing the theme in his public messages and his private missives to the State Department from the earliest days of his appointment. When Kennedy also began speaking publicly of “equal partnership” with Japan, the Japa­nese press nicknamed this ideological shift the “Kennedy-­Reischauer offensive” (Kenedi-­Raishawā rosen). Although assertions that Reischauer in­ven­ted the phrase “equal partnership” are . 53 .

japan at the crossroads overstated, no one worked harder to transform this term into a real­ity than Reischauer. As Reischauer himself recalled, We had an awful blow up . . . ​over the ratification of the new security pact in the spring of ’60. And this was over the fundamental prob­lem [of] the tendency of the Japa­nese public as a ­whole to resent [the] very unbalanced relationship with a huge Amer­i­ca and a small power­ less Japan that is forced to bend at Amer­i­ca’s ­will ­because of the need for trade with us. . . . ​[We] seemed too large to them, and so I took what [the Japa­nese] called a “low posture.”

But Reischauer insisted that he wanted to go beyond making the relationship merely “seem more equal to them. . . . ​I thought the main ­thing to do was . . . ​to try to make the relationship be more equal.”35

The 1961 Kennedy-­Ikeda Summit The major event in US-­Japan relations during the Kennedy and Ikeda administrations was the summit meeting between the two leaders, hosted by Kennedy in Washington, D.C., from June 20 to 22, 1961. In many ways, the encounter differed ­little from most meetings between leaders of nations, with its bland platitudes and expressions of deep friendship, its self-­congratulatory toasts, and its handshaking photo opportunities for the benefit of the press. The meeting was more than a mere public relations ploy, however. The turbulent events of the summer before fostered a spirit of compromise among the leaders of both nations that created an opportunity to move the US-­Japan relationship in the direction of greater mutuality. The attack on Hagerty’s car and the cancellation of Eisenhower’s visit had provided graphic evidence that treaty revision alone would not be enough to seal the fissures that had begun to appear in the Japanese-­ American alliance. Kennedy’s team, including Bundy, Reischauer, Deputy National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, and State Department Japan expert Richard Sneider, argued in reports they wrote to help the president prepare for Ikeda’s visit that in light of the recent turmoil, the United States had to do much more to reach out to the Japa­nese ­people and had to work harder to deal with Japan in a more genuinely consultative . 54 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance

President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato photographed at their summit meeting in Washington, D.C., on June 20, 1961. Standing ­behind them (left to right) are Japa­nese ambassador Asakai Koichirō, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Minister of Foreign Affairs Kosaka Zentarō, Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, and interpreter James J. Wickel. (Photo by Abbie Rowe, White House Photo­graphs Collection, AR6659-­A. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

manner. Rostow in par­tic­u­lar urged Kennedy to upgrade Japan to a “se­ nior partner” of the United States and promise it “fair treatment in trade.” In the short run, he argued, “the prob­lem is nationalism, in the longer run, neutralism.” Accordingly as far as was pos­si­ble, Kennedy should accommodate “Japa­nese nationalist desires on such ­matters as trade with Communist China and our administration of [Okinawa].”36 Kennedy evidently took t­ hese ideas to heart, and the result was the first truly bilateral conference between US leaders and a Japa­nese prime minister. The new cooperative attitude produced immediate and concrete results in the form of three cooperative committees that Ikeda and Kennedy . 55 .

japan at the crossroads agreed to create: the United States–­Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (CULCON), the United States–­Japan Committee on Scientific Cooperation, and, at long last, the Joint United States–­Japan Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs, which the Japa­nese had been requesting for over a de­cade. Each committee was to hold an annual meeting, alternating between Japan and the United States, at which it would produce a report of recommendations for improving US-­Japan cooperation within that given field. The first two committees featured prominent intellectuals and scientists, who drafted proposals for joint US-­Japan cultural exchanges and scientific research collaborations, respectively. The proposal for the third committee, on economic affairs, far exceeded the Japa­nese government’s original hopes of an occasional meeting of midlevel government bureaucrats and select business leaders, and instead called for high-­level annual conferences involving cabinet members from both nations. The three committees proved to be resounding successes, and all three ­were still operating in some form more than five de­cades ­later. Most impor­tant of all ­were the activities of the Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs, which provided both an excuse and an opportunity for leading officials in the two administrations to hammer out difficult economic issues in a relatively informal atmosphere of collegiality and cooperation. The first meeting of the committee in November 1961 caused a media sensation in Japan. Secretary of State Rusk led an American del­e­ga­tion that included four additional members of Kennedy’s cabinet to the resort town of Hakone, Japan, where they ­were met by virtually the entire Ikeda cabinet. The Japa­nese media ­were not used to seeing top leaders from the two nations joking and fraternizing in public and breathlessly reported on every­thing from the food that was served to the activities of the cabinet wives. Ōhira Masayoshi found the committee to be deeply meaningful: “The very fact that the cabinet members dealing with economic affairs from both countries devote themselves for two or three days to discussions of economic issues and other ­matters of mutual concern represented a major diplomatic breakthrough for both countries, and is a meaningful development not just for the United States and Japan, but for the ­whole world.” Ōhira elaborated, “Japan has to think about the United States 24 hours a day, but the United States has to think about . 56 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance many countries, so it is extremely significant if, even for just two or three days out of the year, the Americans think only about Japan.”37 Another major development of the Kennedy-­Ikeda talks was a new understanding regarding the perennially fractious issue of Japa­nese trade with China. Ever since the formulation of the nonrecognition and nontrade policies t­oward China at the end of the Truman administration, each successive Japa­nese prime minister had made a point of pressing the United States for a relaxation of restrictions on trade with China, and the Japa­nese government had continually fueled popu­lar hopes of such a trade increasing in the f­ uture by sending a series of exploratory “unofficial” trade missions to China. One reason the Japa­nese government risked antagonizing the United States with ­these gestures was ­because the idea of expanded trade with China held a deep emotional appeal that captivated not only the Japa­nese left but also many conservatives, including many of the rank and file of the ruling LDP. But perhaps more importantly, the trade-­with-­China card was seen as a lever to increase pressure on the United States to open its markets further to Japa­nese exports. The issue of pos­si­ble expanded trade with China was heavi­ly debated by the Japa­nese media in the lead-up to Ikeda’s trip to the United States, and memos produced by the State Department to prepare Kennedy for Ikeda’s visit had anticipated that he would push for expanded trade with China just as his pre­de­ces­sors had.38 At the June 1961 summit, however, Ikeda surprised the Kennedy administration by characterizing the Japa­nese attraction to Chinese trade of the previous de­cade as merely a passing “mood” and asserted that “Japan does not wish to disturb her economic relations with the United States merely for trade with Peiping, for such a move would lead to a Japa­nese economic collapse.” In a reversal of the usual argument that Japan could benefit greatly from the Chinese market if the United States did not open its markets further, Ikeda declared that opportunities for trade with China w ­ ere of l­ittle value and assured Kennedy that “­there need be no concern about their position on the resumption of trade.”39 The Ikeda government stolidly maintained this position on the China trade in the years that followed, and did its best to quiet calls by civilian groups within Japan for increased trade with China. A sign of just how . 57 .

japan at the crossroads committed the Ikeda administration was to the no-­trade line appeared in May 1962 when former prime minister Yoshida unexpectedly broached the old issue of possibly allowing increased trade with China during an informal meeting with Kennedy in Washington. Japa­nese vice minister of foreign affairs Takeuchi Ryūji was at ­great pains to apologize, informing Reischauer that “Yoshida had said nothing . . . ​about ChiCom trade prior to departing on the trip, and if he had, he would have been told it was foolishness.” Takeuchi “could understand how Washington might have attributed undue importance to Yoshida’s statements, particularly since Ikeda was known as Yoshida’s ‘disciple,’ ” but he “wished personally to make quite clear Yoshida was not reflecting the Japa­nese government’s policy in his remarks.”40 Ikeda was employing a new kind of strategy for Japa­nese relations with the United States, whereby the United States would be encouraged to further open its markets to Japa­nese imports by Japa­nese cooperation with American cold war objectives, rather than pressured to open its markets by threats of Japa­nese noncooperation. This strategy was one part of what became known in the Japa­nese press as Ikeda’s “low posture,” as opposed to the “high posture” of pressure tactics employed by previous Japa­nese premiers, most notably Kishi. The strategy was a resounding success, as Amer­i­ca continued to liberalize trade with Japan over the course of the 1960s and the Japa­nese never again pressed for increased trade with China, right up u ­ ntil China was brought back into trade relations with the world following Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit. Ikeda’s “low posture” gambit worked b ­ ecause Kennedy, although he would not have called it such, was willing to take a “low posture” of his own on trade liberalization. During the Eisenhower years, both American and Japa­nese leaders had hoped that the nations of Southeast Asia or even a decommunized China could serve as the “natu­ral markets” for Japanese-­manufactured goods. Indeed, Japan’s desperate need for markets was cited in justifying aid to the South Viet­nam­ese during the 1950s. By 1960, however, ­there was a general consensus that given the ongoing commitment to isolate China eco­nom­ically and war-­torn Southeast Asia’s continued lag in economic development, the United States itself was the only ­viable market for Japanese-­manufactured goods, and thus the only . 58 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance hope for maintaining Japan’s rapid economic growth, which in turn was the surest way to keep Japan out of the communist orbit. Despite this recognition, however, the Eisenhower administration continued to tie American trade liberalization to “proportionate” liberalization on the Japa­nese side. It was willing to consider negotiations leading to further liberalization, but only if Japan would offer concessions in return. As late as September 1960, Eisenhower administration officials insisted to Foreign Minister Kosaka that Japan needed to liberalize its trade with the United States first before any further access to the US market could be granted. In a thinly veiled threat, ­Under Secretary of State for Po­liti­cal Affairs Livingston Merchant alluded to the “pressures in the United States for greater protection against foreign imports” and hinted that “maintenance by the U.S. of a liberal trade policy” was dependent on Japan “mov[ing] as rapidly as pos­si­ble with trade liberalization.” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Charles Adair chided Kosaka that “a bad impression is created by the Japa­nese request for renegotiation of tariff concessions” without a willingness to grant new concessions in return.41 In contrast, the new Kennedy administration deci­ded to pursue a “unilateral” trade liberalization policy t­ oward Japan, whereby the United States would move ahead with reducing tariffs on some Japa­nese goods, using the vast new tariff-­cutting authority granted to Kennedy by the 1962 Trade Expansion Act (TEA), in exchange for vague promises that Japan would liberalize its own at some point in the ­future. This unilateral approach to trade liberalization appealed to Kennedy’s self-­image as a champion of ­free trade and his desire to lead by example in order to pave the way for a major reduction in worldwide trade barriers in the upcoming “Kennedy Round” of GATT negotiations. It was also necessary to avoid putting Japan in an unfair trade position vis-­à-­vis Eu­ro­pean nations, whose goods ­were expected to see large tariff reductions ­under the TEA. But most importantly, Kennedy administration officials w ­ ere convinced that such an approach would bind Japan ever closer to the United States and the global ­free trade system, meaning that Japan would see the advantages of liberalizing its own markets sooner, and gradually eliminating the appeal of neutralism in Japan.42 . 59 .

japan at the crossroads Kennedy had to move somewhat cautiously ­because ­there ­were still some opponents of f­ ree trade in Congress, but he pressed steadily ahead with his plans. In 1957, ­under pressure from the Eisenhower administration and as part of the drive to secure treaty revision, Japan had agreed to a system of one-­sided “voluntary” export controls on cotton textiles and other goods exported to the United States. Th ­ ese quotas quickly proved far more onerous than anticipated, but the Eisenhower administration had steadfastly refused to renegotiate the quotas without commensurate trade concessions from the Japa­nese, even as Japan’s share of the cotton products imported into the United States plummeted from 75 ­percent in 1957 to a mere 18 ­percent in 1961. At the summit with Ikeda, however, Kennedy immediately agreed to a renegotiation of the “voluntary” quotas, and his administration eventually agreed to increase the quotas by 7.8 ­percent, even though the State Department had estimated that only a 5 ­percent increase was needed to maintain Japan’s current rate of growth. In exchange, Kennedy received a promise from Ikeda that Japan would “fully” liberalize its economy by 1963, an economy that, in the words of George Ball, “had a greater number of quantitative restrictions on imports than any major trading country.” Even when this promise failed to be met, the Kennedy administration still pressed ahead with unilateral trade liberalization, working through the Joint United States–­Japan Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs to gradually scale back tariffs and voluntary quotas on a wide array of Japa­nese products.43 Perhaps the most significant move t­ oward greater partnership at the 1961 Kennedy-­Ikeda meeting, however, took place on the second day of the talks, when Kennedy took Ikeda out for an after­noon cruise on the Potomac River aboard his yacht, the Honey Fitz. The only other p ­ eople pres­ent ­were a secretary from the American side to take notes, and Ikeda’s close associate (and ­future prime minister) Miyazawa Kiichi, at that time a ju­nior member of the upper h ­ ouse of the Diet, who acted as translator. Ikeda opened the conversation with what he considered a bold request, asking “that the United States undertake to establish with the Japa­nese in Asia a relationship similar to that enjoyed by Britain, ­under which the two Governments consult continuously on foreign policy prob­lems of . 60 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance

Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato and President John F. Kennedy aboard the Honey Fitz, where they conducted “yacht talks” on June 21, 1961. Miyazawa Kiichi is vis­ i­ble standing ­behind the two leaders. (Photo by Abbie Rowe, White House Photo­graphs Collection, AR6659-­H. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

common concern.” To Ikeda’s surprise, Kennedy immediately agreed. Kennedy pointed out that he had already agreed the day before to set up the three committees on trade, science, and education and culture, but said that he also recognized the need to consult on foreign policy m ­ atters as well. To this end, “the President felt that it would be pos­si­ble to establish consultative machinery” of some sort, which would “not limit itself to Asian and Pacific prob­lems, but could also consider global ­matters.” Kennedy turned this tentative agreement into a firm pledge ­later that after­noon, when he told a larger gathering of officials that he had promised . 61 .

japan at the crossroads Ikeda “to consult whenever pos­si­ble in advance with Japan, particularly in instances where ­there are serious threats to the international peace and where the interests of both countries are involved, in the same manner as we now consult with the British and the French.”44 The notion that the president of the United States would sit down for a face-­to-­face talk with the prime minister of Japan without any officials pres­ent other than a secretary and a translator was unheard of in US-­Japan relations up to this point. Th ­ ese so-­called yacht talks (yotto kaidan) provoked a sensation in the Japa­nese media and ­were extremely well received as a sign of much more equal treatment. The Japa­nese press praised the talks as an example of Kennedy having given Ikeda the “British treatment” (Igirisu taigū), and Ikeda was reported to have triumphantly declared to associates upon returning home that “Japan has become the Britain of Asia.” An Asahi Shinbun editorial for June 24, titled “The Fruits of Prime Minister Ikeda’s Visit to Amer­i­ca,” captured the feeling that a significant change had occurred and Japan was being treated more equally than before: When Prime Minister Ikeda was asked what the most impor­tant part [of his visit] was, he answered “It was that I spoke to President Kennedy with bold frankness,” and he emphasized that he and Kennedy “became good friends.” Moreover, he repeatedly stated that the talks ­were always conducted on a basis of complete equality. Indeed, it is clear that the United States gave par­tic­u­lar consideration to this point. The very fact that this point received such special emphasis is, at the risk of suggesting that such was not always the case in the past, a development that we should embrace as a sign that Japan’s importance is recognized and appreciated.45

A Consultative Framework Solidifies Beyond the attention paid to the appearance of a more equal partnership, the pledge Kennedy made to Ikeda on the Honey Fitz to communicate more closely with Japan gradually evolved over the next several years into a genuine consultative framework in which Kennedy and Ikeda would exchange private messages, written in the style of personal letters be. 62 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance tween friends, before Kennedy made major foreign policy announcements. Ambassador Reischauer played a crucial role in putting this arrangement into practice. Upon returning to Japan a­ fter the June  1961 summit, he made a concerted effort to build up close personal relations with Ikeda and Kosaka (and ­later Ōhira), and urged the State Department to forge similar relations with Ambassador Asakai in Washington. In an August 7 tele­gram to the State Department, he noted how pleased his Japa­nese counter­parts ­were with efforts to consult more closely than in the past, and urged, “We must go on with this practice. I do not minimize the burden that sustained and full consultation ­will put on [an] already overworked Dept. and embassy officers, but it is evident that returns in improved US-­Japan understanding and in [the] position of Ikeda and Kosaka . . . ​­will be proportionately large.” Reischauer was constantly on the lookout for chances for the US government to provide Ikeda (and ­later Satō Eisaku) with advance notice of US foreign policy decisions, such that when Lyndon Johnson became president and reaffirmed to Satō in a meeting in Washington that the Kennedy-­era commitment to advance consultations would continue ­under his watch, he joked that “Reischauer work[s] part time for the United States but most of the time for the Prime Minister.”46 One of the first major instances of such advance notice was an exchange of messages in the spring of 1962, when Kennedy deci­ded to resume atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons following a series of Soviet tests in the fall of 1961. It was Reischauer who initially reminded the White House of Kennedy’s pledge to consult with Ikeda on major foreign policy m ­ atters. In mid-­February he cabled Rusk, citing the promise to consult and insisting that “failure to give Ikeda advance confidential notice on this most sensitive and difficult issue would seriously shake his confidence in the closeness of his relationship with the President and lessen his ability to minimize the inevitable storm of protest” in Japan, where popu­lar feelings regarding nuclear testing remained raw, dating back to the Lucky Dragon incident. Reischauer argued that “an advance Presidential message would have the ­great value of reassuring Ikeda that, even though we had not been able to decide the question as Japan wished, we had taken Japa­nese views into full consideration before reaching a . 63 .

japan at the crossroads decision.” When the decision was ultimately made to resume the tests, Kennedy obliged Reischauer’s suggestion with a lengthy personal letter to Ikeda in which Kennedy explained his reasoning in detail, expressed his recognition of and sympathy for the “deep concern” of Japa­nese ­people to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and asked Ikeda for his “forgiveness and understanding.” The letter was delivered personally to Ikeda by Ambassador Reischauer three days before Kennedy’s public announcement.47 This was truly an unpre­ce­dented step. Although Reischauer’s plea to Rusk underscores that Kennedy’s communication with Ikeda was less of a true “consultation” asking for advice and more of a public relations move intended to “minimize protest,” and although in actuality nothing Japan could have done would have stopped the tests, never before had American officials even remotely considered informing Japan beforehand on national security issues of this magnitude or in this manner. Indeed, the only other world leader to receive such advance notice of Kennedy’s announcement besides Ikeda was British prime minister Harold Macmillan, and the message he received was significantly shorter. As Ikeda had hoped, Japan was now receiving the “British treatment” from the United States, in private as well as in public.48 In return for Kennedy’s advance message, Ikeda wrote a personal message in reply, which was every­thing the Americans could have hoped for. Although for the benefit of the Japa­nese public the letter was framed as a rebuke of Kennedy’s decision, Ikeda conceded that he understood the president’s reasoning and noted that “the circumstances which compelled you with ­great reluctance to make this decision, as explained in your letter, came about, I believe, b ­ ecause the Soviet Union, in complete defiance of the hopes of mankind, unilaterally broke the moratorium on nuclear weapons testing and vigorously conducted a series of some fifty tests.” On March 2, the day a­ fter Kennedy’s speech announcing the tests, the two personal messages ­were si­mul­ta­neously released to the public in the United States and Japan. Ikeda then wrote a sharply worded open letter to Khrushchev urging a comprehensive test ban treaty. The second to last paragraph placed the blame for the recent escalation squarely on the Soviet side and suggested that it was incumbent on Khrushchev to make the next move ­toward a test ban. Thus, while Ikeda could legiti. 64 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance mately claim he was admonishing both sides, he lent a public voice in support of the logic if not the substance of Kennedy’s decision—­the payoff for Kennedy’s unpre­ce­dented step of providing Ikeda with advance notice.49 The US-­Japan consultation framework continued to evolve in the summer of 1962, when the administration moved several air force squadrons based in Japan to Thailand in response to the Laotian Border Crisis. The Japa­nese government protested to Reischauer and through its ambassador in Washington that, although the 1960 treaty did not mandate prior consultation before making routine movements of US troops in or out of bases in Japan, the move ­violated the spirit of the promise of consultation Kennedy had given Ikeda. Reischauer immediately cabled Rusk, I strongly agree with the basic point of giving the government of Japan appropriate advance information on a confidential basis of  troop or unit movements to and from Japan bases whenever ­pos­si­ble. . . . ​If we fail to do so, we not only unnecessarily complicate prob­lems for the Japa­nese government and ourselves in Japan, but we weaken and damage the edifice of partnership and confidence we are trying to construct.

In an exchange of tele­grams, Rusk and Reischauer hammered out a policy in which they agreed that the US government would thenceforward privately inform the Japa­nese government in advance of any significant troop movements “whenever pos­si­ble and always if we intend to make a public announcement.” From that point on, it became customary US policy to inform the Japa­nese government of virtually all movements of US troops, no m ­ atter how minor, usually via messages from special assistant to the president Kenneth O’Donnell to the Japa­nese ambassador in Washington. The exchange of messages, both between Kennedy and Ikeda and between O’Donnell and the Japa­nese embassy, continued throughout the Kennedy years and established the pattern of consultation with Japan that was passed on to ­future administrations.50 A particularly notable exchange between the two leaders came when Kennedy wrote another personal message to Ikeda prior to giving his speech to the world announcing the existence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. . 65 .

japan at the crossroads Reischauer personally delivered the letter to Ikeda’s residence early in the morning on October 22, 1962. Ikeda responded by publicly and roundly condemning Soviet actions, one of the strongest messages of support that Kennedy received, and a­ fter the crisis had passed, Ikeda let it be known that he was extremely appreciative of Kennedy’s letter. In a memorandum to Bundy ­after the crisis had passed, the State Department drew a clear picture of the benefits the consultative agreement was reaping, concluding “that the favorable Japa­nese attitude on Cuba was largely due to this letter, and that the letter was the key reason why the Japa­nese reaction on Cuba was dif­fer­ent from the Japa­nese reaction when we sent troops into Thailand during the Laos crisis.” Whereas Ikeda “reacted strongly against not having been informed on the Thailand ­matter, [he] might well have taken a friendly position if he had been consulted in advance.” Returning to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the memo concluded that “Prime Minister Ikeda’s helpful reply of October 25 to the president’s letter . . . ​ provide[s] convincing confirmation in our and Embassy Tokyo’s view that we can expect substantial dividends when the Japa­nese are consulted in advance on impor­tant international ­matters.”51 This pattern of secret communications of advance notice before announcements of US foreign policy was passed on to the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Although t­hese communications w ­ ere something less than true “consultation” and certainly fell short of the “veto power” over US troop movements that Kishi had promised the Diet during the b ­ attle to ratify the new Security Treaty, and despite the fact that their secrecy limited their utility as a tool to mollify domestic Japa­ nese critics, the advance notice, even if only by a few days, was greatly appreciated by Ikeda, and ­later by Satō Eisaku, as it allowed them time to prepare a proper response, inform close advisors, and generally appear as if they ­were on top of world events. Indeed, the existence of this practice helps us understand why the so-­called Nixon shocks of 1971 w ­ ere so shocking, as Satō had been accustomed to receiving secret notice in advance of such major policy announcements. On July  15, 1971, President Nixon suddenly announced that he would visit mainland China in 1972. One month l­ater on August 15, he announced he was suspending the dollar’s convertibility into . 66 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates that had greatly benefited Japa­nese trade, and also imposed a temporary 10 ­percent surcharge on imports (a move that was widely seen to be aimed primarily at Japa­nese imports). No advance warning was given to Japan in ­either case, despite the fact that as late as June 9, Secretary of State William Rogers had personally promised Foreign Minister Aichi Kiichi that “we ­will remain in close contact regarding the China issue.” The Nixon shocks left a deeply embarrassed Satō looking impotent and uninformed, and directly contributed to the downfall of his administration, which had been the longest of any prime minister in Japa­nese history.52 Moreover, the existence of this practice explains why Reischauer was so deeply angered by Nixon’s actions, as the failure to warn Japan in advance not only seemed like bad form but also dealt a major blow to a system of secret communication he had labored so hard to build. Over the next few years, the normally circumspect Reischauer did not shy away from making his anger widely known, penning articles and granting numerous interviews to the press in which he vociferously attacked Nixon and Kissinger for betraying Japan. In a 1976 interview, five years ­after the events of 1971, he called Nixon’s actions the “nadir” of postwar US-­Japan relations and stated that “we have gradually worked our way back to the point of tolerable if not good relations between Tokyo and Washington.”53 Yet at the same time, the per­sis­tence of this tradition of secretly informing Japa­nese leaders in advance of major foreign policy announcements is demonstrated by the fact that Nixon and Kissinger had actually debated informing Satō in advance before announcing Nixon’s plan to visit China, although they ultimately deci­ded against it for fear of leaks in Satō’s inner circle. Even then, they still tried at the last minute to get word to Satō via Nakasone Yasuhiro, erstwhile director of the Japa­nese Defense Agency, but Nakasone declined to pass the news on to Satō, perhaps owing to bitterness over the fact that he had just lost his position in a cabinet shuffle ten days prior. In any case, Kissinger would ­later express regret that more efforts ­were not taken to inform Satō in advance.54 The secrecy of ­these communications itself was also one of the major legacies bequeathed to US-­Japan relations by the 1960 anti-­treaty protests. In recent years, newly declassified US government documents . 67 .

japan at the crossroads have revealed or confirmed a wide array of secret arrangements between the US government and the Japa­nese government in the 1960s and 1970s involving po­liti­cally sensitive concessions to US demands. Secret agreements concluded in the 1960s, for example, affirmed that the United States would not be required to ask the Japa­nese government for permission to move troops in all cases, and would be allowed to “transit” naval vessels carry­ing nuclear weapons through Japa­nese ports. ­Later secret agreements affirmed that US vessels would be allowed to dump radioactive coolant into Japa­nese ­waters and called for the Japa­nese government to secretly pay costs of the reversion of Okinawa that w ­ ere officially said to have been borne by the United States. The 1960 revision of the US-­Japan Security Treaty was essentially the first and last time a major policy decision relating to the US-­Japan alliance was publicly put to a vote in the Japa­nese Diet, given that the original Security Treaty had been forced on Japan as a condition of regaining sovereignty and the current Security Treaty has never been renegotiated. The massive protests that resulted the one time a clear choice was presented, and the fear of a recurrence if such choices w ­ ere made equally clear in the f­uture, drove US-­ Japan diplomacy underground and strengthened a culture of secret pacts between the two governments that expanded the scope of the Security Treaty without informing the public.55 The new direction of US policy t­ oward Japan was codified in a document, approved by both the Department of State and the Department of Defense, titled “Guidelines of US Policy t­oward Japan.” The document went through several rounds of revision in 1961 before being finalized and distributed to the relevant departments and agencies in June 1962, at which point the Eisenhower administration’s document on US-­Japan policy, NSC 6008 / 1 (­adopted June 11, 1960, just before the climax of the treaty crisis), was officially repealed. The main thrust of the new policy was as follows: “As Japan attempts with our help to play a more positive role in Asian affairs, U.S. . . . ​trade policies must be responsive to Japa­ nese marketing needs, and defense links must infringe as l­ ittle as pos­si­ble on Japa­nese prerogatives and sensibilities.” The lesson taken from the 1960 protests was that “the left has demonstrated its capabilities for effective exploitation of Japan’s po­liti­cal weaknesses,” and therefore “con. 68 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance tinued conservative rule can . . . ​not be taken for granted.” The document concluded, “Given this situation . . . ​maintenance of a high level of trade with the West, particularly the United States, is virtually a life or death issue for the conservatives. . . . ​If trade with Japan can be maintained at a growing level over the next de­cade, Japan’s alliance with the U.S. and its interdependence with the West can become so intimate and responsive to Japa­nese interests as to discourage thoroughly any Japa­nese government, ­whether left or right,” from pursuing “Communist-­oriented neutralism.” To facilitate such an outcome, the new guidelines listed “Lines of Action” to be followed, including “maintain[ing] a pattern of consultation with Japan consonant with its status as the major partner of the U.S. in Asia, paralleling such consultations with top Western Eu­ro­pean leaders,” “generally maintaining a liberal trade policy,” and “resisting pressures to establish U.S. import restrictions, or to ‘negotiate’ Japa­nese ‘voluntary’ export quotas.”56 The new policy’s vision of ever-­growing trade with Japan stood in contrast to NSC 6008 / 1, which had promised only “a fair and reasonable share” of US markets to Japan, and would countenance reductions in US trade restrictions only “on a reciprocal basis.” Moreover, whereas NSC 6008 / 1 viewed Japan’s dependence on trade with the United States and other nations as an unfortunate “handicap” that would have to be ameliorated with somewhat begrudging US trade concessions, the new guidelines viewed Japan’s dependence on US markets in a more positive light, as a tie that bound Japan more closely to the ­free world.57 Ambassador Reischauer was deeply pleased with the new direction of US policy. By the fall of 1962 he was ready to declare triumphantly that “the United States has had . . . success in strengthening its ties with Japan, both in real­ity and in the public mind, by its efforts to establish broader contacts with the Japa­nese public, [and] its determination to treat Japan as a full and respected partner.” Reischauer patronizingly compared the transformation to a child growing up, describing postwar US-­Japan relations as moving from open dictation, as to General MacArthur’s “12-­year-­old” Japa­nese public, which gave way through the [1952] Peace Treaty to fatherly

. 69 .

japan at the crossroads guidance, and then to less direct avuncular guidance of a rather non-­ cooperative adolescent. It would now seem time for U ­ ncle Sam not just to accept his erstwhile “nephew” as an adult equal when the latter so desires, but to insist on this new relationship at all times.58

For his part, Ikeda, in addition to issuing pronouncements staunchly supporting US foreign policy, made ­great efforts to reduce Japa­nese domestic opposition to alignment with the United States. LDP public relations expenditures ­were dramatically ramped up, while the “Income Doubling” slogan was purposefully designed and deployed in an effort to divert the attentions of the Japa­nese ­people away from debates over Japan’s international orientation t­oward debates over the appropriate pace of economic growth. In his public speeches and interviews, Ikeda firmly rejected neutralism and appealed to a reviving sense of Japa­nese nationalism to suggest that alignment with the United States might actually be a sign of Japa­nese strength, rather than a sign of Japa­nese weakness and subordination. A truly strong nation, he argued, had to be responsible and choose sides. Ikeda took to referring to Japan as a “­great power” (taikoku), and when the Socialists attacked him for “seeking to revive Japa­nese imperialism,” he responded at a press conference, “Why is it wrong to call Japan a ­great power? Japa­nese ­people need to get rid of their inferiority complex. Compared to other nations, Japan’s national potential is greater than any and second to none.” He ­later courted another controversy by declaring, “I ­don’t care what small, weak nations decide to do, but as for Japan, I ­will keep insisting that we ­will never succumb to neutralism,” the implication being that Japan was the opposite of a “small, weak nation.”59 Meanwhile, in policy speeches before the Diet, Ikeda began asserting that Japan was, along with the United States and Western Eu­rope, one of the “three pillars” (sanbon no hashira) of worldwide peace and prosperity. Ikeda’s “three pillars” rhe­toric was very well received by US officials, who viewed it as proof that American policy t­ oward Japan was bearing fruit in the form of an increased Japa­nese identification with the f­ ree world. In fact, Kennedy—­although he did not use the exact phrase “three pillars”—­employed very similar rhe­toric in his speeches and public state. 70 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance ments, describing the United States, Western Eu­rope, and Japan as a triad that, “if tied closer and closer together, can serve as a valuable base from which we can expand freedom around the world.”60 Ikeda also kept his promise on avoiding trade with China. Although the Liao-­Takasaki memorandum of 1962 opened the way for the resumption of a trifling amount of unofficial “friendship” trade with China, and although for domestic po­liti­cal reasons Ikeda continued to insist to Japa­ nese businessmen that “I am second to none in my hopes for a reopened and greatly expanded trade with China,” he also staunchly maintained that the full diplomatic recognition that would be required for China to acquiesce to a significant expansion in trade was out of the question. Thus, when Ikeda resigned b ­ ecause of failing health in 1964, trade with China remained less than 1 ­percent of Japan’s overall trade, and the Japa­nese government’s stated policy was to maintain trade with China at levels no higher than ­those of the United States’ Western Eu­ro­pean allies.61 Although Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, and Ikeda passed away a year and a half l­ater from throat cancer, the policies they set in place did not pass with them and ­were continued and strengthened by their successors. Following Kennedy’s assassination, Ikeda hastily flew to Washington to take part in the memorial ser­vice. Just two days ­after Kennedy’s passing, Ikeda met with President Johnson, and the two leaders reaffirmed the policies that had been worked out between Kennedy and Ikeda.62 The document that guided US-­Japan relations during the Johnson administration was a ninety-­two-­page policy paper, approved June  26, 1964, titled “The F ­ uture of Japan.” This document was even more accepting of Japan’s status as an equal than the 1962 “Guidelines,” and cemented the policies of the Kennedy years. The introduction declared, “What the U.S. does or does not do in and with re­spect to Japan w ­ ill remain highly impor­tant to Japan’s ­future course, and thus to our own Far Eastern and world position.” Two main policy lines w ­ ere clearly delineated. First, “Maintenance and strengthening of our consultative relationship with the Japa­nese on world prob­lems of mutual concern ­will be of continuing importance in our efforts to keep Japan closely identified with and a . 71 .

japan at the crossroads major contributor to F ­ ree World goals and programs.” And second, “The prime requirement of a healthy course of development in Japan over the next de­cade ­will be an adequate rate of growth of Japan’s foreign trade.” In order to achieve this, it was crucial that “Japan is afforded opportunity to expand its sales on the U.S. market at least in proportion with the growth of the U.S. GNP. . . . ​This ­will require firm Executive Branch re­ sis­tance to American industry demands for curtailment of Japa­nese imports.” The introduction to the document underscored the need for ­these policies by concluding with a warning: “It would be rash to assume that the day of the sudden and the unforeseen—­the 1952 May Day riots, the ‘Golden Dragon’ [sic] fallout excitement, the Girard Case, the 1960 Security Treaty turmoil—is over in Japan.”63 Such fears of a “second Security Treaty crisis” (dai-ni Anpo) continued to loom large in the minds of both Japa­nese and American leaders throughout the 1960s. Reischauer’s successor as ambassador to Japan, U. Alexis Johnson, for example, cabled the State Department in 1968 urging patience with Prime Minister Satō: “I think we must bear in mind that, however frustrated we feel, much of Sato’s pres­ent po­liti­cal trou­bles have arisen from the efforts of himself and other like-­minded persons in [the] GOJ to move in directions that we want to see them move and they can push t­ hings only so fast.” Johnson concluded with a direct reference to the 1960 protests: “If, like Kishi, he attempts to push ­things beyond what the po­liti­cal traffic ­here ­will bear, ­there could be an explosion and Sato could destroy himself. ”64 Indeed, with the Security Treaty due for reconsideration in 1970, Satō was terrified by the prospect of the kind of turmoil that had caused the downfall of his ­brother Kishi. Accordingly, Satō made 1970 his deadline for securing the return of Okinawa, a long-­standing goal whose achievement he felt was necessary not only for the survival of his regime but also to take the wind out of the sails of anyone hoping to foment a repeat of the 1960 crisis. Although Satō was ultimately able to secure a commitment from Nixon to return Okinawa just in the nick of time in 1969, the cost of this concession was a continued lockstep support of US foreign policy, especially in Vietnam and with regard to the China trade issue. It was precisely Satō’s strong adherence to the policies worked out during . 72 .

Reformulating the US-­Japan Alliance the Kennedy and Ikeda years that set him up so disastrously for a fall in the wake of the Nixon shocks in 1971. What emerged, then, from the aftermath of the Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 and the resultant spirit of compromise Kennedy and Ikeda brought to their June  1961 meeting in Washington was a reformulation of the US-­Japan relationship away from pressure and antagonism ­toward cooperation and encouragement, from a “high posture” to a “low posture.” At the core of this reformulation was a basic compromise, whereby the United States granted Japan ever-­increasing access to its markets and a greater feeling of partnership through “consultation” messages in exchange for more proactive Japa­nese government support for US Cold War policies, such as atmospheric testing and the policy against trade with China, as well as much more concerted efforts by the Japa­nese government to quell domestic criticism of security arrangements. As Ikeda’s “three pillars” rhe­toric made clear, henceforth the United States and Japan would fight the Cold War together, as allies.65 This compromise was not a radical break from the past. It drew much of its impetus from the ideas of the Eisenhower era. The goals remained the same—­the United States wanted Japan to support its Cold War endeavors, and Japan wanted access to US markets—­and ideas about the need for a more “equal” partnership had been brewing for some time. What was new, however, was the arrival on the scene of two new governments that had each framed its mission in terms of opposition to the ­mistakes of the past and that w ­ ere willing and even e­ ager to try new strategies of cooperation and compromise. A conviction developed on both sides of the Pacific that change was needed following the disaster of the 1960 Security Treaty protests—­a sense of crisis that gave Kennedy and Ikeda more leeway to try bold new policies than they might other­wise have had. Kennedy and Reischauer spoke incessantly of creating an “equal partner­ ship” with Japan, and although this initially began as a rhetorical strategy, it proved a remarkably apt name for the real partnership that actually evolved from the compromises of the Kennedy years. This partnership was still in place de­cades ­later, wherein the United States granted Japan unfettered access to its markets despite the fact that access to Japa­nese . 73 .

japan at the crossroads markets remained restricted, and in return Japan played the role of staunch ally and supported US foreign policies around the world. Although the US-­Japan relationship would have its share of ups and downs in l­ater years—­from the Nixon shocks to the “Japan bashing” of the 1980s to clashes over bases in Okinawa—­the partnership between the two governments remained remarkably sturdy. It endured through the dark years of the Vietnam War, when the Japa­nese government remained one of the most vocal supporters of the US cause despite the feelings of many Japa­nese citizens, to the Japa­nese economic triumphs of the 1980s, when the US government refused to resort to protectionist mea­sures despite the calls from many American industries. The partnership even survived the end of the Cold War. Despite the complaints of American and Japa­ nese commentators that the sole purpose for the partnership no longer existed, Japan continued to work closely with the United States on the international stage, contributing $9 billion in 1991 dollars to fund the Gulf War, supporting the global war on terror and US wars in Iraq and Af­ghan­i­stan with funds and logistical support in the wake of the 9 / 11 attacks, and collaborating with the United States militarily and eco­nom­ically to manage the rise of China and attempt to contain North K ­ orea in the 2000s. Meanwhile, the US government continued to hope that its ­free trade policies t­ oward Japa­nese imports would eventually lead Japan to complete the full liberalization of its markets that Ikeda promised Kennedy would be complete by 1963, but many de­cades ­later still had not come to pass.66

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chapter two

Stabilizing Conservative Rule

Even as ikeda Hayato worked diligently to win back the trust of Kennedy and the Americans, it must have seemed like the easier part of his job as prime minister. When Ikeda first took office in July 1960, he also faced a series of monumental challenges domestically. In the wake of the disastrous Security Treaty protests, and with a massive new ­battle between left and right brewing over a general strike at the Miike Coal Mine on the southern island of Kyushu, the Japa­nese nation had never seemed more divided. Within his own LDP, the “anti-­mainstream” factions that had openly taken sides against Kishi in the final stages of the treaty crisis ­were now threatening to break away and form their own party, even as outraged politicians in the “mainstream” factions ­were suggesting that they prob­ably ­ought to be expelled as traitors in any case. Meanwhile, Ikeda’s backers in the Japa­nese business community w ­ ere terrified that the protests and the insult of canceling Eisenhower’s visit might have inflicted permanent damage on Japan’s trade with the world. Fi­nally, Ikeda had come to power in part by promising to call an early general election, which was scheduled for November. With the LDP’s reputation as a party of stability in tatters ­after Kishi’s mishandling of the treaty crisis, the other faction leaders ­were clearly hoping to set up Ikeda as a sacrificial lamb if the party fared poorly at the ballot box. Ikeda would have to tread extremely carefully if he wanted to simply retain his job, let alone restore confidence in Japan’s economy, stabilize the LDP (which was on the verge of breaking apart), or somehow salve the raw emotions of the treaty clash to facilitate a healing of the nation’s divisions. To almost every­one’s surprise, Ikeda proved up to the task. Responding sensitively to the new national mood in the immediate aftermath of the . 75 .

japan at the crossroads 1960 protests, Ikeda worked together with his “brain trust” (burēn) of close associates, most notably Maeo Shigesaburō and f­ uture prime ministers Ōhira Masayoshi and Miyazawa Kiichi, to pioneer a new type of politics he branded ­under the slogan “tolerance and patience” (kan’yō to nintai). Eschewing the confrontational approach to management of the Diet exemplified by Kishi, Ikeda surprised every­one with what the Japa­ nese press labeled his “low posture” (tei shisei). This term described not only his genuflecting to Kennedy and the Americans but also the new, softer stance he ­adopted ­toward the domestic opposition parties, based on conciliation and compromise, in clear contrast to what was viewed as Kishi’s arrogant and high-­handed “high posture” (kō shisei). What made this low posture so stunning was that prior to taking office, Ikeda had developed a reputation as one of the most arrogant and dislikable politicians in Japan. A member of the “ex-­bureaucrat” faction of the LDP, Ikeda had risen up through the ranks of the Ministry of Finance before turning to politics in the early postwar period. Initially, Ikeda had made his name in conservative circles on account of his expertise in economics (which led him to be placed in charge of implementing the draconian anti-­inflation provisions of the highly unpop­u­lar “Dodge Line” policy during the Occupation), and also as a result of his forays into foreign policy, most notably as a special envoy of the Yoshida cabinet to the United States in the early 1950s. Exacerbating Ikeda’s image as a distant and haughty technocrat lacking in common touch and unsympathetic to the strug­gles of ordinary Japa­nese was his apparent propensity to make unfortunate verbal gaffes. In a December 1950 upper ­house Bud­get Committee meeting, for example, Ikeda, who at the time was the finance minister in the Yoshida cabinet, stated, “I would like to move economic policy in a direction in which only t­hose with high incomes would exclusively eat white rice, whereas ­those with lower incomes would eat more barley.” This statement was seized on by the press and widely abbreviated to the much harsher sounding catchphrase “Let the poor eat barley!” (binbōnin wa mugi o kue!). Then, two years ­later, during a question-­and-­answer session with the opposition parties in the Diet, he reiterated his support for a statement he had made in March 1950 that amid efforts to curb high in. 76 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule flation, “even if black marketeers or other p ­ eople conducting improper economic activities occasionally go bankrupt, it ­can’t be helped.” As a result of Socialist Party demagoguery and media sensationalism, this statement came to be widely reported as “Even if five or ten small businessmen have to commit suicide, it ­can’t be helped” (chūshō kigyōsha no gonin jūnin ga jisatsu shite mo yamu o enai), and Ikeda was forced to resign his post as minister of international trade.1 Even as late as June 1960, Ikeda, now a member of the Kishi cabinet, was portrayed by the media as a ruthless hardliner who was pushing Kishi to pursue even harsher mea­sures to repress the protesters. Seen as the front-­runner to succeed Kishi and hailing from a similar background in the bureaucracy, Ikeda was derided on the left and by some ele­ments of the press as “just another Kishi” (Kishi aryū). But the 1960 crisis seems to have changed Ikeda. Stunned by the size and scope of the protests, he realized that in order to govern effectively, he would have to differentiate himself from Kishi and pursue a drastically dif­fer­ent form of politics. Miyazawa felt that Kanba Michiko’s death was the major turning point: “The June 15 incident changed Mr. Ikeda,” he recalled.2

“Tolerance and Patience” On June 23, the day the treaty was ratified, Kishi announced his intention to resign, and the LDP began preparing to elect a new party president. In a July 5 statement announcing his intention to run, Ikeda surprised veteran po­liti­cal observers with the degree of his low posture. He declared: “In my view the chaotic state of affairs which since mid-­May has shaken the social order of our nation and undermined Japan’s trustworthiness on the international stage calls for deep self-­reflection. I believe that our most urgent task is to rectify this state of affairs as soon as pos­ si­ble, and build a ­free and prosperous Japan.” He then outlined six policy objectives that in his view w ­ ere critical to realizing this goal: “rebuilding parliamentarianism”; “reestablishing social order”; “raising standards of living and expanding social welfare”; “thoroughgoing reform of education”; “establishment of f­ ree, peaceful, and cooperative international relations”; and “thoroughgoing reform of the Liberal Demo­cratic . 77 .

japan at the crossroads Party.” It was in support of the first objective that Ikeda first introduced the catchphrase “tolerance and patience,” declaring that “in order to reestablish trust in politicians and parliamentary politics, above all e­ lse it is essential to display a spirit of tolerance and patience ­toward the opposition parties.”3 Miyazawa ­later recalled, The Ikeda cabinet was born out of . . . ​self-­reflection about the Anpo disturbance. . . . ​Kishi had good intentions but he tried to exercise leadership at a g­ reat remove from the Japa­nese ­people. ­Because of this, ­people and government had become estranged, we had come to realize. In a young democracy such as Japan’s, if extra-­parliamentary pressures are allowed to dictate policy even one time, t­ here is a risk that it w ­ ill become a custom or a habit, and the very existence of parliamentary democracy w ­ ill be endangered. In order to prevent such a custom from developing, it was Ikeda’s mission to restore normal parliamentarianism, . . . ​to make sure that Diet policy adequately reflected the w ­ ill of the p ­ eople, and to instill confidence once again that government belongs to the ­people. . . . ​The use of the terms “tolerance” and “patience” with reference to the opposition parties arose out of this reasoning.4

On July 15, 1960, Kishi officially resigned, and three days ­later Ikeda was elected president of the LDP. The following day, on July 19, he took office and gave his first press conference as prime minister. At the press conference he reiterated his commitment to a politics of “tolerance and patience” and promised to hold frequent face-­to-­face meetings with the opposition parties. He stressed that in order to grow Japan’s economy and regain the trust of the international community, it was a crucial and indispensable precondition to restore a calm and orderly domestic politics. Ikeda declared, If, through careful consideration and planning, I am able to avoid the type of disorder that has recently prevailed and restore public order and good sense, I feel certain that the prosperity and welfare of the ­people w ­ ill increase, friendly nations w ­ ill re­spect and trust Japan more, threats from unfriendly nations w ­ ill decrease, and Japan ­will be able to make a greater contribution to the peace and happiness of the world.

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Stabilizing Conservative Rule Explic­itly asked by a reporter if he was ­going to be “just another Kishi” (Kishi aryū), he responded, “Rather than saying that, I would like you to first observe what I do and judge me by my own actions.”5 Ikeda supported his promises with action by showing demonstrably greater willingness to consider the needs and demands of the minority parties, despite his own party’s absolute majority in the Diet. From 1955 to 1958, the conservatives had allowed members of the opposition to chair Diet committees. Kishi had suspended this practice from 1958 to 1960, but Ikeda saw to its restoration. In contrast to Kishi’s practice of introducing surprise bills and calling surprise votes, the LDP ­under Ikeda began to engage in early and frequent consultations with the opposition parties before introducing new bills or calling for votes. ­These consultations resulted in a strengthening of the institutionalized channels for resolving interparty conflicts and reaching bipartisan consensus, such as the Lower House Steering Committee (Giin Un’ei Iinkai) and the Diet Affairs Committee (Kokkai Taisaku Iinkai).6 Ikeda also proved more willing to kill bills fiercely opposed by the left than Kishi had been, most notably in the case of a bill to outlaw “po­liti­cal vio­lence” (Seijiteki Bōryoku Bōshi Hōan), drafted in the wake of the treaty protests and a series of right-­wing terror attacks, which he shelved ­after consultations with the opposition parties in June 1961. As Ikeda’s right-­hand man, Ōhira Masayoshi, explained to an American journalist at the time, Ikeda seeks consensus among members of both the ruling Liberal Demo­cratic Party and the opposition Socialists rather than ruling by majority vote. . . . ​This does not involve emasculating his proposals, only making some concessions to rob the opposition of its fire. In the end, the Socialists vote against the Ikeda mea­sures, but they do not turn their supporters out into the streets for the kind of rioting that blocked former President Eisenhower’s visit ­here and led to Kishi’s downfall.7

Ikeda even proved willing to delay pursuit of what was supposed to have been his signature foreign policy achievement—­the normalization of relations with South ­Korea. In the postwar period a practice had developed whereby each prime minister who served a substantial term . 79 .

japan at the crossroads would pursue a major foreign policy objective. Yoshida Shigeru achieved the peace treaty and the end of the Occupation; Hatoyama Ichirō secured the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union; Ishibashi Tanzan had sought to normalize relations with China; Kishi had achieved revision of the US-­Japan Security Treaty; and Satō Eisaku would ­later secure the reversion of Okinawa. In a similar vein, diplomatic normalization with South K ­ orea was slated to have been Ikeda’s signature foreign policy accomplishment. But despite the fact that the last remaining sticking points ­were ironed out and a framework for normalization was completed by the end of 1962, fear of “another Anpo” led Ikeda to repeatedly put off submitting the necessary laws to a vote in the Diet, year ­after year, and ultimately normalization was not completed ­until 1965, early in the Satō administration. In the fall of 1962, Kim Jong­pil, director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, traveled to Japan, where he met with Ikeda and pressed the prime minister to conclude the normalization pro­cess. Ikeda responded that although “nobody is more anxious to bring a rapid end to the Japan-­Korea negotiations than I am, in order to avoid a second Anpo [dai-ni no Anpo sōdō], I am taking g­ reat pains to first secure the understanding of the Japa­nese public.”8 Another area where Ikeda demonstrated “tolerance and patience” was with regard to the contentious issue of constitutional revision. Ever since its formation in 1955, the LDP had been making a strong push for constitutional revision. Prime Minister Hatoyama had established a fifty-­man “Constitution Research Commission” in 1956, and reports issued by the commission ­under the Kishi administration had called for robust constitutional revision. However, at the beginning of his first policy speech before the Diet, Ikeda surprised the opposition by suggesting that constitutional revision be shelved in­def­initely. Alluding to the pressing need to heal national divisions in the aftermath of the Anpo and Miike strug­ gles and the October 1960 assassination of Socialist Party chairman Asanuma Inejirō by a right-­wing fanatic, Ikeda declared, At pres­ent, ­there are debates in our nation about reforming e­ very kind of system. As for the Constitution, a debate has been opened as to ­whether it should be revised or maintained as is. I believe that we

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Stabilizing Conservative Rule should not come to any conclusions u ­ ntil the crucial issues at stake have been adequately discussed at all levels of society, and ­until several years have passed and public opinion matures and organically ­settles on a single conclusion.

The following day, in response to Socialist Party accusations as part of an exchange of questions and answers in the Diet, Ikeda made his position even more explicit: “Since constitutional revision is a fundamental national question, I do not believe it would be demo­cratic to use a parliamentary majority to ram it through. The JSP always seems to be arguing that ‘the moment the LDP gets a two-­thirds majority they w ­ ill revise the constitution,’ but that is like the proverb about being ‘afraid of the flapping wings of ducks.’ ”9 But despite statements such as ­these, a significant portion of the LDP remained committed to the idea of immediate constitutional revision, and it took Ikeda several years to suppress the hard line. For the time being, he temporized by using vague language and avoided committing to any timetable, but as late as the 1962 upper h ­ ouse election he had to suppress demands to “clearly state our commitment to constitutional revision” in the party platform. Fi­nally by 1963 Ikeda was strong enough to make “no constitutional revision on our watch” an LDP campaign slogan for the general election. In 1964, the Constitution Research Commission issued a greatly watered-­down final report, and dissolved the following year with l­ittle fanfare. Ikeda thus ensured that constitutional revision was off the t­ able for the foreseeable ­future. Looking back two de­cades ­later, Kishi somewhat bitterly recalled, ­ hether it was Hatoyama or myself, the idea of constitutional revision W had always remained at the forefront of our minds. The two main culprits in destroying the momentum t­ oward constitutional revision w ­ ere Ikeda Hayato and my b ­ rother, Satō Eisaku, who, while they held power, made sure the constitution would remain unchanged. That is why the call for constitutional revision died with my administration.10

But beyond merely conciliating popu­lar opinion on a hot-­button issue, Ikeda’s pivot with regard to constitutional revision proved a brilliant maneuver that helped pave the way for the decline of the Socialist Party . 81 .

japan at the crossroads in the ensuing de­cades. In a “one-­and-­a-­half party” system with a two-­ thirds majority required for constitutional revision, as long as the Socialists could continue to keep fears of the possibility of constitutional revision at the forefront of po­liti­cal debate, voters would feel a large incentive to make sure that the Socialists held on to at least one-­third of the seats in the lower h ­ ouse. ­Until 1960, the Socialists could plausibly claim that a vote for the Socialist Party was as much a vote for the postwar constitution as it was for socialism. Before the 1960 crisis, the Socialist Party made use of its one-­third status to claim itself as the sole protector of the constitution, but ­after the crisis, when all of the parties swore to protect the constitution for the foreseeable ­future, the Socialist Party’s single most effective appeal to voters was lost.11 Nevertheless, Ikeda’s perceived passivity and refusal to press issues in the face of committed opposition, despite having a parliamentary majority, was seen as a sign of weakness by rivals and critics in his own party, who accused him of presiding over a “do-­nothing cabinet.” Miyazawa, however, cited the counterexample of the Security Treaty protests in offering an impassioned defense of Ikeda: The Ikeda cabinet consciously avoided flaunting its power. . . . ​ Refraining from forceful or abusive politics and instead adopting a long-­term, roundabout strategy, we sought to reestablish rule by parliamentarianism. Within the Ikeda cabinet, we endlessly debated this course of action, b ­ ecause we increasingly faced the criticism that “the Ikeda cabinet ­doesn’t do anything.” When I retorted that “­doing nothing” is the hardest ­thing, I did not mean it as a joke or a philosophical ­paradox. . . . ​The issue was not what policies should be followed, but how policies should be deci­ded in the Diet, and this issue was not ­really a joking ­matter. In Amer­i­ca or Britain, this how has been deci­ded as the result of a long history and centuries of tradition. It might take Japan many more years to get to that point. As a result of the Security Treaty disturbance that occurred during the Kishi administration we felt like we had to go back to the drawing board and start all over again, and thus during the Ikeda years we all felt that establishing this how was our single most impor­tant task.

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Stabilizing Conservative Rule Of course the Ikeda cabinet could not fully establish this how in just one prime minister’s time in office. But if Japa­nese democracy was ever g­ oing to grow up, the Ikeda cabinet had to be one joint in that bamboo stalk. You might say that one joint does not amount to much, but ­every bamboo stalk begins with a single joint. We felt it was crucial to build up that first joint.

Miyazawa further elaborated: From when Ikeda formed his cabinet following the 1960 Security Treat disturbance ­until his resignation four years ­later, and especially in the second half [of his administration], criticisms such as “do-­ nothing cabinet” and “absentee politics” ­were bandied about. As I mentioned, our nation’s democracy is still young. Mr. Ikeda and ­those of us close to him felt that helping the Japa­nese ­people learn the ABCs of parliamentary democracy was the most impor­tant ­thing, and we continued to hold the view that we should avoid raising any issues which might imperil that gestational pro­cess. Ikeda’s attitude was that, in order to promote the healthy development of parliamentary democracy, the conservative party, but also the progressive parties as well, should exercise a bit more self-­control. In this sense the Security Treaty strug­gle that rocked the Diet compound became, from the perspective of a young democracy, what Mao Zedong called a “teacher by negative example” [hanmen kyōshi]. But just as in the old proverb “once swallowed, the hot soup is forgotten,” once the Security Treaty strug­gle was four years in the past, criticism began to arise that Ikeda was “not exercising po­liti­cal leadership.” By nature, the younger the democracy, the more difficult and delicate the exercise of demo­cratic leadership. . . . ​When a leader is too devoted to his own ideology or is in too much of a hurry, too much distance is put between the leader and the rank-­and-­file, and the attempt at leadership ends in failure. . . . ​A leader ­will succeed when he grasps the hopes of the ­people and walks ahead only a ­little bit, perhaps just one or two steps out in front. If a leader falls back within the ranks, he loses his status as leader, and if he gets too far out in front, he becomes in­effec­tive. I think this is a point of major difference between what the progressive parties mean when they talk

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japan at the crossroads about “leadership” and what the conservative party means. The conservative attitude is more in accord with common sense, in that t­ here is no intention to try to suddenly force something on the ­people.12

In addition to his efforts to appease and conciliate his opposition on the left, Ikeda also took drastic steps to recast his image among ordinary Japa­nese ­people. At precisely the moment when tele­vi­sion’s popularity was soaring and a new type of medium driven by images more than text was taking root, Ikeda grasped what Kishi had not, which was that for a modern prime minister, public image now mattered even more than ­actual policy. Moreover, in an increasingly mass media–­driven society, politics had to respond to, and even cater to, public sentiments in ways that differed from the past. To this end, Ikeda undertook a remarkable transformation into a big-­ tent populist, and implausibly but ultimately somewhat successfully sought to replace his image as a coldhearted bureaucrat with the image of a hardworking everyman. Beginning with his appearance, he switched from the severe, wire-­rimmed glasses he had always worn to more casual, plastic-­rimmed glasses, and from his habitual double-­breasted suit to a single-­breasted suit. He proclaimed his love of Japa­nese curry rice, the no-­ frills comfort food of the masses, and upon taking office, he publicly promised to refrain from golf or geisha parties, promises he assiduously kept u ­ ntil his resignation four years l­ater. In addition to the fact that golf and geisha parties w ­ ere seen as elitist, Ikeda was implicitly drawing a contrast with Kishi, who, even in the ­middle of the 1960 protests, was reported to have gone golfing in the after­noons and partied with geisha in Akasaka at night. In a 1961 New Year’s Day interview with the Sankei Shinbun, Ikeda declared, “Ultimately I’m just another ordinary working stiff. Somehow, someone like me wound up getting entrusted with the fate of 90 million Japa­nese ­people. I keenly feel the almost crushing weight of this grave responsibility.” It is uncertain to what extent statements like this ­were believed, but opinion polls in the first half of Ikeda’s time in office showed that he was the most popu­lar prime minister Japan had ever had.13 Taking his appeal directly to the p ­ eople, Ikeda sought to form a new kind of direct connection between prime minister and nation. Before . 84 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule 1960, Ikeda had had a reputation for being cold and standoffish ­toward the media, but as soon as he became prime minister he became much warmer. In contrast to Kishi’s confrontational approach, he held chatty, jocular press conferences and willingly sat for interviews. He began to appear frequently on tele­vi­sion, especially as part of an occasional series called “Questions for the Prime Minister,” and invited tele­vi­sion cameras into his private residence and his vacation home in the resort town of Karuizawa. On the eve of the fall 1960 general election, he undertook a nationwide speaking tour, during which he displayed a previously unrevealed knack for speaking directly to popu­lar concerns and reducing complex economic policy to s­ imple, clearly drawn meta­phors and examples. Yomiuri Shinbun po­liti­cal reporter (and eventual owner) Watanabe Tsuneo recalled, I was on the campaign trail with Ikeda, and during his speeches, he promoted his “Income Doubling” plan in terms of the prices of tofu, tomatoes, and cabbage, or the prices of mackerel and sardines. He deliberately avoided lofty subjects like diplomacy or defense policy, and by allowing the image of the prime minister to be linked to the keeping of the kitchen account book, he removed the sense of distance between himself and ordinary ­people. He felt that the best way to bolster his popularity was to grasp the mindset of the common p ­ eople.14

Ikeda also showed a hitherto unnoticed soft touch in the memorial speech he gave following the murder of Socialist Party chairman Asanuma in October 1960. Most p ­ eople ­were expecting the usual short, perfunctory boilerplate speech, but Ikeda viewed the occasion as an impor­tant opportunity to reach out to the opposition and he and his advisors devoted considerable time and effort to preparing his remarks. The result was an extremely gracious, moving speech that received thunderous applause and left many in tears. At the climax of the speech, Ikeda said of his erstwhile electoral rival: You made ser­vice to the ­people the core of your po­liti­cal princi­ples. Literally r­ unning from east to west, you ­were constantly appealing

. 85 .

japan at the crossroads

Ikeda Hayato on the campaign trail, September 1960. (Photo by John Dominis /  The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images)

directly to the ­people with unrivaled eloquence and unmatched passion. ’Numa truly is a speech-­giving everyman With his soiled clothes and tattered briefcase; ­Today in this public hall, Tomorrow at a roadside ­temple in Kyoto. This is what Asanuma’s comrades used to sing about him back in the 1920s, when they ­were founding the Japan Worker’s Party. Even ­after he became Chairman [of the JSP], this “speech-­making every­man” spirit never showed the least sign of flagging. Even now, we all still have vivid recollections of you giving all t­hose speeches in e­ very corner of this nation.15

Most accounts of Ikeda Hayato’s post-1960 transformation have accepted the pre-1960 version of his public image at face value, and have thus tended to overemphasize the perceived coldness and hardness of Ikeda’s “true” character as exemplified by sensationalized statements he . 86 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule allegedly made in the early 1950s. Th ­ ese accounts have also overlooked Ikeda’s assigned role in the Yoshida cabinets at that time as a sort of “bad cop” who would intentionally voice a hard line in order to enable Yoshida himself to appear more accommodative. As a result, most accounts have viewed Ikeda’s 1960 public image make­over as a cynical po­liti­cal ploy that went against his “true” nature. Ikeda’s personal secretary, Itō Masaya, took a more charitable view, however: Ikeda’s low posture was partially representative of his true character, but in another sense served to rein in his wild side. Although it was widely believed that he was just putting on appearances like the proverbial samurai disguised as a monk whose armor peeks out from ­under his robes, this was not the case. But at the same time, neither could the low posture be said to have been Ikeda’s original inclination. Rather Ikeda’s conscious decision to adopt the low posture represented his maturation as a politician and as a ­human being.16

Regardless of the degree of sincerity or the nature of his “true” personality, Ikeda was clearly modulating both his policies and his public persona to accord with the exigencies of the time in the aftermath of the traumatic experience of the Security Treaty crisis. Certainly, it could be argued that any competent politician would have made some sort of adjustments in this same direction a­ fter such a po­liti­cal upheaval; indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, virtually every­one recognized that a temporary pullback from ideological confrontation was necessary in order to calm the situation. However, many members of the LDP expected, or even wished, that Ikeda’s vaunted “low posture” would be a temporary state of affairs that would soon give way to a renewed “high posture” and an effort to make more proactive use of the LDP’s overwhelming parliamentary majority while it lasted. However, Ikeda surprised his critics by seeking to enshrine the “low posture” as a permanent policy. Unlike many of his contemporaries on both sides of the po­liti­cal divide, Ikeda believed and recognized that a national consensus was pos­si­ble in Japan, especially on basic questions such as economic growth and social policy, but also in terms of foreign policy. Ikeda understood that this consensus would take time and effort to forge, and would require . 87 .

japan at the crossroads concessions on the part of the ruling party. But Ikeda foresaw that by first winning over the media and then gradually the majority of the Japa­ nese ­people, the creation of such a ­middle ground would ultimately allow the LDP to draw clear-­cut distinctions between a practical national consensus and the ideology-­driven policies of increasingly marginalized opposition parties. Only a permanent and per­sis­tent dedication to a low posture stance could facilitate this transformation of Japa­nese politics. Thus, when a reporter asked Ikeda early in his administration how long he intended to keep up the low posture—­the clear implication being that it was merely a temporary facade—­Ikeda responded, “I took on this job with the understanding that if it was for the good of the nation, I would even bow my head down to telephone poles. I’m sticking with a low posture from beginning to end.”17

Taming the Factions Another transformation that took place in Japa­nese politics in the aftermath of the 1960 protests was the stabilization and routinization of factional confrontation within the LDP. Although the LDP was officially established in 1955 through the merger of the Liberal and the Demo­cratic parties, factional strug­gles had remained intense and a power­ful destabilizing force. Prior to 1960, almost all party funds flowed through the individual factions, and the party had no real organ­ization to speak of on the ground in local districts other than the kōenkai (local private booster organ­izations) of individual representatives, which ­were in turn loyal only to the boss of their faction within the Diet. In other words, prior to 1960, the LDP was less of a po­liti­cal party than a loose co­ali­tion of eight small parties each focused around a faction boss. The result of this precarious situation was that the strains of the 1960 crisis almost tore the LDP apart. Indeed, the fierce factional rivalries within the LDP in many ways helped foment the 1960 crisis in the first place. A tradition had developed within the conservative party prior to 1960 that a prime minister would serve only two terms as party president before bowing out to make way for the next person in line to become prime minister. When it became clear in late 1959 that Kishi intended to . 88 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule pursue a third term, the anti-­mainstream factions within the LDP deci­ded to do what­ever they could to take down Kishi, with l­ittle or no regard for potential consequences. As the debate over the treaty dragged on in the Diet, the LDP anti-­mainstream refused to support Kishi in cutting off debate, and in some cases publicly questioned vari­ous treaty provisions, giving the opposition a steady supply of ammunition in their efforts to prolong the debate and providing crucial extra time for the extra-­ parliamentary protest movement to vastly expand in size. Eventually, Kishi took the astonishing step of creating the secret “Anpo Kamikaze” committee within his own faction to plan for how to ram the treaty through the Diet, while keeping large segments of his own party in the dark about the timetable in order to circumvent their obstructionist tactics. When the treaty was fi­nally railroaded through shortly ­after midnight on May 20, the anti-­mainstream was caught by surprise, having been led to believe that only an extension of the Diet session was g­ oing to be voted on, and twenty-­seven members of the prime minister’s own party, including faction bosses Ishibashi Tanzan, Matsumura Kenzō, Kōno Ichirō, and Miki Takeo, absented themselves from the vote out of protest. Thereafter, the party seemed headed for a breakup, as the anti-­ mainstream effectively went over to the opposition. On May 27, Kōno, Miki, and Matsumura met at the H ­ otel New Japan and agreed that Kishi should be forced to resign as soon as pos­si­ble and by any means necessary. Miki and Matsumura issued a public demand for Kishi’s resignation the following day, and Kōno made his own demand during a press interview in Osaka on May 30. On May 31, a liaison meeting was held by the Kōno, Miki-­Matsumura, Ishii, and Ishibashi factions, at which the four factions agreed to coordinate their maneuvers in order to bring down the Kishi government as soon as pos­si­ble. Throughout June, ­there was heated talk in the press of the anti-­mainstream possibly teaming up with the Socialists and / or the Demo­cratic Socialists to wrest power from Kishi and form a caretaker government that would oversee new elections.18 With the Ikeda faction standing aside, s­ ilent and aloof, Kishi’s base of support within the party was reduced to only his own faction and that of Satō Eisaku, who could not desert Kishi owing to the fact that he was Kishi’s younger ­brother. . 89 .

japan at the crossroads ­ ings had gotten so bad that following Kishi’s resignation and Th ­Ikeda’s election, Kishi and Satō advocated the expulsion of the factions that had boycotted the treaty vote, and Kōno spent two months exploring the idea of breaking away to start a new party. Kōno was incensed that in exchange for Kishi’s support, Ikeda had been forced to give all impor­tant cabinet and party posts to members of the Kishi, Satō, and Ikeda factions, completely excluding the anti-­mainstream. The Kōno faction even got as far as publicly announcing its intention to bolt the party following a factional retreat in early August.19 What made this so remarkable was that Kōno could not point to any ideological or even real policy differences to account for his attempted breakaway; pure factional rivalry was the sole cause. Although Kōno was ultimately dissuaded from departing the LDP, especially when the other anti-­mainstreamers of the Ōno and Miki-­ Matsumura factions declined to join him, it was clear to Ikeda that something would have to be done within the party to eliminate the factions or at least lessen the rivalry between them. The fact that the anti-­treaty protests and especially the Kokumin Kaigi ­were so well or­ga­nized, even down to the village level, had already spurred the LDP to get more serious about developing some sort of party orga­nizational structure at the local level beyond just the kōenkai of individual members. In the spring of 1960, Kishi established a “National Organ­izing Committee” and flooded the prefectures with cash in an effort to create a pro–­Security Treaty movement to ­counter the activities of the Kokumin Kaigi. The LDP committee did in fact establish “unified prefectural Anpo promotion councils” (Anpo sokushin tōitsu ­ ere modeled on the Kokenmin kaigi) in several prefectures, which w kumin Kaigi’s “prefectural joint-­struggle councils” (kenmin kyōtō kaigi), and rallied vari­ous local conservative-­leaning groups, such as w ­ omen’s groups and youth groups, to the pro-­treaty cause. Although ­these “conservative joint-­struggles” (hoshu kyōtō) did not generate large amounts of enthusiasm beyond ­people who ­were already official party members, they did establish a pre­ce­dent of local LDP organ­izing beyond private kōenkai.20 Ikeda became even more proactive about strengthening party organ­ ization following the chaotic climax of the protests in June and the ugly . 90 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule public airing of factional strife in late summer. At the January 1961 LDP Party Congress, Ikeda announced his determination to pursue “party modernization” (tō kindaika) and, to this end, established an “Orga­ nizational Investigative Committee” (Soshiki Chōsa Kai), chaired by his close associate Masutani Shūji, to explore ways of strengthening the party’s internal organ­ization with an eye t­ oward limiting or eliminating the destabilizing power of the factions. In May, the committee released its report, which advocated two main approaches to attacking the power of the factions. First, it called for the creation of a professionalized class of “local resident organizers” (chihō chūzai soshikiin), who would be trained for two months at the LDP’s “Gradu­ate School of Politics” (Seiji Daigakuin) in Tokyo and would be paid a salary out of central funds, thus keeping them loyal to the party as a w ­ hole rather than to the local kōenkai and its boss. Strict criteria for se­lection of local organizers, designed to preclude infiltration by factional agents, demanded that new organizers be “impartial candidates” with no preexisting ties (himotsuki) to specific Diet members or prefectural assemblymen. In addition, it was deci­ded that newly hired administrative staff at the party’s central headquarters would also have to be gradu­ates of the School of Politics, and that existing staff would be required to participate in a special supplemental training program.21 Second, the report called for the establishment of a more transparent system for gathering and managing party funds. The Security Treaty crisis had exposed that the structure of LDP party finances was fundamentally unsound. When Ikeda took power, the party was spending an unsustainable ¥90 million a month but was officially receiving only ¥40 million a month in donations. The difference was made up by the off-­the-­ record scrounging of factional bosses via their personal kōenkai. Moreover, ­toward the end of the treaty crisis, the LDP had spent enormous sums on pro-­treaty propaganda activities, such that when Ikeda took over, the party was ¥100 million in debt. Meanwhile, tens of millions of yen had gone missing in unaccounted-­for expenditures. In an effort to rationalize and modernize party finances, Ikeda and Maeo Shigesaburō, who at the time was party trea­surer, abolished the old Keizai Saiken Kondankai (Economic Reconstruction Forum) and replaced it with the . 91 .

japan at the crossroads Kokumin Kyōkai (­People’s Cooperative Association), whose aim was to replace the individual fund-­raising of the factions by raising fully ¥100 million a month in above-­board, on-­the-­record donations.22 The Keizai Saiken Kondankai had been an informal association of the heads of major corporations that was established in 1955 in the wake of the Shipbuilding Bribery Scandal of 1954 in order to pool po­liti­cal contributions from corporations and redistribute them in such a way as to avoid accusations of graft. By 1960, however, it was clear that this system had many flaws. Business leaders had a legitimate grievance when they complained that the money they contributed to the Kondankai’s pool was being doled out to individual factions and used for unknown purposes. Moreover, ­because the Kondankai conducted its business in secret and ­behind closed doors, it was contributing to increasingly negative public perceptions as a symbol of the shadowy collusion of big business and the LDP. Within this context, the 1960 crisis became a useful rhetorical device and a catalyst for reform. In the fall of 1960, one of the major big-­ business lobbying groups, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Dōyūkai), established a “Po­liti­cal Prob­lems Study Group,” with the stated purpose of studying how big business could do its part to help restore proper parliamentary politics in the aftermath of Anpo. On January 27, 1961, the study group released its “Interim Report on the Renovation of Politics,” which declared among other recommendations: “The business world is also in f­ avor of proper parliamentary politics, and thus [the Keizai Saiken Kondankai] must be abolished, and the po­liti­cal parties should draw up plans for securing funds [on their own].”23 Acceding to the demands of the business world, the LDP established the Kokumin Kyōkai on July 15, 1961, and the Keizai Saiken Kondankai was abolished. The Kokumin Kyōkai was intended to create more transparency with regard to the flow of po­liti­cal donations, as well as to build a broader base of popu­lar support for the LDP. Instead of relying solely on corporate largesse, the Kokumin Kyōkai would collect donations from thousands of individuals who would pay dues (kaihi) to be a member of this new nationwide organ­ization. The Kokumin Kyōkai got off to a weak start but gradually became increasingly effective. In 1960, the LDP had raised ¥1.4 billion from the Keizai Saiken Kondankai and ¥2.3 billion . 92 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule from off-­the-­record sources. In the second half of 1961, however, the Kokumin Kyōkai managed to raise a mere ¥120 million. But the following year the Kyōkai raised ¥630 million, while the LDP raised ¥1.5 billion from other sources, for a total of ¥2.1 billion. In 1963 it raised ¥1.8 billion and the LDP ¥4.1 billion for a total of ¥5.9 billion, and in 1964 it raised ¥2.7 billion and the LDP raised ¥3.4 billion for a total of ¥6.1 billion. By 1970, the Kokumin Kyōkai had swelled to approximately 85,000 members, of which 8,000 w ­ ere corporations. Of the 77,000 or so individual members, approximately 70  ­percent paid the paltry sum of ¥100 per month, meaning that the bulk of the funds still came from corporations, but the party leadership had much greater control over where t­ hose funds went and how they w ­ ere used. The previous year (1969), the Kyōkai raised ¥3.6 billion while the LDP raised only ¥1.7 billion from other sources. The Kokumin Kyōkai was now raising nearly 70 ­percent of all LDP revenues, and thus the party was able to rely on it for the majority of its funds.24 The Kokumin Kyōkai did not entirely succeed in its goals. The LDP continued to make use of some funds raised from murky sources by individual factions, and the Kyōkai also failed to significantly reduce the party’s reliance on contributions from large corporations. However, ­because the donations forwarded through the Kyōkai ­were centrally collected and distributed by the party headquarters, insofar as ­these funds became an increasing proportion of overall party finances, the influence of individual factions over the party purse strings declined. In addition to efforts to reform LDP finances and local organ­izing, another aspect of Ikeda’s effort to reduce destabilizing factional infighting was his allotment of cabinet and key party posts. Given the extent of the factional strife within the LDP during the summer of 1960, speculation percolated within the media that the newly installed prime minister would undertake some sort of purge of the anti-­mainstream. At his first press conference in office, Ikeda was asked about the possibility of a purge, to which he replied, “I do not plan a party purge. I would like to gradually build up connections with the anti-­mainstream and eventually come to terms. . . . ​We are a major party so we cannot consider breaking up the party for frivolous reasons. You ask me about a purge, but I think only of reconciliation and party unity.”25 . 93 .

japan at the crossroads Ikeda’s preference was to form an “all-­faction” cabinet. The Japa­nese po­liti­cal concept of “mainstream” and “anti-­mainstream” factions was normally defined in terms of which factions ­were part of the cabinet and which factions ­were excluded. Thus an “all-­faction” cabinet would have ideally precluded the possibility of an “anti-­mainstream” even existing, as all factions would have by definition become part of the “mainstream.” However, as mentioned above, the condition the Kishi and Satō factions placed on their support for Ikeda’s ascension was that the factions that had so conspicuously boycotted the treaty vote not be included in the new administration, and thus the Kōno and Miki-­Matsumura factions ­were entirely excluded from the first Ikeda cabinet. However, Ikeda did manage to include one member of the Ishibashi faction, Ishida Hirohide, as ­labor minister, as well as Health and Welfare Minister Nakayama Masa, who became the first ­woman ever to hold a post in the Japa­nese cabinet. Ikeda was then able to claim credit for what was viewed as the LDP’s strong showing in the November 1960 general election, and thus generated the po­liti­cal capital required to bring one member each from the Miki-­Matsumura and Kōno factions (Health and Welfare Minister Furui Yoshimi and Construction Minister Nakamura Umekichi, respectively) into his second cabinet, formed on December 8. Fi­nally, following his return from his extremely well-­received summit meeting with Kennedy in June 1961, Ikeda was power­ful enough to form the true “all-­faction” cabinet he had long sought. This was the famous “heavyweight cabinet” ( jitsuryokusha naikaku), established July  18, 1961, which brought all the major factional bosses into the government, including Kōno Ichirō (minister of agriculture and forestry), Satō Eisaku (minister of international trade and industry), Fujiyama Aichirō (head of the Economic Planning Agency), Miki Takeo (head of the Science and Technology Agency), and de facto Kishi faction boss Kawashima Shōtarō (head of the Administrative Management Agency). Among Ikeda’s efforts to bring the factions together and unite them ­behind the common goals of governing effectively and fostering continued spectacular economic growth, perhaps most remarkable and unexpected was his brilliant ­handling of Kōno, who for years had been Ikeda’s . 94 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule fiercest po­liti­cal rival within the LDP and was the selfsame Kōno who had been so incensed at Ikeda’s election that he had sought to quit the party entirely. Rather than fobbing Kōno’s faction off with minor posts, Ikeda brought Kōno himself into the cabinet and gave him positions with major responsibility. This was risky ­because it potentially gave Kōno an opportunity to sabotage Ikeda’s administration from within. However, Ikeda was perceptive in foreseeing that Kōno’s energy and perfectionism could be a ­great asset in governing, and in recognizing that the single best way to keep the wily Kōno from intriguing against Ikeda himself was to keep Kōno busy with other ­things. First as construction minister and then as special cabinet minister in charge of preparing for the Olympics, Kōno was tasked by Ikeda with the monumental challenge of remaking the entire city of Tokyo in time for the 1964 Olympic Games. To the surprise of many observers, Kōno accepted the challenge and threw himself ­wholeheartedly into the endeavor, working feverishly to produce the most spectacular games pos­si­ble. Kōno was highly effective and won widespread acclaim from the press, but in d ­ oing so also brought reflected glory to the Ikeda cabinet as a ­whole. As brilliant an achievement as bringing all the factions into one government was, this seemingly harmonious state of affairs could not last forever. The Kishi and Satō factions could never forgive Kōno and Miki for their betrayal during the 1960 crisis, and the closer Ikeda brought ­those two into his embrace, the more enmity he purchased from the Kishi and Satō camps. However, unable to openly engage in naked factioneering in the wake of the Anpo disaster, the two ­brothers ironically sought to further their narrow factional interests u ­ nder the guise of a movement to eliminate all factions. To this end, they helped establish in early 1962 the “Party Spirit Renovation Forum” (Tōfū Sasshin Kondankai), ­later renamed the “Party Spirit Renovation League” (Tōfū Sasshin Renmei), which began issuing increasingly shrill calls for the total elimination of all factions. Ikeda had been largely satisfied with the modest reforms to party organ­ization and finances and the creation of his “all-­faction” cabinet. Although he authorized the creation of a second Orga­nizational Investigative Committee in the summer of 1961, once it . 95 .

japan at the crossroads became clear that Ikeda was not prepared to push for more radical reform, dissident ele­ments within the LDP united with tacit support from Kishi and Satō to form the Tōfū Sasshin Renmei. The ringleader of the Sasshin Renmei was a young member of the Kishi faction, Fukuda Takeo.26 According to Fukuda, the three main goals of the Sasshin Renmei w ­ ere to instill in Diet members a consciousness that their supreme duty is to serve the ­people and the state (as opposed to their own interests), to eliminate factions, and to introduce a system of single-­member constituencies. Although the Sasshin Renmei had legitimate “party modernization” goals, it soon also became a forum for airing anti-­Ikeda grievances and criticism, such that Ikeda took to calling it a “detached squad of the Satō forces” (Satō shiji seiryoku no betsudōtai). When Ikeda was at the height of his power and ran unopposed for party president in the summer of 1962, seventy-­five party members cast blank ballots as a s­ ilent criticism of Ikeda; according to Fukuda nearly all of ­these blank votes ­were cast by members of the Sasshin Renmei.27 In response to this new threat, Ikeda and Maeo established a third Orga­nizational Investigative Committee. Maeo twice asked Fukuda to chair it, in an effort to co-­opt and neutralize him, but Fukuda refused. Fi­nally, Ikeda and Maeo hit on the idea of asking Miki to chair. On October 17, 1963, Miki submitted his “Party Modernization Report,” better known as the “Miki Report,” which blunted the Sasshin Renmei’s attacks by incorporating and co-­opting many of its complaints and good ideas. Famously, it called for “the unconditional elimination of each and ­every faction” (kaku habatsu no mujōken kaishō). On October 24, the Executive Council deci­ded to “acknowledge” the Miki Report “in princi­ple” and to insert a clause into the party platform for the general election stating that the party would “resolutely carry out party modernization and promote progressive policy by dissolving the factions.” However, other than the dissolution of the factions, t­ here was no mention of any timetable for carry­ing out the many specific reforms called for in the Miki Report, and with the notable exception of extending the term of the party presidency from two to three years, most of its recommendations would not be implemented. Asahi Shinbun po­liti­cal reporter Gotō Motoo . 96 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule l­ ater recalled, “It was useful to pay lip ser­vice to this [i.e., party modernization], even if the question of w ­ hether or not to actually implement the recommendations was never taken up (laughs). . . . ​More than actually solving the faction prob­lem, Miki’s report was useful in that it took the wind out of the sails of the anti-­mainstream.”28 Nevertheless, three years ­after factional maneuvering during the Anpo crisis had almost destroyed the LDP, the dissolution of the factions was now the officially acknowledged policy of the entire party. Shortly ­after the issuance of the Miki Report, all of the factions made a big show of adopting resolutions dissolving themselves: Ikeda dissolved his Kōchikai (“Wide Pond Society”), Satō dissolved his Shūzankai (“Mount Zhou Society”), Ishii dissolved his Suiyōkai (“Wednesday Society”), and so on. Of course the factions did not stay dissolved for long, and soon re-­formed, but of importance was that henceforth every­one had to talk in terms of reform and reducing the influence of factions as much as pos­ si­ble, and factional rivalries had to be reformulated and rechanneled in ways that would no longer pres­ent an existential threat to the LDP itself. Rather than being or­ga­nized solely around the patronage of a factional boss, without any regard to policy or po­liti­cal ideology, the individual factions ­were increasingly expected to take clear policy positions, evolving from purely “personal factions” ( jinmyaku habatsu) ­toward becoming something more akin to “policy factions” (seisaku habatsu). Factions ­were now focused around both individual leaders and policy positions.29 This stabilized both the factions themselves and the LDP as a ­whole. Rather than being a threat to LDP rule, factions ultimately came to serve a valuable function whereby, if voters did not like the policies of the ruling faction, another faction within the same party advocating the opposite policy stood ready to take over. Similarly, whenever a scandal arose, rather than having power shift to the opposition party, a rival faction within the LDP could credibly claim to have dif­fer­ent policies and could form a new cabinet, assuaging the voters’ desire for change without the need for a new election or a new party in power.30 More generally, although the reformers did not succeed in changing many of the ­actual party rules, in the wake of the Anpo disaster, a new spirit of prudence (kokorogake) prevailed whereby, even in the absence . 97 .

japan at the crossroads of official rules, party members ­were reluctant to break emerging unspoken norms by engaging in open factioneering. In many ways, it was this new spirit of prudence that allowed Ikeda to break the taboo on a prime minister serving a third term, and then allowed Satō Eisaku to succeed Ikeda with a minimum of factional upheaval, and ultimately to serve the longest continuous tenure as prime minister in Japa­nese history. Ōhira Masayoshi ­later recalled being astonished that when Kōno, who had been convinced that he would succeed Ikeda, found out that Ikeda had named Satō his successor and Ōhira offered deep apologies the day of the formal vote, Kōno simply replied, “­Don’t worry Ōhira, it’s ­going to be okay. The Kōno faction is all in attendance this time around, and ­we’re all ­going to write ‘Satō Eisaku,’ so you may set your mind at ease!” Ōhira recalled ­later reporting back to Ikeda, who was slowly ­dying of throat cancer, that although Satō was the one who was getting to take power, he ­couldn’t help feeling that Kōno had been the real protagonist that day. This smooth transition of power in part resulted from the decorum demanded by the circumstances of Ikeda’s resigning due to illness, but it was also the fruit of Ikeda’s concerted efforts to ameliorate the worst aspects of factionalism, and was therefore an impor­tant part of Ikeda’s po­liti­cal legacy. According to Ōhira, when Ikeda heard of Kōno’s self-­restraint, tears came to his eyes and he said, “­Today, November 9, ­really has been, for you, and also for me, the best day of our lives.”31

Income Doubling While Ikeda met with some success in his efforts to introduce a more conciliatory “low posture” politics and to reduce factional strife, the most brilliant maneuver of his tenure was the promulgation of his famous “National Income Doubling Plan” (Kokimin Shotoku Baizō Keikaku), which promised to double the nation’s GNP within ten years’ time, by 1970. Although “income doubling” is most commonly associated with the year 1960, which is the year it first became official policy, the idea had actually been in circulation for some time. The earliest mention of such a concept was a column in the January 3, 1959, edition of the Yomiuri Shinbun penned by leading economist Nakayama Ichirō (a Hitotsubashi . 98 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule University economics professor who was then chairman of the Central ­Labor Commission and ­later chairman of the Planning Bureau of the Economic Deliberation Council) that called for a policy of “wage doubling” (chingin nibai). Meanwhile, in the winter of 1958–1959, Ikeda was locked in a fierce strug­gle with Kōno to position himself as the heir apparent to Prime Minister Kishi. Having just resigned from the Kishi cabinet as part of the furor surrounding the failure of the proposed Police Duties Law, Ikeda returned to his home constituency of Hiroshima following the January general election. Kōno had recently garnered significant attention with his dramatic proposal for an all-­star del­e­ga­tion to China to lay the groundwork for Sino-­Japanese diplomatic normalization, and Ikeda needed a bold proposal of his own to compete with Kōno’s growing image as a daring reformer, and to c­ ounter ­career politician Kōno’s attempts to paint him as a “stodgy, overcautious, and unimaginative bureaucrat.” It is unclear w ­ hether Ikeda knew of Nakayama’s article or w ­ hether it was sheer coincidence, but in early March, Ikeda gave a speech in Hiroshima calling for “monthly salary doubling” (gekkyū nibai). The following month, Ikeda laid out his vision in more detail in an article in Shinro (The Way Forward), the monthly publication of his Kōchikai policy group.32 Ikeda’s new slogan was a tremendous success, garnering extensive attention from the media, which energetically debated throughout the spring and summer w ­ hether such a policy would be feasible or desirable. By the June 1959 upper h ­ ouse election, “salary doubling” had become “income doubling” (shotoku nibai). Miyazawa recalled, “We worried that the phrase ‘monthly salary doubling’ would only be applicable to salarymen, so instead we deci­ded on ‘income doubling’ as a phrase that would be more easily understandable to farm families or small business ­owners.” Sensing that the growing buzz around Ikeda’s slogan might become a threat if left unattended, Prime Minister Kishi attempted to co­opt the “income doubling” concept as his own. In June Ikeda was brought back into the cabinet as MITI minister, and “income doubling” was deployed as one of the LDP slogans during the election campaign. Then on October 14, the LDP’s Economic Policy Council formally ­adopted “income doubling” as part of the party’s official economic policy, greatly . 99 .

japan at the crossroads enhancing Ikeda’s prestige. A po­liti­cal cartoon from this period depicted Kishi dismounting from a surly looking ­horse (Kōno) and mounting a tame-­looking “bureaucrat cow” (Ikeda), which he hoped to ­ride to renewed po­liti­cal success.33 However, despite the positive media attention and its incorporation as a plank in the LDP party platform, “income doubling” at this point still remained more of a slogan than an ­actual policy framework. Moreover, Kishi showed no interest in seriously pushing income doubling as a major policy, and with the strug­gle over the Security Treaty heating up in the winter of 1959–1960, questions of long-­term economic policy ­were placed on a back burner. But as the Anpo protests escalated, Ikeda became increasingly convinced that income doubling was not only a sound basis for national economic policy but a crucial part of the solution to the po­liti­cal crisis as well. The recollections of Ikeda’s close associates reveal the increasing connection between Anpo and income doubling in the minds of Ikeda and his brain trust in the summer of 1960. Itō Masaya recalled asking Ikeda shortly ­after the June 15 incident, “If you become prime minister, how w ­ ill you deal with this situation?” To which Ikeda replied, “It seems like economic policy is the only option, right? I’m g­ oing to go with ‘income doubling.’ ”34 Itō l­ater elaborated, “We ­were convinced that if only this energy could somehow be turned t­oward economic development, Japan would surely become an economic g­ reat power.”35 Indeed, one of Ikeda’s favorite catchphrases in promoting the Income Doubling Plan that fall was “potential energy.” Ikeda saw this potential energy as not only latent in the economy as a w ­ hole but also manifested in the tremendous energy displayed by the protests against the Security Treaty.36 Nevertheless, some members of Ikeda’s inner circle questioned the wisdom of pushing the income doubling concept too far, making promises that could not be met or getting bogged down in arcane economic debates that might be incomprehensible and confusing to the general public. Ōhira, for example, did not mind using it as a slogan, but was wary of trying to translate the slogan into concrete action: “I agreed that we should use [income doubling] as a general guideline in formulating government policy, but I was opposed to adopting it as the government’s . 100 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule official ‘plan.’ But Ikeda forced us to make it into an a­ ctual plan.”37 Itō recalled, When Ikeda became prime minister, the hard feelings left over from the savage Anpo strug­gle had not yet dissipated. Something had to be done, and not a moment too soon, to repair the shattered and broken spirits of the ­people and turn their energies in a constructive direction. This was the first task facing the Ikeda cabinet. What was needed, more than anything ­else, was the announcement of some sort of new policy. . . . ​We ­were in a ­great hurry, but it took time to iron out a plan.38

Ikeda’s brain trust convened in Hakone to debate what exactly the National Income Doubling Plan would comprise. Ultimately, the person who synthesized and systematized the slogan into an ­actual plan was the economist Shimomura Osamu, who had long been a prominent member of Ikeda’s Kōchikai policy group. One of the major sticking points in agreeing on a plan was the target growth rate. Setting the target too high risked a humiliating underper­for­mance, but setting too low a target might fail to have the desired confidence-­boosting effect. The original draft of the plan called for an average annual economic growth rate of 7.2 ­percent, which would have exactly doubled the size of the economy in ten years, but Shimomura felt that this greatly underestimated the potential of the Japa­nese economy and pushed for an average annual growth rate target of 11 ­percent. Ultimately, Ikeda broke the deadlock by deciding on a 9 ­percent target for the first three years, along with a 7.8 ­percent average growth rate over the entire ten years.39 Ikeda announced the new plan to ­great media fanfare on September 5, 1960, immediately setting off a fierce national debate over the feasibility of his growth targets. The Asahi editorial the following day, titled “­Will the High Growth Target Be Achieved?,” was highly skeptical of the plan, especially the 9 ­percent annual growth target for the first three years, calling it “adventurism,” demanding “balanced growth,” and warning that “if ­there is even one misstep, the policy could quickly run off the tracks.” A front-­page Yomiuri editorial, titled “Misgivings about the High-­Speed . 101 .

japan at the crossroads Growth Policy,” was slightly more reserved in its skepticism, but nevertheless called the plan “exceedingly ambitious,” and fretted that 9% would be an extremely high target even for a Western nation, and maintaining it [for three years in a row] would be no easy task, and would pres­ent many difficulties. Moreover, if it cannot be achieved, or other­wise if in trying to achieve it the current account balance goes into the red or inflation spikes, then . . . ​the Japa­nese economy we have worked so hard to develop ­will reach a grave state of affairs.40

Neither editorial, however, questioned the basic goal of high-­speed growth itself; they merely quibbled over the numbers put forward. But despite misgivings, the announcement of the Income Doubling Plan generated positive buzz, especially among the business community, and, perhaps most importantly for the LDP’s prospects in the upcoming general election, made the Socialist Party’s original campaign slogan promising the Japa­nese ­people the ability to afford “Three glasses of milk a day!” seem almost laughably unambitious. In response, the JSP hastily came up with an income-­increasing plan of its own, announcing a few days ­later a “Four-­Year Plan” promising to increase national income 1.5 times in four years and calling for a growth rate target of 8 ­percent in the first year and 10 ­percent over the next three years. Not to be outdone, the Demo­cratic Socialist Party (DSP) then followed suit with an “Eight-­Year Plan” calling for an average annual growth rate of 8.8 ­percent, with only the Communist Party declining to offer a high-­speed growth plan of its own.41 With the boldness and sweeping scope of his plan, Ikeda had completely diverted po­liti­cal discourse away from ideology t­ oward economic policy, forcing the opposition to b ­ attle him on his own turf. Thus, an Asahi editorial sardonically remarked, “What used to be a ­battle of policies has now become a ­battle of figures.”42 The Economic Deliberation Council fi­nally released the official “New Long-­Range Economic Plan” on November 1, 1960, and the Ikeda cabinet officially approved the plan on December 27, replacing the previous Long-­Range Economic Plan that had been ­adopted by the Kishi cabinet in December 1957 and had been intended to run through 1962. In defining its own mission, the plan stated, “The ultimate aim of this plan is . 102 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule to advance t­oward a major improvement in the national standard of living and the achievement of full employment. In order to achieve this goal, we must strive to grow the economy at the maximum stable rate.” In support of t­ hese aims, the plan specified exact ten-­year numerical targets for all manner of economic indices, including population growth, trade, production across a variety of industries, investment, consumption, and, of course, income.43 The new plan differed from previous Japa­nese economic plans in several re­spects. First, whereas the previous plans had all been five-­year plans, the new plan was unpre­ce­dented in its ten-­year duration, intended in part to inspire confidence that aggressive pro-­growth policies would remain in place long enough to reward long-­term capital investments. The plan also differed from previous plans in its emphasis on government-­ sponsored social welfare, expanding and building on the National Social Insurance and Pension programs that went into effect in 1961. The plan also emphasized, for the first time, the development of ­human resources and the importance of maximizing the abilities of the Japa­nese ­people through large increases in government support for education and technological research. The plan also broke new ground by explic­itly calling for the elimination of the so-­called dual structure of the Japa­nese economy, outlining specific proposals for eliminating wage and income disparities between large and small enterprises, manufacturing and agricultural jobs, and regional income disparities. Fi­nally, the new plan differed from previous plans to the extent that its targets and proposals w ­ ere crafted according to po­liti­cal calculations rather than purely economic / academic rationales. Although ­there had always been some po­liti­cal character to economic planning, the conservative growth targets set by previous plans had ensured their po­liti­cal irrelevance. Ikeda had taken a system of five-­year economic plans full of arcane statistics that hardly drew notice from the public outside of a handful of ­people in the business world and turned it into a power­ful tool of populist politics. Looking back in the 1970s, Maeo Shigesaburō recalled, “Ikeda’s ­great achievement was to have the Prime Minister himself leading [economic policy] from the front. Economic issues, even t­oday, remain exceedingly abstract and difficult for ordinary . 103 .

japan at the crossroads ­ eople to understand. He placed the focus on ­these kinds of economic p issues and made them the centerpiece of his politics. The Prime Minister himself was quoting numbers and explaining economic policy.”44 The Income Doubling Plan has been dismissed by many scholars as meaningless grandstanding, with Ikeda cleverly taking credit for an unstoppable economic growth pro­cess that was already well u ­ nder way by 1960. Indeed, the Japa­nese economy had already experienced more than a doubling of GNP per capita in the nine years from 1951 to 1960.45 But despite the fact that the Income Doubling Plan had a significant po­ liti­cal dimension, Ikeda and close advisors like Shimomura also based their vision on perceptive economic insight at odds with the prevailing conventional wisdom of the day. Most mainstream Japa­nese economists in 1960 believed that Japan’s rapid growth in the 1950s derived primarily from “postwar recovery ­factors” that had already run their course, and that Japan was therefore due for significantly lower growth rates in the 1960s. Their main concern in charting economic policy was to avoid overheating the economy and driving up prices, which resulted in overly conservative growth targets. Ikeda and Shimomura, however, took a much more optimistic view of Japan’s economic potential. They argued that by creating more of a social safety net and spurring domestic demand, Japan could achieve high growth rates and rising incomes without excessive overheating. They pointed out that setting excessively conservative growth targets while attempting to maintain a balanced bud­get had the perverse effect of creating excess tax revenues when the economy inevitably overachieved against expectations, limiting overall economic potential. Ikeda thus called for a program of targeted tax cuts and increased government spending. ­Under the newly ­adopted Income Doubling Plan, the bud­get for the 1961 fiscal year, ­adopted by the government on January 18, 1961, included numerous and substantial spending increases designed to stimulate economic growth and shore up the social safety net, resulting in a massive 24.4 ­percent increase over the 1960 bud­get, which remains to this day the largest such increase in postwar history. Meanwhile, a relatively regressive tax code was aggressively rewritten in 1961, becoming more progressive by lightening the tax burden on low-­income families . 104 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule and small businesses. Most notably, the 1961 tax reform increased deductions for full-­time workers and introduced a generous new tax exemption for dependent spouses, hastening the expansion of middle-­ class consciousness by adding a new economic incentive for ­women to engage in full-­time ­house­wifery. Other impor­tant changes included raising the exemption for dependent c­ hildren over the age of fifteen, which encouraged them to attend high school rather than entering the workforce immediately, and adjusting the schedule for corporations to deduct depreciation on capital stock such that it was more in line with t­ hose of the Western nations with which Japa­nese companies ­were competing.46 Two other legislative initiatives ­were launched in 1961 ­under the umbrella of the Income Doubling Plan. The first was a new Agricultural Basic Law, which sought to modernize and rationalize agricultural production in order to narrow the gap in living standards between agricultural and industrial communities and which played a major role in solidifying the LDP’s rural electoral base. The second was the Law for Promoting the Industrial Development of Under-­Developed Regions, which was followed in 1962 by the Law for Promoting the Establishment of New Industrial Cities. It was planned that ten regions would receive development assistance u ­ nder ­these laws, but eventually forty-­four regions in thirty-­ nine prefectures applied as part of a competitive se­lection pro­cess that became highly politicized. The chaotic scramble of influence-­peddling that ensued enveloped all the po­liti­cal parties and underscored the transition from the “ideological politics” of the 1950s to the “interest politics” of the 1960s and beyond. Eventually nine extra regions ­were added and a total of nineteen regions ­were selected in 1966.47 But the biggest effect of the Income Doubling Plan was the significant but ultimately incalculable “propaganda effect” the announcement of the plan had on thousands of individual investment decisions within private industry. The early 1960s witnessed an explosion of private plant and equipment investment as business o ­ wners took heart that the government was fully committed to a high-­growth policy for at least ten years, and thus long-­term investments would have time to pay off. Ultimately, the economy doubled far faster than expected, in less than seven years. . 105 .

japan at the crossroads

Rapid economic growth allowed more ­women to become full-­time homemakers, a role made easier by the numerous electric appliances seen in this 1966 photo­graph. (Asahi Shinbun Collection / Getty Images)

In the larger picture, the Income Doubling Plan also marked a turning point in that it enshrined “economic growthism” as a sort of secular religion of both the Japa­nese ­people and their government, bringing about a circumstance in which both the effectiveness of the government and . 106 .

Stabilizing Conservative Rule the worth of the populace came to be mea­sured above all by the annual percentage change in GDP. Moreover, by intertwining nationalism with economic growth and mobilizing the nation for a new kind of “total war” in the economic sphere rather than the military realm, the Income Doubling Plan played a crucial role in healing the nation ­after the strife of 1960, as economic growth became the new focus of the national identity and came to serve a unifying function similar to that of imperial expansion in the prewar era. Po­liti­cal scientists often refer to a “1955 system” as a shorthand to denote the structures that adhered in Japa­nese politics from the unification of the left and right socialist parties and creation of the LDP in 1955 ­until at least the temporary breakdown of LDP rule in 1993, if not the victory of the Demo­cratic Party of Japan in 2009. However, the 1955 arrangement was exceedingly unstable. Following the 1958 general election, 465 out of 467, or 99.6 ­percent, of the seats in the lower ­house of the Diet w ­ ere controlled by only two parties, contributing to the hyper-­partisanship that helped precipitate the 1960 treaty crisis. Meanwhile, the party unifications of 1955 ­were forced marriages that produced intense factional infighting in both parties, leading to the split of the Socialists into the JSP and DSP in the midst of the treaty protests, and almost leading to the splintering of the LDP in the summer of 1960. In other words, the instability in the 1955 arrangement both exacerbated and was exacerbated by the strug­gle over the Security Treaty. It was not u ­ ntil the Ikeda administration backed away from partisanship and introduced a more conciliatory politics, presided over efforts to reduce factional strife within the LDP, and successfully redirected national discourse away from ideological conflict t­ oward economic growth with the Income Doubling Plan that the Japa­nese po­liti­cal system was stabilized and achieved a more durable configuration. Thus, insofar as such terms constitute a useful shorthand, it would be far more accurate to speak of a “1960 system” in Japa­nese politics.

. 107 .

chapter three

The Waning of the Opposition Parties

In addition to the efforts made u­ nder the Ikeda cabinet to ameliorate po­liti­cal strife, another ­factor that was crucial to the stabilization of Japa­nese domestic politics in the wake of the 1960 protests was the decline in the ability or willingness of the opposition parties to oppose LDP policies, ­whether within or outside the Diet. As late as January 1963, the widely respected LDP politician Ishida Hirohide published an article in the mainstream monthly magazine Chūō Kōron predicting that Japan’s socialist parties would outpoll the LDP at the ballot box by 1970 due to demographic shifts in Japa­nese society, including urbanization, increases in education, the expansion of the industrial working class, and the ongoing decline in the number of farmers (seen as the LDP’s base). Ishida ominously concluded, “I ­can’t help but won­der if we are unknowingly playing the role of the Shinsengumi,” referring to a group of nineteenth-­ century samurai who w ­ ere defeated trying to defend the doomed Tokugawa Shogunate from opponents committed to modernization. The article shocked the LDP, but was widely hailed as perceptive, and provided Ikeda and other reform-­minded LDP politicians with new ammunition in their efforts to pursue “party modernization.”1 Ishida’s bold prediction proved off the mark, however. In contrast to the LDP, the JSP proved unable to overcome its own internal factional infighting to make necessary reforms, and went into a gradual but ultimately terminal decline. Meanwhile, the breakaway DSP suffered devastating losses in the 1960 election, and the JCP continued its long retreat from militancy. . 108 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties

The Formation of the Demo­cratic Socialist Party The JSP lost part of its Diet contingent in 1960 when the right socialists ­under Nishio Suehiro bolted the party to form the new DSP. Although many among the JSP and its Sōhyō allies ­were happy to see Nishio gone and the party recovered a number of the lost Diet seats in the fall 1960 election, Nishio’s absence created an imbalance in the party factions that would fuel ­future intraparty strife. The formation of the DSP in the midst of the anti-­treaty protests was the culmination of long-­standing animosities exacerbated by disagreements over how the protests should proceed. Nishio had been one of the leaders of the old prewar Social Masses Party, the most conservative of the three prewar “proletarian” parties. Virulently anti-­communist, Nishio was fond of saying that he came to socialism not via Marxism but through “idealistic humanism” (risōteki hyūmanizumu). Nishio and the members of his faction differed from the rest of the JSP in that their base of electoral support came not from Sōhyō but from the smaller, more moderate Zenrō l­abor federation, which was far less prone to strikes over workplace issues, let alone po­liti­cal protests. Zenrō had readily cooperated in the strug­gle against the Police Duties Bill but had refused to participate in the anti-­treaty Kokumin Kaigi established in 1959 ­after Sōhyō and the left socialists had insisted the JCP be allowed to participate. This put Nishio in a difficult situation, b ­ ecause as a leading member of the Socialist Party, he was now involved in a protest movement that the ­labor federation that supported him had repudiated. In fact, Nishio did not even oppose the revised treaty. Nishio was a nationalist who wanted the best deal pos­si­ble for Japa­nese workers and farmers, and felt that at a time of rising Cold War tensions, what was best for Japan was to remain u ­ nder the US nuclear umbrella and benefit from ­free trade with the West, rather than move closer to the communist bloc or pursue neutralism. Although Nishio hoped to eventually abolish the Security Treaty as Japan grew stronger, he pointed out that if the protest movement succeeded in blocking the treaty revision, Japan would be stuck u ­ nder the original treaty arrangements, which ­were manifestly worse.2 . 109 .

japan at the crossroads

Nishio Suehiro proclaiming the formation of the Demo­cratic Socialist Party on January 24, 1960. (Mainichi Shinbun / Mainichi Photo Bank)

As the anti-­treaty protests grew over the course of 1959, Nishio’s position became increasingly untenable. Nishio had long been u ­ nder a cloud of suspicion within the party. He had vocally opposed the reunification of the left and right socialist parties in 1955, and had only been brought over with difficulty by appeals to the pressing need for a united front against the unification of the conservative parties into the LDP. Nishio then earned the enmity of Sōhyō thanks to the efforts of Zenrō in the closing years of the 1950s to hive off Zenrō-­affiliated “second u ­ nions” within Sōhyō-­controlled workplaces, a practice Sōhyō’s leaders viewed as an existential threat and suspected Nishio might have tacitly supported. Nishio purchased further ire from the left socialists during the strug­gle against the Police Duties Bill, when he sought to serve as a “neutral arbiter” and helped broker a compromise with Kishi whereby the bill would be shelved in exchange for a return to regular order in the Diet and the streets. This angered the left socialists, who had been thrilled by the size of the anti–­Police Bill protests and had hoped to build them up into a . 110 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties full-­blown socialist revolution (a hope they embraced once again amid the even larger anti-­treaty protests). Nishio’s actions during the Police Bill strug­gle resulted in the left socialist ideologue Sakisaka Itsurō, a Marxist professor of economics at ­Kyushu University, publishing an article in December 1958, nicknamed the “Sakisaka thesis,” in which he viciously attacked Nishio without mentioning him by name. Sakisaka argued that the Socialist Party had lost its way when the left and right wings reunified in 1955, and wrote that if you ­were planning to travel from Kyushu to Tokyo, you needed to build a party that would take you all the way, not a party that would get you only halfway ­there and drop you off in Osaka (a blatant dig at Nishio, whose po­liti­cal base was in Osaka). Sakisaka also attacked head-on Nishio’s stance that the Socialist Party should become a truly national party that could break through the “one-­third barrier” in the Diet by attracting votes from a broad co­ali­tion of farmers, workers, and small-­business ­owners. Instead, Sakisaka insisted on the left socialist dogma that a socialist revolution could be carried out only by the working classes, and that the Socialist Party must therefore be exclusively a working class–­ based party. Fi­nally, Sakisaka obliquely attacked Nishio’s stated preferences for compromise and observation of parliamentary norms by arguing that although a peaceful revolution might be pos­si­ble to a certain extent, “it is impossible not to contemplate the use of some sort of force.” For Sakisaka, the Police Bill strug­gle had proved that the conditions ­were right for a socialist revolution, and that this revolution would need to rely heavi­ly on strikes and other extra-­parliamentary mea­sures. Sakisaka concluded by arguing that the JSP should aim for an immediate socialist revolution, but could do this only if the party possessed the “correct platform and composition.” This was a thinly veiled call for Nishio and the rest of the right socialists to be expelled from the party.3 Although Sōhyō immediately endorsed the Sakisaka thesis, Nishio’s place within the party remained secure for the time being, since the center and center-­right factions had no interest in expelling him, and nobody wanted the party to appear weak ahead of upper ­house elections in April 1959. Although the JSP gained seven seats in the election, this was . 111 .

japan at the crossroads widely viewed as a disappointing result, and a fierce debate broke out over who was to blame and ­whether the party should have done more to mobilize the working class (the left socialist position) or more to expand its appeal to a broader constituency (Nishio’s view). Meanwhile, the ongoing protests against the Security Treaty served as a constant irritant. Nishio repeatedly inveighed against the extra-­parliamentary “united actions” and the inclusion of the Communist Party in the anti-­treaty co­ali­tion, two aspects of the anti-­treaty movement he felt ­were precluding the JSP from achieving a broader base of support. When Sōhyō made it clear that neither would be reconsidered, Nishio began calling for the party to “break f­ ree” from “undemo­cratic influences” like that of Sōhyō. As he had done during the Police Bill strug­gle, Nishio once again sought to serve as an impartial mediator, meeting with conservative politicians and business leaders in an attempt to broker another compromise solution. By the fall of 1959, Sōhyō had had enough. At the 16th Party Congress in September, Sōhyō secretary-­general Iwai Akira was invited to give a keynote address, in which he demanded, “Let’s solve the Nishio prob­lem once and for all.” Although the left socialists did not have enough votes to expel Nishio immediately, the party voted 344 to 237 to refer the Nishio ­matter to a special committee. At this point, rather than waiting to be expelled, Nishio bolted from the party, taking his own faction and part of the center-­right Kawakami Jōtarō faction along with him.4 ­After a few months of preparation, Nishio and the other defectors declared the DSP on January 24, 1960. Promising a “­middle way” of politics based on rational debate, compromise, and an avoidance of ideology-­based conflict, the new party was initially met with g­ reat fanfare in the media and quickly won the support of several centrist intellectuals, sparking talk of a “Demo­cratic Socialist boom” (Minsha būmu). The new party also initially became the vessel for ­great hopes on the part of American diplomats for fostering a more moderate brand of socialism in Japan, which the US government deemed crucial in light of prevailing views that a shift t­oward the left in Japan was inevitable and already ongoing.5 . 112 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties Although the new party initially held only thirty-­eight seats in the lower ­house of the Diet (­later additions expanded the number to forty), its potential for winning over middle-­of-­the-­road voters was felt to be high, at least at first, and it has been speculated that had a general election been called in the spring of 1960 the DSP might have made significant gains.6 But during the climax of the 1960 protests, especially in the tumultuous month following the highly polarizing May  19 incident, Nishio and the DSP still continued to seek a role as “impartial mediator,” and the party’s refusal to take a stand, even ­after such a polarizing event, wound up infuriating p ­ eople on both sides of the debate. In par­tic­u­lar, the DSP’s election promise to “gradually abolish” the Security Treaty pleased no one. The November 1960 lower h ­ ouse election is often characterized as a victory for the LDP, in that it gained thirteen seats, but often overlooked is the fact that the JSP gained twenty-­three seats, which proportionally speaking was a much larger increase. It is thus questionable to portray the election as some sort of verdict on the new treaty, ­because both sides of the treaty debate could be said to have won. What made this situation pos­si­ble was that the DSP suffered devastating losses in the election, ­going from forty seats to a mere seventeen.7 The polarizing effect of the Anpo protests and their violent climax had effectively left no ­middle ground for the DSP to stand on, and although the party would hang on all the way ­until 1994, it never controlled more than a small handful of seats in the Diet.

The Japan Socialist Party ­after Anpo A major difference between the LDP and the JSP was that the cleavages in the JSP ­were based on real theoretical and policy disagreements dating back to the time before the forced marriage of the left and right socialists in 1955, whereas the LDP Diet members for the most part did not have significant disagreements on policy and their main cleavages ­were almost entirely based on personal ambitions and animosity between LDP factions. Thus, in the case of the LDP, the 1960 protests created centripetal . 113 .

japan at the crossroads forces that compelled the warring factions to hammer out their differences at least enough to hold the party together, whereas for the JSP, the crisis unleashed centrifugal forces that ultimately tore the party apart. In the LDP every­one agreed on the meaning of the 1960 protests for the party: the party had to do a better job of sticking together. Within the JSP, however, widely divergent interpretations of the crisis emerged that reflected the fundamentally divergent policy orientations of the rival factions. ­These conflicting interpretations on the meaning of the 1960 protests played a significant role in the JSP’s decline as an effective party of opposition. In par­tic­u­lar, how best to understand the nature and meaning of the 1960 protests became one of the key points of contention in the debates over “structural reform” and the related “Eda Vision” of socialism. T ­ oward the end of the 1950s, vari­ous articles on the Italian Communist Party’s “structural reform” policy and attempts by other Eu­ro­pean socialist parties to adapt to changing social conditions ­were published in Japan, attracting considerable attention and debate among Japa­nese leftists.8 At the 16th Party Congress in September 1959, Director of Orga­nizational Policy Eda Saburō affixed the “structural reform” label to a set of proposals to reform the party, which he had been developing over the previous two years. At the time this seemed to be l­ittle more than the application of a recent buzzword to a set of proposals upon which ­there was widespread agreement, so a resolution in support of the proposals was a­ dopted without significant debate.9 One year l­ater, at the 19th Party Congress, which took place the day ­after party chairman Asanuma Inejirō had been assassinated, Eda, now newly installed as acting chairman of the party, took advantage of the somber mood, looming election, and strong desire for party solidarity in the wake of the assassination to have structural reform declared as the “new party line” with ­little re­sis­tance or debate.10 At this point it was still unclear exactly what this term was supposed to mean within the Japa­ nese context. However, now that structural reform had been declared the official policy of the party, fierce debate ensued within vari­ous party committees and organs over the next few months over exactly what sorts of reforms it would or should entail. . 114 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties

Japan Socialist Party leader Eda Saburō at a press conference in Osaka, April 4, 1960. (Mainichi Shinbun / Mainichi Photo Bank)

Fi­nally on New Year’s Day, 1961, the party members b ­ ehind the drive for structural reform published a manifesto titled “The B ­ attle for Structural Reform,” which would become the single most prominent document on what structural reform was supposed to mean in the Japa­nese case. In the opening passage, the authors offered a rambling definition . 115 .

japan at the crossroads of the structural reform agenda, which included the following main points: Using demo­cratic means, the working classes w ­ ill intervene [kai’nyū] in the structure (production relations) of mono­poly capitalism . . . ​ limiting the scope of its activity and . . . ​altering policies favoring the interests of the mono­poly cap­i­tal­ists to better suit the interests of the masses. . . . ​Thus, through a pro­cess of evolutionary reform, we ­will gradually dig up the roots of exploitation . . . ​and thereby create the conditions necessary for a socialist revolution. . . . ​This is what we mean by “structural reform.”11

In this and other documents, the structural reformers proposed gradually reforming Japa­nese society along more socialist lines in a peaceful manner by pressuring the government into a series of “policy reversals” (seisaku tenkan), using a combination of parliamentary pressure tactics and extra-­parliamentary “mass strug­gles.” Participation in the latter would provide the populace with valuable practical experience in organ­ izing and coordinating protest activity, which would prepare them for when the time ultimately came to form a national “anti-­monopolist front” and make the final push to overthrow mono­poly capitalism once and for all. This push for the structural reform of society as a w ­ hole was to be accompanied by a no less impor­tant internal structural reform of the Socialist Party itself as well as the Japa­nese ­labor movement, in order to help the party and the movement win a broader base of support among the working masses. “Structural reform” was thus a totalizing vision that offered prescriptions for both internal reform and externally oriented policy lines, covering all short-­and medium-­term po­liti­cal objectives.12 Concrete proposals included improving living standards by pressing for higher wages, shorter hours, and more social welfare, the introduction of price controls and more centralized planning of the economy, tax reforms to effect a wider distribution of wealth, the establishment of small business cooperatives to better ­battle mono­poly power, the restructuring of international trade to increase trade with communist nations, and the elimination of the Security Treaty with the United States. The . 116 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties three pillars of structural reform w ­ ere to be higher living standards, opposition to mono­poly capitalism, and Cold War neutralism.13 From the beginning, the structural reformers viewed it as almost self-­ evident that one of the major lessons of the 1960 Anpo protests had been the need for a thoroughgoing reform of left-­wing organ­izations and a new approach to achieving socialist revolution very much like the one they had been advocating. Writing in Gekkan Shakaitō (Socialist Party Monthly) in February 1961, Kubota Tadao asserted, “More than anything ­else, it is the recent popu­lar movement which clearly tells us that conditions are ripe . . . ​for the establishment of a ‘structural reform’ policy line.” Similarly, the authors of “The ­Battle for Structural Reform,” in enumerating the reasons for enacting structural reform, declared, “The first reason arises from a rigorous reflection and evaluation of the successes and failures of the . . . ​epoch-­making strug­gles recently waged on the basis of the mobilization of a broad mass of citizens.”14 The structural reformers essentially took a triumphalist view of the Anpo protests and ­were sanguine about the prospects for similar protests in the f­uture. The leader of the structural reform drive, Eda Saburō, looked back on the Anpo protests one year ­later and recalled that when he saw the Diet “engulfed by 300,000 demonstrators . . . ​at that moment, I felt, ‘This is a new dawn for Japan,’ but now, as I think back on it, I feel it was a ‘new dawn’ even more deeply. . . . ​The conservative camp was dealt a huge blow by the Anpo strug­gle.”15 Similarly, the authors of “The ­Battle for Structural Reform” manifesto wrote, “Although the Anpo strug­gle did not achieve complete success in all areas, it did succeed in dealing a serious blow to Japan’s ruling class.” The protests “not only thoroughly preserved democracy” but also demonstrated that “through the combination of parliamentary strug­gle and extra-­parliamentary mass-­based strug­gle, even u ­ nder the domination of mono­poly [capital], ‘policy reversals’ can be achieved . . . ​and that if we broaden the base of our strug­gles, even bigger policy reversals can be won.”16 This was an extremely optimistic vision of what the 1960 protests had achieved. The fact that the nominal goal of the strug­gle, which was to stop the passage of the treaty, had not been realized was quickly brushed . 117 .

japan at the crossroads aside with a brief mention that the protests “did not achieve success in all areas,” before the authors proceeded to enumerate a long list of successes. Moreover, ­after spending a long paragraph describing ­these successes, the authors ­were able to come up with only two vaguely worded failures, briefly noting that the Anpo protests w ­ ere “not adequately integrated with the glorious strug­gle at Miike” and that they w ­ ere not adequately developed as a “true” class strug­gle between the workers and mono­poly capital.17 This emphasis on mentioning both successes and failures, and the two par­tic­u­lar failures that w ­ ere chosen, ­were sops to the left wing of the party, which largely viewed the Anpo protests as an abject failure ­because they did not seem to have advanced the cause of the working classes by raising class consciousness or evolving into a class strug­gle. Nevertheless, it was difficult for the structural reformers to hide their jubilation that ­after a long string of failures in the 1950s, over the course of the strug­gle against the Police Duties Law and especially the Security Treaty, for the first time the left had actually achieved something and caused setbacks for the right: “Over the course of ­these strug­gles, we succeeded for the first time in actively defeating the opponent’s program, even though this was thought to have been impossible. ­These protests gave us the self-­ confidence that ‘if the masses participate, anything is pos­si­ble.’ ”18 In the eyes of the structural reformers, the key to t­ hese achievements, and to any similar achievements in the ­future, was broadening the base of the movement to incorporate ­people from walks of life other than the original core of l­ abor ­unions, left-­wing students, and leftist intellectuals. However, any attempt to broaden the base of support for Socialist Party policies too far would be in contradiction to the Marxist dogma, cherished by the party’s left wing, that any socialist movement should be firmly based in the working class. It was the need to appeal to the party’s left flank that led to an unexplained contradiction whereby a section of “The ­Battle for Structural Reform” contained a call for “broadening the base of our strug­gle” as well as a concluding sentence, offered as is, with no further explanation, that the Anpo protests “have also reconfirmed as correct the position the Socialist Party has always taken of being a class-­ based party.” As the well-­known British sociologist of Japan Ronald Dore . 118 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties noted at the time, “A good many of the Socialists’ Diet members are ready for a change, but the moral supremacy of the Marxist-­Leninist scholastics is such that they cannot be frank and open in saying so. [They] must speak in riddles.”19 In addition to the need for broadening the base of support for the movement, two other lessons the structural reformers drew from the experience of the Anpo protests ­were what they perceived as the need for a more active approach to achieving socialist revolution and the necessity of extra-­parliamentary action. Up ­until the 1960 Anpo protests, the two theoretical perspectives on socialist revolution prevailing within the Socialist Party had been the “poverty revolution thesis” (kyūbō kakumei ron) and the “piecemeal revolution thesis” (nashikuzushi kakumei ron). The “poverty revolution thesis” held that by a pro­cess of immiseration, capitalism would increasingly impoverish the working classes, leading to ­either a state of war or an economic panic that would in turn precipitate the socialist revolution predicted by Marxism. Given that this pro­cess was held to be inevitable and would therefore happen regardless of what anyone did, the “poverty revolution thesis” was often derogatorily referred to by opponents as the “waiting around for a crisis thesis” (kiki taibō ron). Supporters of the “piecemeal revolution thesis,” on the other hand, did not want to wait around for the crisis and instead argued that socialism should be pursued in an incrementalist manner through peaceful parliamentary maneuvers, and that violent or socially disruptive attempts at fomenting socialist revolution, including extra-­parliamentary street protests, should be avoided. In the minds of the structural reformers, the Anpo protests seemed to have definitively invalidated both of t­ hese ­theses. On the one hand, the perceived successes of the Anpo protests suggested that it was both necessary and pos­si­ble to take a more active and positive approach to changing society. Although they w ­ ere reluctant to say so explic­itly, for fear of upsetting the left wing of the party, the structural reformers particularly relished the final phase of the protests, when the movement broadened its base of support and moved beyond merely “opposing” the treaty to calling for Kishi’s resignation, new elections, and a restoration of parliamentary princi­ples. The structural reformers thus sought to . 119 .

japan at the crossroads pursue a more optimistic and positive line, emphasizing the importance of ­going on “offense” rather than constantly being on “defense.” As the structural reformers asserted immediately following the protests, Although the party must not become beside itself with ecstasy that the masses have greatly matured po­liti­cally, and that this new passion has risen up, at the same time it must not be timid in seizing upon the possibilities for developing the party in new directions. . . . ​Over the course of ­these protests, the Japa­nese ­people came to realize that through their own power they could even change the course of international relations, and developed a self-­consciousness that they could choose a direction for themselves. . . . ​Now, more than ever, we ­will no longer be completely absorbed by defensive strug­gles, but ­will instead take the offensive, with positive and optimistic goals. . . . ​A new rediscovery of Japan—­this is what the Anpo strug­gle was.20

Meanwhile, another obvious lesson of the Anpo protests seemed to have been that mere parliamentary opposition alone would not be enough and that extra-­parliamentary protests would have a role to play in any effort to move society in a socialist direction. ­After all, all of the Socialists’ parliamentary tactics—­even dubious ones such as sit-­ins and scrums in the Diet building, and the threat to resign en masse—­had not been enough to stop Kishi; only the more violent and spectacular extra-­ parliamentary protests, and the death of Kanba Michiko, had been enough to force Kishi to cancel Eisenhower’s visit and resign. It was in the context of this realization that one of the oft-­repeated catchphrases of the structural reform movement became “properly combining parliamentary and extra-­parliamentary strug­gle,” with the word “properly” (tadashiku) included to emphasize that while extra-­parliamentary protest had a role to play, t­ here ­were limits to how violent it should be allowed to get, in keeping with the structural reformers’ adherence to “peaceful and orderly” demo­cratic mea­sures. As the authors of “The ­Battle for Structural Reform” summarized, Through the experience of the Anpo strug­gle, the absurdity and inaccuracy of the two prevailing “revolution ­theses” has become extremely clear. On one hand, the fact that even in a time of economic

. 120 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties prosperity, tactics which properly combine extra-­and intra-­ parliamentary strug­gles based on constitutionally protected demo­ cratic princi­ples can force a crisis upon the government demands a reconsideration of the “waiting around for a crisis thesis.” Meanwhile, the lesson which must be drawn from the violent clash with police and right wing thugs is that the “piecemeal revolution thesis” is a worthless and impractical theory.21

Once it became clear exactly what the structural reformers ­were intending, strong opposition to the reform program immediately r­ ose up within the left wing of the Socialist Party, as well as among the more doctrinaire leadership of Sōhyō. As soon as he got wind of what was ­going to be in the “­Battle for Structural Reform” manifesto, Sōhyō chairman Ōta Kaoru quickly penned a response, “Seven Doubts Regarding the Socialist Party’s Structural Reform Thesis,” which he completed in time to have published the same day as the manifesto in Gekkan Sōhyō (Sōhyō Monthly), and ­later published in the more widely read magazine Chūō Kōron.22 Although most of Ōta’s “doubts” consisted of doctrinal quibbles revolving around which stage of Marxist development most closely matched Japan’s current situation, and what the exact nature of Japa­nese mono­poly capital was, Ōta did devote one of his seven doubts to the question, “How should we best evaluate the Anpo / Miike strug­gle?” Ota’s linking of the two strug­gles was in keeping with Sōhyō’s doctrinaire position that the two strug­gles should have been integrated more fully as a nationwide class strug­gle. In the section for this “doubt,” Ōta begins by stating, “Whenever the Socialist Party presses for structural reform, they are constantly citing the Anpo and Miike strug­gles as evidence. Furthermore, in discussing why ­these strug­gles did not advance further, they argue that it was only ­because ­there was no anti-­monopoly structural reform plan in place.” Ōta continues by quoting the vaguely worded passage from the “­Battle for Structural Reform” manifesto regarding the failure of Anpo to be closely linked with the Miike strug­gle and its failure to be developed into an anti-­monopoly class strug­gle. Ōta calls out the authors of the manifesto for their lack of specificity or interest regarding ­these failures: “I . 121 .

japan at the crossroads ­ on’t r­ eally understand exactly what they are saying ­here. It’s just too d vague.” He then quotes another passage from the manifesto, in which the authors argue that over the course of the Anpo strug­gle, the Socialist Party was able to take a step forward in improving the fundamental nature of the party itself. By committing the entire party to transform the Anpo protests into an all-­out ­battle, the party was compelled to heighten its activism, and was forced to sharpen its theoretical outlook. In the pro­ cess, for the first time the Socialist Party became the core component of a mass strug­gle, and was able to cultivate its struggle-­leading abilities. This precious experience that the Socialist Party has received ­will prove extremely useful in the coming all-­out ­battle to achieve structural reform, in which the party ­will likely succeed in assuming a role of po­liti­cal leadership.

Ōta claims to be sympathetic to this interpretation, but finds it too optimistic, adhering to his view that the protests ­were more of a failure than a success: “From the bottom of my heart, I would love for the party to be able to achieve this. But in my view, both the Anpo and Miike strug­gles ­were beset by numerous issues, such that their failures cannot simply be explained away by the lack of an anti-­monopoly plan.” Ōta did allow that even I, in my own way, have had my outlook broadened [by ­these protests] with regard to vari­ous possibilities [for the f­ uture]. However . . . ​I think a Socialist Party that claims to be the leader of a popu­lar movement should first be able to take into account and synthesize a variety of opinions, and should be able to more accurately appraise successes and failures. In par­tic­u­lar, I think that the Party should undertake a much more severe self-­criticism about the role it played.

Ōta concludes, “I do not necessarily agree that the developments of the Anpo and Miike strug­gles are indicative that structural reform is pos­si­ble.”23 The structural reformers ­were essentially realists. They sought a way forward to achieve socialist ends but ­were willing to sacrifice certain aspects of Marxist dogma to do so. In par­tic­u­lar, they recognized that a . 122 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties party based, in theory, only on the working class (and in practice, only on Sōhyō) would be doomed to permanent minority status in the Diet, and thus they sought a program that would broaden their base of support to other parts of Japa­nese society. Sōhyō, on the other hand, was not surprisingly loathe to divert the focus of a party almost totally dependent on it for mobilizing votes, and thus almost solely devoted to advancing its own ends. Accordingly, Sōhyō’s leaders increasingly found themselves in alliance with the left wing of the party in advocating rigid adherence to the princi­ple of a narrowly working-­class-­based party and therefore to opposing the structural reform program. At the core of t­ hese debates lay a fundamental disagreement over how best to interpret the meaning of the Anpo and Miike strug­gles. For Sōhyō, deeply involved as it was in the failed strike at Miike mine and in the massive anti-­treaty strikes of June 1960, which led to large numbers of its most prominent u ­ nion activists being punished or fired from their jobs, it was difficult to get past a sense that ­little had been accomplished at ­great cost and thus that the two strug­gles had failed, and that it would be fruitless to engage in further strug­gles of the same character. But what was so inspiring about the protests, and in par­tic­u­lar the Anpo protests, for the structural reformers was that they seemed to both confirm a need to build a broader base of support for the socialist movement and point out a way to do so, namely, to cloak the drive t­ oward socialism within a broader movement to protect democracy, defend the constitution, avoid war, and raise living standards (incidentally all goals that Sōhyō and the adherents of the “poverty revolution” doctrine considered to be illusory). Above all ­else, the structural reformers concluded that in order to broaden the base of the Socialist Party it was necessary to move the party away from its dour image of always harping on social inequities in an effort to raise class consciousness while other­wise “waiting around for a crisis.” What was needed was a new, optimistic image for the party and the movement. It was in search of this kind of more optimistic and therefore more marketable image that party chairman Eda Saburō propounded his “New Vision of Socialism,” better known by both proponents and opponents alike as the “Eda Vision.” . 123 .

japan at the crossroads Eda first announced his new vision during a speech he gave on July 27, 1962, at a meeting of the National Conference of Socialist Party Regional Organizers in Nikko, in which he declared, ­ ere is a pressing need to come to a consensus within the party on Th the question of “What is Socialism?” Socialism must be defined in sunny and cheerful terms that are easily understandable to the masses. I believe that “socialism” is that which allows ­human potential to blossom to its fullest extent. The main four accomplishments that humankind has achieved so far are Amer­i­ca’s high standard of living, the Soviet Union’s thoroughgoing social welfare system, ­England’s parliamentary democracy, and Japan’s peace constitution. I believe that if we can integrate t­ hese, we can give birth to a broad-­based socialism.24

Eda further elaborated on this vision in an article published in the leftist magazine Ekonomisuto the following October. In this article, he explic­itly attempted to move the Socialist Party beyond doctrinal quarrels, asserting, Debates . . . ​such as over ­whether the socialist revolution w ­ ill take place in one stage or two stages, or w ­ hether the Socialist Party should be an all-­class party or a single-­class party . . . ​are perhaps necessary within their own contexts, but p ­ eople are becoming tired of endlessly hearing only about ­these debates, and such arguments are in­effec­tive at eliciting much support from the general public, or mobilizing their energies.25

Eda’s sunny vision of a utopian socialist ­future combining the best aspects of Amer­i­ca, the Soviet Union, and Britain with Japan’s peace constitution was well received by the mainstream media and widely praised as evidence that the Socialist Party was fi­nally “shedding the old skin” of worn-­out dogma. However, Eda’s vision was viciously attacked by his opponents within the party. Sasaki Kōzō, Eda’s rival and the leader of the left wing of the party, attacked Eda’s vision as “status-­quo-­ism,” accused him of “sucking up to mono­poly capital,” and openly wondered how Eda’s approach to socialism was any dif­fer­ent from that of DSP leader Nishio Suehiro and the other apostates in the breakaway DSP. ­Others viciously . 124 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties mocked his choice of the En­glish word “vision,” pointing out that pos­ si­ble Japa­nese translations included gensō (illusion) and genkaku (hallucination). Critics also argued that it was ridicu­lous to even consider praising, let alone adopt as a socialist platform, Amer­i­ca’s standards of living (which w ­ ere achieved only through imperialist subjugation of other nations), Soviet social welfare (which was based on deviationist Stalinist totalitarianism), or British parliamentary democracy (which had been constructed to preside over a system of colonial domination). Most damning of all was the criticism that if the achievements and characteristics of cap­i­tal­ist and socialist systems w ­ ere blithely evaluated within the same context, the differences between capitalism and socialism would be elided, and the reason and necessity for calling the party a “socialist” party would become unclear.26 Eda’s “vision” was the last straw for many members of the Socialist Party, especially in combination with his October 1962 Ekonomisto article, which openly condemned doctrinal debates. The following month, at the 22nd Party Congress, a majority of the party voted to adopt an “Eda Vision Criticism Resolution” renouncing Eda’s vision as antithetical to core party princi­ples, and Eda was forced to resign as secretary general. Narita Tomomi, also a member of the structural reform faction although not as out­spoken, was elected to replace Eda, suggesting that a general desire for reform still remained strong within the party. However, with the loss of Eda’s enthusiastic leadership, the wind began to go out of the sails of structural reform. In 1965, far left faction leader Sasaki Kōzō was elected party chairman, replacing the centrist Kawakami Jōtarō. Structural reform was now entirely dead, as the party completely returned to its traditional, orthodox Marxist line. Thereafter, the younger generation of reform-­minded activists became increasingly disillusioned. Meanwhile, the emergence of the Kōmeitō (Clean Government Party, a po­liti­cal branch of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist religious movement, which focused on the lower rungs of the working classes), along with the increasing electoral success of the Communist Party, began to eat away at the Socialist Party’s urban, working-­class base. The Socialists slipped in the polls in the 1967 election, lost even more ground in the 1968 election, and fi­nally suffered a . 125 .

japan at the crossroads crushing, landslide defeat in the 1969 elections, losing fifty-­one seats and seeing their vote share fall from 27 to 21.5 ­percent as many of the party’s most loyal voters, incensed by the endless bickering and abstract theorizing, withheld their votes in protest. The Socialist Party would hang on for another twenty-­five years, but it would be in a state of permanent, and ultimately terminal, decline.27 “Structural reform” was an attempt to adapt the Socialist Party to the social changes brought on by high-­speed economic growth, such as the decline of l­abor ­unions and the rising standards of living, that encouraged p ­ eople to opt into the cap­i­tal­ist system. In d ­ oing so, it sought to chart a precarious course between orthodox Marxism on the left and the ultimate sin of “revisionism” on the right, ­toward a party that could win over a larger share of the electorate without sacrificing its core princi­ples. ­Because the structural reformers w ­ ere attempting to please as many ­people as pos­si­ble, it was inevitable that the theoretical under­pinnings of their effort would involve numerous tortuous circumlocutions. Nevertheless, for a brief time, from 1960 to 1962, the structural reformers ­were repeatedly able to field sturdy majorities in support of their program at Socialist Party congresses and in impor­tant party committees. It is thus not inconceivable that the structural reformers might have been able to push their reform agenda through on a more permanent basis, had they been able to calibrate their message more precisely and devoted more time to building up an even broader base of support within the party and within Sōhyō. Such a more mea­sured, circumspect course was called for b ­ ecause the 1960 Anpo protests had changed the landscape within the party. In addition to the deep suspicion of broad-­based strug­gle the perceived failure of the protests sowed within the left wing of the party, the eviction of the right-­wing Nishio faction in the midst of the Anpo strug­gle caused the balance of power within the party to lurch to the left and created a toxic situation whereby the per­sis­tent presence of Nishio and the DSP established a constant need to distinguish the two parties ideologically and put the paranoid guardians of Marxist doctrine within the party on heightened alert for any sign of Nishio-­style “revisionism.”28 . 126 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties Ironically for the structural reformers, however, the Anpo protests convinced them to pursue the exact opposite course of action, and they actually accelerated their program of reform. First of all, as mentioned, the structural reformers w ­ ere dispositionally inclined to view the protests not only as a success but also as an affirmation of the validity of their preexisting program for reform. In addition, the exhilarating experience of participating in mass protest invigorated non-­Diet member party activists and convinced them to join the reform bandwagon. Meanwhile, the mainstream media establishment, shocked by the violent climax of the protest, was anxious to embrace any program that seemed like a move away from conflict-­inducing ideological dogmatism, and thus structural reform received an extremely warm welcome and sympathetic hearing in the mainstream press. Fi­nally, the assassination of compromise candidate Asanuma in the immediate aftermath of the protests by an enraged right-­wing youth further accelerated the reform timetable by suddenly elevating structural reform champion Eda into a position of power at a much earlier date than would have been the case had Asanuma remained at the helm. Ecstatic at what he perceived as the success of the Anpo protests, buoyed by the outpouring of support for the structural reform program coming from the press and the party rank and file, and now in a position to rapidly advance his agenda, Eda skipped straight to the popu­lar appeal needed to sell his program to the masses, and neglected to recalibrate ­either the rhe­toric or the substance of the plan to suit the new post-­Anpo realignment of power and perception within the upper tiers of his own party and its Sōhyō benefactor. Indeed, t­here was some truth to the crack by Eda’s rival Sasaki that “the job of the Secretary General is not to go on TV and make himself famous, but rather to hold consultations and ensure that the Secretariat and the Party Executive are unified and in accord.”29 The 1960 Anpo protests thus played a crucial role in exacerbating the inability of the Socialist Party to adapt itself to the exigencies of high-­ speed economic growth, ultimately leading to its decline and extinction. The structural reform plan, as articulated in the late 1950s, was a moderate . 127 .

japan at the crossroads program pursuing a gradualist approach to reform. The 1960 crisis had the effect of si­mul­ta­neously hardening the left wing’s re­sis­tance to reform while convincing the supporters of reform to pursue a more aggressive and accelerated course that could result only in failure. The result was a party that increasingly not only could not respond to popu­lar ­will but also would not respond to popu­lar ­will. As the structural reformer Kijima Masamichi somewhat bitterly recalled in ­later years, “The Eda Vision was accepted by the p ­ eople, but it was not accepted by the party. Or rather, ­because it was accepted by the p ­ eople, it was not accepted by the party.”30

The Communist Party’s Peaceful Line The 1960 protests ­were a major turning point in the JCP’s efforts to revive its po­liti­cal fortunes ­after a disastrous dalliance with violent revolution in the early 1950s. In the immediate postwar period, the JCP ­under chairman Nosaka Sanzō had fostered a “lovable” image and had sought to take advantage of the seemingly pro-­labor American-­led Occupation to bring about a peaceful socialist revolution. This strategy was highly successful at first, attracting for the party a tremendous following among student and ­labor movements and among intellectuals. However, in January 1950, in response to the Occupation-­backed Red Purge and at the behest of Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, the Soviet-­led Cominform published a tract heavi­ly criticizing the JCP’s peaceful line as “opportunism” and “glorifying American imperialism.” Competition between JCP factions to win Cominform approval in the wake of this devastating “Cominform Criticism” ultimately led by the summer of 1951 to a complete reversal in JCP tactics from the peaceful pursuit of revolution within demo­cratic institutions to an embrace of immediate and violent revolution along Maoist lines. The result was a brief campaign of terror in which activists threw Molotov cocktails at police boxes across Japan and cadres w ­ ere sent into the countryside with instructions to or­ga­nize oppressed farmers into “mountain guerrilla squads.” The new militant line was an unmitigated disaster. As Robert Scalapino has pointed out, “Japan circa 1950–1952 was not China circa 1935– . 128 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties 1949—in terrain, in socio-­political conditions, or in international involvements.”31 Most of the guerrillas ­were quickly arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, and in the 1952 general election, the voters displayed their ire at the ballot box and the Communist Party lost ­every single one of its thirty-­five seats in the lower h ­ ouse of the Diet. Over the next three years, the JCP gradually pulled back from the militant line, in practice if not in rhe­toric. Joseph Stalin died in 1953. At the 6th Party Congress in 1955, the JCP completely renounced the militant line and returned to a policy of peacefully pursuing revolution within demo­cratic institutions. The voters ­were slow to forgive, however, and for the remainder of the de­cade the party remained more or less excluded from repre­sen­ta­tion in the Diet. Meanwhile, like the other parties, the JCP continued to have trou­bles with factional infighting. Although the Maoists had been purged from the party following the failure of the militant line, the JCP remained split between the Kōza Ha (Lecture Faction) and the Rōnō Ha (Worker-­ Farmer Faction) over the ancient prewar ideological debate of which stage of cap­i­tal­ist development Japan was presently in. The party mainstream, led by Miyamoto Kenji and closer to Communist China, favored the Kōza Ha–­ influenced interpretation that Japan’s transition to a modern, cap­i­tal­ist democracy was still not complete and therefore what was needed was a “two-­stage” revolution—­first a “demo­cratic revolution” that would overthrow American imperialism and establish true democracy, and then a “socialist revolution” that would establish communism. On the other hand, the party’s anti-­mainstream, led by Kasuga Shōjirō and closer to the Soviet Union, favored the Rōnō Ha interpretation that Japan had already achieved capitalism, and called for immediate socialist revolution in Japan. At the 7th Party Congress in 1958, the anti-­mainstream still controlled 35 or 40 ­percent of the representatives to the Congress, and although it could not prevent the adoption of most of the proposals of the mainstream, it was strong enough to prevent adoption of the mainstream’s proposed po­liti­cal platform, and the ­matter of po­liti­cal policy was put off ­until the next party congress.32 Between the 7th Party Congress in 1958 and the 8th Party Congress in 1961, however, the Anpo protests took place, and over the course of the . 129 .

japan at the crossroads anti-­treaty movement, the JCP mainstream was able to dramatically strengthen its hand. Official status as a member of the Kokumin Kaigi, even though it was nominally just an “observer,” provided a boost to the party’s legitimacy, and over the course of the protests the party distinguished itself (both for better and for worse) as a strong advocate of peaceful, orderly, restrained protest. Moreover, enthusiasm for the cause, especially ­after the May 19 incident, seems to have provided the party with plentiful opportunities for recruitment. One longtime leader of the party, Hakamada Satomi, recalled that the JCP would offer ­people ­free bus rides to Tokyo to take part in the protests, and then on the return bus r­ ide home, it would attempt to enroll ­people in the party and get them to subscribe to the party’s daily newspaper Akahata (Red Flag), an effort Hakamada felt was highly successful. In any case, what­ever the methods employed, from the beginning of 1959 to the end of 1960, Communist Party membership doubled, from approximately 40,000 to approximately 80,000, and subscriptions to Akahata soared as well, from approximately 40,000 to nearly 100,000.33 Both figures continued to rise steadily thereafter, and by 1970, party membership had reached approximately 300,000 and Akahata circulation had reached 400,000, with an additional 1 million subscribers to the popu­lar Sunday edition.34 Perhaps most importantly, the party’s growing popularity began to translate into electoral success, with the JCP winning three seats in the 1960 general election (up from zero following the defection of its lone representative from 1958). The positive recognition the Communist Party garnered as a force for peace and moderation during the 1960 Anpo protests, especially from the mainstream media, as well as the impressive number of new recruits (most of whom ­were inclined to support the mainstream), greatly strengthened the position of the mainstream, who could now claim the protests as evidence of the validity and effectiveness of their favored policy line of pursuing a “united popu­lar front” against the “dual enemies” of “American imperialism” and “Japa­nese mono­poly capital.” Never before had the party come so close to achieving the “popu­lar front” that the Kōza Ha ideology demanded, and the feeling was exhilarating. Thus, the Communist Party stood out among the traditional leftist parties and organ­izations . 130 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties in how strident and enthusiastic it was in declaring the 1960 protests an almost unmitigated success. An official party history proclaimed, Over the course of the Anpo protests, the party strengthened its ties to the ­people, became more finely tempered [kitaerareta], and learned valuable lessons. As the entire party put ideas into practice, the correctness of the decisions made at the 7th Party Congress, the wisdom of the party leadership, and the correctness of the . . . ​united front . . . ​ aimed at overthrowing the domination of the two US / Japan ­enemies . . . ​was confirmed.35

Similarly, a communist intellectual looked back in l­ ater years and offered a glowing assessment: In ­those days, the Japan Communist Party had only a tiny handful of seats in the Diet and its orga­nizational strength was vastly inferior to that of ­today. But it viewed that [Anpo] strug­gle as a crucial and decisive ­battle against the attempt by the “dual enemies” of American imperialism and Japa­nese mono­poly capital to restore and strengthen militarism, imperialism, aggressive war, and the oppression of the masses, and consistently devoted all of its power to a united popu­lar front for in­de­pen­dence, peace, democracy, and higher living standards. In d ­ oing so, over the course of this strug­gle, the JCP expanded and strengthened its power, both quantitatively and qualitatively, by leaps and bounds.36

Sensing which way the wind was blowing, and having taken a decidedly more jaundiced view of the Anpo protests as having failed to develop into a true “socialist revolution,” Kasuga Shōjirō and the anti-­ mainstream went into open revolt on the eve of the 8th Party Congress in July 1961. Around 400 party members ­either resigned or ­were expelled from the party along with Kasuga, leaving the remnants of the anti-­ mainstream who ­were still party members with less than 10 ­percent of the delegates at the Congress.37 It was thus a ­simple ­matter for the mainstream to officially adopt the platform proposed at the 7th Party Congress with almost no changes, enshrining the “dual enemies” doctrine and the peaceful pursuit of a demo­cratic revolution via a united popu­lar front as the official party line, and thus the Communist Party turned even . 131 .

japan at the crossroads further away from confrontational “direct action” tactics such as ­those the anti-­mainstream had advocated during the 1960 protests. As a result, the last of the militant student activists who had remained loyal to the JCP during the Anpo protests followed Kasuga out of the party. The Zengakuren student organ­izations that remained affiliated with the party, u ­ nder the auspices of the party’s Demo­cratic Youth League (Minshu Seinen Dōmei, abbreviated Minseidō), thereafter adhered to the party line, refusing to participate with other student groups in any of the militant actions of the ­later 1960s. Thus, Minseidō would mark special events such as International Anti-­War Day by holding potluck picnics in parks while other student groups ­were hurling rocks at police, and generally focused what activism it engaged in on peaceful initiatives to improve campus life, a focus on mundane daily necessities that led Minseidō’s approach to be derisively nicknamed the “toilet paper line.”38 The purges continued over the next several years, and the party continued to grow ever more ideologically pure. By the end of 1964, the party had fi­nally eliminated all dissenters, even expelling two of its own sitting Diet members, longtime party leaders Shiga Yoshio and Suzuki Ichizō, that May, ­after they had stood on princi­ple and voted in f­avor of a nuclear test ban treaty that the Chinese Communist Party, and thus also the JCP Central Committee, opposed. On June 11, twelve prominent scholars, writers, and artists who had somehow survived all the purges and w ­ ere still members of the Communist Party (notably including Noma Hiroshi, Ide Takashi, Sata Ineko, Yamada Katsujirō, and Asakura Setsu) issued a statement condemning the expulsion of Shiga and Suzuki, which said in part: Having been deeply perplexed by the dilemma of w ­ hether we must blindly follow even such decisions as w ­ ill obviously lead to an anti-­ Soviet split, or w ­ hether we should observe that international discipline which is a prerequisite for communist parties in all countries, we have  come to the conclusion that the latter course would be in the true spirit and responsibility of communism.

The twelve members ­were officially expelled from the party in November 1964, signaling a final break between the JCP and the mainstream intellectuals who had supported it since the end of the war.39 . 132 .

The Waning of the Opposition Parties But despite the purges and turmoil within the party, by steadfastly avoiding trou­ble and adhering to the peaceful “demo­cratic revolution” line, and, like the emerging Kōmeitō party, focusing its attention on the plight of urban poor who had fallen through the cracks of the Income Doubling Plan, the JCP made steady gains at the ballot box, consistently increasing its vote share and number of Diet representatives in each election. The Communist Party did especially well at the level of prefectural assemblies, and by the 1972 general election it was sending thirty-­eight representatives to the lower h ­ ouse of the National Diet, signaling the completion of a remarkable recovery and return to relevance for a party that just twenty years earlier had been attempting to foment a violent revolution with guerrillas in the mountains and firebombs in the streets. The 1960 Anpo protests had been the crucial turning point in this pro­cess. Looking back in 1978, Hakamada Satomi wrote that the three-­ year period between the 7th and 8th Congresses was “the crucial period that decisively determined the basic line of the party u ­ ntil ­today.”40 But the conservative turn ­after Anpo and the party’s increasing focus on wooing voters and winning elections meant that the JCP, which had been so effective in mobilizing and turning out protesters for the Kokumin Kaigi’s united actions in 1960, would no longer be expending its orga­ nizational strength on confrontational extra-­parliamentary protests. Combined with the retreat of the JSP and Sōhyō from organ­izing mass movements, this meant that street protests would increasingly be left to the student radicals of the “New Left.”

. 133 .

chapter four

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­ali­tion

The opposition parties ­were not alone in their retreat from support for extra-­parliamentary po­liti­cal protest in the wake of Anpo. Shock, disappointment, and disagreement over the outcome of the 1960 protests led to a series of heated debates and divisions in almost e­ very member organ­ization of the Kokumin Kaigi, even including such groups as the anti-­nuclear organ­ization Gensuikyō and the Japan M ­ others’ Conference (Nihon Hahaoya Taikai), in what became known as “the season of schisms” (bunretsu no kisetsu). But of greatest importance to the ­future prospects of or­ga­nized mass movements in Japan w ­ ere the decline of ­labor militancy, the spectacular implosion of the student movement, and the retreat from activism of the so-­called progressive intellectuals (kakushin interi). By the mid-1960s, the co­ali­tion that had or­ga­nized the massive 1960 protests had completely collapsed, clearing the way for new types of social movements in Japan. Sōhyō and the ­Labor Movement ­after Anpo The year 1960 represented the high-­water mark of the postwar Japa­nese ­labor movement. Although the Kokumin Kaigi orga­nizational framework provided the veneer of a more broadly based movement, and while the provocations of the radical students of Zengakuren captured more headlines, the fact remains that the vast majority of protesters out in the streets during the Anpo protests w ­ ere members of, and w ­ ere mobilized by, ­labor ­unions. Insofar as the majority of ­these ­unions ­were affiliated with the Sōhyō federation, it is fair to say that Sōhyō was the primary driving force b ­ ehind the Anpo protests, and the federation . 134 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion ­ isplayed its orga­nizational strength by executing the three largest strikes d in Japa­nese history on June 4, June 15, and June 22. Upward of 6 million ­people ­were mobilized for each of ­these strikes, which ­were widely praised for being orderly and extremely well executed. But arguably the even more impor­tant event for the course of the Japa­nese ­labor movement in 1960 was the massive strike at the Mitsui Miike coal mine in northeastern Kyushu. The largest and most b ­ itter labor-­management dispute in Japan’s history, the Miike strug­gle began in 1959 when the Mitsui Mining Corporation, whose profits ­were ­under strain as a result of the “energy revolution” that saw Japan become increasingly reliant on cheap ­Middle Eastern oil rather than coal for its energy needs, announced that it would lay off thousands of workers at its coal mines, including 1,462 forced layoffs at Miike.1 The Miike Mine ­union was particularly strong and responded with massive demonstrations of more than 30,000 miners and their ­family members as well as rotating work stoppages and disobedience campaigns. In response to the threat at its largest and most productive coal mine, Mitsui deci­ded the time had come to destroy once and for all the power­ful Miike ­union, which had been a thorn in its side since the early 1950s. On January 25, the miners ­were locked out, and Mitsui began a protracted and concerted effort to split a “second ­union” off from the first. With donations pouring into the Miike ­union coffers from Sōhyō and even Zenrō and Eu­ro­pean and American ­labor organ­izations, on the one hand, and with the virtually unlimited financial resources of the entire Japa­nese business world being made freely available to Mitsui, on the other hand, the dispute rapidly took on the character of a titanic “all-­management vs. all-­labor” strug­gle (sōshihon tai sōrōdō no tatakai), which came to be seen as a decisive b ­ attle over the very ­future of ­unionism in Japan, and from which neither side felt it could back down. The conflict heated up in March when Mitsui, successful in forming a small second ­union, attempted to partially resume production in the mine. Violent clashes between the picketing strikers and right-­wing thugs brought to Kyushu by Mitsui as strikebreakers became almost a daily occurrence, and on March 29 a first-­union picketer, Kubo Kiyoshi, was stabbed to death by a com­pany goon. By May, with the first ­union’s . 135 .

japan at the crossroads strug­gle looking hopeless in the long run, support for the Miike miners among the other member ­unions of the National Federation of Coal Miners’ Unions (Tanrō) began to waver. However, following Kishi’s ramming of the Security Treaty through the Diet on May 19 and the subsequent explosion of nationwide popu­lar protest, the national l­abor movement was caught up in the enthusiasm and became enamored of the idea of “linking up Anpo and Miike” in a way that would make both movements more power­ful, and support for the Miike miners resolidified. Once the Anpo protests died away following ratification of the new treaty at the end of June, thousands of suddenly f­ree and hyped-up activists poured into northern Kyushu to support the miners, and the conflict at Miike escalated even further. The government, meanwhile, had mobilized a massive police force in support of the second u ­ nion. Tensions reached a climax in mid-­July as tens of thousands of miners and their supporters faced off in a showdown with 10,000 police in full riot gear at the all-­important Mikawa hopper, and a bloody “final b ­ attle of the hopper” (hoppā kessen) seemed imminent. Desperate to avoid another Anpo at Miike, newly installed prime minister Ikeda Hayato made ending the Miike strug­gle the first priority of his cabinet. To this end, he made the unconventional choice of appointing Ishida Hirohide, a member of the Ishibashi faction who was seen as more friendly ­toward ­unions than most, as ­labor minister and ordered him to end the Miike strug­gle as soon as pos­si­ble and at all costs. Thanks in no small part to national exhaustion with conflict following the bloody climax of the Anpo protests, Ishida was able to successfully convince both Mitsui and the miners to submit to binding arbitration by the Central ­Labor Relations Board (CLRB). Whereas Mitsui’s big-­ business backers had grown weary of a strug­gle that seemed to have no end in sight, the miners believed that ­because they had proven their resolve over so many months and could always go on strike again, the CLRB would have to give them a somewhat favorable ruling. However, when the CLRB issued its final decision on August 10, it called for the almost meaningless face-­saving gesture of having the com­pany “rescind” the firings while nevertheless insisting that ­those who had been laid off “voluntarily” retire. The Miike ­union was shocked and deci­ded to con. 136 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion tinue re­sis­tance, but when, ­after a month of agonizing debate, Tanrō and Sōhyō deci­ded to accept the proposal, the Miike local was cut off from all external support and ultimately had no choice but to give in. On ­December 1, 1960, the miners of the first Miike ­union returned to work, ending an unpre­ce­dented 312-­day lockout. The pliable second ­union soon became the main ­union at the mine, and the first ­union and the Japa­nese ­labor movement as a ­whole ­were forced to accept almost total defeat.2 The twin strug­gles of 1960 represented a major turning point for the postwar Japa­nese ­labor movement and Sōhyō in par­tic­u­lar. Japa­nese ­labor relations had been characterized by extraordinary ­labor militancy in the early postwar period, as l­ abor ­unions tested the limits of their new powers ­under the US-­written postwar constitution. Sōhyō had been founded in 1950 at the behest of US Occupation authorities as an anti-­ communist alternative to the then predominating JCP-­linked ­labor organ­izations, and had rapidly grown to become the largest ­labor federation in Japan. However, while Sōhyō generally refrained from overt relations with the JCP, it developed close ties with the Socialists, and u ­ nder charismatic secretary-­general Takano Minoru embarked on a series of ­bitter strikes and wide-­ranging leftist po­liti­cal protests from 1951 to 1955. Although Takano was successful in writing a vision of broad social and po­liti­cal activism into Sōhyō’s orga­nizational DNA, several high-­profile strikes he oversaw in the early 1950s ended in ­bitter failure, and some Sōhyō members complained that he was pursuing what they viewed as an overly po­liti­cal, “extreme leftist” agenda that gave short shrift to the basic economic concerns of workers. The final straw came in 1953 when Takano introduced his “peace force” thesis, whereby Sōhyō would align itself with the Soviet Union and Communist China as fellow “forces for peace,” as opposed to the “third force” thesis advocated by the left socialists, who sought to chart an in­de­pen­dent, neutralist course between the two Cold War camps. The following year, three of Sōhyō’s largest u ­ nions left the federation to join the old Sōdōmei federation in forming the more moderate and openly anti-­communist Zenrō ­labor federation. In response to this development, a slightly more moderate but still firmly leftist faction within Sōhyō aligned with the left socialists ousted Takano and installed as secretary-­general the colorful president of the . 137 .

japan at the crossroads Federation of Synthetic Chemical Workers’ Unions (Gōka Rōren), Ōta Kaoru. Ōta, along with his right-­hand man Iwai Akira from the public railroad ­union Kokurō, ran Sōhyō for the next de­cade. Ōta and Iwai generally adhered to Takano’s vision of a wide-­ranging po­liti­cal activism, but they steered clear of open support for the communist camp and sought ways to more directly address workers’ immediate economic concerns. One answer they came up with was scheduled strikes known as “spring wage offensives” (shuntō), which had originally been proposed by Ōta in 1954. The spring wage offensive was a response to the weakness of the Japa­ nese ­labor movement, which, unlike industry-­or trade-­wide ­unions in the West, was based on vertically integrated company-­wide enterprise ­unions specific to each individual com­pany. Ōta describes how enterprise ­unions became increasingly reluctant to go on strike, owing to the not unreasonable fear that if only one com­pany’s workers went on strike for better wages and working conditions, competing companies would simply snap up market share, hurting both the com­pany and its workers. Ōta’s solution was to schedule a date when all Sōhyō ­unions everywhere would coordinate and go on strike together for one day. Ōta recalled his reasoning: “The ­whole was weak, so our only option was to set up some sort of schedule and by ‘holding each other’s hands,’ so-­to-­speak, help each other out as much as pos­si­ble.”3 The spring wage offensive bore immediate results as an effective tactic for securing annual wage increases, but prior to 1960, it remained a secondary consideration within Sōhyō’s overall strategy. Although the spring offensive grew steadily from 700,000 participants in 1955 to 2.4 million in 1959, many of Sōhyō’s member ­unions ­were still reluctant to take part, and the wage increases generally failed to match the annual growth rate of the Japa­nese economy, averaging 7 ­percent per year and never reaching 10 ­percent.4 Meanwhile, Ōta and Iwai continued to promote a set of tactics known collectively as “workplace strug­gle” (shokuba tōsō), whereby workers would interpose themselves between management and the product by taking direct action at the site of production, in order to seize control of their own working conditions and force concessions. To this end, Sōhyō . 138 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion released “Draft Orga­nizational Princi­ples” on the occasion of the federation’s 10th congress in 1958, which declared “workplace strug­gle” to be the fundamental basis of the ­labor movement. The Miike strug­gle, with its hand-­to-­hand combat for control of the crucial hopper, would become the apotheosis of the workplace strug­gle strategy. By the beginning of 1959, Sōhyō was riding high. The “Ōta-­Iwai line” of balancing po­liti­cal strug­gles with wage offensives, and often linking the two, seemed to be bearing fruit, and the recent protests the federation had or­ga­nized with the Socialist Party against the Police Duties Bill had been, in most regards, a spectacular success. Meanwhile, the Socialists had been making small but steady gains in ­every election. But over the course of 1959, the old animosities between the two halves of the JSP that had merged in 1955 broke out into the open, and a dispute raged within the party and the ­unions over how to conduct the protests against the Security Treaty, specifically over ­whether to cooperate with the Communists, and over the ­causes of what was perceived to have been the JSP’s poor showing in the April 1959 upper h ­ ouse elections. When Zenrō and another Sōhyō offshoot, Shin Sanbetsu, indicated that they would rather not protest at all than protest alongside the Communists, Ōta ultimately deci­ded to work with the Communists, declaring in June, “I would rather go into ­battle with the Communists than with feckless Zenrō and Shin Sanbetsu.”5 Thereafter Ōta and Sōhyō collaborated with the left wing of the JSP to drive the right wing ­under Nishio Suehiro out of the party. To make m ­ atters worse, t­here seemed to be signs that ele­ ments within some of Sōhyō’s u ­ nions, most notably the crucial public railway ­union Kokurō, w ­ ere having second thoughts about their affiliation with Sōhyō. Against this background of the schism within the Socialist Party, the need to appease public sector u ­ nions like Kokurō, and the growing Anpo protests, Ōta and Iwai sought to formulate a new vision for Sōhyō that would distinguish the organ­ization from its more “feckless” brethren and encapsulate its appeal. On January 28, 1960, just a few days ­after Nishio announced the formation of the new DSP, the Working Comrades Association (Rōdō Dōshi Kai), an organ­ization closely linked to Sōhyō’s central leadership, issued a policy paper titled “Advancing the L ­ abor . 139 .

japan at the crossroads Movement,” which called for a “new, Japanese-­style ­unionism” (Nihonshiki shin rōdō kumiaishugi) that, in addition to “advocating the most immediate demands of workers suffering from low wages, long hours, and attacks on their rights,” would also seek to “strengthen ­union organ­ ization” by pursuing “social and po­liti­cal strug­gles” as part of a larger program of “po­liti­cal enlightenment.” In an appeal to Japa­nese exceptionalism, the paper argued that Japan’s unique system of enterprise u ­ nions meant that attempts to pursue l­abor activism along Western lines w ­ ere doomed to failure, and that only by linking the economic and po­liti­cal concerns could Japa­nese ­unions truly advance the cause of the working class. The paper also underscored Sōhyō’s commitment to Marxism, speaking condescendingly of the need to “educate” Japan’s workers in order to raise their class consciousness and transcend the atomization of the enterprise u ­ nions.6 In short, it was a grandiose vision of the Japa­nese ­labor movement and Sōhyō’s role within that movement that doubled down on Sōhyō’s tradition of wide-­ranging social and po­liti­cal activism. This vision met a premature end with the twin defeats of Anpo and Miike in 1960. The two strug­gles left Ōta feeling exhausted and demoralized. He felt that the main left-­wing organ­izations had failed to exercise proper leadership over the masses, had failed to adequately link the two strug­gles, and had failed to take advantage of the mass protest to educate workers and build up class consciousness. Thus, the Anpo and Miike strug­gles ­were failures that could not become the basis of a lasting strug­gle. Looking back in ­later years he wrote, What I especially want to make clear is that, at the climax of the Anpo strug­gle, of course we, the leaders of Sōhyō, but no less the Socialist and Communist Parties, frankly speaking failed to exercise leadership. We lost control. Vari­ous ­people are saying that they took the lead, but the truth is, it was actually a spontaneous rising up of the masses, the climax of an awe-­inspiring mass movement. . . . ​If the Anpo strug­gle had been gradually built up to over time, over the course of a larger number of well-­organized protests, it would not have suddenly receded like that, and it would have been pos­si­ble to keep the strug­gle ­going to some extent.7

. 140 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion But Ōta was also beginning to have larger doubts about what the Japa­nese ­labor movement could achieve. Shortly ­after the Anpo protests, he went on an overseas tour, meeting with ­labor leaders in Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope. Ōta ­later recalled a conversation he had in France with his French counterpart, Benoît Frachon, the secretary-­general of the Confédération générale du travail (General Federation of L ­ abor), in which Frachon told him that even when you have put in tremendous efforts over long years into the strug­gle, you cannot expect spectacular results. Instead, you have to take what satisfaction you can in the fact that, even if only a ­little, you have arrested the onrushing tide of conservatism and fascism. This conversation reminded Ōta of how the Japa­nese Marxist economist Ōuchi Hyōe had argued that in times of economic expansion, a turn ­toward conservatism is almost inevitable, and it is a worthwhile achievement if you can do even a ­little bit to hinder it. “­After Anpo and Miike ­there ­were still many more strug­gles to come,” Ōta wrote, “but that kind of feeling came to form the basis of my approach to leadership, and became the foundation of my thinking. In any case, even ­today, I still have not fully come to grips with what Anpo and Miike truly meant.”8 Indeed, ­after 1960, in the context of unpre­ce­dented economic growth and burgeoning “I’ve-­got-­mine-­ism” (watashi-­shugi), even among the leftist ­labor movement, Ōta gave up on ­grand dreams for the Japa­nese l­abor movement and was content to s­ ettle for what­ever minor victories he could claim. Although Ōta and Sōhyō ­were reluctant to support what they felt to be the excessively radical “structural reform” platform of the Socialist Party ­under Eda Saburō, and continued to take part in po­liti­cal strug­gles from time to time, they gradually pulled back from po­liti­cal ­battles and especially the doctrine of “workplace strug­gle.” The focus of their activity became the increasingly successful spring wage offensives, which ­after 1960 routinely won wage increases for regular workers in excess of 10 ­percent and often outpaced the overall economic growth rate. Against the backdrop of the Income Doubling Plan and continuation of unpre­ ce­dented high-­speed growth, the emphasis of Sōhyō’s activities shifted decisively away from working conditions to wage increases. . 141 .

japan at the crossroads At Sōhyō’s 19th  Congress in August  1962, a new “Orga­nizational Policy Plan” was proposed that, while not explic­itly renouncing “workplace strug­gle,” called for a reconsideration of “the nature of the ­labor movement, including workplace action.” The replacement of “workplace strug­gle” with “workplace action” (shokuba katsudō) was in itself telling. The plan emphasized that “workplace action” should be pursued only in accordance with the “unifying function” of l­abor u ­ nions. The Miike strug­gle had shown that “workplace strug­gle had been pursued too one-­ sidedly, as if . . . ​it ­were the only way to strengthen a ­union, and ­there was almost no effort to place workplace strug­gle or workplace action in the context of the overall united strug­gle across industries.” The Miike experience had also shown that “when workplace strug­gles reach the point of actually halting production, they basically become equivalent to a strike. Therefore, the basic princi­ple of our movement ­shall be to redirect ­these [efforts] upwards to the higher-­level organ­izations and aim for the resolution of prob­lems within the context of a wider strug­gle.” This draft plan became Sōhyō’s de facto policy and at the 1964 congress was officially ­adopted almost without revision. Over the course of the 1960s, Sōhyō increasingly pursued a policy of gathering worker grievances and forwarding them up the chain from regional headquarters to the national headquarters, and then engaging in prior consultations with corporations and the government to win some minor concessions and head off the need for any sort of workplace action.9 Meanwhile, Sōhyō gradually but increasingly lost ground to less militant and less ideologically oriented federations such as Zenrō and Chūritsu Rōren. The establishment of the moderate and West-­oriented Japan Council of the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF-­JC) in 1964 further hastened this decline. The decline was especially noticeable among private sector ­unions, as an era of near-­zero unemployment and spectacular annual wage increases made ­labor militancy and its attendant risks seem increasingly unpalatable. Public sector wages, however, failed to keep pace with ­those of the private sector, which in combination with the ban on public sector strikes accounted for public sector u ­ nions’ dependence on Sōhyō’s militancy, and the federation, in turn, became increasingly focused on the needs and demands of public sector workers. . 142 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion The annual spring wage offensive continued to grow in size, but Sōhyō’s leadership role waned as private sector u ­ nions increasingly distanced themselves from Sōhyō’s more militant line and began organ­izing their own spring offensives beyond Sōhyō’s control. Fi­nally, in a summit with Ikeda on the eve of the 1964 spring offensive, Ōta and Iwai cut a deal permanently renouncing public sector militancy in exchange for a promise that public sector wages would see increases in line with ­those of the private sector. The federation of public sector ­unions (Kōrōkyō) within Sōhyō had scheduled a strike for April 17, but ­there was talk within the LDP of invoking the law against public sector strikes to heavi­ly punish anyone who participated, and public sector ­union solidarity was wavering. On April 16, Ōta and Iwai went, hats in hand, to Ikeda’s official residence. Ōta recalled, When I saw the condition that Kōrōkyō was in, I felt like I wanted to call the w ­ hole ­thing off, if pos­si­ble. But giving up without getting anything at all was of course out of the question, and I thought that asking Kōrōkyō to submit to some sort of arbitration would be foolhardy. . . . The reason Prime Minister Ikeda was willing to hold such a summit—­and this is merely conjecture on my part—­was that the LDP was planning to hold a presidential election in July, and he feared that his chances would be damaged if a general strike broke out. . . . ​ The extremists within the LDP ­were quite power­ful at that time, and it seemed clear they w ­ ere actually hoping that we would go ahead with the strike so that they could crush us. . . . ­Under t­hese circumstances, Iwai and I held the summit with Prime Minister Ikeda and Chief Cabinet Secretary Kurogane [Yasumi] at the prime minister’s official residence on the day before the scheduled strike. What I told them was extremely frank and to the point: “We do not particularly want to hold the strike ­either. But at the same time if we cannot get some sort of concession, we feel compelled to go ahead with it, even though it ­will destroy us. I am sure you, Prime Minister Ikeda, would rather avoid a strike if at all pos­ si­ble. It w ­ ill be big trou­ble for both of us if we cannot come up with some sort of plan that we can both swallow, ­will it not?” To which the Prime Minister replied, “Indeed, that is true.” “In that case, please

. 143 .

japan at the crossroads promise us you w ­ ill give us wage increases in line with t­ hose of the private sector,” I urged. Thereupon the Ōta-­Ikeda Summit “Points of Agreement” ­were discussed and finalized.10

As a result of this summit, Sōhyō’s spring offensive became an annual event recognized and approved of by the government, and rapidly evolved into its pres­ent form as an unthreatening, ritualized, one-­day display of u ­ nion solidarity resulting in annual wage increases that have already been negotiated and approved in advance. Fi­nally, in 1966, dispirited by weakness and dissension in the left wing of the ­labor movement, Ōta resigned as chairman of Sōhyō and returned to his old position as head of the Federation of Synthetic Chemical Workers’ Unions. Ōta’s resignation represented a shifting of the tides. Although Sōhyō was not entirely through with l­abor militancy, and did preside over some significant strikes in the 1970s, including the disastrous “Strike for the Right to Strike” (sutoken suto) in 1975 that shattered the power of Kokurō, its days as an effective organ­izing force ­behind large-­scale mass movements ­were over and the organ­ization itself was already in terminal decline. Moreover, insofar as the JSP grew increasingly dependent on Sōhyō to turn out the vote during the 1960s and 1970s, its strength waned in tandem with Sōhyō’s. The central pillar of the 1960 Anpo protests—­the so-­called JSP-­Sōhyō block—­had been carted from the stage.

The Splintering of Zengakuren and the Rise of the New Left Although the strength of the l­abor movement and the influence of the progressive intellectuals helped the 1960 protests achieve their im­mense size and scope, it was the radicalism of the student activists of the power­ful All-­Japan Federation of Students’ Self-­Governing Associations (Zengakuren) that endowed the protests with their confrontational and potentially socially destabilizing character. However, the 1960 protests shattered the Zengakuren as a unified force for organ­izing and channeling student activism, and thus marked a major turning point in the history of the postwar Japa­nese student movement. . 144 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion Zengakuren had been or­ga­nized by the Communist Party in September 1948 in an effort to increase student organ­izing capabilities in the wake of a failed nationwide student protest against a Ministry of Education plan to dramatically increase tuition fees. ­Because the new nationwide organ­ization was composed of the student government associations (gakusei jichikai) of each individual university, into which all students ­were automatically enrolled and for the benefit of which dues ­were automatically deducted from students’ tuition, from the very beginning Zengakuren was well funded and possessed a potentially massive organ­izing potential. Its power inevitably grew in direct proportion to the ongoing rapid expansion of Japan’s university student population; at the height of its power during the 1960 protests, Zengakuren counted 250 jichikai at 110 schools as members, which represented a total strength of around 290,000 students.11 From the beginning, the organ­ization was strongly ­under the sway of Communist Party organizers, and virtually all of its leaders ­were Communist Party members. Over the course of the 1950s, Zengakuren took part in a large number of protest movements, including the protests against the Peace Treaty from 1951 to 1952, the strug­gle against the Anti-­Subversive Activities Law from 1952 to 1953, the b ­ attle against the expansion of the US air base at Sunagawa from 1955 to 1956, vari­ous anti-­nuclear protests, the 1958 movement against the proposed Police Duties Bill, and many o ­ thers. Over the course of ­these strug­gles, the students in­ven­ted, developed, and refined a wide variety of protest tactics and technologies, including “Diet Petition” demonstrations (kokkai seigan demo), sit-­ins (suwarikomi), and the so-­called snake dance ( jiguzagu demo, literally “zigzag demonstration” in Japa­nese) that would become famous around the world as a result of the 1960 demonstrations. However, over the course of the 1950s the majority of the student movement became increasingly alienated from the Communist Party. When the JCP turned to violent revolution in the early 1950s, large numbers of students had adhered to the party line. For many students who had loyally gone into the mountains as guerrillas or been arrested and prosecuted for hurling Molotov cocktails at police, the reversal at the 6th Party Congress in 1955 was a deep betrayal that exposed the JCP . 145 .

japan at the crossroads leadership as “opportunistic” “bureaucrats” interested only in their own po­liti­cal survival. Only adding to the confusion was Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin at the Soviet Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress in 1956 and the Soviet Union’s brutal suppression of the Hungarian revolt that fall.12 Although Zengakuren, ­under the direction of the JCP, briefly attempted to transform itself into a student welfare organ­ization in the summer of 1955, devoted to sports and cultural activities such as dances and potlucks and addressing its activism only at campus life, a majority of the student activists rejected the new line and threw themselves into fighting the base expansion at Sunagawa. Over the next few years, thousands of students left or w ­ ere expelled from the Communist Party. Searching for a socialist theory that was more suitable for Japan than ­either Stalinism or Maoism, many students turned to the original writings of Karl Marx or the philosophy of Leon Trotsky. In 1957 a group of communist dissidents, including a number of the student activists, formed the Revolutionary Communist League (Kakumeiteki Kyōsanshugisha Dōmei, abbreviated Kakukyōdō), which soon fell u ­ nder the sway of the charismatic half-­blind Trotskyist po­liti­cal phi­los­o­pher Kuroda Kan’ichi. In December 1958, another group of student activists formed the Communist League (Kyōsanshugisha Dōmei, abbreviated Kyōsandō, but better known by its German-­derived nickname, the “Bund” [Bunto]). Deeply Marxist but virulently anti-­JCP in orientation, ­these two “anti-­ imperialist, anti-­Stalinist” organ­izations would take on starring roles in the 1960 Anpo protests. By the start of the Anpo protests in 1959, activists affiliated with ­these two organ­izations had come to dominate the central committee of Zengakuren, as well as approximately 60 ­percent of member university student governments, with students loyal to the JCP controlling the other 40  ­percent. Prior to 1960, although ­battles between dif­fer­ent factions within the student movement could be intense, they w ­ ere conducted primarily within the demo­cratic framework of the Zengakuren organ­ ization, via fierce election campaigns to win control of individual student governments or seats on the central committees of the regional or national organ­izations. The students’ intense all-­out ­battle against the Se. 146 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion curity Treaty, however, produced a hot­house atmosphere in which cooler heads and adherence to the organ­ization’s demo­cratic norms and traditions could not prevail. The mighty Zengakuren was destroyed. The fissures, in fact, began to appear before the Anpo protests had even ended. Heading into the protests in 1959, the factions within Zengakuren had been united in opposition to the treaty: Kakukyōdō and the Bund opposed the treaty b ­ ecause it would strengthen Japa­nese “mono­ poly capital,” while the JCP-­linked students saw the treaty as deepening Japan’s subordination to what they viewed as the main ­enemy, American imperialism. However, splits rapidly emerged over tactics: whereas the Bund and Kakukyōdō-­linked students in the Zengakuren mainstream preferred to direct their attacks at domestic mono­poly capital and thus favored protests at the Diet and the prime minister’s official residence, the JCP-­linked anti-­mainstream preferred to attack American imperialism by protesting outside the US embassy. Moreover, the mainstream, especially the members of the Bund, was more amenable to the use of “force” ( jitsuryoku) and “direct action” as means of “revealing the contradictions of capitalism,” which led the JCP and the anti-­mainstream to denounce them as “Trotskyite provocateurs” advocating “extreme-­left adventurism.” The dispute fi­nally came to a head in the aftermath of the Bund’s premeditated invasion of the Diet compound on November 27, 1959. The JCP issued blistering condemnations, and amid public disapproval, a movement began within the Kokumin Kaigi to expel Zengakuren from the protest co­ali­tion. Then on January 17, the Zengakuren mainstream occupied the Haneda Airport terminal in an attempt to prevent Kishi from flying to the United States to sign the new treaty. A ­ fter a lengthy strug­gle, the police ­were able to clear the building and Kishi departed successfully. The mainstream bitterly resented that the anti-­mainstream had refused to participate in the Haneda incident and sought revenge. In February, the recalcitrant Kansai branch of Kakukyōdō was removed from the Zengakuren central committee, and then at the tumultuous 15th Zengakuren National Congress in mid-­March, the JCP-­linked and Kakukyōdō Kansai factions ­were barred from entering the meeting on the pretext of not having paid sufficient dues.13 . 147 .

japan at the crossroads Henceforth, Zengakuren, although nominally still united, was clearly divided into two halves, which generally mounted dif­fer­ent types of protests in dif­fer­ent locations. The mainstream continued to focus its efforts on invading the Diet compound, while the anti-­mainstream focused on the US embassy. It was the anti-­mainstream that caused the Hagerty incident on June 10, since Hagerty was an “agent of US imperialism,” while it was the mainstream that led the charge into the Diet on June 15. Ultimately it was the perceived failure of the Anpo strug­gle that sundered Zengakuren once and for all. On the occasion of the 16th National Congress that began on July 4, 1960, the Bund’s politburo (seijikyoku) sparked a firestorm within the Bund by declaring that “the Anpo strug­gle was at best an unfinished, ‘Pyrrhic victory.’ . . . ​From the perspective of the Proletariat, it was not a victory at all. It was nothing but a major setback on the road to victory.”14 Debate raged within the Bund over the next few months regarding exactly what sort of setback the Anpo strug­gle had been and who was to blame for its failure, and the organ­ization rapidly disintegrated into three warring factions: the Revolution Faction (Kakumei no Tsūshin Ha, abbreviated Kakutsūha), the Proletariat Faction (Puroretaria Tsūshin Ha, abbreviated Purotsūha), and the ­Battle Flag Faction (Senki Ha). The Revolution Faction’s position was articulated in an article published by the Tokyo University cell of the Bund in the August issue of the Bund’s newsletter Senki (­Battle Flag). Titled “The Failure of the Anpo Strug­gle and the Formation of the Ikeda Cabinet: The Numerous Theoretical Prob­lems with the Anpo Strug­gle,” the article castigated the other members of the Bund for the “criminal malpractice” of “misdiagnosing” the Anpo strug­gle as a “preliminary skirmish” (zenshōsen) rather than as the “final ­battle” (kessen) of the class war. According to the anonymous authors of this tract, this misapprehension led much of the Bund to not make a truly all-­out effort to stop the treaty’s ratification, and was now leading them to ignore or make light of the failure of the Anpo strug­gle, shrugging it off as a mere “strategic detour.”15 The Proletariat Faction responded that the Bund’s strategy during the Anpo strug­gle had been fundamentally correct, and that the Revolution Faction’s argument amounted to “throwing the baby out with the bath. 148 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion water” in refusing to recognize the gains made in the protests. The Proletariat Faction insisted on sticking to the “Himeoka Doctrine” as articulated by Bund ideologue Himeoka Reiji in 1959, which called for a long and protracted strug­gle against Japa­nese mono­poly capital.16 Meanwhile, two other members of the Bund, Yamazaki Mamoru and Tagawa Kazuo, who would ­later become the nucleus of the ­Battle Flag Faction, penned an article in Senki, titled “Overcoming Subjectivism and Petty-­Bourgeois Radicalism,” in which they totally repudiated the Bund as an organ­ization of “petty bourgeois radicals” and “individualists” who foolishly expected a socialist revolution to just “spontaneously generate” in response to a few radical actions.17 Thereafter, the Revolution Faction threw itself into an all-­out campaign to forge a nationwide movement to topple the Ikeda cabinet, but when such a movement failed to materialize, the faction dissolved in despair. Meanwhile, most of the Proletariat Faction and all of the B ­ attle Flag Faction joined Kakukyōdō in the fall of 1960. This marked the end of the original Bund, less than two years a­ fter its formation, and left a  power vacuum at the top of the original Zengakuren, which the Kakukyōdō-­affiliated students, now having or­ga­nized themselves into the Marxist Student League (Marugakudō), eagerly stepped in to fill. Meanwhile, the JCP-­dominated student governments broke away from Zengakuren entirely to form a rival Zengakuren, officially called Zenjiren (an abbreviation for Zenkoku Gakusei Jichikai Renraku Kaigi, the All-­ Japan Liaison Council of Student Governments), and the Socialist Party, seeking to carve out its own slice of the student movement, established a party youth wing called the Socialist Youth League (Shaseidō). By the time of the twenty-­seventh meeting of the original Zengakuren’s Central Committee in April 1961, the organ­ization had fallen ­under the control of Kakukyōdō’s Marugakudō. In July, Marugakudō presided over the 17th Zengakuren National Congress. The JCP-­affiliated members of Zenjiren boycotted the Congress, signaling their final break with the remains of the original Zengakuren, while the last remains of the Bund along with Shaseidō attempted to storm the Congress but w ­ ere beaten off by Marugakudō students wielding squared timbers (­later known as gebabō, “vio­lence sticks”), in one of the earliest examples of . 149 .

japan at the crossroads so-­called uchi-­geba, or internecine vio­lence between student activists (the geba in gebabō and uchi-­geba is an abbreviation of the loanword gebaruto, from the German Gewalt, “force, vio­lence”). Having driven its rivals off and with the Congress all to itself, the Marugakudō voted its own members to all leadership positions and implemented an uncompromising “Anti-­Imperialist, Anti-­Stalinist” line that strictly adhered to Kuroda Kan’ichi’s teachings. Thereafter, the student movement continued its rapid disintegration into a dizzying array of warring “sects.” Among the major developments, in August 1961, on the eve of the JCP’s 8th Party Congress, the JCP’s own “structural reform” faction, led by Kasuga Shōjirō, was driven out of the party and many of the student activists who had thus far remained loyal to the JCP left with him, forming the Structural Reform Faction (Kōkai Ha) Zengakuren. Then in early 1963, Kakukyōdō itself split in two over the issue of ­whether to pursue socialist revolution in alliance with ­others, as had been done during the 1960 protests, or to focus on strengthening and expanding a single revolutionary organ­ization, with the resultant split of the Marugakudō into the Central Core Faction (Chūkaku Ha) Zengakuren (which favored allying with ­others) and the Revolutionary Marxist Faction (Kakumaru Ha) Zengakuren (which followed Kuroda’s line of ­going it alone). By early 1963, ­there ­were at least five major radical leftist student groups claiming the title of Zengakuren (a situation that more or less continues ­today), along with the Socialist Party’s Shaseidō, and by 1970 ongoing schisms would see t­ hese groups splinter further into more than forty other distinguishable factions and subfactions.18 In the aftermath of Anpo, the student movement entered a relatively quiet phase from 1961 to 1966. Although the student activists continued to take part in vari­ous protests such as the movements against the ­Political Vio­lence Prevention Bill, Japan–­South ­Korea diplomatic normalization, and the docking of US Navy nuclear-­powered submarines at Japa­nese ports, turnouts ­were low, and violent incidents ­were few and far between. The 1960 crisis and the resultant politics of Income Doubling had turned the interests of the general populace away from ideological ­battles and driven a wedge between the masses and the student . 150 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion activists, whom average Japa­nese ­people increasingly came to view as violent and dangerous provocateurs. Deeply disillusioned with the failure of the Anpo protests and with the difficulties of keeping an energetic mass movement g­ oing in an era of unpre­ce­dented economic growth, and thoroughly disgusted with the or­ga­nized left as represented by the socialist and communist parties, the student activists increasingly turned inward, searching for some sort of new direction and immersing themselves in internecine strug­gles as the schisms proceeded apace. Many student activists began to reject or­ga­ nized hierarchies of any kind and, inspired by French existentialist phi­ los­o­phers and the homegrown philosophical ramblings of Yoshimoto Takaaki, embraced notions of autonomy ( jiritsusei), radical subjectivity, and an endless, almost masochistic, self-­negation and self-­criticism that characterized the “New Left” student activism of the ­later 1960s. In May 1963, an extremely prescient Asahi Shinbun editorial titled “Universities in Crisis” warned that the student movement was on the verge of r­ unning off the rails. Taking up the example of Japan’s elite Tokyo University, it pointed out a trend among students of increasing calls to attack the system and argued that the university was “beginning to collapse from within.” In the wake of Anpo, the students had lost their ideological footing: “The student radicals of ten years ago judged every­thing simple-­mindedly through the prism of Marxism. But in the confused atmosphere of the pres­ent day, the meaning of Marxism itself has become subject to competing interpretations, and determining the increasingly varying ideology of Tokyo University students has become an increasingly complex task.” The editorial concluded with an ominous warning: “The real crisis in our universities is that nobody is attempting to deal with the growing confusion on the campuses.”19 By the latter half of the 1960s, the more moderate students had been driven from or abandoned the movement, and only the most radical extremist fringe remained. Fi­nally, in December 1966, the Chūkaku faction of Kakukyōdō joined with the “Second Bund” and the Shaseidō subfaction Kaihō Ha (Liberation Faction) to form an alliance known as the “Three-­Faction” (Sanpa) Zengakuren, which gave up on peaceful protest . 151 .

japan at the crossroads and deci­ded to turn to more violent tactics. On October 8, 1967, in what became known as the “Second Haneda incident,” the Sanpa Zengakuren, armed with wooden posts and helmets, attempted to ­battle their way through a police cordon to forcibly prevent Prime Minister Satō Eisaku from flying to the United States to meet with President Lyndon Johnson. This event, in which a young student was killed, launched a vicious spiral of increasing vio­lence and extremism driving out the less violent and less extreme and leading to further extremism and vio­lence, leading eventually to the orgy of self-­destruction at Japa­nese universities conducted ­under the banner of the nihilistic All-­Campus Joint-­Struggle Councils (Zenkyōtō) in 1968–1969, bloody b ­ attles to prevent the construction of Narita Airport, and ultimately culminating in the most inward-­looking extremists slaughtering themselves in the Asama Sansō incident of 1972 and the most outward-­looking extremists launching an international campaign of terrorism in the form of the Japan Red Army, which was active throughout the world in the 1970s and 1980s and was b ­ ehind the infamous Lod Airport Massacre, also in 1972.20 The road to Asama Sansō and Lod began with the failure of the 1960 Anpo protests. Prior to 1960, the Japa­nese student movement, as represented by Zengakuren, was at times unruly but was a unified organ­ization structured along demo­cratic centralist lines that had a large degree of mainstream ac­cep­tance, as evidenced by its ac­cep­tance into the directorate of a peaceful nationwide popu­lar movement. ­After Anpo, the Japa­nese student movement was increasingly fragmented and out of the mainstream, rejected democracy as part and parcel of its rejection of rules and hierarchy, and resorted to increasing amounts of vio­lence. Ultimately, disillusionment at the “failure” of the Anpo protests caused the student radicals to give up not only on orthodox Marxism and the Communist Party, but also on peaceful, or­ga­nized protest, and fi­nally even democracy itself. The crucial precursor to the emergence of this new direction in the student movement, which ultimately became known as the “New Left” (shinsayoku, as opposed to the “Old Left” represented by the socialist and communist parties and Sōhyō), was the Bund. With its rejection of traditional authority figures and its employment of force ( jitsuryoku) as part . 152 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion of its “direct action” assaults on the Diet, the Bund carved out a space for a new type of student protest that was less ideologically grounded and less concerned with achieving concrete ends than with creating “spectacles” that cunningly made use of the emerging mass mediums of tele­vi­sion and radio to attract public attention and “confront contradictions” inherent within Japa­nese democracy. But while the Bund in l­ater years has frequently been lumped together with New Left groups such as the Zenkyōtō (All-­Campus Joint-­ Struggle Councils) that led the 1968–1969 university riots, it is impor­tant to recognize the transitional and, in many ways, unique character of the Bund. The Zenkyōtō groups ­were nihilistic almost to the point of being apocalyptic, inward looking, and radically egalitarian, opposing hierarchy and orga­nizational structure. B ­ ecause universities and intellectuals could only survive based on the exploitation of the working classes, every­one at the university, including the students themselves, had to be recognized as “victimizers” (kagaisha), and thus Zenkyōtō’s slogan was “smash the university” (daigaku funsai). Every­thing was defined in absolutes and set in total opposition. Ultimately, ­either the university would have to be smashed, or Zenkyōtō would.21 The Bund, however, was structurally an Old Left organ­ization, at least in its commitment to demo­cratic centralism, with its multilevel hierarchy and “central committee” with attached “politburo.” Moreover, the Bund was fundamentally outward looking in its attention-­seeking be­hav­ior and had no time for self-­criticism or even much self-­reflection, at least not ­until ­after Anpo. The Bund was also a fun-­loving group, known for constant cheerful joking and raucous drinking parties, and viewed the protests as a kind of game, in contrast to the image of Zenkyōtō activists as deeply earnest and almost morosely serious.22 Perhaps most importantly, although the Bund did its share of smashing, its activism came to be couched in terms of defending Japa­nese democracy and the Japa­nese nation from a resurgent fascism and the machinations of mono­poly capital, whereas the Zenkyōtō militants had no objective beyond destroying, ­whether it be the university, the nation-­state, or their own per­sis­tent inner victimizer. This may in part explain why protesters of the 1968–1969 generation at least initially looked back on their student days with . 153 .

japan at the crossroads confusion, embarrassment, and even shame, whereas the student protesters of 1960 tended to look back on their movement with wry amusement, nostalgia, and not a small degree of pride. Their movement in l­ ater years came to take on the rosy hues of nationalism and patriotism, whereas the ­later student protesters, who unlike the 1960 generation faced blackballing from jobs and severe public opprobrium, came to be viewed as misguided and miscreant extremists.

The Intellectuals Retreat Alongside Sōhyō and the Zengakuren, the third major pillar of the 1960 mass movement was the “postwar progressive intellectuals” (sengo kakushin interi), who actively and almost unanimously supported the anti-­treaty cause. A large number of well-­known and influential postwar intellectuals have become famously associated with the 1960 Anpo strug­gle as a result of their actions during the climax of the protests in May and June. The beloved scholar of Chinese lit­er­a­ture Takeuchi Yoshimi, for example, made national headlines when he publicly resigned his post as a full professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University immediately following the ramming of the treaty through the Diet on May 20, arguing that, given Kishi’s actions, he could not in good conscience continue to serve the state as the employee of a public university. On May 31, he distributed a polemic titled “Democracy or Dictatorship?,” in which he breathlessly declared, “Democracy or dictatorship? This is the only and greatest point of contention. That which is not democracy is dictatorship, and that which is not dictatorship is democracy. ­There is no ­middle ground.”23 Another intellectual well known for his role in the Anpo protests was Tsurumi Shunsuke, a younger scholar who, following Takeuchi’s example, similarly resigned his post at the Tokyo Institute of Technology on May  30. Thereafter, along with the other intellectuals in his study group “The Science of Thought” (Shisō no Kakagu), such as Kuno Osamu and Takabatake Michitoshi, Tsurumi sought to take advantage of the anger t­oward Kishi to foster the formation of a new type of “citizens’ movement” (shimin undō) that the group had been advocating, whereby . 154 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion citizens would “spontaneously” ( jihatsuteki ni) or­ga­nize, in­de­pen­dently, outside of the structure of preexisting organ­izations. To this end, the Science of Thought intellectuals or­ga­nized a small protest group called the “Voiceless Voices Society” (Koe Naki Koe no Kai, taken from Kishi’s defiant claim that he was listening to the “voiceless voices” in ramming through the treaty), supposedly consisting of ordinary citizens (ippan shimin) who spontaneously or­ga­nized for the purpose of protesting the treaty. Although this organ­ization played a very small role in the 1960 protests, it became the seed of the much larger Beheiren anti–­Vietnam War organ­ization that the Science of Thought group would also mastermind in the ­later 1960s.24 The three intellectuals most powerfully associated with the 1960 protests, however, w ­ ere perhaps the three most famous and most influential intellectuals of the entire postwar period: Yoshimoto Takaaki, Shimizu Ikutarō, and Maruyama Masao. Each was closely associated with and played a central role in theorizing the activities of a dif­fer­ent ele­ment within the protest co­ali­tion: Yoshimoto with the Zengakuren’s radical mainstream, Shimizu with the Kokumin Kaigi, and Maruyama with the more amorphous mass movement to “defend democracy” that sprung up ­after the May  19 incident and fueled the truly massive protests of June 1960. Although ­these three intellectuals played particularly noteworthy roles in helping the protests become as large and as impactful as they ­were, all three would come to deeply regret that they had participated at all. Indeed, for all three, the 1960 protests ­were a crucial turning point in their thought and c­ areers, ­after which they turned their backs on traditional progressive politics.

Yoshimoto Takaaki and the Zengakuren Yoshimoto Takaaki (1924–2012) was a colorful, iconoclastic phi­los­o­pher, poet, and social critic whose thought and writings would become closely associated with the rise of the New Left in Japan a­ fter 1960. Perhaps the postwar intellectual who most truly epitomized the vague, catchall nature of the Japa­nese word hyōronka when used as a term to describe a cultural critic and phi­los­o­pher who can write and be read on any and all . 155 .

japan at the crossroads topics, Yoshimoto was an incredibly prolific author. He was heavi­ly influenced by Marxism but adhered to no well-­defined ideology within Marxism, and given that he wrote so often, his views ­were constantly shifting, and his prose could at times be quite woolly and imprecise, it can be quite a difficult task for scholars to explain clearly what his philosophy was. However, if one ­were to attempt to summarize Yoshimoto’s philosophy in a single word, it would most likely be “autonomy” ( jiritsusei). Deeply influenced by Japan’s defeat in World War II, which he blamed on the Japa­nese ­people blindly following their leaders, as well as by the famous “subjectivity debates” of the early postwar, Yoshimoto in many ways dedicated his ­career to an effort to transform the Japa­nese ­people into “autonomous subjects.” Insofar as this led Yoshimoto, especially ­after Anpo, to ever more extreme anti-­conformist and anti-­establishment positions, he inevitably became a hero to the New Left. At the beginning of the Anpo protests, however, Yoshimoto was one of the younger scholars on the scene (he was only thirty-­five at the time) and was only just beginning to develop the wide readership and influence he would ­later enjoy. Throwing himself fully into the anti-­treaty movement, Yoshimoto quickly developed an affinity for the radical students, admiring their energy and in­de­pen­dence. He became a patron saint of sorts to the Zengakuren, especially the mainstream, making frequent appearances at student meetings and rallies. He gave speeches at Zengakuren meetings in December 1959 and January 1960, and participated in a sit-in with the students at Shinagawa station during the June 4, 1960, general strike. On June 15, he crashed into the Diet compound with the Zengakuren mainstream, and leaping on top of a truck, gave an impromptu speech through a megaphone to the students gathered just inside the Diet gates. When the police l­ater counterattacked, he fled with the students to a nearby police station, where he was arrested and interrogated for three days before being released.25 The perceived failure of the Anpo protests left Yoshimoto deeply disillusioned. In October 1960 he published a blistering diatribe titled “The End of Fictions” (Gisei no shūen), in which he argued that the Anpo protests had exposed not only the fictions of the ruling conservatives, but . 156 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion also and even more so, the fictions of the established left-­wing organ­ izations and the mainstream leftist intellectuals. In the famous opening passage of the essay he declared, The Anpo strug­gle marked a turning point in postwar history. The fictive “vanguard” of the prewar generation, who for 15 years since the end of the war concealed their war­time corruption and conversions [tenkō] and, piling up lie upon lie, pretended that they had carried on the strug­gle continuously both during and ­after the war, have fi­ nally revealed beyond a shadow of a doubt, in front of the onlooking eyes of hundreds of thousands of workers, students, and ordinary citizens, that they utterly lack the capacity to lead the strug­gle, or even to strug­gle at all. Th ­ ese “vanguard” aristocrats, who have preserved their precious lineage by making incestuous marriages with ­idiots and incompetents, ­were already exposed as theoretically bankrupt during the course of the debates over war responsibility. But even so, no one had expected to see such merciless empirical proof.26

Ultimately, Yoshimoto feared that the protest movement itself had become ­little dif­fer­ent from the war­time “emperor system” (tennōsei), at least in its insistence on conformity to prevailing norms and ideologies. However, Yoshimoto had no easy solutions to offer. The only way forward, he deci­ded, was for each individual person to pursue absolute autonomy and break ­free entirely from the dictates of preexisting institutions. Yoshimoto scoffed at t­ hose who claimed that the Anpo protests had been a partial victory of any kind. Writing in June 1961, on the occasion of the one-­year anniversary of the June 15 Diet crashing, he wrote another caustic attack, titled “An Invitation to Degeneracy,” in which he declared, By the way, ­those who thought the Anpo Strug­gle was a victory ­will surely also be “victorious” in the Po­liti­cal Vio­lence Law Strug­gle and what­ever Such-­and-­such Strug­gle comes next. And in the end, nothing ­will come of it except for thoroughgoing subservience, orga­ nizational fetishism, the abandonment of self-­knowledge, and the specter of bureaucratic ineptitude. Certainly ­there are times when one has no choice but to fight, even knowing he ­will lose. In ­those

. 157 .

japan at the crossroads cases, ­there is nothing to do but fight with determination. But nobody can be forgiven for g­ oing down in defeat a second time using methods that have already failed the first time. “­Won’t you join us?” “Forget it, I’m ­going to go take my after­noon nap.”27

Indeed, almost from the moment the Anpo protests ended, Yoshimoto began to turn away from or­ga­nized po­liti­cal activity of any kind. Over the course of the 1960s, his books became best sellers and he came to be known as the “prophet” (kyōso) of the New Left, with student radicals passing around well-­read copies of his writings during the Zenkyōtō strug­gles in 1969 and in the bunkers dug out beneath the farmland slated to become Narita Airport, especially two popu­lar essay collections appropriately titled The End of Fictions and The Philosophical Basis of Autonomy ­after two of his most influential essays.28 But despite his popularity among the New Left student radicals, Yoshimoto remained aloof from, and on many occasions even highly critical of, his many followers.29 In the aftermath of Anpo, Yoshimoto deci­ded that even the radically egalitarian and highly individualistic New Left “sects” w ­ ere still part of the same sort of “communal illusion” (kyōdō gensō) that led the Japa­nese ­people to defeat in World War II and the 1960 Anpo protests.30 Looking back during a speech he gave in 1970 titled “The Structure of Defeat,” Yoshimoto identified three defeats that defined his life and thought, representing moments when he failed to exercise proper self-­ awareness. The first defeat was Japan’s defeat in World War II, when Yoshimoto had been on the verge of conscription and was willing to go fight and die for the state unquestioningly. The second defeat was the defeat of a l­abor ­union Yoshimoto belonged to in the early 1950s, for which Yoshimoto blamed himself. The third defeat was the 1960 Anpo protests. He recalled, “I feel that I was successfully able to analyze and learn from that defeat. In light of the new direction of my thinking . . . ​I was called a vacillating reactionary, but I think that’s a l­ittle harsh. . . . ​For several years a­ fter the Anpo strug­gle, I was extremely serious about staking out a new [philosophical] basis for myself. ”31 Ultimately, the new philosophical basis Yoshimoto settled on was an absolute autonomy and total in­de­pen­ dence that left no room for participation in or­ga­nized protest activity of any kind. . 158 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion

Shimizu Ikutarō and the Kokumin Kaigi In contrast to Yoshimoto, who was still a young, up-­and-­coming scholar at the time of the 1960 protests, Shimizu Ikutarō (1907–1988) was a well-­ known and respected professor of sociology at prestigious Gakushūin University (and in ­later years, the even more prestigious Tokyo University) who had a long and distinguished résumé as a leader within the postwar progressive movement. In addition to playing a major role in the early postwar “subjectivity debates,” Shimizu became particularly active in the pacifist and anti-­nuclear movements in the early 1950s. Along with Maruyama Masao and several other prominent progressive intellectuals, Shimizu served as a member of both the highly influential “Peace Prob­lems Discussion Group” (Heiwa Mondai Danwakai), which played a pivotal role in problematizing and providing theoretical under­pinnings for the 1950s pacifist and neutralist movements in Japan, and (again along with Maruyama) the spinoff “Security Treaty Prob­lems Research Association” (Anpo Mondai Kenkyūkai), established in 1959 to play a similar theorizing role in the Anpo strug­gle. Shimizu had also been instrumental in launching the anti-­base movement in his role as the intellectual figurehead of the first major anti-­base strug­gle at Uchinada village in 1952–1953.32 Given his prominence within the mainstream of progressive activism, it was not surprising that during the Anpo protests, Shimizu became closely associated with the mainstream protest organ­ization, the Kokumin Kaigi, for which he continued to play the sort of central role as a theorizer that he had been playing within the progressive camp for the past de­cade. Following the radical students’ first invasion of the Diet on November 27, 1959, the Kishi cabinet submitted a bill to the Diet that would have banned all protest in the vicinity of the Diet compound. Although this bill did not pass and was ultimately shelved, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police simply enacted a de facto ban by refusing to grant permits for protests near the Diet. Faced with a situation in which their most effective type of protest for garnering attention and enthusiasm had effectively been rendered illegal, the rule-­observing Kokumin Kaigi refrained from protesting near the Diet, and the size and scope of protests decreased for . 159 .

Writer and critic Shimizu Ikutarō working out of his home office. (© Haruuchi Jun’ichi / Bungei Shunju / Amana Images)

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion a time in the winter of 1959. It was Shimizu who rode to the rescue with a clever theoretical workaround. In the May issue of the leading leftist journal Sekai, Shimizu wrote a famous appeal titled “Now, More Than Ever, to the Diet!,” in which he cited a thitherto obscure clause in the 1947 Constitution guaranteeing Japa­nese citizens the right to “petition” their government. Shimizu’s suggestion was that rather than calling it a “protest” or even a “group petition,” which would technically require a permit from the police, the protesters should each write their own letter of petition, and one by one travel to the Diet to pres­ent their “individual” petitions. Shimizu not only felt that this would be a useful solution to get around the ban on Diet protests, but also that the new strategy of “individual petitions” could be a useful tool to recruit more ­people into the protest drive and enlarge the movement, and in his Sekai essay he envisioned a massive and endless wave of individual petitioners traveling to the Diet from ­every corner of Japan.33 The massive Diet protests from the end of April onward ­were all or­ga­nized ­under Shimizu’s strategy of individual petitions. Shimizu had been the central intellectual figure within the anti-­Anpo movement for its first year plus, but following the ramming of the treaty through the Diet and the resulting uproar, Shimizu faded into the background as other intellectuals such as Takeuchi and Maruyama took center stage. Throughout the protests, Shimizu had kept a laser-­like focus on the ultimate goal of stopping the treaty, which he felt was crucial to achieving his cherished goal of a power­ful and in­de­pen­dent Japan charting a neutral course between the communist and f­ ree world camps. He became increasingly annoyed and fi­nally angry as the movement “degenerated” into a mass movement to “protect democracy,” and then was deeply shocked and heartbroken at the failure of the protests to stop the treaty. For Shimizu, the treaty’s ratification was a crushing defeat, and he felt like every­thing he had fought for in the 1950s had been for naught. ­After taking a month to let the defeat s­ ettle and sink in, Shimizu published an angry article on July 25, titled “Why Did We Lose a B ­ attle We ­Were Winning?,” in which he argued that in expanding into a broad-­ based “protect democracy” movement, the protests lost their focus on . 161 .

japan at the crossroads preventing the treaty and thus the anti-­treaty strug­gle was forgotten and doomed to failure.34 He then wrote an extended series of equally angry articles over the next several years arguing that the student radicals of Zengakuren had been the real heroes, ­because in attempting to storm the Diet compound, they had shown that they ­were the only ones willing to give an all-­out effort to stop the treaty. Shimizu condemned the Kokumin Kaigi for being too conservative, for succumbing to the temptation to transform the tightly focused anti-­treaty movement into a broad-­based pro-­democracy movement, and for its efforts ­after the November 27 incident to distance itself from and even undermine the student radicals of Zengakuren.35 Thereafter, Shimizu completely severed his connections with the progressive cause and devoted himself to other ­matters. By the 1980s, he appeared to have transformed into a raving right-­wing nationalist, deeply shocking his former colleagues on the left by openly and vociferously calling for Japan to eliminate Article 9 from the constitution, develop nuclear weapons, and return to an education system based on the noble princi­ples of absolute loyalty to the state as elaborated in the prewar (and reviled by the left) Imperial Rescript on Education.36 For his rightward turn, Shimizu was viciously attacked by many of his former colleagues on the left with the worst label at their disposal: “conversionist” (tenkōsha). However, Shimizu was born in 1907 and had received the entirety of his education at the height of the prewar nationalist education system, and moreover had never been deeply Marxist in philosophical orientation, so it should not be difficult to see how his views had maintained a degree of internal consistency in that his 1950s pacifism, his 1960 opposition to the Security Treaty, and his 1980s right-­wing turn had all been firmly based in a patriotic nationalism and hopes for a strong, in­de­pen­dent Japan. In his 1975 memoir Fragments of My Life, Shimizu wrote that initially he had felt tremendous anguish at the defeat of the anti-­treaty movement, but claimed that never for a moment had he worried about the fate of “democracy” in Japan, and in fact did not even care one way or the other. He claimed the only ­thing he truly regretted was being defeated itself. He . 162 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion also said that a­ fter the depression of being defeated faded away, he felt an intense sense of liberation, which he compared to that felt by the Japa­ nese p ­ eople as a w ­ hole upon the end of World War II. He wrote that looking back at the 1950s, it felt as if he had been on a golf course and had put all his energy into trying to get a l­ittle white ball into a tiny hole that was incredibly far away. But a­ fter the defeat of Anpo, he felt that he was no longer on that golf course, trying so hard to hit the l­ ittle white ball into a tiny hole. The ball was still ­there at his feet, but now he could feel ­free to hit it in any direction that he wanted.37

Maruyama Masao as Democracy’s Champion The 1960 Anpo protests cemented Maruyama Masao’s reputation as the most prominent advocate and defender of Japan’s postwar democracy. Maruyama (1914–1996) first gained attention in intellectual circles with his brilliant essay on war­time Japa­nese fascism, “The Logic and Psy­ chol­ogy of Ultranationalism,” which he first published in Sekai in 1946. He continued writing about recent Japa­nese politics in the late 1940s and early 1950s, before taking a break as illness put him in and out of the hospital for an extended period in the mid-1950s. Thereafter, he largely stopped writing about current events and devoted himself to writing, with characteristic cogency and incisive analy­sis, about Edo and Meiji era po­liti­cal thought. However, it was not u ­ ntil the l­ater 1950s, on the eve of the Anpo protests, that Maruyama’s early postwar essays ­were collected and published together for the first time, bringing him fame and acclamation from a much wider cross-­section of the general public. Maruyama was involved in the anti-­treaty movement from an early date, as a member of the Security Treaty Prob­lems Research Association, and from 1959 onward he was involved in drafting and circulating a variety of anti-­treaty statements, as well as participating in rallies and demonstrations. Following the May 19 incident, a shocked and appalled Maruyama stepped up his activism even further, conferring with other intellectuals in a flurry of meetings and rallies and making  numerous . 163 .

japan at the crossroads

Po­liti­cal theorist and University of Tokyo professor Maruyama Masao cemented his reputation as a champion of Japan’s postwar democracy during the 1960 protests. (Courtesy of Shūkan Dokushojin)

public statements condemning Kishi’s actions and calling on the Japa­ nese ­people to rise up in protest in order to defend democracy. On May 24, Maruyama gave a dramatic speech, ­later published ­under the title “Time for a Choice” (Sentaku no toki), to an overflow crowd of . 164 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion more than 2,500 intellectuals, writers, and students at the Education Hall in central Tokyo. That night, Maruyama was also part of a group of fifty prominent writers and intellectuals, including Takeuchi and Shimizu, that staged a five-­hour-­long sit-in in the foyer of the prime minister’s official residence, demanding a meeting with Kishi, although Kishi never appeared. In Maruyama’s brief but passionate speech, he repeatedly alluded to the May 19 incident with the anaphoric mantra “at that moment, every­thing changed.” He called on the Japa­nese ­people to forget past debates and unite to protect democracy, declaring that “even ­those who up u ­ ntil now have supported revising the treaty out of sincere motives, if they have even a fragment of reason or conscience, have no choice but to join with us and rise up to erase this stain from Japan’s po­liti­cal history.” Maruyama acknowledged that the May  19 incident had caused a “grave crisis” but argued that it also represented an “unpre­ ce­dented, golden opportunity” for the nation to rise up and fully embrace democracy: All the disparate, scattered issues that have thus far arisen in the postwar period, from the constitution question, to the base issues, to the teacher efficiency rating system, have suddenly cohered into a single question. ­Until this very moment, all the vari­ous, scattered actions that the Kishi cabinet and the other LDP governments have been taking b ­ ehind the scenes up ­until this very day to infringe on our democracy and defy the constitution suddenly became glaringly evident as part of a unified ­whole. In this way, although on one hand they have nakedly displayed their power, at the same time and on the other hand . . . ​all the scattered hopes and dreams of the postwar demo­cratic movement are fi­nally within our grasp.

For Maruyama, the nation faced a ­simple choice: If we accept the events of the night of May 19–20, we would be accepting that the government is allowed to use force to get anything it decides that it wants, in other words, that it is omnipotent. And if we accept that the government is omnipotent, then we cannot also accept democracy. To accept one is to reject the other, and vice versa. This is the choice that has been laid before us.

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japan at the crossroads Maruyama then concluded his speech with a stirring appeal: “At this historic moment, let us overcome all of our differences in opinion and join forces to ensure the security of our nation, not from attacks by foreign nations, but above all ­else from the attacks of our own government.”38 In light of t­ hese views, Maruyama’s initial response to the outcome of the Anpo protests was one of positive affirmation. In a widely read essay that appeared in the August edition of Chūō Kōron, titled “8 / 15 and 5 / 19,” Maruyama favorably compared the 1960 protests to Japan’s surrender in World War II. Although the 1960 protests had ended in defeat, Japa­nese democracy had been protected and even strengthened. Moreover, whereas the defeat of August 15, 1945, had resulted in a democracy that was imposed from without and above, the Anpo protests had resulted in a mass movement of an unpre­ce­dented size and scope that, according to Maruyama, served to “indigenize” democracy within Japan.39 At a July 21 roundtable discussion published in a September special issue of the magazine Ekonomisuto, Maruyama elaborated further: “Never before in Japan’s history have the masses, in the face of abuse of power by the government, or­ga­nized so spontaneously, without reference to their own personal interests, to protest on such a large scale and for so many consecutive days. In that sense, this was a revolutionary event in Japan’s history.”40 However, Maruyama quickly came to regret his starring role in the 1960 protests. No sooner had the protests ended than Maruyama immediately came u ­ nder attack from both the right and the left. From the right he was attacked as a fellow traveler with communists and student radicals, and from the left he was attacked as an advocate of an overly narrow vision of a “bourgeois” democracy that protected the interests of the ruling classes. Most devastating w ­ ere attacks from several of his erstwhile allies in the anti-­treaty movement, including Shimizu and Yoshimoto. Shimizu blamed Maruyama for taking the lead in shifting the energy of the protests away from the real aim of defeating the treaty to the phantasmal and vaguely defined goal of “protecting democracy.”41 The most vicious of all was Yoshimoto. In “The End of Fictions,” he argued that the entire pro­cess of democ­ratization in the postwar period was just another fiction that put an attractive face on what was ­really just the maturation of capitalism in Japan. For Yoshimoto, Maruyama was one of the . 166 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion figures most responsible for perpetuating this “fiction” of a Japa­nese democracy.42 Yoshimoto continued to attack Maruyama relentlessly and almost reflexively in his writings throughout the 1960s, making Maruyama a symbol of sorts of every­thing he was against. As a result, during the 1968–1969 university riots, the Zenkyōtō radicals, who ­were heavi­ly influenced by Yoshimoto’s writings, singled out Maruyama for special disapprobation, occupying and ransacking his office and harassing him during his lectures. In part due to the constant harassment, Maruyama, whose health had never been strong, resigned his position at Tokyo University in 1971, three years before the normal retirement age. Another scholar (such as Yoshimoto, perhaps) might have reveled in such negative attention, but Maruyama was shocked and deeply dismayed. Beginning in the fall of 1960 and continuing through the final interviews he gave before passing away in 1996, Maruyama repeatedly attempted to claim that he had been reluctant to participate in the 1960 protests and had joined in a­ fter the May 19 incident only b ­ ecause of pressure from his friends and colleagues. He claimed that he had won “un­ ese claims deserved fame” for playing a “minor” role in the protests.43 Th are significantly undermined by the extent of Maruyama’s activism in the anti-­treaty movement prior to May 19 and how passionate his engagement was thereafter. Clearly, Maruyama was reacting in part to the heavy criticism he received, and hoped that by downplaying his participation he could avoid receiving further blame and censure. Although he continued to view the protests as a victory for Japa­nese democracy, he made sure he would never play a prominent role in po­liti­cal activism again. In the wake of the 1960 Anpo protests, the progressive intellectuals who had played such a crucial role in providing theoretical under­ pinnings to the movement withdrew from activism. Takeuchi Yoshimi retired from teaching and activism a­ fter 1960 to devote himself to his translations of Chinese author Lu Xun, and the three most prominent supporters of the protests among the progressive intellectuals—­Maruyama Masao, Shimizu Ikutarō, and Yoshimoto Takaaki—­all renounced and repudiated their participation in the movement to varying extents. One of the major reasons a protest movement such as that of 1960 did not recur in . 167 .

japan at the crossroads l­ater years was the collapse from within of a highly or­ga­nized, relatively unified Japa­nese left. Without Sōhyō and Zengakuren to supply passion and large amounts of or­ga­nized manpower, and without the progressive intellectuals to provide inspiration and theoretical guidance, crucial conditions that helped foster a protest movement of the scale and organ­ ization witnessed in 1960 no longer obtained.

New Movements Inherit the “Anpo Spirit” Although virtually all the constituent groups of the Anpo co­ali­tion collapsed, faded from the scene, or split amid disagreements over w ­ hether the protests had been a success or failure, a wide array of authors and memoirists have looked back on the 1960 movement as the beginning of new forms of protest, particularly the feminist movement, the environmental movement, and so-­called citizens’ (shimin) and residents’ ( jumin) movements. Scholarship on ­these movements has been dominated by the shimin­ha (citizens faction) intellectuals associated with Tsurumi Shunsuke’s Science of Thought study group (most notably Tsurumi himself, Kuno Osamu, and Takabatake Michitoshi). Looking back in ­later years, ­these authors argued that the 1960 protests w ­ ere the starting point for an entirely new form of protest movement in Japan—­the citizens’ movement— in which completely ordinary citizens with ­little or no connection to existing po­liti­cal groups spontaneously or­ga­nized into radically egalitarian, leader-­less groups for the purpose of protesting against injustice.44 However, the clarity and reliability of this analy­sis are somewhat undermined by the fact that ­these intellectuals themselves had in­ven­ted the notion of a “citizens’ movement” in the lead-up to the 1960 protests and had ardently sought to manufacture such a movement, and that the two main examples they cite—1960’s “Voiceless Voices” group and the ­later Beheiren Anti-­Vietnam organ­ization—­were movements they played a large and heavy hand in formulating and spurring onward. Other than ­these two groups, t­ here ­were few protest movements in postwar Japan that could truly be considered “spontaneous” and anti-­hierarchical movements of “citizens” as idealized by Tsurumi and com­pany; and in fact, . 168 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion even Beheiren turned out to be far more hierarchical an organ­ization than advertised. As Simon Avenell has argued, this romanticized notion of the shimin was a “my­thol­ogy” that on occasion proved useful for mobilizing civic movements, but rarely if ever reflected the ­actual structure and organ­ization of post-1960 social movements.45 Nevertheless, for a new generation of activists that was just coming of age in 1960, the Anpo protests proved a thrilling departure from the kind of highly or­ga­nized, hierarchical, top-­down protest movements overseen by Old Left organ­izations in the 1950s, and provided the inspiration to engage in new forms of protest and activism. The writer and social critic Miyazaki Manabu captured this excitement in his 1996 memoir: In ninth grade I experienced the most exciting event of my ju­nior high years . . . ​the demonstrations against the US-­Japan Security Treaty. I had barely heard of the treaty and never participated in a demonstration before, but [my friend] was insistent: “This is ­going to change Japan forever. We’ve got to be ­there!” . . . Maruyama Park [in central Kyoto] . . . ​ was overflowing with ­people. ­There must have been at least 100,000 demonstrators. Newspapers reported the next day that a total of 5.6 million ­people had taken part in anti-­treaty protests nationwide. . . . The mood in the park was euphoric. Men and w ­ omen wearing headbands strode up to the stage one ­after another, greeted with rapturous cheers and thunderous applause each time they made a statement such as, “Fifty of us from the Kyoto branch of the Japan Postal Workers’ Union are ­going to Tokyo to carry on the strug­gle in front of the Diet!” The sound reverberated through the air like the rumbling of mountains. I had never experienced such excitement and emotional intensity. I c­ouldn’t stop trembling. “Something big is about to happen,” I thought to myself. . . . I also took part in the demonstrations on June 15, 1960. With the approval of the revised treaty by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee the day before, the protest movement had swelled and the situation grew extremely tense. But despite US approval of the new treaty, I felt certain that the revision would fail in the face of such widespread opposition, a conviction shared by the adults around me.

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japan at the crossroads That night, I heard about the death of Kanba Michiko on the radio. My immediate reaction was, “Wow, the police are capable of anything at this point.” At the same time, I was stunned, as if I had been clubbed over the head myself. It had never occurred to me that po­liti­cal demonstrations could result in fatalities. Part of me wanted to believe it was some kind of accident—­this ­wasn’t a yakuza street fight, ­after all. On the other hand . . . ​I began to realize that changing society might actually require putting one’s life on the line. Following automatic ratification of the treaty on June 19, the 1960 Anpo movement rapidly dissipated, ending in total defeat. For the adults who participated, it was a crushing blow that led to a long period of frustration and bewilderment. But for me, it was nothing like that. ­After all, I had known almost nothing about the Security Treaty to begin with, so ­there was nothing for me to be frustrated or upset about. On the contrary, I was incredibly excited at the entirely new world that had suddenly opened up. Vari­ous ­things began to dawn on me, if only vaguely. That ­there ­were ­people working seriously to change society; that their numbers ­were far greater than I had ­imagined; that it might be pos­si­ble to bring about real change; that the p ­ eople involved in social movements differed greatly from ­those I grew up with; and that ­these kinds of ­people ­were called “left-­wing.” ­These realizations w ­ ere as inspiring to me as the first time I saw a movie in color.46

One group particularly moved by this sense of excitement and possibility was ­women, especially ­those who had not been previously active in politics. W ­ omen had participated in the Anpo protests in large numbers, but they had done so mostly as members of traditional w ­ omen’s groups, such as a variety of “­women’s socie­ties” ( fujin kai), “house­wife socie­ties” (shufu kai), “­mothers’ socie­ties” (hahaoya kai), and “child protection” (kodomo o mamoru) socie­ties, as well as the “wives’ sections” of vari­ous ­labor ­unions.47 Many of ­these organ­izations had explic­itly conceived of themselves as nonpo­liti­cal, so participating in the protest movement at all was already a bold step forward. In the early stages of the anti-­treaty movement, most of ­these groups participated in highly gen. 170 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion dered ways, typically by providing support (shien) and encouragement (ōen) to the male-­dominated groups that did the dangerous frontline marching. This was in keeping with early postwar tradition that ­women not be allowed to march in street demonstrations, allegedly for their own protection (or in the rare cases that they w ­ ere allowed, only at the rear of the pro­cession, where it was “safe”). Starting in spring 1960, however, as the protest movement transitioned to the “Diet petition drive” strategy—­and especially a­ fter May 19, when the movement dramatically escalated in size and took on the rhe­toric of a desperate, all-­out ­battle to “save Japa­nese democracy”—­ women increasingly found themselves participating in large street demonstrations in an effort to put as many bodies on the streets and at the Diet as pos­si­ble. For most of ­these ­women, this was their first taste of taking part in street protest, and for many it was a moment of personal empowerment they would never forget. It was ­these ­women in par­tic­u­lar, many of them ordinary ­house­wives with ­little previous interest in politics, that carried forward an “Anpo spirit” into their local community and residents’ movement organ­izing in the ­later 1960s and 1970s. The sociologist Amano Masako has argued that the 1960 Anpo protests w ­ ere a po­liti­cal awakening especially for ­house­wives over thirty years of age, who had grown up prior to the war (when ­women had been legally barred from po­liti­cal activity) and had been socialized to eschew any interest in politics, let alone po­liti­cal activism: When the 1960 Anpo protests failed . . . ​many [male-­dominated] po­liti­cal action groups ceased their activities or disbanded altogether, but . . . ​­women returned to their neighborhoods . . . ​and became increasingly active in local governance as they turned to solving the vari­ous prob­lems that arose in their daily lives. Daily life became politicized. But they did not stop t­here. By debating in local assemblies and organ­izing protests and petition drives, ­women sought to redirect the focus of local elections and local government to their concerns as the overseers of f­ amily life. Politics became daily life–­ized.48

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japan at the crossroads

Female protesters marching outside the main gate of the National Diet, June 1960. (Mainichi Shinbun / Mainichi Photo Bank)

Amano’s analy­sis is supported by a January 1990 survey of 447 ­women who had been at least fifteen years of age in 1959, which found that a plurality of 42 ­percent of the w ­ omen surveyed believed that the “Anpo energy” continued long ­after the protests ended, compared with 36 ­percent . 172 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion who felt that it had “rapidly dissipated.” The w ­ omen who believed the Anpo spirit died away ­were overwhelmingly college students and veteran left-­wing activists, who cited a “sense of failure and powerlessness” (zasetsu no muryokukan) as the main reason for its dissipation. In contrast, the w ­ omen who said that the Anpo energy continued long a­ fter ­were overwhelmingly ­house­wives and working ­women, who argued that “the energy of the protests was transferred to new citizens’ and residents’ movements” and that the 1960 protests “raised the po­liti­cal consciousness of Japa­nese ­women.” In contrast to the seasoned activists, who had participated in protest activities prior to 1959 and had taken part in the anti-­treaty demonstrations prior to Kishi’s actions on May 19, most of the ­house­wives and working ­women surveyed took part in the protests only ­after May 19 and had never taken part in protest activity before. Rather than the “sense of failure” experienced by the veteran activists, ­these ­women found the protests exciting and energizing, and carried that energy forward to ­future civic activism.49 In this way the Anpo protests opened the way for a new generation of activists, both female and male, who would formulate a new kind of “residents’ movement” that pushed for consumer protection, pollution mitigation, and ­women’s rights in the 1960s and 1970s. ­Women in par­tic­u­lar often played a central role in organ­izing and carry­ing out ­these protests. However, this new trend did not necessarily speak to any fundamental reordering of gender roles in postwar Japa­nese society. For one t­ hing, the leaders of ­these new organ­izations in many cases ­were at least nominally still men. Moreover, the structure of t­hese movements was more a symptom of the reordering of Japa­nese society as a ­whole ­after the Anpo protests in ways that were not premised on gender equality. As the power of ­labor ­unions (as well as their memberships) declined and blue-­collar jobs (such as in coal mining) dis­appeared, and as more and more male workers moved into white-­collar jobs that paid high wages but required almost unlimited unpaid overtime (zangyō), men increasingly had neither the ­free time nor the inclination to engage in civic activism. Meanwhile, more and more Japa­nese families left ancestral villages and moved, not to dense inner cities but rather to new, suburban and . 173 .

japan at the crossroads exurban groupings of large concrete apartment blocks (danchi), which ­were inhabited primarily by ­house­wives during most of the day. It is not surprising that new civic movements w ­ ere focused on ­these residential units, with the single apartment block often forming the smallest unit (hence the name “residents’ movement”), and ­were carried out primarily by networks of ­these housewives—­a group increasing in size as economic growth allowed more families to afford a full-­time homemaker. It was precisely ­these suburban ­house­wives that reported feeling most energized and inspired by the 1960 Anpo protests.50 In short, the 1960 Anpo protests did clear a space for new types of protest movement, but primarily b ­ ecause almost all the old forms of protest movement had collapsed. The decline of the Socialist Party and Sōhyō, the schisms of Zengakuren and other civic organ­izations, and the retreat of the progressive intellectuals from or­ga­nized po­liti­cal ­activity meant that the main pillars of the 1960 Anpo co­ali­tion ­were no longer standing. But even if new groups had risen to take their place, old forms of organ­izing and mobilizing popu­lar protest w ­ ere increasingly undermined by high-­speed economic growth and its attendant “I’ve got mine-­ism” as well as ordinary citizens’ increasing alienation from traditional types of social networks—­ such as village kinship networks and mutual aid socie­ties and urban ­labor ­unions and craft guilds—as a result of the ongoing suburban-­and exurbanization pro­cess. As Japa­nese society reconfigured itself to make massive urban street protests such as ­those of 1960 less likely, less disruptive suburban movements led by ­house­wives arose to fill the gap. Perhaps inevitably, ­these new movements rhetorically focused on aspects of daily life (seikatsu)—­ health, safety, and consumer protection—­that ­were increasingly seen as the purview of w ­ omen in general and ­house­wives in par­tic­u­lar. Although ­these issues w ­ ere in fact deeply po­liti­cal, the fact that they w ­ ere pursued largely by female activists both permitted and necessitated a rhe­toric that was depoliticized, heavi­ly gendered, and in many ways traditionally feminine rather than feminist; indeed, this is what Amano was referring to when she wrote that “politics became daily life-­ized.” Insofar as Japan . 174 .

The Collapse of the 1960 Co­a li­t ion happily ended up with robust environmental protections, much stronger consumer protections, and a vigorous w ­ omen’s liberation movement by the 1970s, t­ hese ­were fortuitous but largely unanticipated consequences of the reconfiguration of Japa­nese society and the restructuring of civic activism ­after 1960.

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chapter five

New Directions in Lit­er­a­ture and the Arts

The year 1960 roughly coincided with the emergence of a remarkable variety of new trends in lit­er­a­ture, film, and the arts. The visual arts witnessed the appearance of new forms of “anti-­art” and “non-­art” as well as the rise of per­for­mance art focused around absurdist “actions,” “events,” and “happenings.” In Japa­nese cinema, a series of films produced in 1960 are credited with launching the Japa­nese incarnation of New Wave cinema. In theater, 1960 is generally used to mark the start of the angura movement of “underground” theater. The early 1960s also witnessed the emergence of Ankoku Butoh in dance, the development of new styles of photography that emphasized spontaneity and physicality over careful composition, the emergence of new types of experimental m ­ usic, and a series of heated debates in lit­er­a­ture that opened the way for new genres of fiction and poetry. Even in the world of manga comics, Shirato Sanpei was writing a hugely popu­lar series, Ninja bugeichō, which would l­ater come to be viewed as the first gekiga, or manga series aimed exclusively at adults rather than ­children. Although in all ­these cases the origins of the new trends that would draw attention a­ fter 1960 ­were already discernible by the late 1950s, the 1960 Anpo protests played a crucial role in accelerating or exacerbating ­these preexisting tendencies. Just as a “sense of failure” (zatsetsu kan) and debates over the meaning of the protests accelerated the collapse of old forms of social organ­izing and cleared the way for new types of civic activism, so too did ­these debates and responses accelerate the decline of older forms of artistic and literary production and clear the way for new ones. Specific cases in the visual arts, theater, and the literary world elucidate the crucial role played by the 1960 protests in creating an . 176 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts environment conducive to new forms of art and lit­er­a­ture that broke with prevailing traditions of modernism, humanism, and realism and moved artistic discourse in Japan in directions that might be best termed “postmodern.” One of the reasons the 1960 crisis was able to have such a significant impact on art and lit­er­a­ture was that so many artists and writers directly participated in the protests. Although many artists ­were active from the start, o ­ thers ­were more hesitant to involve themselves, having become increasingly disillusioned with traditional forms of po­liti­cal activism over the course of the 1950s. However, the seriousness of the issues surrounding the new treaty, and especially Prime Minister Kishi’s outrageous decision on May 19 to ram the treaty through the Diet, convinced most of the remaining doubters that they had no choice but to become involved in order, if for no other reason, to protect Japa­nese democracy itself. Although certainly not ­every artist or writer protested against the treaty, by June 1960 the vast majority of Japan’s artistic and literary establishment had come out publicly in opposition, and many of the most famous and prominent artists and writers ­were marching in the streets. Most artists participated in or­ga­nized protest activities u ­ nder the aegis of umbrella groups such as the Anpo Hihan no Kai (Society for Criticizing the Security Treaty), founded by writers Nakajima Kenzō and Matsuoka Yōko, or phi­los­o­pher and critic Yoshimoto Takaaki’s succinctly named Han no Kai (Opposition Society). One group of younger artists, writers, and composers, the Wakai Nihon no Kai (Young Japan Society), bore witness to the unifying effect of anger at the treaty and at Kishi by bringing together such strange bedfellows as leftist authors Ōe Kenzaburō and Abe Kōbō, among ­others, with writers Ishihara Shintarō and Etō Jun, both of whom would ­later come to be viewed as staunch supporters of the conservative establishment.1 In addition to participating in the vari­ous marches, rallies, and petition drives sponsored by t­ hese umbrella groups, artists of course also responded to the 1960 crisis by producing art. Some artists viewed the protest marches themselves as an opportunity to stage a kind of per­for­ mance art. Several of the members of the newly established Neo-­Dada . 177 .

japan at the crossroads Organizers artist collective, for example, participated in protests around the Diet building. They surreptitiously replaced the iconic chant of “Anpo Hantai” (Down with Anpo) with “Anfo Hantai” (Down with Art Informel)2 and engaged in bizarre spectacles such as group member Masuzawa Kinpei parading through the streets of Tokyo with a mass of various-­ sized lightbulbs pinned to his shirt, and group leader Yoshimura Masanobu outfitted as a “­mummy” (miira) wrapped in paper printed with the group’s name, leading some art historians to suggest that they treated the protests more as an artistic event than a po­liti­cal one.3 Similarly, during the massive strikes and protests in June, painter Yamashita Kikuji, a member of the art group Zen’ei Bijutsukai (Avant-­Garde Art Association), was observed to randomly show up marching along with groups with which he had no affiliation, calling out strange words and squeezing his way into their ranks with ­humble apologies, causing bewilderment and laughter on the part of the marchers with his strange antics in an effort to get the “extremely serious youth” to “lighten up.”4 Many artists also reflected aspects of the protests and the mood of re­ sis­tance in their a­ ctual artworks. Film director Ōshima Nagisa, for example, wrote and directed three films in rapid succession over the course of the spring and summer of 1960—­Cruel Story of Youth (Seishun zankoku monogatari), Graveyard of the Sun (Taiyō no hakaba), and Night and Fog in Japan (Nihon no yoru to kiri). All three included direct references to the Anpo protests (and in some cases, a­ ctual footage), and though greatly varying in style and content, all of them revealed the consequences of a failure to produce a radical subjectivity f­ ree from the constraints of preexisting institutions and organ­izations.5 Earlier that spring, a university student named Kurahashi Yumiko burst onto the literary scene with her debut short story “Parutai” (The Party), which cast harsh light on the efforts of the Communist Party to dominate the lives of student protesters, and during the height of the protests, in mid-1960, young experimental filmmaker Matsumoto Toshio caused an uproar with an eighteen-­minute short film, “Security Treaty” (Anpo Jōyaku), in which, among other novelties, he spit on the film itself in postproduction in order to physically actualize his disdain for the treaty.6 . 178 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts Although the protests themselves rapidly died down at the end of June ­after the treaty was ratified and Kishi resigned, the outpouring of art relating to the protests continued unabated. In the fall of 1960, for example, photographer Hamaya Hiroshi, better known for his photo­ graphs of rural Japan, published Ikari to kanashimi no kiroku (A rec­ord of anger and sadness), a collection of photo­graphs he had taken during the protests in Tokyo that clearly sympathized with the protesters, and young composer Hayashi Hikaru penned several ballads about the protest, including “6 / 15,” a song in memory of Kanba Michiko.7 The young poet Kishigami Daisaku garnered attention by composing several poems about the protests and then committing suicide, apparently despondent at the failure to prevent the treaty’s ratification, and Abe Kōbō wrote a play about the protests, Ishi no kataru hi (The day the stones speak), for prominent director Senda Koreya, who staged it several times in Japan and China in the fall of 1960 and in February 1961. Then in March 1961, the ­fourteenth edition of the Nihon Indépendant exhibition (one of two major unjuried art exhibitions at the time; the other was the Yomiuri Indépendant) featured a special section of art relating to the Anpo protests and the Miike strike, titled The ­Battle of 1960 (1960-­nen no tatakai), which featured eighty-­two works by fifty-­six artists.8 In the cases of other works produced during and a­ fter the Anpo strug­gle, however, artists made no explicit mention of the protests, yet their works ­were still deemed to have imbibed the “Anpo spirit” (anpo seishin). Beginning in 1961, artist Kudō Tetsumi began work on his long-­ running series of installations, The Philosophy of Impotence, in which he would fill entire rooms with black, penis-­like objects of vari­ous sizes, hanging limply from the ceiling, walls, and other objects. The blatancy of the theme of emasculation and powerlessness in the work, made all the more evident by its title, undoubtedly led many observers to draw parallels to the situation of the Japa­nese ­people in the immediate aftermath of having a treaty binding the nation into alliance with the United States forced on them despite massive protests. Although Kudō never directly explained the meanings of works such as The Philosophy of Impotence, during the summer of 1960 he had been invited to speak at a . 179 .

japan at the crossroads meeting of the Wakai Nihon no Kai, where he got up on stage and declared simply, “Now ­there is nothing left but action” (Ima ya akushon aru nomi desu).9 The contrast between his bold call for “action” during the protests and his obsession with “impotence” for several years thereafter was telling in itself. Similarly, literary works such as Kinoshita Junji’s play Otto to yobareru nihonjin (A Japa­nese called “Otto,” 1962), a dramatization of the war­time Sorge spying case; Hotta Yoshie’s novel Uminari no soto kara (From the bottom of the raging sea, 1961), a work of historical fiction set during the 1638 Shimabara Rebellion; and Shirato Sanpei’s epoch-­making manga Ninja bugeichō (Ninja martial arts handbook, 1959–1962), a violent epic set during Japan’s sixteenth-­century Warring States Period, w ­ ere all repeatedly cited by critics as allegories about the Anpo protests.10 ­Whether all ­these artists ­were purposefully writing in an allegorical mode or not (Shirato, for example, would in l­ater years explic­itly disavow any intention to allegorize Anpo in his works), the tradition of cloaking commentary on present-­day events in the guise of historical fiction had a long and distinguished history in Japan. That critics and audiences ­were obviously prepared and even e­ ager to indulge in such readings undoubtedly contributed to the success of ­these works. But beyond the outpouring of artworks they inspired, the 1960 Anpo protests helped bring about a change in direction for the arts in two distinct but interrelated ways. First, for an older generation of artists who had been po­liti­cally active in the 1950s, the perceived failure of the Anpo protests, and in par­tic­u­lar the failure of the Communist Party to act as a proper “vanguard” of revolution, helped strike a final blow against a formerly prevailing view of the arts as inseparable from politics. Second, for a younger generation of artists who ­were just arriving on the scene around 1960, the apparent discrediting of the old model combined with the excitement and revolutionary fervor of participating in massive street protests to create a new space for experimentation and to inspire artistic revolts within the vari­ous troupes and socie­ties. For ­these younger artists, the strug­gle against the state and the system during the Anpo protests became conflated with their concurrent strug­ gles within art circles to have their art shown, published, and performed. . 180 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts In the early postwar period, and continuing through the 1950s, almost ­every major genre of the arts remained within the grip of some sort of rigid, hierarchical system for selecting, training, and promoting the c­ areers of new artists, in which access to displaying, distributing, or performing one’s art was extremely restricted and typically based on se­niority. In lit­er­a­ture, for example, the venerable bundan system of literary cliques allowed small in-­groups of established authors, critics, and publishers to choose protégés and selectively advance their ­careers. In the visual arts, ­there ­were relatively few venues for showing art, access to almost all of which was tightly controlled by se­lection committees dominated by a few impor­tant art socie­ties. Modern, Western-­style theater, known as shingeki (literally “new theater”), had developed in Japan from the 1920s and had evolved its own version of the “lifetime employment” system in which new members of the theater companies w ­ ere recruited at very young ages and groomed for many years. Almost nobody was ever fired, but it was almost impossible to switch companies, and the best roles almost invariably went to the most se­nior members of the troupe. And in film, a robust studio system selected ­future film directors directly out of university based on the results of extremely competitive examinations, but then made them wait de­cades as assistant directors before they could direct their own films. More established artists, on the other hand, had less trou­ble finding audiences for their artistic efforts, but even they often found themselves facing censure, a loss of prestige, and potential disbarment from prominent positions in socie­ties and artistic groups if their works deviated from established conventions dictated by prevailing ideologies of Marxism and humanism. Although most of the art systems that constrained entry to the art world had been inherited from the prewar period, what was new in the postwar period was that members of the Communist Party came to dominate the upper levels of most of ­these hierarchies, far out of proportion to their ­actual numbers within the Japa­nese population as a ­whole, and attempted to push the arts in Japan in the direction of promoting socialist revolution. The reasons why this state of affairs came about are complex, but significant ­factors included the legacy of the proletarian art movement, which had been the dominant artistic movement in Japan in the . 181 .

japan at the crossroads early 1930s, before the arts fell ­under heavy state suppression; the widespread appeal of the notion that members of the Communist Party had been the only p ­ eople to actively resist Japa­nese war­time militarism; and the popu­lar conception that the most natu­ral affiliation for “avant-­garde” artists was with the “vanguard” Communist Party.11 Although certainly not all artists ­were members of or sympathizers with the parties oriented t­ oward socialist revolution, enough of the most se­nior members of most artistic socie­ties ­were to make socialist realism and related genres such as “reportage” the single most dominant mode of artistic expression in early postwar Japan, across a wide variety of artistic genres, including theater, dance, painting, sculpture, photography, fiction, and poetry. Moreover, even in industries where Marxism held less sway, such as the postwar studio system that dominated Japa­nese film in the 1950s, a strong emphasis was placed on humanism, rationalism, and realism, and artists w ­ ere expected to produce ­either works that ­were uplifting and celebrated the triumph of the ­human spirit or tragedies that underscored the need to ameliorate social injustice.

The Visual Arts One of the fields of art that had been most strongly ­under the sway of Marxism and socialist realism was the visual arts. As artist and critic Imaizumi Yoshihiko recalled, In the 1950s, almost all young art students w ­ ere swept up by the ideology of socialist realism. In other words, by the idea that art must serve the cause of socialist revolution, and moreover that this is best achieved not by producing difficult-­to-­understand modern art, but by employing a realistic style more readily understandable to the masses. And furthermore, that not only should this art be easy to understand, but it should also point out contradictions in society, depict scenes of re­sis­tance to capitalism or the establishment, and other­wise inspire a willingness to fight the system. The critics all preached this sermon to the up-­and-­coming artists, and cloaked it in so much difficult jargon and theory that the students’ heads got all scrambled before they could even paint a proper painting. . . . ​The

. 182 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts t­ hing that unscrambled our brains was the failure of the 1960 Anpo strug­gle.12

A good example of the role the Anpo protests played in this “unscrambling” of artists’ brains can be seen in the evolution of works produced by prominent members of the Zen’ei Bijustukai such as Katsuragawa Hiroshi and Bitō Yutaka. As indicated by their adoption of the appellation zen’ei (“avant-­garde” or “vanguard”) at its founding in the late 1940s, many of the members of this society ­were closely affiliated with the po­liti­cal “vanguard” of socialist revolution and specifically with the Communist Party, and in the mid-1950s, most members w ­ ere still creating works that clearly fell within the socialist realist mainstream. Katsuragawa, for example, produced works such as The Evicted (Ogōchi Village) (1952), depicting a visibly pregnant but other­wise skeletal ­woman and her naked, undersized son, whose growth has perhaps been stunted by malnutrition. ­These two figures have evidently just been evicted from a ramshackle home nestled among forested mountains. On a distant mountainside, a crane and scaffolding suggests the construction proj­ect that is causing their eviction. In 1952, the Communist Party had ordered Katsuragawa and other young JCP-­affiliated artists and students to go to Ogōchi, a village in the mountains west of Tokyo. Time was ­running out for the village, which was scheduled to be obliterated beneath a reservoir created by a dam that was already ­under construction. Katsuragawa and the other youths ­were expected to become “mountain guerrillas” and take advantage of re­sis­ tance to the dam to foment a Maoist revolution among the farmers. Katsuragawa spent most of his time in Ogōchi sketching images of the strug­gles of the farmers facing eviction and distributing them as propaganda leaflets. Even ­after the JCP renounced the militant line and the young “guerrillas” came down from the mountains, Katsuragawa continued producing artworks in a socialist realist vein. A 1954 series titled The Glass Factory, for example, realistically portrays child laborers involved in dangerous work with hot glass, and Sunagawa (1955) sympathetically depicts farmers conducting a sit-in protest against the expansion of the US air base near Sunagawa village.13 . 183 .

Katsuragawa Hiroshi, The Evicted (Ogōchi Village), 1952, pen, pencil, and ink on paper, Itabashi Art Museum, Tokyo. (Courtesy of the Katsuragawa Hiroshi Estate)

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts Bitō, meanwhile, produced works such as Foundry in Kawaguchi (1954) and Transforming Station (1955), which celebrate the nobility and sacrifice of the working class. In the former, two workers carry between them on poles a smelting pot filled with molten iron that is precariously tilted t­oward the viewer. Their backs are stooped and their muscles strain visibly as they strug­gle to carry the pot without allowing it to spill over. In the distance, another worker is bending over, as if to lift a heavy object. In the latter painting, a large, muscled worker stands in the foreground of a transforming station with his hand on a switch or lever. He gazes off into the distance, a look of weary satisfaction on his face; he is an honest man d ­ oing an honest day’s work. Both  paintings employ a palette of warm colors—­yellows, oranges, reds, and browns—to bathe the workers in a lush, inviting glow. Organic lines convey the power and energy of ­these men and the machines around them. Taken together, ­these works valorize and glorify the idealized worker figure who is meant to be the backbone of the coming socialist revolution.14 Over the course of the 1950s, however, a series of setbacks (zasetsu) to leftist movements caused artists to question the utility, and ultimately the artistic value, of linking art to po­liti­cal ­causes, questions that combined with a natu­ral desire to try new ­things to bring about a decline in socialist realist art. The biggest setback of all was the perceived “failure” of the 1960 protests, especially since the anti-­treaty strug­gle had convinced the artists of the Zen’ei Bijutsukai to revive their annual exhibition ­after an eight-­year hiatus and give openly po­liti­cal art one more try. Although the artworks produced by members of the society around this time ­were not classical socialist realism, strong po­liti­cal overtones ­were still recognizable. Katsuragawa, for example, painted works such as Even So They Keep on ­Going (1960), which depicts a hobbling cripple whose ban­dages clearly resemble the shape of the Japa­nese Diet building, symbolizing the damage dealt to parliamentary democracy by Kishi. The figure is also wrapped in barbed wire, as if to si­mul­ta­neously critique the efforts to exclude protesters from the Diet compound. Another painting Katsuragawa produced in the aftermath of the protests is New York (1960), which depicts the Statue of Liberty imprisoned within a matrix of steel . 185 .

japan at the crossroads

Bitō Yutaka, Foundry in Kawaguchi, 1954, oil on canvas, Kōriyama City Museum of Art. (Courtesy of the Bitō Yutaka Estate)

girders, her torch symbolizing the light of freedom blown out and her hand held aloft only with the help of a crane. Bitō, meanwhile, produced surrealistic works with titles alluding directly to the 1960 protests, such as Protesting (1960) and Landscape ­after the Setback (1961). However, disjointed, surrealist landscapes suggest Bitō’s growing doubts about the value of nakedly po­liti­cal art. Protesting depicts a grotesque, skeletal protester, his fist raised in anger and his mouth wide as if in mid-­shout, but his legs and feet are inverted, suggesting he is marching backward rather than forward. Landscape ­after the Setback is even more abstract, depicting a barren landscape with no natu­ral vegetation and discombobulated alien forms surrounded by industrial imagery such as toothed gears and ­belts. Both paintings use the same palette of warm colors Bitō had employed in his earlier socialist realist works, but this time the reds, oranges, and yellows cast a harsh light . 186 .

Katsuragawa Hiroshi, Even So They Keep on ­Going, 1960, oil on canvas, private collection. (Courtesy of the Katsuragawa Hiroshi Estate)

Katsuragawa Hiroshi, New York, 1960, oil on canvas, private collection. (Courtesy of the Katsuragawa Hiroshi Estate)

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts

Bitō Yutaka, Protesting, 1960, private collection. (Courtesy of the Bitō Yutaka Estate)

on landscapes of despair rather than representing the warm, almost inviting glow of an industrial workplace. Although ­these transitional paintings conceived in the heat of the Anpo protests are surrealist rather than realist, their titles and subject m ­ atters make their po­liti­cal content unmistakable. ­After the failure of Anpo, however, traditional po­liti­cal organ­izing and therefore traditionally po­liti­cal art no longer seemed to have any point, and by the l­ater 1960s, ­these artists ­were creating art that had no obvious po­liti­cal messages at all. Katsuragawa, for example, painted an extended series of works featuring vari­ous kinds of fish paired with ­giant, disembodied eyeballs. The enormous eye in Drifting Eye (1965) stares out from the canvas, inverting the normal relationship between viewer and viewed. A small, glimmering object deep within the eye’s pupil—­perhaps an external object reflected on its retina—­pulls the viewer’s gaze into an interior space, again calling into question the bound­aries between perceiver and perceived. In the background loom the remains of a submerged . 189 .

japan at the crossroads

Katsuragawa Hiroshi, Drifting Eye, 1965, oil on canvas, private collection. (Courtesy of the Katsuragawa Hiroshi Estate)

city, as if the old world has been swept away by a flood and we are now in a postdiluvian era. The coelacanth-­like fish in the foreground almost seems to be—­impossibly—­smoking a cigarette. Have the fish evolved and taken over from humanity? This type of incongruous imagery falls . 190 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts

Bitō Yutaka, City Series 1, 1968, oil on canvas, private collection. (Courtesy of the Bitō Yutaka Estate)

much closer to the type of surrealism based on automatism advocated by the original French surrealists than the kind of carefully composed, overtly po­liti­cal imagery Katsuragawa had produced in 1960. Indeed, if ­there is a politics at all ­here, it is no less submerged than the abandoned h ­ uman city. In the l­ater 1960s, Bitō began painting surrealistic scenes in which ­human figures seem to be atomized and isolated from each other by ele­ ments of the urban landscape. In two paintings from his City Series (1968), the ­human figures seem sad, morose, or even anguished, and in both scenes a figure is throwing its arms up—as if in supplication—­ toward the sky, where a bright red sun disc, strongly reminiscent of the hinomaru rising sun emblem on the Japa­nese flag, lours over them, . 191 .

japan at the crossroads

Bitō Yutaka, City Series 2, 1968, oil on canvas, private collection. (Courtesy of the Bitō Yutaka Estate)

distant and aloof. While it is certainly pos­si­ble to construct a po­liti­cal narrative based on t­ hese scenes, Bitō no longer offers any assistance with his chosen title, “City Series.” What Katsuragawa, Bitō, and many other artists who had been closely associated with socialist realist art in the 1950s had found most disappointing about the 1960 Anpo protests was the failure of the Communist Party to act as a true “vanguard” of revolution. Instead, in keeping with its “peaceful revolution” line following the disastrous attempt at violent revolution in the early 1950s, the Communist Party had insisted on orderly demonstrations and working within the system rather than against it. The Anpo protests had thus confirmed to many artists that the Communist Party—­and the socialist realism the party continued to advocate—­was yet another part of the system, to be rejected and fought against, rather than a means of changing the system. Katsuragawa ex. 192 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts plained this transition in a 1961 article titled “The Meaning of ‘Setback’ for the Postwar Avant-­Garde”: In the form of the new artwork that was born out of the Anpo ­protests . . . ​despair and a sense of failure are fi­nally being converted into the basis of a unique[ly Japa­nese] subjectivity, and an attempt is being made to rebel against the unspoken but massive constraints of the nation-­state. For ­those in charge of the pre-­existing system, the Anpo protests w ­ ere nothing other than the closing act of their system, and for the rest of us they ­were truly the point of departure for our ongoing strug­gle within ourselves to reject predetermined forms.15

Younger, less established artists also found the 1960 protests liberating. Akasegawa Genpei, a younger artist just arriving on the scene around 1960, recalled the frustration he had felt regarding the constraints of the existing art system when he first tried to show his works in the late 1950s: I first submitted works to the Nihon Indépendant in 1956 and 1957. At that time I was very poor and I could not shut my eyes to the poverty around me and engage in the pursuit of pure artistic ideals. I thought I wanted something which linked real life and painting as closely as pos­si­ble. Many of the socialist realist paintings I saw at that exhibition featured masses of workers raising clenched fists t­oward the sky. In the competition to make their paintings more power­ful than the ­others, artists had gradually begun to paint the clenched fists larger and larger ­until they fi­nally took on cartoonish proportions. When I saw how ste­reo­typed ­these works had become, I gave up in despair.16

Although Akasegawa’s account is obviously just one artist’s opinion and his description of a competition between cartoonishly oversized clenched fists is of course an oversimplification of what socialist realist art sought to achieve, this anecdote is representative of the feelings of oppression and resentment many young artists had come to harbor ­toward the established artistic regimes in the late 1950s. Akasegawa would come to see the 1960 Anpo protests, however, as a turning point in his ­career. Looking back twenty-­five years ­later, he linked the “destructive creative energy” of the art collective Neo-­Dada . 193 .

japan at the crossroads Organizers, of which he had been a member, to the si­mul­ta­neously occurring Anpo protests. In the opening lines of an essay on art in the 1960s, Akasegawa wrote: “I ­will never be able to forget the year 1960. For me it was the year when the destructively energetic ‘Neo-­Dada’ art group was born, and for Japa­nese society it was the year of the first fatality in the anti-­US demonstrations.”17 Akasegawa then describes his participation in the more freewheeling and less ideological Yomiuri Indépendant exhibition. As late as 1960 it was still extremely difficult for unestablished young artists to have their work shown in a public venue. Access to galleries and exhibitions was restricted by se­lection committees dominated by established art socie­ties that often screened entries in accordance with personal connections and ideologically driven standards. In Tokyo at the time, t­ here ­were only two in­de­pen­dent, unjuried exhibitions: the Nihon Indépendant and the Yomiuri Indépendant. However, as Akasegawa’s anecdote about the contest to create the largest clenched fist alludes to, the Nihon Indépendant was dominated by socialist realism, as was most of the rest of the art establishment, leaving the raucous and entirely un-­prestigious Yomiuri Indépendant as one of the only choices for aspiring young artists outside of the socialist realist mainstream to show their work. Akasegawa describes how in the final years of the 1950s, a sort of competition emerged at the Yomiuri Indépendant to see whose “painting” could extrude most from the surface of the canvas. First the artists used sand, then glass and nails, and then larger and larger “found objects” ­until fi­nally the objects escaped the picture frame entirely and “slipped ­free of the canvas to stand proudly on the floor.”18 For Akasegawa, this was a revelation that fi­nally freed him to consider new forms and forums for art other than paintings and galleries. In Akasegawa’s retrospective view, this revelation was intimately tied to the ongoing Anpo strug­gle, which he saw as another part of the same larger social forces ­behind the minor revolution that was taking place in the exhibition halls of the Yomiuri Indépendant: This was the year 1960. It was at that exhibition, seizing upon the energy of the vari­ous objets which had slipped ­free from the canvas, that

. 194 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts “Neo-­Dada” was born. At the same time that this trend was part of an intellectual movement by a group of artists, we ­were also just playing our appointed role as but one part of the wider social forces of the time. The demonstrations against US military bases that had vigorously carried on for so many years had at last, in 1960, transformed into a nation-­wide mass movement against the revision of the ­US-­Japan Security Treaty. On June 15, just two months ­after the first “Neo-­Dada” exhibition, the streets ­were flooded with demonstrators and the gates of the National Diet Building ­were overwhelmed.19

What made the 1960 protests so thrilling for younger artists was that they provided a model of re­sis­tance to authority—­less so traditional authorities like the police or the conservative government than the authority of the Communist Party and other Old Left organ­izations. Particularly inspiring ­were the final stages of the protests in June 1960, when the streets ­were flooded with new types of protesters and the radical students of the anti-­communist Bund overwhelmed the Diet gates in blatant defiance of the “orderly” protest insisted on by Communist Party leaders of the older generation. It was at the twelfth annual Yomiuri Indépendant, held in March 1960, that the group Neo-­Dada Organizers was born. The group was officially established by artist Yoshimura Masanobu in April 1960, just as the Anpo protests ­really began to heat up, and its use of the En­glish word “organizers” (oruganaizāzu) indicated its interest in appropriating and mocking the left-­wing jargon of the protest movement. Most of the group’s activities centered on Yoshimura’s “White House” residence / studio in Shinjuku. The main members ­were all artists who had come to know each other through the Yomiuri Indépendant exhibition, and included Shinohara Ushio, Akasegawa Genpei, Kazakura Shō, Masuzawa Kinpei, and Arakawa Shūsaku. Kudō Tetsumi, Miki Tomio, and Nakanishi Natsuyuki ­were not official members but often participated. Although the Neo-­Dada Organizers engaged in all manner of artwork, their main specialty was in producing spectacularly bizarre, almost deliberately meaningless spectacle, filling galleries with piles of garbage, smashing furniture to the beat of jazz m ­ usic, or wandering the streets of Tokyo in vari­ous states of unusual dress and undress. Although . 195 .

japan at the crossroads the activities of this group w ­ ere labeled “anti-­art” (han-­geijutsu) by the art critic Tōno Yoshiaki, a term that is now used to describe the activities of a wide variety of groups in the early 1960s, including Zero Dimension, Group Ongaku, and Hi-­Red Center, the members of the Neo-­Dada Organizers never clearly embraced such a concept, at least in the sense of being against art itself.20 What was clear, however, was that they positioned themselves in opposition to all the art institutions and trends that had come before, not only the Japa­nese domestic context of predominating socialist realism but also the ­wholesale importation of foreign trends, such as Art Informel. At their first exhibition, the Neo-­Dada Organizers released a list of precepts: We are Neo-­Dadaists. —­Neo-­Dadaists are uncultured. —­Neo-­Dadaists are not Japanese. —­Neo-­Dadaists are not ­human beings. —­Neo-­Dadaists are a group devoted to artistic revolution. —­Neo-­Dadaists reject the abstract art movement entirely. —­Neo-­Dadaists have a thirst for killing.21 This early statement spoke to the Neo-­Dada Organizers’ intentions to reject any and all categorizations and hinted at their preference for techniques Akasegawa would l­ ater term “creative destruction,” whereby they sought to create a space for new types of art by systematically seeking out and violating preexisting rules. This approach was further refined in the group’s “manifesto,” composed by Shinohara and read aloud by Akasegawa to a group of reporters at the height of the Anpo protests: No ­matter how much we fantasize about procreation in the year 1960, a single atomic explosion w ­ ill casually solve every­thing for us, so Picasso’s fighting bulls no longer move us any more than the spray of blood from a run-­over stray cat. As we enter the blood-­soaked ring in this 20.6th  ­century—­a ­century which has trampled on sincere works of art—­the only way to avoid being butchered is to become butchers ourselves.22

. 196 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts This statement conveyed a sense of hopelessness, even desperation, in relation to the notion that “sincere works of art” ­were being trampled by ideology and institutions and that the only response left was to fight destruction with destruction. ­These themes of anger, desperation, and vio­lence came together on June 18, 1960, when just three days a­ fter the death of Kanba Michiko in the Diet storming, at which several members of the group had been pres­ent, the Neo-­Dada Organizers convened at Yoshimura’s White House in Shinjuku, as they did ­every Saturday, and put on a happening they called “Anpo Commemoration Event” (Anpo ki’nen ebento) for a crowd of gathered reporters and tele­vi­sion cameras. Several members of the group stripped naked and danced wildly. Yoshimura appeared with a massive erect penis and testicles made of cloth, paper, and string tied to his loins, white arrows painted all over his chest, and a gaping red wound painted on his stomach that looked for all the world as if he had just disemboweled himself in the manner of seppuku ritual suicide. Akasegawa wrapped a towel over his head like a turban, and Arakawa appeared in a grotesque, monster-­like costume and took massive gulps directly from a ­bottle of strong shōchū alcohol while dancing around bizarrely and making awful noises. Fi­nally the group came together around a large plywood panel, poured nitric acid over it, and set it on fire. They then proceeded to destroy it with a hatchet. Nobody made any direct mention of the bloodshed they had witnessed three days prior or the impending automatic approval of the treaty that eve­ning at midnight, but the dark mood that hung over the entire eve­ning was palpable.23 Outside of openly ideological and overly didactic works such as the socialist realism that the Neo-­Dada Organizers w ­ ere rejecting, it is rarely easy to draw direct and distinct lines between larger events in society and the works that artists create, especially in the case of modern and abstract art and perhaps even more so in the case of such “anti-­art” as that of the Neo-­Dada Organizers, whose actions critic Hariu Ichirō has deemed “savagely meaningless.”24 Nor w ­ ere the members of the group particularly interested in explaining themselves, ­either at the time or in ­later years. However, the title “Anpo Commemoration Event,” in combination with its proximity to the climax of the protests and the fact that many of . 197 .

japan at the crossroads the artists ­were participants in both, provides a rare glimpse into the confluence of art and life at a time when revolution was in the air but did not seem to be getting anyone anywhere except injured, imprisoned, or dead. The Anpo Commemoration Event also sheds light on Akasegawa’s contention in ­later years that the Neo-­Dada Organizers and the Anpo protests ­were both manifestations of the same larger social forces. Many p ­ eople ­were frustrated with existing institutions in 1960 and this led to concurrent rebellions in the art world and in the world of politics. ­These concurrent rebellions coincided and overlapped at the height of the protests in June 1960, in the form of the Anpo Commemoration Event. Ultimately, the Neo-­Dada Organizers lasted less than a year and disbanded before 1960 was over. But, as illustrated by the tele­vi­sion crew that showed up ­every week for their happenings, they attracted an outsize share of media attention and launched a trend of “action” art that would be carried on by other groups. Akasegawa himself was one of the artists who remained interested in taking artistic “action,” even a­ fter the 1960 crisis had died down. Indeed, at a 1963 roundtable discussion on artistic action, he emphasized that it was precisely at calmer times when ­there was not a major po­liti­cal upheaval that such action was most needed: It is not the case that big symbolic events like Anpo pull everyday events out of the closet and cast harsh new light on them. In fact, it is rather that they put away t­ hese everyday events too neatly. However, at a time such as now, when nothing is g­ oing on, it is pos­si­ble to peel back the surface and see much more clearly.25

It was around this time that Akasegawa joined with fellow artists Nakanishi Natsuyuki and Takamatsu Jirō to form the three-­man art group Hi-­Red Center, whose English-­sounding name was composed of the En­ glish translations of the first Chinese characters of each artist’s name: Taka (High), Aka (Red), and Naka (­Middle or Center). Although all three had originally started out as paint­ers, through their participation in the Anpo protests and the wild shows at the Yomiuri Indépendant, with its pro­cess of art becoming unmoored from the gallery walls, they all had arrived at a conviction that what was most necessary for the age was what they called “direct action,” a term borrowed from prewar socialist agita. 198 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts tors but which they understood to mean a New Left–­style direct confrontation of ­people with the contradictions and absurdities inhering in everyday life and society rather than simply naming or pointing out t­ hose contradictions through static artworks or orderly protest marches. In putting their views into practice from the beginning of 1963 to the fall of 1964, the three artists conceived and carried out a series of audacious “actions,” “happenings,” and “plans” in which they blurred the lines between art and everyday life. In Dropping Event, vari­ous objects ­were heaved from the top of a building to the surprise of onlookers. Shelter Plan invited guests to have themselves mea­sured for a custom-­fitted fallout shelter. In The Movement for the Promotion of a Clean and Or­ga­ nized Metropolitan Area (often abbreviated as Cleaning Event), a group of artists dressed in lab coats and face masks roped off an area of sidewalk on a Tokyo street and spent several arduous hours scrubbing the sidewalk sparkling clean with toothbrushes while passersby variously praised, mocked, encouraged, or ignored them. The official name of Cleaning Event, with its use of the term undō (movement) as well as the invitation with its list of “collaborating organ­izations” including both real and fictional institutions, viciously mocked the classic umbrella organ­ izations that typified Old Left organ­izing, such as the Kokumin Kaigi that had or­ga­nized the Anpo protests.26 The event, conducted on the seventh day of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, also deliberately allowed itself to be confused with the nationwide campaign to clean up the metropolis in preparation for the Olympic Games, while taking such rhe­toric and practice to ridicu­lous extremes. Although Hi-­Red Center is now considered to have been one of the most prominent and influential Japa­nese art groups of the 1960s, it lasted just a l­ ittle ­under a year and a half. The group never officially disbanded, but the Cleaning Event of October 1964 proved to be its final artistic action. Although Akasegawa would ­later cryptically remark that “­after Cleaning ­there was simply nothing left to do,” as a m ­ atter of fact, around that same time he was becoming increasingly preoccupied with the so-­ called 1,000-­Yen Note incident.27 In January 1963 and continuing in parallel with his activities with Hi­Red Center, Akasegawa had begun printing one-­sided, monochrome . 199 .

japan at the crossroads

Hirata Minoru, Hi Red Center’s Cleaning Event (officially known as Be Clean! and Campaign to Promote Cleanliness and Order in the Metropolitan Area), 1964. (© Hirata Minoru Archive. Image courtesy of the Taka Ishii Gallery Photo­ graphy / Film, Tokyo)

copies of a 1,000-­yen bill. He employed ­these copies in creating a variety of art objects, particularly a series called Packages, in which he used the notes as wrapping paper to wrap a variety of everyday (and virtually valueless) objects. Akasegawa was eventually detained by the police on suspicion of counterfeiting, and was ultimately indicted u ­ nder a largely forgotten 1896 law prohibiting mozō, or the simulation of currency. This was a lesser charge than counterfeiting, but nevertheless serious. The resulting criminal trial and appeals dragged on u ­ ntil 1970 and created a sensation, bringing ­great fame to Akasegawa and, by extension, the other members of Hi-­Red Center, as many of the most famous names in the art world testified in his defense and collaborated to appropriate the courtroom as a space of artistic production.28 The case hinged on two questions: first, w ­ hether Akasegawa’s printing of the 1,000-­yen note constituted “art,” and second, if so, w ­ hether this art was protected ­free expression and therefore not a crime. The court ulti. 200 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts mately ruled that Akasegawa’s activity was both art and a crime, a ruling upheld by the Japa­nese Supreme Court in 1970. In the pro­cess, the entire spectrum of activity from Neo-­Dada through Hi-­Red Center, which while not clearly rejecting art had also never clearly embraced art, and which had pushed the bound­aries between art and non-­art to new extremes and called into question conventional notions of “art” and “non­art,” came to be decisively and irreversibly subsumed ­under the category of “art,” both in ­legal terms and among the larger community of artists. What had once been a vaguely threatening category of activity with the potential to bring about social change was effectively quarantined within the padded cell of ­things that can be explained away as “art.” As Aka­ segawa himself ­later recalled, ­ ntil that moment [his detainment on suspicion of counterfeiting], U I had created my works based on intuition alone, but now I was forced to give an analy­sis. I had witnessed with my own eyes how paintings that had formerly been enclosed within flat planes had become twisted and extruded, and as the value of that art became further twisted within me, I started to feel that it was being deposited onto the fabric of real­ity. However, this did not mean that I had any theoretical weapons in my mind at that time. The trial of the “1,000-­yen note” began soon thereafter, and as my case passed through the District, High, and Supreme Courts, I was forced to further undertake an oppressively difficult study of the uncertainty of art.29

In other words, according to Akasegawa, he himself had never been quite sure ­whether his works constituted “art” ­until he was forced by the 1,000-­yen case to theorize what had previously been “based on intuition alone.” By this pro­cess, the “value” of “art” came to be “deposited” onto his works. The critic Hariu Ichirō observed a similar pro­cess at work in ­later views of the activities of the Neo-­Dada Organizers in 1960. He found ­great irony in the fact that “this group, which had vigorously denied that they ­were creating ‘works’ and had deliberately pursued the polar opposite of savagely meaningless action . . . ​it seems somehow came to be positively affirmed as having been engaged in ‘art’ and ‘­free expression.’ ”30 Indeed, just as Akasegawa’s final appeal was rejected in 1970, the World’s . 201 .

japan at the crossroads Fair was opening in Osaka and attracted international attention for the extent to which artworks and designs by Japa­nese avant-­garde artists ­were incorporated into the vari­ous national and corporate pavilions. That many of the artists of the “Anpo generation,” so angry and disillusioned in June 1960, gladly contributed to this state-­sponsored, nationalistic event just ten years ­later illustrated society’s enduring ability to eventually tame and co-­opt artistic rebellion. Looking back in ­later years at the de­cade of the 1960s, Akasegawa and his old artistic partners from Hi-­Red Center, Takamatsu Jirō and Nakanishi Natsuyuki, emphasized the role of the 1960 Anpo protests in creating a moment of rupture and exhilaration, during which new art and art forms seemed pos­si­ble. At a 1983 reunion roundtable, Akasegawa suggested that the Anpo protests opened up “a gap,” which in the early 1960s was “not yet closed,” and that “this [gap] was why so many kinds of movements became pos­si­ble, ­after all.” Takamatsu then elaborated: “That was ­because the flame of 1960 Anpo had not yet died. It continued all the way up ­until the 1970 student movements.” Akasegawa concluded, “That was huge. Even c­ hildren felt it. It was a situation where we w ­ ere always wondering, ‘What ­will happen next?’ ”31

Theater A clear example of a movement that emerged in the post-­Anpo moment of rupture was the angura movement of postmodern “underground” theater, which developed as a reaction against the structural and ideological constraints of Japan’s modern theater movement, known as shingeki (literally, “new theater”). Shingeki theater had developed in the early twentieth ­century in response to the perceived “irrationality” of earlier forms of Western-­style theater that had been pop­u­lar­ized during the Meiji period (1868–1912), as well as to “premodern” or “feudal” forms of traditional Japa­nese theater such as kabuki and noh. Shingeki companies thus sought to pres­ent Western-­style theatrical productions in modern, Western-­style theaters with less stylized and more “realistic” situations, dialogues, costumes, and set design. Shingeki, which showed strong leftist inclinations from the 1920s, was heavi­ly suppressed by the militarist . 202 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts regimes of the 1930s, barely survived the war, and strug­gled ­under harsh conditions in the immediate postwar years before gradually finding increased success over the course of the 1950s.32 Although shingeki thus boasted a proud anti-­establishment history of its own, by 1960 the movement had essentially become part of the establishment it had originally fought against. Whereas shingeki had once taken pride in being “small,” “noncommercial” theater, by 1960 the movement had, at least at the top end of the scale for large companies such as the “Big Three” (Bungaku-za, Haiyū-za, and Gekidan Mingei), become a massive, highly professionalized, and even profitable business. Gekidan Mingei (The P ­ eople’s Art Theater), for example, had comprised only twelve members when it was founded in the early postwar period: eleven actors and one director. By the year 1960, however, it had ballooned into a com­pany of 119 members: fifty-­one actors, thirteen directors and assistant directors, sixteen administrative staff, and thirty-­nine apprentices.33 ­These large production companies, with their numerous support staff and extravagantly staged productions, w ­ ere financially propped up by “workers’ theater councils” (kinrōsha engeki kyōgikai, abbreviated rōen). ­These councils, modeled on the prewar German Volksbühne (­People’s Theater) movement, had been or­ga­nized by the Communist Party in the early postwar years and had played a crucial role in helping shingeki survive in the early postwar period by buying up blocks of tickets and mobilizing members of JCP-­linked ­labor ­unions to attend shingeki productions.34 Rather than weaning themselves off the rōen as they became more successful, however, the big theater companies instead became increasingly dependent on them to fill theaters, as they ­were ­either unable or unwilling to reduce their bud­get outlays to match ­actual market demand for their product. In 1960, the major theater companies ­were still relying on the rōen to purchase as many as half of the tickets they sold, and the two major shingeki magazines ­were publicly airing concerns that the need to keep the members of the rōen happy and on board was contributing to what was perceived to be the increasingly staid and conservative nature of shingeki productions.35 But beyond the ideological and artistic constraints inherent in the need to operate a large, for-­profit enterprise and to pander to the left-­leaning . 203 .

japan at the crossroads rōen, perhaps what rankled aspiring young actors, playwrights, and stage directors most of all was the pyramidal structure of the industry and the internal composition of the major theater companies. Although the top companies, supported as they w ­ ere by the rōen, had become prosperous and could afford to pay large salaries to their members, many of the smaller companies, especially t­ hose not supported by the rōen, did not turn a profit at all, and in fact subsidized productions by garnishing “taxes” (gekidan-­zei) from the wages troupe members earned working outside jobs.36 The big companies, however, recruited their members directly out of universities and retained them for the duration of their ­careers, meaning ­there was almost no movement between companies and ­those outside the major companies saw their route to the top completely blocked off, regardless of their talent or abilities. Meanwhile, within the big companies themselves, major decisions on the direction of the com­ pany would often be taken by the most se­nior members of the com­pany, without significant consultation with ju­nior members, and younger members had to wait years to gain starring roles or directing opportunities, regardless of ability.37 In short, the shingeki movement, at least in the eyes of some of its younger members, had come to stand for many of the ­things it had once stood against. As the young stage director (and ­later well-­known theater critic) Tsuno Kaitarō wrote at the time, Shingeki has become historical; it has become a tradition in its own right. The prob­lem for the younger generation has been to come to terms with this tradition. For us, modern Eu­ro­pean drama [which shingeki had sought to emulate] is no longer some golden idea as yet out of reach. It is instead a pernicious, limiting influence. Beneath Shingeki’s prosperous exterior ­there is de­cadence. It has lost the antithetic élan that characterized its origins. Shingeki no longer maintains the dialectical power to negate and transcend; it has become an institution that itself demands to be transcended.38

Although this kind of disillusionment had already begun to develop in the latter half of the 1950s, the 1960 Anpo protests played a decisive role in exacerbating preexisting conflicts and driving many young thes. 204 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts pians to put their discontent into action by breaking with the major companies and pursuing radical new forms of theater. A key reason why the shingeki movement was so directly affected by the Anpo protests was that, unlike the members of some other fields of art, virtually the entire shingeki establishment, young and old, directly participated in the protests. Moreover, it was members of the shingeki companies who had suffered some of the worst vio­lence of the protests and thus had to grapple most directly with the consequences of their movement’s collective po­ liti­cal stance. On May  17, 1960, ­after a lengthy and contentious internal debate, thirty-­four shingeki groups issued a joint statement declaring their opposition to the Security Treaty, and on May 26, following the railroading of the treaty through the Diet, forty-­eight shingeki groups united to form an anti-­Anpo organ­ization (the Shingekijin Kaigi) and began actively mobilizing members for participation in street protests. It was members of the shingeki organ­ization, including several actresses, who w ­ ere infamously rammed by the trucks of right-­wing counterprotesters on June 15 and attacked with staves embedded with nails, resulting in injuries to eighty of their number. As the ­wholesale participation of the shingeki movement in the Anpo protests opened up new physical wounds, it also reopened old ideological wounds from previous debates on what degree of po­liti­cal commitment (if any) was appropriate for the shingeki companies and their members, debates that resumed with a vengeance and became more heated than ever. The ambiguous outcome of the protests further exacerbated the conflict, as depending on ideology and po­liti­cal affiliation, the Anpo protests ­were seen as ­either a success or a failure. Many of the most se­ nior members of the shingeki companies, who tended to be more closely affiliated with the communist or socialist parties, viewed the Anpo protests in a positive light and pressed for deepening po­liti­cal commitments. Many of the younger members, however, had recently graduated from university and tended to sympathize more with the radical student activists and the view that the protests had been an abject failure. Insofar as the younger generation might have held out any hope of convincing their se­niors to shy away from politics and pursue a dif­fer­ent, . 205 .

japan at the crossroads less ideologically constrained theater, ­these hopes ­were decisively dashed when five of the largest and most prominent shingeki companies, previously perceived as representing a broad spectrum of po­liti­cal viewpoints, agreed to collaborate in the fall of 1960 on a joint tour of Communist China. Given that this was the shingeki movement’s first overseas foray in its forty-­year history, the choice of Communist China, coming so soon on the heels of the Anpo upheaval, was illustrative of the sway the JCP had over the decision-­making upper ranks of the movement. An editorial on the tour in the Asahi Shinbun, while praising the idea of the tour as a chance for the shingeki movement to broaden its horizons, expressed suspicions regarding the aims of the tour: “We won­der what the true purpose of this trip to China is. That is to say, is it ­really just to give public per­for­mances, or is it actually to whip up a fervor by reporting on the anti-­Anpo protests? Somehow, emphasis seems to have shifted to the latter, and in fact one of the plays on the program clearly incorporates this message.”39 Especially galling to some of the younger members was the decision by the leadership of Bungaku-za (one of the “Big Three” companies, and a troupe widely held to be the least po­liti­cal) not only to participate in what seemed to be the highly ideologically driven China tour but also to modify the script of the com­pany’s flagship production, Onna no isshō (The life of a ­woman), to accommodate the objections of their Chinese hosts. This dispute simmered beneath the surface and led to several years of discord and upheaval for the previously stable Bungaku-za com­pany. In the wake of the China tour, younger members of the troupe increasingly seethed at what they viewed as the autocratic style of se­nior members, whose opinions seemed to carry more weight simply on the basis of se­niority. Fi­nally, at the end of 1962, right in the ­middle of the New Year’s production, twenty-­nine younger members of the troupe abruptly announced they ­were leaving Bungaku-za to form their own com­pany, the Cloud Com­pany (Gekidan Kumo).40 Meanwhile, a small revolution of sorts was fomenting within Mingei, the most ideological of all the major companies. Over the course of the Anpo protests, several of the younger members of the troupe had become increasingly disenchanted with the ideological orientation of the com­ . 206 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts pany. Following the protests, some twenty members of the third graduating class of Mingei’s private drama school came together with playwright Fukuda Yoshiyuki, classically trained noh actor Kanze Hideo, and composer Hayashi Hikaru to found the Seinen Geijutsu Gekijō (Youth Art Theater), usually abbreviated Seigei.41 Actor Kanze ­later recalled in a 1970 interview, Seigei was born out of the frustration felt by the young theater ­people who ­were part of the Shingekijin Kaigi (Conference of Modern Theater Artists) that was formed to participate in the anti-­Anpo strug­gle. They ­were frustrated ­because of the way the demonstrations ­were being or­ga­nized and conducted by the old guard. As soon as ­things started getting serious, we ­were always told to disperse and go home. I was always in the demonstrations and felt frustrated too. As far as the theater itself was concerned, I found the productions of the big theatre companies like Haiyū-za and Mingei boring and irrelevant.42

In a similar vein, playwright Fukuda remembered, On June 15, at the height of the 1960 Anpo strug­gle, a group of protestors or­ga­nized around members of the shingeki movement was attacked by a group of right-­wingers. I was standing on top of a loudspeaker truck at that time, clutching a microphone. ­There was this ridicu­lous policy called “passive dispersal,” and despite the fact that I opposed it I had been assigned the task of implementing it. It is fair to say that was the moment I realized that the members of the newly formed Seigei ­were my real comrades. They adhered to the . . . ​ princi­ple of “always do what you said you would do, always do what you felt was necessary,” and in refusing to be the followers of any kind of thinker or theorist, doggedly maintained their autonomy and spontaneity to the end, despite the disapproval of the Shingeki Association or the ­People’s Council to Prevent Anpo.43

Three months ­after the end of the protests, in October 1960, the newly formed Seigei mounted its first production. Along with two classic shingeki plays from the Taishō period (1912–1926), the group staged a new play written by Fukuda titled Rec­ord Number 1, which dramatized their . 207 .

japan at the crossroads experiences during the Anpo strug­gle, based on interviews Fukuda had conducted with the other members of the troupe. The play began surreptitiously and unannounced ­after the second of the two traditional plays ended. The curtain ­rose again to show the actors, who thanked the audience for coming and began breaking down the set and removing their makeup. The actors then get to talking, using their real names, and discuss their recent (real) experiences in the Anpo protests, as scripted by Fukuda based on his interviews. As the conversation continues, the actors start acting out vari­ous flashback and fantasy scenes, switching back and forth between “themselves” and their numerous “roles,” all the while continuing to break down the set.44 Rec­ord Number 1 was thus si­mul­ta­neously a confessional, a casual conversation, a po­liti­cal statement, a historical document, a play, and a good way to break down the set, not to mention a radical, proto-­postmodern departure from a wide variety of modernist theatrical conceits, including the linear flow of uniform time, the maintenance of proper relationships between actors and audience and a proper “fourth wall,” and rules so basic that they ­were normally not even thought of as rules, such as not having actors play “themselves” and announcing that t­ here is g­ oing to be a third play a­ fter the first two. At least in the history of the Japa­nese theater, Rec­ord Number 1 was a radically new kind of play and represents what theater historian David G. Goodman calls “a pivotal moment in the history of the modern Japa­nese theater movement,” one that “challenged e­ very aspect of the shingeki orthodoxy.”45 Fukuda himself would ­later write that “Rec­ord Number 1 was the starting point of the 1960s for both Seigei and myself. ”46 Indeed, Seigei’s per­for­mance of Rec­ord Number 1 became the starting point for a radical new theater movement in Japan that eventually came to be known as angura theater (angura was a Japa­nese abbreviation of the En­glish word “underground”).47 Most of the major figures of the angura movement ­were closely affiliated with Seigei in the early years, including Fukuda, as well as the two most famous angura playwrights of them all, Kara Jūrō and Satō Makoto. All had participated in the Anpo protests, and all had become disillusioned with the rigidity of the mainstream shingeki companies. ­Either branching out from Seigei or splitting off from other companies, t­ hese young directors formed numerous experi. 208 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts mental theater troupes in the early 1960s, producing small-­scale productions in storefronts, basements, or in outdoor tents that challenged the traditional rules of theater in ­every way imaginable. By the late 1960s, several of ­these troupes had become successful and even profitable, most famously Satō Makoto’s Black Tent Theatre and Kara Jūrō’s Red Tent Theatre, named a­ fter the colors of the tents in which they staged their traveling productions. Also famous was Suzuki Tadashi’s Waseda L ­ ittle Theatre, which focused on the otherworldly talents of bewitching star actress Shiraishi Kayoko and produced a revolutionary and extremely rigorous actor training regimen known as the Suzuki Method, which has since spread around the world. It is impor­tant not to overlook shingeki or assume it dis­appeared or went into decline. If anything, the major shingeki companies did even better in the prosperous 1960s, and most of them continue to exist ­today (although the “shingeki” moniker itself has since been dropped). Nor ­were all the criticisms leveled at the shingeki mainstream in the early 1960s entirely fair, as it was no longer just the straight-up socialist realism it was accused of being, was never as entirely dominated by the Communist Party as was often portrayed, and was in fact trying to innovate from within as well. Nevertheless, disillusionment with the shingeki orthodoxy, which in no small part was exacerbated by the strains of the Anpo protests, created space for a compelling and exciting new type of theater to emerge in Japan.

Lit­er­a­ture In addition to the visual arts and the theater, another field of artistic endeavor that developed in new directions in the aftermath of the 1960 protests was Japa­nese lit­er­a­ture. The Japa­nese literary world in 1960 was still dominated by the bundan, an informal and unspoken “system” dating back to the Meiji period, whereby se­nior figures in the literary world would employ their influence to selectively advance the c­ areers of favored protégés. Looking back in ­later years, scholars would come to view this system as having “collapsed” around 1960, and the Anpo protests would be credited with playing a significant role in precipitating this collapse. . 209 .

japan at the crossroads In addition to the inevitable disputes over w ­ hether the protests had been a success or a failure, which ­were taking place across many fields of the arts, two new arrivals on the scene during the 1960 protests rocked the literary world. First, a young college student named Kurahashi Yumiko won a prize from Meiji University for her short story “Parutai” (The Party), about a young w ­ oman whose boyfriend tries to pressure her to join the Communist Party, in which Kurahashi skewered the party’s bureaucratic dogmatism. When leading literary critic Hirano Ken championed this story and used his influence to have it republished in the March 1960 issue of the prominent literary journal Bungakkai, a vigorous debate broke out over the story’s literary merits and ­whether a figure such as Hirano should be promoting it, in what became a proxy war over competing views of the Communist Party. Many critics w ­ ere angry that the story broke unspoken taboos about explic­itly discussing politics in fiction; although Kurahashi never named the party she was describing, details provided within the story, as well as the fact that “Parutai” (from the German Partei) was a common nickname in Marxist circles for the JCP, made it painfully obvious to which party she was referring. Less explicit, but nevertheless lurking beneath the surface of the so-­called Parutai controversy, was simmering dis­plea­sure among some members of the male-­dominated bundan at Hirano’s advocating for a female author whose writing did not conform to the traditions of the “­women’s lit­er­a­ture” ( joryū bungaku) genre. The other event that jolted the literary world during the protests of 1960 was the sudden and unexpected craze for detective novels by authors such as Matsumoto Seichō and Mizukami Tsutomu, and more importantly, the praise awarded ­these works by some literary critics. Matsumoto, for example, tapped into the sense of crisis fostered by the ongoing protests and the attendant currents of anti-­US sentiment with his series Dark Mist over Japan, in which an enterprising detective gradually uncovers a vast web of conspiracy involving vari­ous shenanigans by US secret agents. Many critics expressed fears that the popularity of such works was a sign that junbungaku, a term used to denote “pure” or “high” lit­er­a­ture (i.e., lit­er­a­ture purposefully written as art and not merely . 210 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts to make money), was becoming eclipsed by lowbrow genre fare, referred to as taishū bungaku (“mass” or “popu­lar” lit­er­a­ture). It was within this context that Hirano, in a brief September 1961 article in the Asahi Shinbun on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the literary magazine Gunzō, sparked another firestorm by declaring that “junbungaku was nothing but a historical concept” (rekishiteki gainen ni suginai). Hirano argued that junbungaku was not a timeless and universal concept but rather a term specifically grounded in the politics of the immediate prewar and postwar periods and used to justify why certain books w ­ ere acceptable and ­others ­were not.48 Hirano’s seemingly offhand assertion led to a long series of rebuttals and counter-­rebuttals across a variety of journals, and dragged many well-­known authors and critics into the fray, including novelist Ōoka Shōhei, critic Itō Sei, author Takami Jun, literary critics Nakamura Mitsuo, Yamamoto Kenkichi, and Senuma Shigeki, well-­known translator of Shakespeare Fukuda Tsuneari, and critic Etō Jun. Hirano was variously accused of “making eyes at popu­lar lit­er­a­ture” (taishū bungaku ni shūha) or even of attempting to “prolong the predominance of the ‘I novel,’ ” but he vigorously denied having a hidden agenda and tenaciously defended his position.49 This debate, which came to be known as the “junbungaku controversy” ( junbungaku ronsō), continued over the course of 1962 before leading directly into the “postwar lit­er­a­ture controversy” (sengo bungaku ronsō), which was launched in August 1962 when literary critic Sasaki Kiichi wrote an article in Gunzō brazenly titled “ ‘Postwar Lit­er­a­ture’ Was Just an Illusion.” Sasaki began by stating that, “two years ago, following my experiencing of the Anpo protests, I began to feel an urgent need to reevaluate this postwar literary movement in which I had just participated, and the ideology that lay b ­ ehind it.” According to Sasaki, it was the failure of the Anpo protests that caused him to recognize the failure of postwar lit­er­a­ture in general. Sasaki wrote that as the protests around the Diet mounted, he realized that “all that energy was being used to attack nothing but the wooden fences and stone walls around the Diet, and had no strategic objective other than the slogan of ‘protecting democracy.’ ” As a result, Sasaki recalled, “a dream and an illusion that I had . 211 .

japan at the crossroads cherished for 15 years since the war ended slipped away. . . . ​Over the course of the anti-­Anpo protests, the limits of the postwar democracy movement and the ‘postwar’ ideological framework suddenly became obvious.”50 Referring to Haniya Yutaka’s labeling of the Anpo protests as a “revolutionless revolution,” Sasaki suggested that postwar lit­er­a­ture had also been a “revolutionless revolution.”51 In Sasaki’s view, the overarching trajectory of postwar Japa­nese lit­er­a­ture had been the strug­gle to break ­free from politics and in par­tic­u­lar the influence of the Communist Party. Although Sasaki noted that the influence of the Communists seemed to be on the wane, he asserted that postwar lit­er­a­ture was still failing to remain aloof from politics, and thus “pure lit­er­a­ture” ( junbungaku) had never been successfully achieved. Instead, the literary world had gotten too caught up in day-­to-­day events, and thus lit­er­a­ture itself was becoming increasingly “vulgarized” (zokka).52 Thus was launched a new debate that thereafter elicited replies from writers such as Honda Shūgo, Ōoka Shōhei, Ōe Kenzaburō, and Isoda Kōichi.53 Building on the “junbungaku” and “postwar lit­er­a­ture” debates, critic Okuno Takeo launched a new round of debate in the June 1963 edition of the newly launched literary journal Bungei, in an article titled “The Bankruptcy of ‘Politics and Lit­er­a­ture’ Theory.” In contrast to the more subtle and roundabout jabs that had begun with the proxy warfare over Kurahashi’s “Parutai,” Okuno’s broadside was an open attack on the “politics and lit­er­a­ture thesis” (seiji to bungaku ron) that had developed out of the prewar “proletarian lit­er­a­ture” movement, which insisted that good lit­ er­a­ture should advance social ­causes in general, and in par­tic­u­lar the cause of bringing about socialist revolution. Indeed, Okuno’s essay constituted full frontal assault on the idea that lit­er­a­ture should ever be guided by external politics at all.54 Okuno begins by alluding directly to the aftermath of the Anpo protests, declaring, “We must directly confront the fact that we are now in the midst of a po­liti­cal situation that none of us has ever experienced before. . . . ​The myth of Marxism has been decisively shattered.”55 According to Okuno, this new state of affairs demands that writers develop “literary autonomy,” and calls for a move from “lit­er­a­ture as but one aspect of politics” to “politics as but one aspect of lit­er­a­ture.” In par­tic­u­lar, . 212 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts Okuno singles out Abe Kōbō’s Suna no onna (The ­Woman in the Dunes, 1962) and Mishima Yukio’s Utsukushii hoshi (A Beautiful Star, 1962) as examples of recent works that have properly responded to the new, post-­ Anpo state of affairs, praising them as “epoch-­making” works ­because they have broken ­free of literary taboos and preexisting notions of what lit­er­a­ture should be in order to better explore the authors’ own philosophical conceptions.56 On the other hand, Okuno harshly criticizes Hotta Yoshie’s Uminari no soto kara (From the bottom of the raging sea, 1960–1961) and Noma Hiroshi’s Waga tō wa soko ni tatsu (My tower stands ­there, 1960–1961) as “failed works of non-­literature,” for being too nakedly po­liti­cal and having failed to take into account the new po­liti­cal environment post-­Anpo.57 Okuno was supported in this line of attack most notably by Isoda Kōichi and Yoshimoto Takaaki, and aroused varying degrees of opposition from the likes of Hariu Ichirō, Takei Teruo, Shinoda Hajime, and Takahashi Kazumi.58 This debate, which came to be known as the “politics and lit­er­a­ture controversy,” dragged on into 1964 before petering out. But by this time the aspect of urgency t­ hese debates had taken on in the immediate aftermath of the Anpo protests had begun to dissipate, in no small part due to the victory of one of the sides in a parallel strug­gle that had been g­ oing on within literary socie­ties such as the Nihon Bungeigaku Kai (Japa­nese Lit­er­a­ture Association) and the Shin Nihon Bungakkai (New Japa­nese Literary Society). The case of the Shin Nihon Bungakkai is particularly illustrative ­because it was a far-­left society heavi­ly ­under the influence of the Communist Party and had been established as soon as the war ended in 1945 for the explicit purpose of organ­izing lit­er­a­ture and literary writers around po­liti­cal aims. In the summer of 1961, as the JCP prepared to hold its 8th Party Congress, a group of twenty-­one prominent authors who ­were all members of both the Shin Nihon Bungakkai and the Communist Party, including such leading figures as Abe Kōbō, Noma Hiroshi, Takei Teruo, Hanada Kiyoteru, and Hariu Ichirō, among ­others, distributed a tract titled “Embarking on Party Reconstruction for the Sake of True Princi­ples and Revolution.” Following the Congress, in which the party had reaffirmed its line of pursuing gradual change through party politics, the twenty-­one writers distributed a second tract, joined by . 213 .

japan at the crossroads seven additional signees, titled “Another Appeal to the Party to Advance the Revolutionary Movement.”59 ­These writers had become deeply disillusioned following what they viewed as the “setback” of the 1960 Anpo protests and the Communist Party’s failure to act as a revolutionary “vanguard,” and thus had deci­ded to take their criticism “to the next level” (yori issō tsuyomeru hokanaranai). The tracts they published presented two main lines of attack on the Communist Party: first that the Communist Party had sacrificed princi­ples to politics, and second (and relatedly), that art and lit­er­a­ture (bungei) should not be “subordinated” ( jūzoku) to politics, and therefore, since the Communist Party had descended to the level of mere politics, art and lit­er­a­ture should strive to achieve greater autonomy from the Communist Party. Unswayed by this criticism, at the Congress the party reaffirmed its standing “cultural policy” (bunka seisaku), vowing to “fight to the end” to promote “­people’s liberation” lit­er­a­ture and art and to resist “the cultural invasion of American Imperialism, the degenerate culture of domestic and foreign mono­poly capitalism, and militarist and anti-­communist propaganda.”60 This put a damper on any idea that the Communist Party might allow its members to pursue a fuller ac­cep­tance of, or deeper engagement with, Western art forms, or more apo­liti­cal forms of lit­er­a­ture and art. The party also made it clear that opposition would not be tolerated by purging most of the members who had participated in issuing the joint statements, if they had not already resigned from the party on their own. Just a few months ­later, in December 1961, the Shin Nihon Bungakkai held its 10th Congress, at which the tide decisively shifted against the Communist Party and its supporters. Even a year and a half a­ fter the Anpo crisis had ended, the protests remained the major topic of discussion. On the eve of the Congress, the Congress Planning Committee published a brief article in the society’s journal that took veiled jabs at Communist Party cultural policy and explic­itly declared discussion of the meaning of the Anpo protests to be the single most impor­tant item on the agenda for the conference: What we seek at this conference . . . ​is a new approach and a new attitude ­toward po­liti­cal participation, and a debate on the creation of

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New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts images that take a certain viewpoint t­ oward society. We must pursue this debate based on a correct analy­sis of the changes in the circumstances surrounding Japa­nese lit­er­a­ture that have become clear in the two-­year period between our 9th and this 10th conference. What led to ­these changes in Japa­nese lit­er­a­ture over the past two years, and what must be taken up first, above all ­else, is the anti-­Anpo strug­gle against the US-­Japan military alliance, and the participation therein of large numbers of Japa­nese literary figures. . . . ​Over the course of the strug­gle, the efforts of the Shin Nihon Bungakkai to establish a lit­er­a­ture focused on creativity began to receive support from large numbers of ­people. In addition, the old conception of modern Japa­ nese lit­er­a­ture that had been so often asserted in the past was confirmed to have collapsed, whereas the Anpo strug­gle brightened the ­future prospects and clarified the content of the new kind of Japa­nese lit­er­a­ture we seek.61

At the Congress itself, Nakano Shigeharu read the “General Activities Report,” in which he lamented the infighting that had wracked the literary world in the aftermath of the Anpo protests, harshly criticized the cultural policies of the Communist Party, and called on authors to pursue “literary originality” (bungaku no dokujisei).62 Noma Hiroshi then read the “Creative Activities Report,” in which he criticized the “contradictions” of the “or­ga­nized ­labor movement” and “the po­liti­cal parties currently aiming for socialism or communism” that he claimed had come to light during the Anpo protests, and called for “establishing a new relationship between politics and lit­er­a­ture.”63 This line of argument increasingly became the dominant view of the Shin Nihon Bungakkai as a w ­ hole, reflected in the tone of its journal, Shin Nihon Bungaku, from this point on. The debates that arose out of the Anpo protests, both in literary journals and within the literary socie­ties, helped move Japa­nese lit­er­a­ture out from ­under the shadow of the Communist Party and opened up new directions of literary exploration, especially vari­ous Western forms that had been considered “degenerate bourgeois cap­i­tal­ist” or “American imperialism,” and types of “popu­lar lit­er­a­ture” that had previously been considered too “vulgar.” Looking back on this period in 1970, Okuno . 215 .

japan at the crossroads Takeo viewed ­these changes quite positively: “In the years ­after the 1960 Anpo strug­gle . . . ​this series of literary debates brought about the end of vari­ous complexes and taboos within modern lit­er­a­ture and made it clear that the Japa­nese literary world was facing a new age of con­temporary lit­er­a­ture that was unmistakably dif­f er­ent from postwar lit­er­a­ture.”64 Not every­one was entirely pleased with this shift, however. One example was Ōe Kenzaburō, who continued to write a brand of lit­er­a­ture that was closely informed by politics in the ­later 1960s, including 1967’s The ­Silent Cry, in which he directly equated the 1960 Anpo protests with the 1860s as two eras in which Japan fell u ­ nder foreign domination.65 Looking back on this period during the 1980s, Ōe viewed the 1960 protests as a major turning point, a­ fter which Japa­nese lit­er­a­ture went into irretrievable decline: The p ­ eople’s movement in 1960 to protest the new Japan-­United States Security Treaty was a movement which had actively incorporated the opinions of the postwar writers and t­ hose of the cultural theorists. It was a movement which was equally as power­ful as, and more animated than, the opposition progressive parties and the ­labor ­unions. A comparison of the po­liti­cal and cultural situation of ­those years—­twenty years ago—­with that of ­today sheds light on what it is exactly that has been lost and how we lost it. The light shines upon the road along which twenty years have taken us and also upon a very symbolic phenomenon: lit­er­a­ture treading its path to wrack and ruin.66

In 1960, the same year as the Anpo protests, Daniel Bell made waves in the West with his book The End of Ideology, in which he argued that the humanism of the first half of the twentieth ­century had become exhausted and that ­people would increasingly abandon ideology-­driven approaches in both politics and culture.67 Penning observations of his own society in 1963, Japa­nese critic Isoda Kōichi had most likely not read Bell’s book, nor did he have access to the term “postmodernism,” yet present-­day readers would immediately recognize the pro­cess he described as the emergence of a postmodern consciousness. “From the late 1950s to the early 1960s,” Isoda wrote, “a decisive change which had never occurred before began to take shape within the consciousness of Japa­ . 216 .

New Directions in Lit­e r­a­t ure and the Arts nese ­people. . . . ​They gradually found themselves no longer able to believe in the value system that had guided the ­human spirit up to that time.” Deliberately echoing the famous 1956 declaration by a Japa­nese government white paper that “the postwar is now over” (mohaya sengo de wa nai), Isoda declared, “The ‘modern period’ is now over” (mohaya kindai de wa nai) and added, “Perhaps we are now entering something akin to a ‘­Middle Ages.’ ”68 If we ­were to reduce the complex relationship between the 1960 Anpo protests and the emergence of new art forms in the 1960s to a single ele­ ment, it would be the role the 1960 crisis played in striking a final and decisive blow to the faith in ideological absolutes, and the creation of a “­Middle Ages” of sorts in which the cultural ground was shifting and new directions seemed pos­si­ble. Although faith in absolutes had already been in decline during the 1950s, the gravity of the situation in 1960 lured older artists and activists into the streets one more time in defense of ideology, and fired up an idealistic younger generation still being fed ideological pablum in the universities and art schools, only to confront both (once again, in the case of the older generation, and for the first time, in the case of the younger) with the messy realities of real-­life politics. The power­ful sense of disillusionment that resulted brought an end to ideology in Japan. Although this pro­cess was occurring more or less si­mul­ ta­neously in other parts of the world, in the Japa­nese case it took a particularly acute form in 1960, which is why the protests became such a cultural touchstone and the label for an entire generation (the “Anpo generation”) and remain to this day such a meaningful experience to t­ hose who lived through them.

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chapter six

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression

No study of the impact of the 1960 Anpo protests would be complete without an examination of the ways in which the protests helped precipitate a significant narrowing of the range of permissible ­free­ ­expression in Japan. The first fifteen years of the postwar period had been a freewheeling era of raucous self-­expression not seen in Japan since the early 1920s. Authors reveled in producing “carnal body novels” (nikutai shōsetsu) and other salacious mass-­market lit­er­a­ture mocking traditional social mores and ridiculing establishment elites. Despite, or perhaps even ­because of, the censorship regime in place during the US Occupation from 1947 to 1952, as well as the institution of so-­called “demo­cratic education” by Occupation authorities, Japa­nese writers, artists, and critics felt ­free to openly critique the state and Japa­nese tradition. Leftist artists and writers, working in a socialist realist mode, produced nakedly po­ liti­cal works that excoriated the government, humanist directors produced moving films that exposed the contradictions of Japa­nese society and culture, po­liti­cal phi­los­o­phers openly questioned the emperor-­ centered ideology they dubbed the “emperor system” (tennōsei), and a new generation of journalists was trained that their mission was to “speak truth to power.” All the while, increasingly confident left-­wing activists and ­labor ­unionists engaged in ever larger anti-­base protests, strikes, and street demonstrations. From 1960 onward, however, acting in direct response to the Anpo protests, a variety of what we might call “reactionary” forces in Japa­nese society—­including the courts, the police, mass-­media corporations, yakuza gangsters, and other right-­wing groups—­made conscious efforts to reshape the landscape of expression in Japan in ways that would . 218 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression ­ ltimately make it more difficult for similar mass movements to arise in u the ­future.

The Courts Article 21 of the postwar Japa­nese constitution explic­itly and unequivocally protects freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. However, almost immediately ­after the promulgation of the constitution in 1947, cities and towns around Japan began passing so-­called “public safety” ordinances (kōan jōrei), requiring ­people wishing to protest, march, or other­wise assem­ble in public spaces to register in advance with the local police or with local “public safety commissions” controlled by the police. In the early 1950s, when ­these ordinances ­were primarily used against communists and Japan’s Korean minority, the Japa­nese courts had repeatedly upheld them as constitutional. However, in the latter half of the 1950s, ­after the Lucky Dragon incident and the emergence of a more broad-­based peace movement—­and particularly in the lead-up to Anpo, when more ordinary citizens became involved in street protests—­the courts became increasingly reluctant to uphold prior restraint on protest by Japa­nese citizens. From 1956 through 1959, at least eight major municipal public gathering ordinances ­were struck down by district courts. As the Anpo protests got u ­ nder way in earnest, the appeals pro­cess for ­these cases was still winding its way through the courts. When radical students and ­labor ­unionists made their first attempt to storm the Diet compound in November 1959, the Tokyo District Court refused to authorize detention of the protesters for failing to register in advance with police, pointing out that it had already ruled that Tokyo’s public safety ordinance was unconstitutional not once but twice (in 1958 and earlier in 1959).1 In the spring of 1960, however, b ­ ecause of growing alarm at the increasing size and vio­lence of the anti–­Security Treaty protests, the Japa­ nese Supreme Court agreed to fast-­track the public safety ordinance case appeals, allowing them to jump the queue, and also agreeed to group all of them into one single case. And fi­nally on July 20, 1960, just a few weeks ­after the protests had ended, the ­Grand Bench issued its ruling, finding . 219 .

japan at the crossroads all of the ordinances constitutional, and thus allowing the police to keep thousands of recently arrested protesters in jail. ­Because the Tokyo ordinance was the most repressive and controversial, the Supreme Court deci­ded to focus its reasoning on that ordinance in ruling all the ordinances constitutional. The Tokyo ordinance was particularly controversial for two reasons. First, the Tokyo ordinance was clearly worded as a “licensing” system rather than a “notification” system. Earlier Supreme Court decisions had upheld vari­ous municipal ordinances on the grounds that as long as they only required notification of the authorities by protesters, and not that protesters get a license from authorities in advance, t­ here was no prior restraint on freedom of expression. However, Article 1 of the Tokyo ordinance stated, “When intending to conduct assemblies or pro­cessions on roads or in other public places . . . ​the consent of the public safety commission must be received” rather than “the public safety commission must be notified.” The second point of controversy was that most other municipal ordinances w ­ ere careful to include a clause stating that if no reply was received from the authorities, the protesters could proceed with their stated plans, whereas the Tokyo ordinance lacked any such clause. Even though the police almost never failed to respond in practice, this kind of clause was seen as crucial to maintaining the veneer that ­these ordinances constituted only a notification system rather than a licensing system. Indeed, earlier Supreme Court rulings had explic­itly cited the existence of such clauses in other municipal ordinances as grounds for upholding them as constitutional. However, in the 1960 ruling, the Supreme Court overturned both of ­these prior pre­ce­dents. The court argued that, ­because the ordinance states that the commission is required to give permission “except where it is clearly recognized that . . . ​collective activity ­will directly endanger the maintenance of public peace,” even though “the ordinance, so far as the wording of its provisions is concerned, adopts a licensing system, this system in essentials nowhere differs from one of notification.”2 However, the court went further than merely striking down lower court rulings. In a lengthy passage that would become the most cited passage of the ruling, the court drew a distinction between freedom of . 220 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression speech and freedom of the press, on the one hand, and freedom of assembly, on the other—­ a distinction found nowhere in the ­ actual constitution—­which effectively established freedom of assembly as a lesser and more attenuated freedom than the other two freedoms: Expressing ideas and opinions through group assembly differs from freedom of speech and freedom of the press in that it has the potential for being supported . . . ​by the exercise of some kind of physical force. This potential for the use of force, ­whether it is activated according to a predetermined plan, or ­whether it is unexpectedly activated by external or internal stimulus, is of a kind which can be mobilized extremely easily. Even when the assembled group is peaceable and orderly, ­there are cases in which it may become carried away by excitement or anger, and in extreme cases may suddenly turn violent, resorting to force and ­running roughshod over law and order, even beyond the abilities of their leaders to police or control, a danger which is clear in light of theories of mob psy­chol­ogy and real-­world experience. Therefore, even though Article 21 . . . ​of the Constitution prohibits prior restraint of f­ree expression, it is unavoidable that local authorities, in giving due consideration to both local and general circumstances, adopt prior to the fact the minimum mea­ sures necessary to maintain public peace . . . ​by means of so-­called “public safety ordinances,” but only in the case of expression by means of group assembly.3

The Tokyo ordinance decision never explic­itly mentions the Anpo protests. However, coming as it did just one month a­ fter the violent climax of the movement, as a result of a case fast-­tracked explic­itly for the purpose of detaining arrested protesters, and moreover with its detailed explication of the unique dangers of group assembly that had become clear “in light of real-­world experience,” the protests clearly weighed on the minds of the ­Grand Bench justices as they formulated an opinion that would grant sweeping latitude to municipal public safety commissions to prohibit street protests ­going forward. The decision met with vigorous dissents from Justices Fujita Hachirō and Tarumi Katsumi, and with widespread outrage by ­legal scholars throughout Japan. They found it especially baffling that the court had so . 221 .

japan at the crossroads cavalierly overturned the pre­ce­dent that the ordinances had to be notification systems rather than licensing systems. Nevertheless, the 1960 Tokyo ordinance decision has endured and has established a pre­ce­dent that permits for public gatherings can be denied—or more commonly, granted in conjunction with onerous preconditions—­for almost any reason as long as a vague defense of “public safety” is invoked. The 1960 decision was reaffirmed by the court in major test cases in the fall of 1960, 1962, 1967, 1968, and 1972, and remains in force to this day, constituting what is likely still the single most impor­tant judicial decision in Japa­nese ­legal history on freedom of expression.

The Police The Japa­nese police received heavy criticism during the 1960 protests. From the right, they ­were faulted for failing to contain the protests, so much so that Kishi threatened to call in the Self-­Defense Forces and had to be talked down by his cabinet. Meanwhile, from the left, they w ­ ere heavi­ly criticized for excessive force and blamed for the death of Kanba Michiko. Accordingly, the police took a variety of mea­sures in the aftermath of the protests to avoid a repeat of 1960. First, they implemented new training and tactics to move even further away from any possibility of police brutality. In par­tic­u­lar, the ubiquitous batons of 1960 ­were replaced with shields and firehoses, which could be equally or even more violent but seemed more benign or even defensive. The left’s cry of “No More Kanba Michikos” could just as easily have been the motto of the Japa­nese police ­after 1960, and indeed, despite the violent New Left protests of the ­later 1960s, the police ­were remarkably effective at limiting protester deaths ­going forward. The police also developed new rules and tactics to combat street protests. In this area, the police w ­ ere greatly aided by the 1960 Tokyo ordinance ruling. Taking advantage of the reaffirmed constitutionality of the public safety ordinances, prefectural police agencies compiled lists of protest tactics that ­were permanently banned ­after 1960 and remain banned to this day, including the snake dance, the “French protest” (Furansu demo), and sit-­ins (suwarikomi).4 They also permanently banned . 222 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression any kind of protest anywhere near the National Diet compound. (They would simply refuse to approve such protests or insist on a dif­fer­ent route.) The police also developed a highly effective tactic for countering the (now illegal) snake dance. Known as “sandwiching” (sandoitchi kisei), it involves crushing the snake between two lines of steadily advancing riot police, or a line of riot police and a wall or guardrail.5 As a 1961 National Police Agency internal document summarized, Our basic policy is that the kind of disregard for law and order that prevailed during the Anpo protests never be allowed to recur. To this end, we never grant permission for group demonstrations to take place in the vicinity of the National Diet compound, even if they claim to be ­doing so in the name of exercising a “right to petition.” . . . ​ Even when we allow group actions, we insist that they be s­imple “group parades” without any of the be­hav­iors that might go with a more forceful demonstration, and only permit them on the precondition that they not involve waving flags or placards, loud shouting, singing, or chanting, snake dances, spiral marching, or double-­time marching. During the a­ ctual event, we vigorously watch for any violation of the agreed preconditions, and at the slightest sign of deviation, we immediately rectify the situation with verbal warnings and physical restraint. ­These policies . . . ​have been extremely effective in restoring public order.6

Throughout the 1950s, Japa­nese conservatives had pushed hard in  the Diet to use legislation to grant the police new powers to deal more effectively with the rising tide of popu­lar protest. They partially succeeded with the National Police Law of 1954, which reversed the US Occupation’s decentralization of police authority, but major attempts to expand police powers of search and seizure had ended in catastrophic failure. The ham-­fisted 1958 attempt by Kishi to revise the Police Duties Law in this direction sparked a nationwide protest movement that was a crucial precursor to the 1960 protests, and an attempt to pass a “Po­liti­cal Vio­lence Prevention Law” in 1961 in response to the recently concluded Anpo protests was permanently shelved by Prime Minister Ikeda as a show of good faith and an olive branch t­oward national reconciliation. . 223 .

Protesters take part in a massive snake dance on the road leading up to the National Diet on June 18, 1960. (Wide World / Associated Press)

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression Therefore, ­after 1960 the police gave up on trying to win new powers through legislation and took it upon themselves to expand their powers through selective or creative application of existing laws, a practice that became euphemistically known among the police as “beneficial use” (un’yō), as part of what Japa­nese ­legal scholar Hironaka Toshio has deemed the “no need for new legislation” strategy. Instead of declaring protests themselves illegal or singling out protest leaders for protesting as such, they would make use of traffic laws, vari­ous laws against loitering or littering, noise control ordinances, curfew laws, building code violations, or any other existing laws available, selectively enforcing them to harass, hinder, or other­wise prevent protest activity.7 The police also worked to systematically close down, occupy, and collapse public space. Parks w ­ ere relandscaped to subdivide and compartmentalize open spaces. Streets and squares w ­ ere divided up with bollards, medians, hedgerows, and fences. Especially during the construction boom of the 1960s and 1970s, police would work with construction contractors to store construction materials in public spaces on a semipermanent basis in ways that made crowd control easier.8 Certain areas of Tokyo, including the Diet, the Prime Minister’s Residence, and the US embassy, ­were turned into permanent no-go zones with 24 / 7 police presence. To this day the area around the Diet features police officers stationed ­every ten meters with paddy wagons standing by, ready to detain unauthorized protesters. ­After Anpo, the police also or­ga­nized a massive spying operation. Thousands of spies w ­ ere recruited within or inserted into left-­wing organ­izations, to the point that by the 1970s left-­wing activists complained that the police often seemed better informed about their organ­ izations than real members.9 And at a broader level, sheer numbers ­were thrown at the prob­lem. The combined bud­get of the National Police Agency and the prefectural police forces more than doubled in just five years between 1960 and 1965, from 95 billion to 205 billion yen, and then more than doubled again from 1965 to 1970, up to 448 billion yen.10 Meanwhile, the number of full-­time riot police (kidōtai) more than tripled, from about 5,000 in 1960 to over 15,000  in 1970. Altogether, the total number of police officers in Japan increased by 56 ­percent from . 225 .

japan at the crossroads 1960 to 1975, from around 124,000 to nearly 200,000. Even as Japan’s population leveled off and fi­nally started to decline in the 2010s, and even as crime rates plummeted, Japan’s nationwide police force continued to grow.11

The Mass Media In the prewar period, freedom of the press had been non­ex­is­tent, with so-­called “thought police” closely monitoring the media to maintain ideological purity. The repression of f­ree speech had then continued into the postwar period with the US Occupation undertaking a massive censorship campaign. When freedom of the press was fi­nally restored in the 1950s, many in the Japa­nese media vowed never again to knuckle ­under to government censorship and made it a special point to “speak truth to power” whenever pos­si­ble. By 1960, even se­nior news reporters had come up ­under this ideology that the first and foremost duty of the media was to “speak truth to power.” However, the 1960 Anpo protests coincided with a significant reconfiguration in the relationship between Japa­nese mass media and the government, the business world, and their viewers, listeners, and readers. The result was a Japa­nese press that in the eyes of many, particularly ­those on the left of the po­liti­cal spectrum, was decidedly less “­free” ­after Anpo than before. This reconfiguration of the Japa­nese media was in part due to several long-­running trends. One was the meteoric rise of tele­vi­sion. In 1960, only one-­third of Japa­nese ­house­holds had a tele­vi­sion, but less than five years ­later, by February 1965, this figure had soared to 82 ­percent.12 With the rise of tele­vi­sion as a competing source of news and entertainment, newspapers found it even more necessary to ensure that their coverage accorded with the interests and outlook of the majority of their readers. Another long-­running trend that affected the Japa­nese press was the explosive growth and increasing sophistication of the Japa­nese advertising industry. Newspaper advertising is a good example. In the early postwar period, newspapers had relied heavi­ly on subscription fees, with advertising revenues accounting for only a small part of overall bud­gets. . 226 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression This meant that newspapers had been responsible and responsive primarily to their readers, rather than industry or business. Beginning in the 1950s, however, the Japa­nese advertising industry began to experience explosive growth, in terms of both volume and sales, and began to account for a larger percentage of newspaper revenues. By 1960, circulation accounted for 57.5  ­percent of the newspaper industry’s revenue, while advertising accounted for 42.5 ­percent. By the end of 1962, however, advertising revenue surpassed circulation revenue, accounting for 52 ­percent of all revenue by 1964, and 58 ­percent of all revenue by 1970.13 A third trend influencing the Japa­nese media was an increasing sophistication on the part of big business and politicians in their approach to influencing and controlling press coverage. Around 1960, business associations began collectively organ­izing advertising boycotts and producing paid po­liti­cal programming, and politicians began effectively using the carrot of inside access and the sticks of legislation and regulation to secure more favorable media coverage. Although t­hese types of trends would have led to changes in the Japa­nese media landscape even if the 1960 Anpo protests had not occurred, the course of events during the protests played a significant role in the timing and character of ­these transformations. The Japa­nese mass media in 1960 encompassed not only newspapers and tele­vi­sion but also radio, monthly magazines, and a newly emerging genre of weekly magazines.14 The 1960 protests have rightly been recognized as one of the first incidences of major domestic turmoil to play out on live tele­vi­sion for a sizable home viewership, and the protests also produced some memorable radio coverage, such as Radio Kantō’s live blow-­ by-­blow broadcast of the June 15 storming of the Diet and subsequent police counterattack. Newspapers, however, w ­ ere by far the largest and most impor­tant segment of the mass media in 1960. As mentioned, only 33 ­percent of h ­ ouse­holds in Japan had a tele­vi­sion in 1960, and even for radio the figure was only 69 ­percent. Meanwhile, Japan had one of the highest per capita circulations of newspapers in the world in 1960, and furthermore, newspapers w ­ ere widely shared, with each single copy of a newspaper being read by an estimated 3.89 p ­ eople.15 Moreover, in contrast to other nations where tele­vi­sion rapidly surpassed newspapers as . 227 .

japan at the crossroads the most common source of news, newspaper subscription rates in Japan ­after 1960 remained extremely high, despite the spread of TV owner­ship, and newspapers remained a relatively impor­tant source of news for many years to come.16 Popu­lar accounts and memoirs of the 1960 protests often pres­ent a simplistic account of the role of the press in the protests. Th ­ ese accounts emphasize as a major turning point the decision by the seven largest newspapers in Tokyo to publish a “joint declaration” on June 17, 1960, that apportioned equal blame for the crisis to both the government and the protesters. Before this statement, according to this account, the press had supported and encouraged the protests, but afterward it opposed them. Both ends of the po­liti­cal spectrum subscribed to this narrative. For the protesters, the joint statement meant that the press had betrayed them and “thrown cold w ­ ater on the mass movement” (taishū undō ni mizu o sashita), whereas to the conservatives who supported the treaty, the press had fi­nally “come to its senses” (ryōshiki ni kaetta). American observers also universally blamed the Japa­nese press for “irresponsibly” inflaming the protests prior to the issuance of the joint statement. A closer examination of the evidence reveals a much more complex relationship between the press, the protesters, and the government. Major newspapers, including the Mainichi Shinbun and the Asahi Shinbun, had been among the first to demand revision of the 1952 Security Treaty. Since they had vociferously called for treaty revision for so many years, it would have been very difficult for ­these papers to have then opposed a treaty revision of any kind the way many of the protesters did. An exhaustive study of newspaper editorials by the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association (Nihon Shinbun Kyōkai) found that although many newspapers expressed deep reservations about certain aspects of the revised treaty, particularly the perceived weakness of the “prior consultation” stipulation and the vagueness of the term “Far East,” not a single daily newspaper in the nation ever expressed open opposition to ratification of the treaty. The only publications that openly opposed ratification w ­ ere the internal newspapers (kikanshi) of leftist po­liti­cal parties and ­labor ­unions, and left-­leaning monthly magazines such as Sekai.17 . 228 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression Moreover, a ­simple narrative treating “the press” as a monolithic entity that generally supported leftist ­causes prior to the Anpo protests before swinging to the right with the June 17 joint declaration not only overlooks the differences among media companies but also ignores significant divisions within individual enterprises, especially the often unspoken difference in views between management and the rank-­and-­file reporters. Newspaper reporters, for example, belonged to com­pany ­unions that ­were members of the left-­leaning National Federation of Newspaper Workers’ Unions (Nihon Shinbun Rōdō Kumiai Rengō, abbreviated Shinbun Rōren). This federation was in turn a member of the leftist Sōhyō ­labor federation, which was one of the driving forces ­behind the 1960 protests. This meant that many newspaper reporters w ­ ere actually out in the streets protesting the treaty when they got off from work. In addition, large numbers of prominent newspaper journalists w ­ ere members of the communist-­sympathizing Japan Congress of Journalists (JCJ), itself a member organ­ization of the International Organ­ization of Journalists, headquartered in Prague, which drew most of its member organ­izations from the communist bloc. In 1960, the JCJ had about 1,600 members, including 242 at the Asahi Shinbun, 187 at the Kyodo newswire, 73 at the Mainichi Shinbun, and 49 at the Yomiuri Shinbun.18 Although certainly not all journalists ­were deeply involved in leftist ­causes, especially at some of the more conservative newspapers, compared with ­unionists in other industries and even other Sōhyō u ­ nions, Japa­nese journalists as a ­whole ­were fairly militant in their opposition to the revised Security Treaty and their support for the anti-­treaty movement. At a relatively early date, in November 1959, the JCJ signaled its strong opposition to the treaty by publishing a pamphlet titled “The Dangerous Treaty: An Honest Report.” That same month, the JCJ and Shinbun Rōren united to form the Anpo-­Prevention Journalists’ Emergency Assembly (Anpo Soshi Jānarisuto Kinkyū Shūkai) for the purpose of organ­izing protests by journalists against the treaty.19 Many journalists also joined the Anpo Hihan No Kai (Society for Criticizing the Security Treaty), which was established that same month as an anti-­treaty group for writers, artists, and critics. By April 1960, when Shinbun Rōren polled . 229 .

japan at the crossroads its entire membership on the issue of treaty revision, fully 74 ­percent of newspaper ­unionists ­were opposed to treaty revision, with only 15 ­percent in ­favor and another 10 ­percent in ­favor of maintaining the status quo.20 In contrast to the left-­leaning, union-­affiliated rank and file that largely opposed the treaty, the se­nior editors and management at Japa­ nese newspapers tended to be older and more conservative, and ­were generally required to give up ­union membership once they reached a certain level of the hierarchy. Th ­ ese se­nior editors and section heads tended to support the treaty and w ­ ere wary of the dangers of uncontrolled popu­lar protest. Moreover, as the protests grew in size and scope, ­these editors and man­ag­ers increasingly came u ­ nder po­liti­cal and economic pressure to exert “editorial control” over leftist reporters and to use their publications as soapboxes to help pacify the protesters. The presence of this gap between ­unionized reportorial and support staff and more conservative editors and man­ag­ers was partially concealed before 1960 by a division of ­labor within the newspaper editing pro­cess. Union contracts expressly stipulated that the u ­ nions would not attempt to interfere with editorial prerogatives, particularly the tone of or opinions expressed in editorials (shasetsu), while editors promised not to interfere in ­union ­matters, such as the se­lection of ­union leaders. Although newspapers had an editorial board, the individual section heads ­were often given wide latitude in selecting which stories to run. Another f­actor that helped smooth relations between workers and management was an economic imperative to run stories as soon as pos­ si­ble in order to scoop other newspapers. The Japa­nese newspaper industry in the postwar years was fiercely competitive, especially among the large national papers, and the popularity and prominence of eve­ning editions meant that in many cases only a few hours would pass from when an event happened to when an article on it appeared in the eve­ ning edition. In this context, a culture arose within the Japa­nese newspaper industry prizing articles written by embedded reporters live at the scene, and the unvarnished accounts of ­these eyewitness reporters ­were given greater prominence than sober analyses written at a newspaper desk and appearing in the next day’s morning edition. . 230 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression A final f­ actor in papering over differences between management and workers before 1960 was a widely attested notion, shared by both editors and the rank and file, that the role of the press was to represent the viewpoint of the masses over and against that of the government, and that one of the best mea­sures of a newspaper’s objectivity was the extent of its opposition to the party in power. This view of the press’s role had prewar roots, dating as far back as the Meiji period. While it would be difficult to argue that the press’s anti-­establishment stance had been consistently maintained, especially during the war­time years, the ideal of an obstinately in­de­pen­dent and anti-­establishment press never died, and could always be resurrected when a new issue arose. In the immediate postwar period, this ideal was revived and acquired an almost overwhelming appeal, particularly as newspapers undertook fierce self-­criticism with regard to the positions they had taken during the war, and the idea of having a cozy or even friendly relationship with the authorities became anathema to newspapermen. Although this anathema was already beginning to fade a bit by 1960, especially with the rise of press clubs and po­ liti­cal faction reporters in the 1950s, as an ideal it still retained a strong hold on much of the newspaper industry, and allowed editors and ­reporters with significantly dif­fer­ent ideological orientations to find common ground on articles that took the government to task.21 The 1960 Anpo protests played a crucial role in exposing and exacerbating the differences between editors and reporters, and ultimately in driving a wedge between the two groups. As mentioned, by April 1960, the rank and file of newspaper reporters ­were overwhelmingly opposed to passage of the revised treaty. At the same time, no newspaper had openly called for opposition to the treaty, and newspaper editorials confined their criticisms of the revised treaty to narrow, technical grounds and w ­ ere calling on protesters to remain calm. It was not ­until Kishi’s surprise decision to ram the treaty through the Diet on May 19 that newspaper editorials first took on the overwhelmingly anti-­government tone that is typically ascribed to them in reference to the 1960 protests. The May 19 incident deeply dismayed much of the nation, and this was reflected in newspaper headlines and editorials. Although the press was still trying to figure out what had happened for much of May 20, by . 231 .

japan at the crossroads the time the May 21 morning editions hit newsstands, the outrage was palpable. The Asahi morning edition ran a lengthy editorial above the fold on the front page, titled “We Demand Kishi’s Resignation and a General Election.” This editorial made a lasting impression not only b ­ ecause of its unusual length but also ­because of its location at the top of the front page rather than the editorial’s usual placement on the second page.22 Editorials in the normally “centrist” Yomiuri Shinbun declared Kishi’s actions “not only fascistic, but fascism itself,” and declared that “ultimately, mass resignation [of the Kishi cabinet] is the only pos­si­ble option.”23 In the initial aftermath of the May 19 incident even newspapers on the right, such as the Sankei Shinbun and the Nihon Keizai Shinbun, joined in the chorus of harsh criticism of the government. According to one study, all major newspapers and forty-­seven out of fifty-­nine newspapers surveyed ­either demanded that the cabinet resign, demanded that the Diet be dissolved and new elections called, or made both demands si­mul­ta­neously in the days immediately following the May 19 incident.24 This did not mean, however, that the newspapers, or at least their editorial boards, fully supported the protests. As early as May 22, the editorial in the left-­leaning Asahi was titled “We Must Be Careful Not to Let Demonstrations Go Too Far.” Similarly, the Asahi editorial for May 26 was titled “Let’s Use Moderation in Our Mass Movement,” and urged, “A mass movement should bloom like a firework, and just as quickly fade away.”25 But despite such calls for moderation, the press nevertheless provided mostly sympathetic coverage of the protests over the next several weeks and saved the vast majority of its harshest criticism for the Kishi administration. Kishi did not help his cause by giving an infamous press conference on May 28, at which he forever cemented his public image as arrogant and obstinate by famously declaring that “public opinion is not just what­ever is expressed on radio shows and in newspapers,” and that instead he would “listen to the voiceless voices.” This “high posture” was roundly condemned in the editorials of the major newspapers. The newspapers even supported the Sōhyō-­backed June  4 general strike that included technically illegal participation by public workers. Although the Asahi, the Mainichi, and the Yomiuri all expressed fears . 232 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression that the strike would turn violent and pointed out the illegality of participation by public workers, when the strike turned out to be peaceful and orderly they gave it sympathetic coverage and seized the opportunity to renew their calls for Kishi’s resignation.26 By the end of May, however, the mainstream factions of the LDP began to realize that the press had turned against them, and began to consider pos­si­ble “countermea­sures.” At a May 27 meeting of the heads of the prefectural branches of the LDP, the party approved plans for an or­ga­nized pushback against the media, using techniques such as coordinated letter-­writing campaigns.27 On May 31, ten ju­nior LDP Diet members made the rounds visiting the headquarters of each of the major newspapers in Tokyo as well as NHK in order to demand “less biased” coverage of the treaty issue. In an oft-­recounted incident, the group barged into the NHK offices and demanded to speak to NHK chairman Nomura Hiroshi. Upon being granted an audience, they accused NHK of showing a left-­leaning bias in its news coverage. ­After listening quietly to their accusations, Nomura suddenly shouted in a loud voice, “You guys are intolerable! You should get back to studying how politics works and leave the ­running of NHK to me!”28 Nomura was an old-­school liberal of the prewar type, and ­until this point had preferred to reserve judgment on the treaty revision issue. But in the wake of his clash with the ju­nior Diet members, and growing increasingly disconcerted by the escalating conflict, Nomura deci­ded to take it upon himself and NHK to try to calm down the nation and restore order, declaring, “The crucial mission of NHK is to help foster po­ liti­cal stability.” On June 3, 1960, NHK launched a series of programs on radio and tele­vi­sion, nakedly referred to as a “po­liti­cal campaign” (seiji kyanpēn), called “Let’s Protect Parliamentary Democracy.” An internal NHK memo from that date asserted: “Faced with a situation in which voices are growing in ­every segment of society calling out for a stabilization of the confused po­liti­cal system, NHK, as the public broadcaster, must take it upon itself to produce all manner of po­liti­cal programs, explain the po­liti­cal situation, and in this way raise the po­liti­cal consciousness of the nation.” Accordingly, ­every eve­ning for the next week NHK preempted previously scheduled programming and devoted its precious . 233 .

japan at the crossroads “golden hour” from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m., right ­after its heavi­ly watched 7:00 p.m. nightly news program, to expanded coverage of the po­liti­cal crisis, which generally took an attitude of disapproval ­toward the actions of the Kishi administration.29 By this point, the Eisenhower administration was growing increasingly worried about President Eisenhower’s safety during his impending visit, and the perceived inflammatory coverage of the Japa­nese media became a par­tic­u­lar target of concern. Accordingly, on June 7, Ambassador MacArthur summoned the editors-­in-­chief of each of the major Tokyo newspapers and NHK to private audiences at the US embassy, where he chewed them out for what he viewed as their biased coverage of the treaty issue and the protests, and demanded that they modify their tone and prepare a warm welcome for Eisenhower. The stunned editors ­were strictly enjoined to keep t­ hese conversations off the rec­ord, and accordingly the press did not even report at the time that t­ hese meetings took place. ­Later that same day, Kishi launched an offensive of his own. On June 7, he separately invited the chairmen of the Yomiuri, Sankei, Mainichi, and Tokyo Shinbun newspapers plus chairman Nomura of NHK to his official residence and appealed to them for greater cooperation in preparing the nation for Eisenhower’s visit. The following day he similarly summoned the heads of the Kyodo and Jiji newswires and the Hokkaidō, Nishi Nihon, and Nihon Keizai Shinbun newspapers, and fi­nally on June 9, he invited Asahi Shinbun chairman / owner Murayama Nagataka. That eve­ning a report on the front page of the eve­ning edition of the Asahi briefly described the meeting and the nature of Kishi’s request, but gave no indication of Murayama’s response. However, in the June 11 edition of the English-­language Asahi Eve­ning News, read primarily by American expats, a front-­page, above-­the-­fold editorial declared that “Asahi ­will do all it can to help make Eisenhower’s visit a success” and reported that Murayama had given Kishi this assurance in person at their meeting.30 The day a­ fter Murayama met with Kishi, the car carry­ing Eisenhower’s press secretary, James Hagerty, was assaulted at Haneda Airport. ­Whether it was shock at this incident, the meetings with Kishi, the beratings by MacArthur, or some combination of all three, the tone . 234 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression of editorials and news coverage was noticeably dif­fer­ent ­after June 10. In their editorials, the newspapers began calling for an end to the “excessive” protests and a relaxation of tensions in time for the nation to give Eisenhower a warm welcome on his scheduled arrival date of June  19. Although previous criticisms of the actions of the Kishi administration ­were not withdrawn, the emphasis of editorial comment on the treaty issue shifted to criticism of the perceived excesses of the anti-­treaty protests. At NHK the “po­liti­cal campaign” continued, but the tone shifted from calls for compromise and moderation from both sides to almost exclusive criticism of the protests. Two meta­phors often repeated in NHK’s campaign programming ­after June 10 ­were “Stop your marital spat when a guest comes to visit” (okyaku ga kuru toki wa fūfugenka yameyo) and “Keep your sumo wrestling inside the ring” (dohyō no ue de sumō o tore), a jab clearly aimed at the perceived impropriety of extra-­parliamentary protest.31 Even the Asahi Shinbun, the most left-­leaning of the major newspapers, had clearly changed its tone. A June 16 editorial titled “­Free Speech Gone Wild,” for example, argued that when parties resort to vio­ lence, f­ ree speech is endangered, and concluded, “Although the government has a grave responsibility to bring the situation ­under control, the opposition parties do as well, and we can only hope that they ­will adopt a stance of cooperation in bringing the situation ­under control.”32 Meanwhile, the day-­to-­day reporting of the news began to take on the aspect of a civil war within the media itself. As mentioned, Shinbun Rōren was one of the most militant of the Sōhyō u ­ nions taking part in the protests. Kyodo politics section reporter Uchida Kenzō recalled, “Even the reporters in the politics sections [of the vari­ous media outlets] would go down to the press clubs in the daytime and work, but in the eve­ning many of them would transform into ­union activists, participating in the demonstrations and hurling stones [at the police] with all of their might. It was that kind of atmosphere.”33 Similarly, an account in the Shinbun Rōren internal newspaper described how reporters would wear their com­pany armbands and conduct official reporting before a demonstration, but once the demonstration got u ­ nder way they would take their ­union armbands out of their pockets and join the protest.34 . 235 .

japan at the crossroads As the protests escalated a­ fter May 19, becoming daily occurrences, newspapers ­were ­under intense pressure to break the latest news and reports w ­ ere often filed at the last minute with l­ittle time for editing. The ­unionized, left-­leaning reporters in the field w ­ ere therefore often able to slip surprising amounts of language suggesting support of the protests into their reports and stories. In mid-­June, a newspaper might feature an editorial condemning the protesters for g­ oing too far, while articles in the society or arts sections of the same issue might pres­ent deeply sympathetic profiles of individual protesters or protest groups.35 Nihon Keizai Shinbun reporter Matsuda Hiroshi ­later recalled, The leadership role [in shaping news coverage] was not undertaken by the upper management of the mass-­media, but rather was shouldered by the rank-­and-­file journalists who ­were live on the scene. Just as much as the clash between the media and state power, the internal clash within the media between management and the rank-­and-­file journalists and media support staff, and the issue of “editorial control” versus journalistic subjectivity, was brought to the fore. . . . ​It was a period in which, at the same time the structure of the media itself was changing, and amid ­great po­liti­cal turmoil, ­these strained relations within the mass media also played out in a dynamic and unpredictable fashion.36

­ fter the Hagerty incident and the demands for greater cooperation A from MacArthur and Kishi, the media ­were moved to exercise greater editorial control over reports submitted by reporters in the field. According to journalism historian Tsumura Hiroshi, ­after the Hagerty incident “all the newspapers and broadcasting outlets took steps to strengthen their internal censorship apparatuses. Reports by reporters at the scene ­were torn apart and rewritten, and ­whole passages ­were often changed between early and late printings.”37 This simmering conflict fi­nally came to a head during the June 15 incident, when editors back at the vari­ous headquarters refused to accept the accounts they w ­ ere receiving of unpre­ce­dented vio­lence and police brutality, preferring to believe that t­ hese ­were exaggerations by overenthusiastic reporters who had been embedded at the Diet for too long. . 236 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression Shimizu Akira was the director of the members of the Sankei Shinbun society section who w ­ ere embedded at a temporary field headquarters near the Diet on the night of June 15. Shimizu recalled that he “naively clung to the view that a newspaper’s prime directive is to speak truth to power.” He therefore recommended to the head of the society desk that the June 16 society page emphasize police brutality rather than protester vio­lence. The next morning Shimizu was shocked to see that the rival Asahi Shinbun had printed an editorial suggesting that the students’ attempt to storm the Diet compound was a premeditated act of malice, and urging the students to undertake self-­criticism (hansei) for their actions. Shimizu recalled feeling that if the ­people who had written the Asahi editorial had actually been on the scene, as he had been, and had seen what had happened with their own eyes, they would never have been able to write that kind of editorial.38 It seems that the Asahi, stung by repeated criticism that it had been too biased in f­ avor of the protesters, felt compelled to be even more conservative than the normally right-­of-­center Sankei. Indeed, earlier that day Asahi editor-­in-­chief Hirooka Tomoo had warned his editorial staff to remain “objective,” demanding, “Do not add even a single adjective!” As the reports came in, Hirooka and assistant editor-­in-­chief Kimura Teruhiko sat up all night at the society desk, rejecting story ­after story, or ­else cutting out passages they deemed too “subjective.” Asahi society desk reporter Kobayashi Tsutomu, embedded at the Diet for several days ­running, recalled, “Even though I wrote the true story exactly as I witnessed it live at the scene, they w ­ ouldn’t run it.” A ­ fter weeks of breathless field reports, the two editors had come to feel that they simply could not trust what their reporters w ­ ere telling them. The result was that the June 16 articles in the Asahi ­were comparatively vague about what had happened at the Diet the night before, with ­little concrete description.39 The Asahi was not the only newspaper wary of reports from the Diet on June 15, however. Mainichi Shinbun society section reporter Yoshino Masahiro was also live on the scene and witnessed police officers attacking fleeing students from b ­ ehind with batons. But when he tried to file his report, he was repeatedly told it was “too subjective” and was forced to rewrite it several times. His editor told him over the phone: . 237 .

japan at the crossroads “Why ­don’t you find a neutral bystander and get their impression? You must have concrete support for what you say.” But in the midst of a protest, Yoshino could not find anyone who could ­really be considered a neutral observer. He recalled thinking angrily, “If they ­can’t trust a professional reporter live on the scene, who in the world w ­ ill they trust?” Like the Sankei’s Shimizu, he felt that “if they could only see what was ­going on with their own eyes they would realize that in no way ­were we merely looking for excuses to criticize the police,” and he wondered, “If even the newspapers would not report the police vio­lence that night, then who in the world was ­going to hold them to account?”40 But despite the efforts of Yoshino’s editors, when Mainichi chairman Honda Chikao saw the front page the next morning, he reportedly became enraged, shouting, “Our morning paper is the work of extreme leftists!” and at a meeting ­later that day of the Mainichi editorial board, editor-­in-­chief Sumimoto Toshio concluded, “Our articles ­were too subjective.”41 Meanwhile at the Yomiuri Shinbun, the first twelve print runs of the June 16 morning edition had a cover story titled “Zengakuren Demonstration Results in a Fatality,” but by the ­fourteenth print run the headline had been amended to read “Zengakuren Demonstration Turns Violent.” The Yomiuri also delayed its initial print run in order to redo the layout and cut several photo­graphs deemed “too provocative.” Similarly, the June 17 Mainichi column “Off the Rec­ord” argued in the early edition that responsibility for the current chaotic po­liti­cal climate and escalating vio­lence rested primarily with the Kishi administration, and that “­there is only one way to restore order, and that is for the Kishi cabinet to resign.” However, by the late edition, the column had been totally rewritten and placed the blame squarely on the “deliberate and premeditated” acts of the “law-­and-­order-­trampling subversives” in Zengakuren.42 Fi­nally on June 17, the seven major Tokyo newspapers published their joint declaration, “Wipe Out Vio­lence, Preserve Parliamentary Democracy.” The joint declaration was originally conceived of by the chief of the Asahi Shinbun editorial board, Ryū Shintarō, and composed in consultation with his counter­parts at the Yomiuri and Mainichi newspapers. The final statement was also signed onto by the Sankei, Nihon Keizai, Tokyo, . 238 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression and Tokyo Times newspapers, and was ultimately run by forty-­eight other newspapers throughout the nation. That same day, NHK aired two specials, “Wipe Out Vio­lence and Reestablish Parliamentarianism” and “Leftist and Rightist Vio­lence and Parliamentary Politics,” whose contents ­were largely identical to that of the joint declaration published that morning.43 The joint declaration was produced in secrecy late at night on the eve­ ning of June 16, and its publication the following morning surprised even the Asahi section heads. Iwai Hiroyasu, an editor in the Asahi’s society section, recalled bitterly that “the desks ­were never consulted about the joint declaration at all. It was entirely the work of the editorial board.”44 Nevertheless, the joint declaration did not represent the dramatic break with the past it is sometimes portrayed to have been. As described above, although rank-­and-­file reporters and even many section heads largely opposed the treaty and ­were sympathetic to the protests, the management and editorial boards of the major newspapers had never opposed the treaty and had always been wary of the protest movement. The idea that the media as a ­whole supported the protesters was largely an illusion fostered by a traditional willingness of management to allow some leeway to the left-­leaning reportorial rank and file as a way of showing “editorial objectivity” and out of re­spect for “journalistic subjectivity,” as well as by the temporary state of extreme outrage following Kishi’s May 19 railroading of the treaty through the Diet, which caused even newspaper editorials to focus most of their criticism on the Kishi administration. However, insofar as increasing pressure from the government and business interests and shock at the violent finale of the protests thereafter caused the media to clamp down on this traditional leeway for field reporters, the joint declaration did in fact represent a major turning point in postwar Japa­nese journalism. The increased pressures on the media took the form of an increasing recognition by politicians and po­liti­cal leaders in the wake of the Anpo protests that much greater effort needed to be put into what they termed “mass media countermea­sures” (masukomi taisaku). As late as May 28, Kishi had still been openly disdainful of the media in his infamous press conference, but fi­nally in June he . 239 .

japan at the crossroads realized that he had to take a more active role in managing media coverage, as illustrated by his June  7–9 meetings with the vari­ous media com­pany chairmen. Kishi never forgot the lesson he learned in 1960, concluding the section on Anpo in his memoirs with the frank confession: “I cannot deny that the lack of mass media countermea­sures was a serious oversight.”45 On July 1, 1960, a week a­ fter the treaty had been ratified, Kishi established a new “Prime Minister’s Public Relations Office,” with a staff of fifty, to write and distribute talking points to the press, closely monitor media coverage, and keep tabs on the activities of leftist intellectuals.46 The lessons of the 1960 protests ­were also not lost on Kishi’s successors. Ikeda Hayato went out of his way to be on good terms with the media, inviting them to his vacation home in Karuizawa and granting them unpre­ce­dented access to his private life. Ikeda even suggested the possibility of establishing a “minister of media policy” as a cabinet-­level office when he was establishing his first cabinet in July  1960.47 Then, ­after becoming prime minister, Ikeda ordered the construction of a large press center, completed in 1962, as an annex to the prime minister’s official residence, including separate rooms for each media organ­ization, special rooms for press conferences and photo­graphs, office space for the Public Relations Office, and a dining room for wining and dining the press.48 Ikeda and Satō Eisaku also continued the practice begun by Kishi of having monthly lunches with editors from vari­ous media outlets, strengthening and systematizing an unspoken bargain whereby increased access was implicitly traded for more favorable coverage.49 The lessons w ­ ere also not lost on the leaders of the business world. In July 1960 it emerged that leading members of the business world had established a “mass media countermea­sures committee,” chaired by Yoshida Hideo, the president of the power­ful Dentsū advertising conglomerate, in order to explore ways to c­ ounter the influence of what they viewed as the left-­leaning media. The committee funded new print and broadcast outlets with more conservative outlooks and sought to install editors friendly to conservative ­causes in the upper ranks of preexisting media enterprises.50 At a Nikkeiren extraordinary conference convened in October 1960, conservative po­liti­cal commentator Mitarai Tatsuo suggested . 240 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression that additional goals of the “mass media countermea­sures” initiative should be to (1) or­ga­nize large-­scale boycotts of “progressive” newspapers, (2) take steps to encourage editorial control and weaken newspaper ­unions, (3) make increased use of advertising sponsorship to shape editorial policies, (4) cooperate with local business leaders to influence local newspapers and local broadcasting outlets, and (5) cultivate alliances with intellectuals and academics of “good sense” and give them a voice by establishing a conservative monthly journal to rival the influence of left-­leaning journals such as Sekai and Chūō Kōron.51 As part of this drive to influence the media, Yoshida established a series of discussions between corporate executives and the editors of the major media outlets, known as the Mass Media Roundtable (Masukomi Kondankai), where the two groups could hash out concerns about media coverage in an informal and private atmosphere. The first such meeting was held at the Imperial ­Hotel in Tokyo on July 29, 1960. A parallel group was set up in Osaka, and meetings ­were held frequently in both cities ­until Yoshida’s sudden death from cancer in 1963.52 Another initiative launched by Yoshida that lasted long ­after his passing was the pooling of industry money to buy up large blocks of tele­ vi­sion time and air po­liti­cal commentary shows of a conservative, pro-­ business bent. This was an innovation and allowed business leaders to get their message out to tele­vi­sion audiences more directly by exercising much greater editorial influence over programs of their own design. The first of t­ hese programs was “East West, North South” (Tōzai nanboku), a fifteen-­minute news commentary program that aired twice a day on NET (Nihon Educational Tele­vi­sion, the forerunner of TV Asahi) beginning May 8, 1961. The commentators included the usual roster of “good sense” intellectuals as well as prominent business executives. Although the left, led by the Federation of Commercial Broadcast Workers’ Unions (Minpō Rōren), heavi­ly criticized the program as a “commercial in disguise” (  fukumen bangumi), the program proved popu­lar and lucrative for the network, and ran ­until May 31, 1966.53 Another group that funded this kind of tele­vi­sion program, in addition to Yoshida, was the ­People’s Politics Research Association (Kokumin Seiji Kenkyūkai), a pro-­business think tank established by conservative . 241 .

japan at the crossroads po­liti­cal commentators and conservative retired journalists at the height of the protests in June 1960 for the purpose of “cultivating fair-­minded public opinion and supporting healthy demo­cratic politics.” The group was funded by donations from over 120 corporations, amounting to approximately 40 million yen in its first year of operation alone. On October 7, 1960, it launched its first po­liti­cal commentary show, “Politics for Every­one” (Mina no seiji) on Fuji TV, hosted by conservative po­liti­cal commentator and ­ People’s Politics Research Association chairman Karashima Kichizō. In February 1961 it launched a second tele­vi­sion program, “Japan Q&A” (Nippon mondō) on NTV, hosted by conservative commentator Togawa Isamu. By the end of the year it had also sponsored and produced fourteen one-­shot tele­vi­sion specials addressing current po­liti­cal developments, all of which voiced strong support for the LDP and especially for Prime Minister Ikeda’s economic program. Fuji TV chairman Shikanai Nobutaka was jocularly known as the “ace pitcher” of the “mass media countermea­sures” campaign, and NTV president Shōriki Matsutarō had been a trusted member of the Kishi cabinet, so ­those two networks w ­ ere particularly willing to air the P ­ eople’s Politics Research Association’s programs, but several other major networks proved willing to air the one-­shot specials, and this sort of sponsored po­ liti­cal program proliferated.54 In this way the predominantly conservative Japa­nese business world was able to get its message directly into living rooms across Japan through the burgeoning medium of tele­vi­sion. But ­these initiatives ­were aided by a climate of increasing self-­censorship and exercise of “editorial control” across the media, even within the major newspapers and despite their traditions of fierce anti-­establishmentarianism. Part of this trend was the result of larger forces, such as the decline of u ­ nions as po­liti­cal powers, continuing technological innovation, and the rationalization of production, that w ­ ere remaking almost ­every industry in Japan in the 1960s. In the wake of the 1960 protests the newspaper publishers collectively deci­ded to offer a truce to the militant newspaper ­labor ­unions, negotiating a series of new contracts explic­itly promising regular wage increases in exchange for u ­ nions agreeing to abandon po­liti­cal activity. The u ­ nion . 242 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression at the more conservative Sankei Shinbun even agreed to break away from the Sōhyō-­affiliated Shinbun Rōren entirely.55 ­These agreements gave both publishers and workers a feeling of security (in the form of cost and wage certainty) in the face of what was perceived to be the growing threat to revenue from radio and TV, which also served as the justification for other­wise unpalatable rationalization mea­sures. In addition, when carrots failed to produce results, publishers resorted to sticks, aggressively reassigning reporters viewed as troublesome to other sections where they could do less harm.56 Meanwhile, the widespread adoption of offset printing in the 1960s and the introduction of new communications technologies such as the facsimile transmission reduced the time required to transmit stories and to lay out and print newspaper editions, allowing more time for editorial scrutiny. However, in addition to structural ­factors, shock at the violent outcome of the 1960 protests produced an atmosphere of soul-­searching and self-­criticism among many in the media. At an October 1960 meeting of Asahi Shinbun regional bureau chiefs in Nagoya, Asahi editorials chief Ryū Shintarō reflected on the recent experience of the Anpo protests. It was a characteristic of the Japa­nese ­people, he argued, that “if the person next to you moves, then you also get up and move.” This “shallowness” of motivation was to be found not only in the student protesters but also in the general populace, he asserted. “­These protests ­were our fault,” he argued, ­because the masses “have not been properly enlightened,” and he urged the need for serious self-­reflection (hansei) on the part of all Asahi Shinbun editors, himself included.57 Similarly in June 1961, to mark the one-­year anniversary of the bloody June 15 incident, Ryū composed a statement of Asahi editorial policy addressed to all employees of the com­ pany, which stated in part: With regard to the present-­day Japa­nese government, we do not harbor even a single anti-­government thought in our heads. Of course, the prewar government was another story, but the pres­ent day is dif­fer­ent. . . . ​Our basic stance t­ oward the Treaty issue was correct, but it cannot be said that we w ­ ere not at least slightly imprudent. . . . ​ To put it harshly, whenever Japa­nese ­people see some sort of spectacle

. 243 .

japan at the crossroads taking place before their eyes, they get terribly excited and move ­toward it. . . . ​When we consider this fact, we must all, myself included, undertake some serious self-­reflection. . . . ​If it comes to our attention that ­there is a flame somewhere, which if not attended to, might spread . . . ​certainly in terms of what we say, but also in terms of how much we say about it, we must never ­under any circumstances fan such a flame. It is not simply about “reporting the facts.”

Similar soul-­searching took place at tele­vi­sion networks. As part of a 1969 roundtable discussion on the meaning of the 1960 protests for tele­ vi­sion journalism, Tokyo Broadcasting chairman Imamichi Junzō reflected: “The Anpo riots ­were a prob­lem that was taking place in a small corner of Tokyo. Our broadcasts reported on this truthfully and continued reporting on them as they developed. But in d ­ oing this, we soon infected the ­whole nation with this prob­lem. What in the world are we to make of this?” NHK chairman Maeda Yoshinori then added: This is an issue that all of us have been painfully aware of, ever since Anpo, and as members of the mass media, it is the area in which we now cooperate most closely in our broadcasts. When it comes to reporting, even if we think we are just simply reporting what we see, the effect of that reporting, the shock of it, can affect the beliefs of the entire nation as well as leave an extremely strong impression on individuals. . . . ​That is the penetrating power . . . ​of the [tele­vi­ sion] medium.

Maeda concluded with a fire meta­phor of his own: “Tele­vi­sion is like a very large and power­ful cigarette. Just like if you throw a cigarette on the ground, it might start a fire, tele­vi­sion is capable of starting very large fires, if we are not careful.”58 In an effort to avoid causing such “fires,” NHK in early 1961 promulgated a new set of guidelines titled “Impor­tant Policies for Editing Domestic Broadcasts,” the first clause of which called for the creation of “­wholesome programs that contribute to the development of healthy demo­cratic practice.”59 Although before the Anpo protests t­ here is no recorded instance of a Japa­nese tele­vi­sion channel pulling a broadcast for po­liti­cal reasons, a­ fter Anpo, broadcasters proved increasingly willing to . 244 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression cancel programming deemed too po­liti­cally sensitive. The first such incident was the decision to yank a drama titled “The Bad Guy” (Warui yatsu), about a ruffian from Osaka’s notorious Kamagasaki slum who hatches a plot to blow up the Diet building. The drama had already been completed and was scheduled to air on June 16, the day ­after the June 15 clash at the Diet in which Kanba Michiko was killed. Although the unfortunate timing of this drama makes the decision to pull it somewhat understandable, in the wake of the 1960 Anpo protests, a proliferating conception of tele­vi­sion as a medium with an outsize capacity to influence and inflame produced intense pressures for management to step in and cancel, often at the last moment and at substantial cost, programs viewed as crossing certain bound­aries of acceptability. In the remainder of the de­cade of the 1960s alone, NHK and other broadcasters canceled a total of sixty-­three programs for po­liti­cal reasons. Although it was sometimes unclear ­whether programs ­were canceled as a result of outside pressures or internal self-­censorship, in other cases, pressure from government officials or, in the case of commercial networks, major advertisers, was openly acknowledged.60 Notably, t­ hese ­were all programs that had been fully produced and had an airdate, and then ­were publicly canceled at the last minute. We can only speculate how many more programs might have been canceled earlier on in the production pro­cess, or never even got off the ground to begin with. Efforts at self-­censorship also became evident in the editorial stances taken by the major newspapers. When the nuclear submarine USS Seadragon called at Sasebo naval base in November 1964, and likewise in the lead-up to the normalization of relations between Japan and South ­Korea in the fall of 1965, the newspapers, clearly influenced by the experience of 1960, closely cooperated to unanimously call on protesters to remain calm and re­spect law and order. Meanwhile, conservative-­leaning journalists took on more prominent roles within the newspapers, establishing an “Opinion Leaders Forum” (Genronjin Kondankai), which took it upon itself to self-­police the world of Japa­nese journalism. Its mission statement, issued in November 1965 and distributed to all the media outlets in Japan, opened with a reference to the 1960 Anpo crisis: “In 1960, during the passage of the Security Treaty, when the Diet was engulfed by . 245 .

japan at the crossroads madness-­induced cries of ‘Kill Kishi!,’ many media outlets, rather than issuing a sedative to the crazed masses, instead issued a stimulant.” Therefore, now that t­here was danger of a similar crisis in response to the Japan–­South ­Korea normalization negotiations, the forum was “appealing to all journalists” to “strictly admonish the leading ele­ments of the masses to avoid vio­lence” and “for all media organ­izations to report in a cool-­headed manner and with discretion.” According to its charter, This organ­ization wishes to draw greater attention to the social responsibility of journalists, and aims to promote the creation of a correct and unbiased public opinion. . . . ​By working actively on the front lines of the mass media, we ­will correct journalism from within, and when our colleagues are attacked by leftist intellectuals we ­will support them. ­These are the concrete goals for our urgently needed movement.61

In addition to pressure from government and business leaders and internal movements ­toward greater self-­censorship, the Japa­nese press also received pressure from the US government. In the wake of the 1960 protests, the State Department took an intense interest in the perceived left-­leaning “bias” of the Japa­nese press. Beginning with MacArthur’s unpre­ce­dented dressing down of the editors of the major media outlets in June 1960, the US government and its agents increased efforts to induce the press to produce coverage and editorial stances more favorable to US interests. A notable vector of influence was an infamous article in Time magazine, which was widely read by elites in Japan and perceived as a quasi-­official mouthpiece of the US State Department. In its June 27, 1960, issue, Time ran an unsigned editorial titled “­Free Press Gone Wrong,” excoriating the Japa­nese press as the main architects of the vio­lence outside the Diet and ridiculing the notion, as expressed by a “leading Tokyo editor,” that “it is the duty of the press to be anti-­ government.” The article called on the management of the major Japa­ nese media outlets to exercise greater editorial control, taunting them for being “journalistic eunuchs” who, despite supporting the conservative cause in private, had other­wise “literally surrendered their papers . 246 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression to the hundreds of young liberal ‘intellectuals’ in Japa­nese newsrooms.” The editors of Time lamented: “Espousing no cause but that of full-­throated antagonism to the party in power, ­these leftists not only incite to riot but often themselves join the rioters. Last week, when a part of the mob broke off to charge police guarding the Diet building, the sortie was led by a phalanx of screaming, pole-­waving newsmen.”62 This article produced shock among Japan’s journalism establishment, which had preferred to view itself as having been the voice of moderation and reason, especially since the June 17 joint declaration. Though a variety of rebuttals appeared in major newspapers and journals, their defensive character, and the general willingness of their authors to admit that m ­ istakes had been made and to promise changes in the ­future, set the Japa­nese press on a course ­toward greater self-­censorship and editorial control. In the spring of 1961, Edwin Reischauer arrived in Japan as the new US ambassador. As part of his “Reischauer offensive,” Reischauer went out of his way to cultivate and charm leading newsmen, and granted the Japa­nese press unpre­ce­dented access and numerous interviews. But at the same time, Reischauer took an almost obsessive interest in the news coverage and editorials produced by the press, and went out of his way to admonish media outlets whenever he felt they had crossed the line. It was a testament to Reischauer’s power and influence over the press (although prob­ably not his intentions) that he was able to single-­handedly destroy the ­career of a respected journalist with an offhand comment. Ōmori Minoru was a well-­known reporter on international affairs for the Mainichi Shinbun who was sent to North Vietnam in the mid-1960s to report on the Vietnam War. His series of articles “Indochina in Mud and Flames” was extremely well received and earned him a prize from the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association in 1965. In 1966, however, Reischauer publicly denounced Ōmori by name during a press conference, declaring that he had had the wool pulled over his eyes by North Viet­nam­ese propaganda. When Ōmori returned from North Vietnam ­later that year, he was ostracized by his colleagues and forced to resign from the Mainichi in disgrace ­after a distinguished twenty-­one-­year ­career.63 . 247 .

japan at the crossroads Although it is often difficult to know the full scope of censorship, and self-­censorship even more so, it is clear that increased pressure from the Japa­nese government and the business world in the aftermath of the 1960 Anpo protests produced a climate in which the Japa­nese media became more pliant and willing to cooperate with state and corporate goals. The haunting specter of a pos­si­ble “second Anpo” loomed large in the minds of the management of Japan’s increasingly profitable media conglomerates for at least a de­cade or more, and they did all they could to avoid “fanning the flames.”

A Revitalized Right Wing When journalists worried about “fanning the flames,” they w ­ ere referring to not only left-­wing but also right-­wing protests, and indeed, the 1960 Anpo protests enraged, excited, and energized right-­wing ultranationalists in Japan. In the immediate postwar period ­there had been a heavy stigma against any activity resembling ultranationalism. Although several ultranationalist groups formed in the 1950s, they had to lie low and their numbers remained relatively small. However, as the Anpo protests grew in size, conservative forces grew increasingly alarmed that the protests might be the beginning of a long-­feared communist revolution in Japan and became increasingly energized to fight back.64 Money and resources poured into existing right-­wing groups, often from anonymous donors, and several new right-­wing groups formed over the course of the protests to stage counterprotests. Of par­tic­u­lar note was a new breed of hybrid right-­wing / yakuza group euphemistically called “chivalrous” (kyōkaku), “huckster” (tekiya), or “street performer” (yashi)—­all synonyms for “yakuza”—­organ­izations. ­These “activist” (kōdō ha) right-­wing groups w ­ ere seen as much more likely to engage in vio­lence and thuggery than the more staid “theoretician” (riron ha) right-­wing organ­izations that had been prominent in the 1950s.65 Prominent examples included the Pine Needle Society (Matsubakai), which raided the Tokyo offices of the Mainichi Shinbun in April 1960; the Kansai Home Guard (Kansai Gokokudan), which drove a jeep into striking ­labor ­unionists in Amagasaki City on June 4; and the Imperial . 248 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression Restoration Action Corps (Ishin Kōdō Tai), which attacked the shingeki actors outside the Diet on June 15. Meanwhile, an earlier attempt to unite the preexisting “theoretician” right-­wing groups into an umbrella organ­ization called the Council for a New Japan (Shin Nippon Kyōgikai, abbreviated Shin Nikkyō), chaired by none other than former head of the prewar Thought Police, Abe Genki, collapsed in 1959 amid vicious infighting over ­whether to support the new treaty and how to deal with the left-­wing protests. Shin Nikkyō had been closely aligned with conservative business leaders, but had spurned the upstart “activist” groups and their overtly yakuza memberships, and thus its collapse paved the way for a new umbrella organ­ization that would be more inclusive and would coordinate a more effective pan-­rightist response to the growing left-­wing protest movement. On April 19, 1959, eighty right-­wing groups and or­ga­nized crime syndicates came together to found the All-­Japan Council of Patriot Groups (Zen Nippon Aikokusha Dantai Kaigi, abbreviated Zen Ai Kai). One of the first acts of the new organ­ization was establishing the Cooperative Council of Patriots Promoting Revision of the Security Treaty (Anpo Kaitei Sokushin Aikokusha Kyōgikai), which celebrated its founding with a large gathering of right-­wing activists in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo on July 2, 1959, and went on to or­ga­nize pro-­treaty activities including counterprotests and petition drives. Zen Ai Kai itself continued to expand; by the end of 1960 it comprised more than 100 member organ­izations, and by 1964 it had more than 440. Zen Ai Kai served as the main organ­ization for coordinating right-­wing attempts to influence Japa­nese politics for the next de­cade, and remains in existence ­today.66 A key role in organ­izing, funding, and recruiting for ­these organ­ izations was played by right-­wing “fixers” ( fikusā) with ties to yakuza gangsters. ­These fixers bundled anonymous donations from corporations and wealthy individuals and funneled them to right-­wing groups, drew on yakuza connections to provide manpower and muscle, and used their connections within the conservative LDP to give right-­wing views a sympathetic hearing within the government. Some fixers even funneled money to left-­wing groups, including the New Left student . 249 .

japan at the crossroads radicals who led the charge on the Diet, b ­ ecause they ­were seen as virulently anti-­communist. Kishi himself turned to right-­wing fixers for aid in his hour of greatest need. Not convinced that the police would be able to guarantee the safety of President Eisenhower, and prevented from mobilizing the military by his cabinet, he called on notorious fixer Kodama Yoshio, who had been his cellmate at Sugamo prison while he was awaiting trial as a war criminal, to mobilize right-­wing forces to secure the streets of Tokyo leading up to Eisenhower’s visit. Calling in f­avors with a variety of right-­wing groups, to be supplemented by yakuza thugs, Kodama prepared a “Welcoming Ike to Japan Mobilization Plan,” in which he claimed he would be able to put nearly 150,000 men on the streets to “protect” Eisenhower from left-­wing protesters.67 Ultimately ­these forces ­were not needed to protect Eisenhower, ­because his visit was canceled soon thereafter. However, some of the groups w ­ ere put to use ­later that summer battling striking miners at the Miike Coal Mine in southern Japan. In ­these ways, the Anpo protests and the ­later thuggery at Miike cemented the relationship between right-­wing nationalists, anonymous big business donors, and the yakuza, whereas previously the groups had been fairly distinct and, despite vari­ous shared interests, unable to coordinate effectively. The number of right-­wing groups tracked by police swelled over the course of the 1960s, and right-­wing groups felt increasingly confident to “come out” in public. A report in 1956 had found 95 right-­wing groups in Japan, with a total membership of 67,000. Several new groups formed during the 1960 protests and in their immediate aftermath, such that by 1962, the National Police Agency estimated ­there ­were 400 right-­ wing groups, with a membership of 100,000. By 1980, the agency counted 550 groups, and by 1988, 840. Recent estimates put the number of right-­ wing groups at more than 1,000. Over the same period, membership in left-­wing groups steadily declined.68 One prominent example of this coming-­out pro­cess was the writer Mishima Yukio. Mishima biographer Henry Scott Stokes asserts that “1960 was without a doubt a crucial year in his life,” and by all accounts it marked a major turning point in Mishima’s ­career.69 Mishima was obsessed with the Anpo protests, following news coverage religiously, . 250 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression keeping extensive newspaper clippings on the protests, and often g­ oing out to observe the protesters in person, although he declined to participate himself. Mishima was already a famous writer in 1960, but prior to that time he had not written anything especially po­liti­cal. However, in June 1960 he wrote his first piece making mention of politics, an opinion piece in the Mainichi Shinbun titled “A Po­liti­cal Opinion” (Hitotsu no seijiteki iken), in which he praised the Anpo protests from a nationalist perspective as an example of the Japa­nese ­people standing up to American domination.70 This piece marked “his first step into the po­liti­cal arena, ­after which Mishima entered it regularly and wrote from a more explic­itly conservative-­rightist perspective.”71 In August 1960, just two months ­after the protests ended, Mishima began writing his infamous short story “Patriotism” (Yūkoku), about a Japa­nese Imperial Army officer who commits suicide ­after the failed revolt against the government of February 26, 1936. The following year, he published the first two parts of his three-­part play “Tenth-­Day Chrysanthemum” (Tōka no kiku), which further glorified the young officers that had fomented the February 26 uprising in 1936. Thereafter Mishima’s fiction and plays took a hard right turn ­toward neofascism and ultranationalism, and he never looked back. By the end of the 1960s, he was producing works such as his play “My Friend Hitler” (Waga tomo Hitorā), in which he used Adolf Hitler, Gustav Krupp, Gregor Strasser, and Ernst Röhm as characters to ventriloquize his own views on beauty and fascism. Fi­nally, Mishima raised his own private army, the Shield Society (Tatenokai), leading up to his famous attempt in 1970 to convince the Japan Self-­Defense Forces to rise up in a neofascist revolt, an attempt that ended in failure and culminated in Mishima’s spectacular suicide by hara-­kiri. Although Mishima was by no means a perfect exemplar of a Japa­nese right-­wing activist, his case is instructive as to the vitalizing effect the 1960 Anpo protests had on the Japa­nese right. Whereas the Japa­nese left was depoliticized (or apoliticized) ­after Anpo, and fell into vicious infighting and a “season of schisms,” the right was politicized and newly energized, and in some ways more united than ever before. Mishima’s own turn to the right came against the backdrop of his mounting disappointments as an artist, particularly the disastrous reception of his widely . 251 .

japan at the crossroads panned 1959 novel Kyoko’s House (Kyōko no ie). Mishima’s self-­reinvention as a rightist ­after 1960 marked his successful attempt to remain squarely in the public eye at a time when his writing was descending into sensationalism and showmanship and was being taking less and less seriously by the august leading lights of Japan’s literary establishment. More than anything e­ lse, the 1960 Anpo protests had awakened in Mishima an under­­ standing of the power of spectacle, and this understanding would be a guiding force in his f­uture writing and public be­hav­ior in the ensuing de­cade leading up to his spectacular death. This idea of the power of spectacle was the same lesson drawn from the 1960 protests by the Japa­ nese right as a ­whole, as they turned away from the “theoretical” rightism of the 1950s ­toward the much more showy “activist” rightism of the 1960s and beyond. The right discovered that what the attacks on leftists that began in 1960 lost in terms of activists arrested and tried was more than recompensed by the media attention, the new recruits and donations, and cowed left wing that resulted. The darkest side of the renewed right-­wing confidence in 1960, however, was a wave of spectacular assassinations and assassination attempts that evoked memories of a similar wave of assassinations that had wracked Japan in the 1930s. Socialist Party leader Kawakami Jōtarō was stabbed by a right-­wing youth on June 17, 1960, as was Kishi himself on July 15 (although both eventually recovered). Most spectacular of all was the fatal stabbing of Socialist Party chairman Asanuma Inejirō during an election debate on October 12, witnessed live on national tele­vi­sion by a stunned audience of millions. Asanuma’s assassin was a seventeen-­year-­old youth named Yamaguchi Otoya, son of a high-­ranking officer in the Self-­Defense Forces and the grand­son (through his ­mother) of the writer Murakami Namiroku, best known for his novels glorifying chivalric yakuza gangsters. Growing up in relative privilege, Yamaguchi was radicalized as a teenager by his older ­brother, whom he idolized, and joined leading Japa­nese ultranationalist Akao Bin’s Greater Japan Patriotic Party (Dai Nippon Aikokutō) at age sixteen. Akao, who openly touted himself as “Japan’s Hitler,” was one of the leading exponents of the notion that Japan was on the verge of a communist revolution, and that the Anpo protests w ­ ere the revolution’s . 252 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression

Seventeen-­year-­old right-­wing ultranationalist Yamaguchi Otoya assassinates Japan Socialist Party chairman Asanuma Inejirō with a short sword during a  nationally televised po­liti­cal debate, October  12, 1960. (Photo by Yasushi Nagao / Bettmann / Getty Images)

opening phase. As a member of the Aikokutō, Yamaguchi participated in counterprotest activities and was arrested ten times during 1959 and 1960. Over the course of the protests, Yamaguchi became further radicalized and increasingly convinced that the Aikokutō was incapable of decisive action. He fi­nally resigned from the Aikokutō on May 29, 1960. In his testimony to the police, he recalled, I did not think that the left-­wing forces could be overthrown simply by taking out their leaders. However, the evil deeds ­those leaders had continued to perpetrate up to the pres­ent day could no longer be tolerated, and I knew that if even one leader ­were taken out, the be­ hav­ior of ­future left-­wing leaders would be constrained. If even a single member of the general public that is now blindly following the

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japan at the crossroads blandishments of left-­wing agitators w ­ ere awakened to their folly, I thought it would be worth ­doing. . . . ​Master Akao was always saying “we must take out the leaders of the left wing,” but it was clear that he was more interested in attracting media attention with mild agitation, and that he would stop me if I ever tried to put his words into action. . . . ​Therefore I deci­ded to leave the party, lay my hands on a weapon, and take decisive action.72

On October 12, in the midst of an election debate between the leaders of the three major po­liti­cal parties televised live nationwide by NHK, Yamaguchi rushed the stage while Asanuma was speaking and ran him through twice with a samurai short sword (wakizashi). Yamaguchi then tried to turn the sword on himself but was subdued by bystanders and taken into custody; Asanuma died within minutes from massive internal bleeding. Throughout his confinement, Yamaguchi was extremely calm and logical, and freely offered extensive testimony to the police about his plans and motivations. Fi­nally on November 2, he wrote, “Would that I had seven lives to give for my country” (shichisei hōkoku, echoing the famous last words of fourteenth-­century samurai Kusunoki Masashige) and “Long live the Emperor” in toothpaste on the wall of his cell and hanged himself with knotted bedsheets. Yamaguchi immediately became a hero and martyr to the Japa­nese right. On December 15, just weeks ­after Yamaguchi’s suicide, Zen Ai Kai or­ga­nized a “National Memorial Ser­vice for Our Martyred ­Brother Yamaguchi Otoya,” and added insult to injury by holding it in the very same Hibiya Public Hall where Yamaguchi had murdered Asanuma. Thereafter, right-­wing groups held an annual commemoration of Yamaguchi’s death anniversary each November 2. Yamaguchi’s actions, and the publicity they attracted, inspired a rash of copycat assassination attempts (as well as innumerable death threats) against left-­wing politicians, intellectuals, and writers, as well as conservative politicians seen to have betrayed conservative princi­ples. Among o ­ thers, police uncovered plots to assassinate Prime Minister Ikeda and LDP faction leader Kōno Ichirō in 1963, and Communist Party chairman Nosaka Sanzō survived an assassination attempt that same year by a right-­wing youth rushing the stage . 254 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression with a dagger. In 1964, police thwarted a plot to assassinate visiting Soviet deputy premier Anastas Mikoyan, and US ambassador Edwin  O. Reischauer was stabbed by yet another right-­wing youth. Reischauer survived, but while recovering in a hospital he contracted a hepatitis infection that would ultimately kill him twenty-­five years ­later. The most elaborate scheme was the so-­called Sanyū incident—­a conspiracy to assassinate the entire Ikeda cabinet—­uncovered by police in December 1961. Altogether police raided thirty-­two locations in cities across Japan and ultimately identified thirty-­four individuals involved in a plot that also targeted leaders of the Sōhyō l­abor federation, the Communist Party, and the Nikkyōsō teachers federation, and called for bombing the National Police Agency and Sōhyō and Communist Party headquarters and seizing the grounds of the National Diet. Among the ringleaders ­were seven retired Imperial Army and Navy officers, including former Army general Sakurai Tokutarō and former Navy lieutenant Mikami Taku, who had been one of the central figures in the successful assassination of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in May 1932. The plotters ­were members of a right-­wing ultranationalist group called the Kokushikai (National History Society), funded by wealthy conservative businessman Kawanami Toyosaku, the former chairman of the Kawanami industrial conglomerate. The plotters intended to mobilize an army of hundreds of ultranationalist youths in support of their plan, and police discovered 300 military-­style helmets, 150 gas masks, and a cache of grenades, swords, and ­rifles stored in Kawanami’s home. The stated motive of the plotters was that the Ikeda cabinet had become too friendly with the United States, was too soft on leftists, and was therefore unable to prevent the coming communist revolution in Japan. The plotters hoped to replace the Ikeda government with an ultranationalist government more able to defend against communism, and w ­ ere allegedly inspired to act by the May 16, 1961, coup d’état staged successfully in South K ­ orea by General Park Chun Hee, who like several of the Japa­nese plotters was a gradu­ate of the Japa­nese Imperial Military Acad­emy.73 Perhaps the single most impor­tant assassination attempt, however, was the so-­called Shimanaka incident (also known as the Fūryū mutan . 255 .

japan at the crossroads incident) of February 1961. In the fall of 1960, author Fukazawa Shichirō published a controversial short story, “The Tale of an Elegant Dream” (Fūryū mutan), in the prominent monthly magazine Chūō Kōron. A lighthearted and nonsensical satire filled with puns and slapstick humor, it featured an unnamed protagonist narrating a dream sequence in which a left-­wing “revolution” reminiscent of the recent Anpo protests takes place. At the climax of the story the reigning emperor and empress are beheaded, as are the crown prince and princess, with their severed heads infamously described as “rolling and clattering about” (sutten korokoro karakara korogatte).74 Although “Fūryū mutan” was more a satire on the excesses of the recent left-­wing protests than a critique of the imperial institution—­ Fukazawa punned on the Japa­nese word for “left-­wing” (sayoku) by replacing the character for “wing” with a homophonous character meaning “greed”—­the Japa­nese right immediately exploded in outrage. Left-­ leaning journalists and writers, however, initially defended the story on free-­speech grounds, pointing out that the emperor had renounced his own divinity at the end of the war and that several works of lit­er­a­ture critical of the emperor had been published in the 1950s without eliciting much notice. Initially, Chūō Kōron made no reply to ­these protestations, but the issue came to a head on November 28 when eight members of the Dai Nippon Aikokutō forced their way into the Chūō Kōron offices and demanded an apology. On November 29, the Imperial House­hold Agency threatened to file a libel suit against the magazine on behalf of the imperial ­family, and some members of the Ikeda cabinet suggested they might support such a suit. The next day, Chūō Kōron editor-­in-­ chief Takemori Kiyoshi visited the Imperial House­hold Agency to apologize in person on behalf of the magazine, and the day ­after that he met with Akao Bin of the Aikokutō and promised to run an apology in the next issue. The apology that appeared in the issue that hit newsstands on December  10, however, was somewhat perfunctory, apologized only for using the real names of members of the imperial f­amily, and contained the phrase “setting aside the story’s literary merits,” which suggested that . 256 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression the story did have literary merit and that ­there was nothing wrong with the contents other than the use of real names. The right-­wing activists ­were entirely dissatisfied and thereafter ultranationalist groups such as the Aikokutō, the Pine Needle Society, and the yakuza-­sponsored National Essence Society (Kokusuikai) mounted protests outside Chūō Kōron’s Tokyo headquarters almost daily. This volatile situation was further inflamed by the publication in mid-­ January of Ōe Kenzaburo’s novella Seventeen, satirizing Yamaguchi Otoya and his assassination of Asanuma, which had happened just a few months prior. By this point “Fūryū mutan” author Fukazawa was receiving death threats daily, and Ōe began receiving them as well. Fi­nally, on January 30, Akao Bin himself led thirty members of the Aikokutō on another incursion into the Chūō Kōron editorial offices and demanded a more fulsome apology. That same day, right-­wing groups met once again in Hibiya Public Hall to convene a “National Convention to Protect the Nation from a Red Revolution” (Akairo Kakumei kara Kokumin o Mamoru Kokumin Taikai) u ­ nder the auspices of the Teito Nichi Nichi Shinbun (Imperial Capital Daily News), a recently revived prewar fascist newspaper owned and operated by Kodama Yoshio’s “spiritual advisor,” the seventy-­five-­year-­old ultranationalist Noyori Hideichi. Two days ­later, on February 1, a young man named Komori Kazutaka burst into the home of Chūō Kōron president Shimanaka Hōji, whom he felt bore ultimate responsibility for the publication of “Fūryū mutan.” Although Shimanaka was away at the time, Komori critically injured Shimanaka’s wife and murdered his fifty-­year-­old maid with a samurai sword before fleeing and ­later turning himself in to police. The son of a Nagasaki deputy prosecutor, Komori shared much in common with Yamaguchi Otoya, including his relatively privileged upbringing, his former membership in the Aikokutō (from which he had resigned on the morning of the attack), and his age—­seventeen. Komori’s attack drew nationwide attention to the “Fūryū mutan” controversy, but perhaps surprisingly, instead of eliciting sympathy for Shimanaka and his f­ amily or cries to defend freedom of expression, the incident on balance attracted further approbation for Chūō Kōron and Fukazawa, as many who had not previously paid attention read the story . 257 .

japan at the crossroads and w ­ ere shocked by its contents. Many prominent politicians and public figures openly expressed sympathy for Komori and condemned Chūō Kōron for publishing the story, and conservative Diet members used it as a pretext to fast-­track their pending bill against “po­liti­cal vio­lence” and even began drawing up a law to revive the prewar crime of lèse-­majesté. Newspaper editorials on the incident, while taking care to condemn physical vio­lence, also pointed out that the story was “inappropriate” and “ill-­advised,” with the unspoken but clear implication being that Chūō Kōron had brought the incident on itself. Even many staunchly leftist writers and critics condemned the story, precipitating a fierce debate in the literary journals over ­whether Fukazawa’s tale had any “literary merit.” The initial reaction of Chūō Kōron’s editorial board was defiance. On February 5, they issued a press release (shakoku) that was run by most of the major newspapers that perfunctorily restated the December apology for using real names but went on to declare that “we as a com­ pany vow to rededicate ourselves to the establishment of ­free expression, and request the support and encouragement of all our readers across the nation.”75 The release had been written without Shimanaka’s input, as he was still recovering from the shock of the attack. When he saw its contents he was outraged, and immediately penned a rebuttal of sorts, simply titled “Apology” (owabi), which ran in the newspapers the following day ­under his own name. In this very brief statement, Shimanaka repudiated “Fūryū mutan” as a work “unsuitable for print” that “was published as a result of my own personal negligence.” He then “deeply apologize[d] for having caused tremendous pain for the Imperial ­house­hold and ordinary readers,” and concluded, “for having disturbed society to the point of causing violent incidents, I once again offer my deepest apologies.”76 In other words, just five days a­ fter a horrific attack that compromised the sanctity of his home and left a trusted servant dead and his own wife gravely injured, Shimanaka was apologizing to the Japa­nese ­people for having caused the attack to occur. ­Later that day, Shimanaka accepted the resignation of editor-­in-­chief Takemori, and that night, at Shimanaka’s urging, Fukazawa himself gave . 258 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression a tearful press conference in which he stated that it was wrong of him to have used “vulgar words” in a work of fiction. Fukazawa was escorted from the venue u ­ nder heavi­ly armed guard and immediately went into hiding for five years, moving from one safe ­house to another, always ­under the watchful eye of the police. His once-­promising ­career as a writer took a long hiatus and never fully recovered, and in ­later years he could be found manning a bean cake (imagawa-yaki) stall in Tokyo’s working-­class Sumida ward that he wistfully dubbed “Dream Shop” (Yumeya). Meanwhile, both “Fūryū mutan” and the second half of Ōe’s Seventeen ­were withdrawn from circulation and ­were even omitted from their authors’ “Collected Works” anthologies. In later years they could be difficult to find in publicly available copies of the original journals in which they had been published, as the offending pages had often been ripped out. In addition to Fukazawa, dozens of other writers also went into hiding for shorter periods of time, and hundreds of writers and critics ­were provided with round-­the-­clock police protection for several months in the spring of 1961 amid a torrent of death threats. Among them was Mishima Yukio, who like Fukazawa had won Chūō Kōron’s literary prize for new writers, had ­later served on the se­lection committee, and was known to have a close friendship with Fukazawa. A rumor became widespread that Mishima had personally recommended “Fūryū mutan” for publication, and although he vociferously denied this in person and in print, magazine insiders l­ater suggested that the rumor might have been true. The result was that Mishima received hundreds of death threats, ­noticed thugs scouting out his ­house, and is said to have patrolled his garden armed with a samurai sword ­every night for weeks. He was also shadowed by an armed police officer everywhere he went for his own protection ­until the threats subsided, a situation Mishima complained bitterly about in a letter to his translator Donald Keene. Mishima’s younger b ­ rother Chiyuki ­later became convinced that Mishima’s “swing to the right” during this period arose from his “profound fear of the Right.”77 Fi­nally on February 7, the day ­after Fukazawa’s tearful farewell press conference, Shimanaka Hōji appeared before the entire workforce of the com­pany for the first time since the attack, and hammered home a brutal . 259 .

japan at the crossroads lesson remembered internally as the “fear speech” (kyōfu enzetsu). Shimanaka implored his staff, Please understand that at this moment saying “one false move w ­ ill lead to disaster” is no exaggeration but is literally the truth. If by some chance even one person commits another rash act while wrapping themselves in the banner of “freedom of speech,” this building might get blown up, p ­ eople might get killed, and 130 employees would be thrown out onto the street. Please be fully aware of the situation, and focusing solely on the com­pany’s welfare, help us survive this crisis.78

Editorial staff member Nakamura Tomiko recalled that the speech was quite effective: “We ­were all infected with a sense of crisis that at any time we might be attacked again by right wing thugs, and w ­ ere caught up in a whirlwind of fear,” and she wrote that the com­pany ­union meeting that took place in the same room l­ ater that same day “took on the character of a wake.”79 Indeed, the writers, critics, and editorial staff associated with Chūō Kōron all agreed that something had died that day. Looking back in 1975, the critic Matsuura Sōzō asserted, “The ‘Apology’ was, in a word, the abandonment of the long tradition of mainstream magazines speaking truth to power in Japan ever since the days of Taishō democracy [in the 1920s]. It was a total capitulation to power.” Moreover, the “fear speech,” he wrote, “felt like the culmination of the course of ‘voluntary restraint’ ­adopted even before the incident. . . . ​The total defeat of Chūō Kōron and its defenders in the face of right-­wing vio­lence was yet another retreat in a long series of retreats.”80 ­Later that month, Shimanaka, through the mediation of Dentsū advertising agency chairman Yoshida Hideo, negotiated with right-­wing fixers such as Hata Tokio to end the attacks on Chūō Kōron in exchange for a confession that the magazine had shown “left-­wing bias” and a promise to “return Chūō Kōron to a ‘neutral’ editorial policy.”81 This “total defeat” of Chūō Kōron and other media outlets was cemented into place l­ater in November 1961, when a group of LDP Diet members announced that they would seek to pass the lèse-­majesté law . 260 .

Reshaping the Landscape of Expression they had been drafting since the Shimanaka incident. This announcement provoked a barrage of editorials in which newspapers and magazines unanimously denounced the idea. They argued that the revival of ­ amily from prewar lèse-­majesté provisions would “estrange the Imperial F the public” and would only exacerbate the recent trend t­ oward a revival of violent ultranationalism. However, they also argued that the press itself was a better judge of what was fit to print than lawmakers, and implicitly promised much greater efforts at self-­policing and self-­ censorship, especially with regard to the newly sensitized issue of the Imperial ­family. The next month, Chūō Kōron announced that it was canceling its long-­planned publication of a special issue of Tsurumi Shunsuke’s journal Shisō no Kagaku (The Science of Thought) on the “emperor system” ­after the issue had already been written and laid out, precipitating a huge outcry from leftist intellectuals, but hardly a murmur from anyone ­else.82 With good reason, the publication of “Fūryū mutan,” and especially the public reaction ­after the Shimanaka incident, has been widely cited as the origin of the so-­called Chrysanthemum taboo (kiku tabū, so named ­after the ­family crest of the Imperial House, which is a chrysanthemum), an often unspoken but widely understood ban on criticizing the Imperial ­family or portraying its living members in fiction or on film. The taboo became a cornerstone of postwar Japan’s so-­called symbolic emperor system (shōchōteki tennōsei, “symbolic” as opposed to the “­actual” emperor system of the prewar period), and in many ways still adheres to this day. The right-­wing vio­lence that erupted in the wake of the Anpo protests (and remains a latent threat to this day) thus had an untold and immea­sur­able, but certainly significant, constraining effect on ­free expression in post-1960 Japan, even in fiction and the arts. The upheaval of 1960 fundamentally altered the landscape of expression in Japan. The physical landscape was altered by the compartmentalization and policification of public spaces, and by court rulings that allowed police to severely limit or preclude street protests. Meanwhile, the psychological landscape of expression was transformed in both mea­sur­able and immea­sur­able ways by new regimes of censorship and self-­censorship . 261 .

japan at the crossroads in the mass media, and by the effects of right-­wing terror in constricting the bounds of acceptable expression. At the same time, right-­wing and ultranationalist ideas gained a new foothold within the realm of acceptable public discourse in Japan, a foothold that would eventually expand into a major beachhead.

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Conclusion

For a person walking the streets of mainland Japan in the first de­ cades of the twenty-­first ­century, it seemed hard to imagine that the massive and violent protests of 1960, involving such a broad cross-­section of Japa­nese society, occurred within living memory, let alone imagine them recurring in the seemingly stable, peaceful, and acquiescent Japan of t­ oday.1 As this book has shown, the protests in 1960 contained the seeds of their own obsolescence. By no means did dissent or po­liti­cal vio­lence dis­appear from Japa­nese society ­after 1960; by some mea­sures they actually increased for a time, in the form of right-­wing assassination attempts and the activities of the warring sects of New Left student radicals on Japa­nese university campuses in the l­ater 1960s. However, shock (or in some cases, delight) at the magnitude of the Anpo protests, and in par­ tic­u­lar their violent climax in June 1960, precipitated or accelerated a variety of transformations in US-­Japan relations and Japa­nese politics, culture, and society that made a protest movement as massive and as broad-­based as the 1960 Anpo uprising unlikely to recur. A New National Identity On August 15, 1945, when Emperor Hirohito announced to the Japa­ nese ­people in a national radio broadcast that the war was lost, the Japa­nese nation was already in ruins, physically. But at that moment, Japa­ nese national identity became a ruin as well, as e­ very reassuring story Japa­nese had told themselves about themselves was thrown open to doubt. Just as the nation had to be rebuilt physically and eco­nom­ically, the national identity had to be reconstructed as well, a lengthy and contentious pro­cess that would be fought out at home and in the workplace, . 263 .

japan at the crossroads on city streets and outside US military bases, in art and lit­er­a­ture, and on the floor of the National Diet. By 1960, Japan had been rebuilt physically and revived eco­nom­ically, and an era of unpre­ce­dented economic growth was already ­under way. Japan’s national identity, however, which is to say what kind of society Japan would be domestically and what kind of role the nation would play on the world stage g­ oing forward, was still very much up for grabs. In retrospect it may seem obvious or inevitable that Japan would go on to become the kind of nation it eventually became—­namely, a lightly militarized economic superpower closely aligned with the ­free world and ­under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella. However, as late as 1960 neither the United States, China, the Soviet Union, nor the Japa­nese ­people themselves, ­whether progressive, conservative, or in between, could be certain that Japan would not one day become a socialist (or at least demo­cratic socialist) nation and chart a neutralist course in international affairs or even tilt ­toward the communist bloc, or alternatively, that Japan might not revise its constitution, aggressively rearm, and revise its domestic laws to restore some aspects of the prewar social and po­liti­cal system. The 1960 Security Treaty revision proved to be the last time that ­these questions ­were put before the nation in the form of a vote in the Diet, precipitating a decisive ­battle to decide Japan’s ­future. Ultimately, neither vision won out in 1960, however. When the intractable differences between competing visions of Japan produced chaos in the Diet and ultimately bloodshed at its gates, a previously ­silent majority—­Japan’s “voiceless voices”—­collectively deci­ded to pull back from the precipice and r­ ose up not to support Kishi but to overthrow him. But neither did this majority endorse the left-­wing vision of a socialist society or idealistic notions of international neutralism. Instead, a new rhe­toric emerged painting left-­wing and right-­wing “vio­lence” with the same brush, as equally odious and reprehensible. Against the backdrop of spectacular economic growth, a majority deci­ded that the status quo was becoming too comfortable for Japan to risk major changes to e­ ither its domestic social and po­liti­cal order or its international orientation. Article 9 would remain untouched, the US-­Japan alliance would be maintained in­def­initely, and social welfare . 264 .

Conclusion programs would be pursued, but only to the extent that they buttressed, rather than impinged on, rapid economic growth. “Postwar democracy” would be redefined and reinterpreted away from absolute ­free speech or brutally majoritarian politics to a new brand of conciliatory, consensual, and consultative politics, and extra-­parliamentary “vio­lence” of any kind would be repudiated. It was, in short, the forging of a new national consensus, indeed a new national identity. This new national consensus did not appear instantaneously, but emerged in the early 1960s amid the conscious course corrections and unintended consequences that played out in the immediate aftermath of the Security Treaty crisis. The United States and Japan worked together to create a more consultative relationship that would be more responsive to Japa­nese domestic politics and keep Japan firmly in the ­free world camp while protecting the foundations of Japan’s economic growth. Meanwhile, ­future modifications to the US-­Japan security arrangements would be delineated in secret pacts to prevent popu­lar re­sis­tance that likely would result if such agreements ­were aired publicly or put to a vote in the Diet. Domestically, a more conciliatory politics made a resort to extra-­ parliamentary protest seem less appealing. Ikeda and his fellow reformers succeeded in remaking the LDP into a big-­tent, populist party focused on economic growth rather than security issues and constitutional revision. Conservative politicians who favored a harder line w ­ ere ­either shunted aside or co-­opted, and new norms emerged that routinized prior consultations with minority parties before advancing new legislation and militated against naked factioneering. In the field of l­abor relations, the twin defeats of Anpo and Miike helped bring an end to the Sōhyō ­labor federation’s long-­standing policy of combining workplace and po­liti­cal strug­gles. In its place, the annual spring wage offensive became a routinized and ritualized means of securing automatic, fixed wage increases negotiated in advance. Meanwhile, the courts reinterpreted public safety ordinances to limit street protests, the police developed methods for disrupting demonstrations without new legislation, the media undertook “self-­reflection” and emerged more amenable to self-­restraint and compromise with the state, and right-­wing . 265 .

japan at the crossroads ultranationalists became more vis­i­ble and more or­ga­nized, and embarked on a campaign of violent intimidation. Perhaps most importantly, the established Old Left in Japan, which at the height of its power had been so or­ga­nized, unified, and effective during the 1960 protests, fell into a state of disillusionment, disunity, and discord. Amid fierce debates over the ambiguous outcome of the anti-­ treaty movement, preexisting fault lines within organ­izations expanded into large chasms, leading to a “season of schisms.” In par­tic­u­lar, a “sense of failure” (zasetsu kan)—­whether the failure of the protests to stop the treaty, their failure to develop into a true socialist revolution, or the failure of the Communist Party to act as a proper revolutionary vanguard—­helped turn an entire generation of writers, intellectuals, artists, and student activists away from certain forms of politics and po­liti­cal organ­izing. ­After 1960, it became increasingly fash­ion­able for Japa­nese ­people to say they ­were “non-­political” (non-­pori). In many cases, ­these ­people remained deeply po­liti­cal, holding strong opinions about government policies or producing writing and art that had a clear po­liti­cal thrust. What Japa­nese meant by saying that they ­were non-­pori, however, was that they did not wish to be associated with a certain definition of “politics,” based on hierarchical, Old Left–­style organ­izing, that was seen to have been discredited by the 1960 protests. Although this pro­cess of delegitimization played midwife to Japan’s version of the New Left, the left as a w ­ hole would never again possess the shared vision, unity, or orga­nizational strength to mount the kind of truly massive nationwide protest movement seen in the summer of 1960. Most broadly, shock and dismay at the violent climax of the 1960 crisis—­a violent climax that to some extent implicated every­one who supported the movement in its final, anti-­Kishi stage—­helped to delegitimize extra-­parliamentary street protests of any but the most staid and law-­abiding kind in the eyes of the majority of Japa­nese society. In l­ater years, the details of protest marches—­including the exact route and the content of signs and banners—­would be carefully negotiated with police in advance, protest in controversial locations such as the National Diet and the US embassy would be strictly prohibited in all cases, and police officers would often outnumber the protesters. Dissent by no means dis­ . 266 .

Conclusion appeared ­after 1960, but the ambit of legitimate dissent would be increasingly constricted ­going forward, eventually leaving more confrontational forms of protest and activism only to the most extreme left and right fringes. As this ongoing pro­cess of delegitimation pushed the radical New Left sects to ever more extreme actions in the l­ ater 1960s and early 1970s, mainstream discourse on Japa­nese society veered in the direction of homegrown “theories about the Japa­nese race,” or Nihonjinron. Classics of the genre, such as Nakane Chie’s Japa­nese Society (1970) and Doi Takeo’s Anatomy of Dependence (1971), presented a new vision of Japa­ nese identity, positing that a timeless and unchanging “Japa­nese culture” had always prized harmony and consensus and resisted social conflict.2 The escalating clashes of the 1950s, culminating in the strug­gle over the Security Treaty in 1960, readily give lie to the theory that “consensus” is any way a particularly Japa­nese cultural trait, and indeed it would not require more than a cursory survey of Japan’s long history of revolts, rebellions, and warfare in earlier periods to further undermine this notion. Moreover, social pressures to achieve “consensus” can often be a means of concealing power differentials between groups rather than achieving genuinely distributed or equitable decision-­making among interest groups. But in any case, the writings of the Nihonjinron theorists represented an attempt to mainstream and naturalize Japan’s new self-­image and the shift ­toward a more consensual politics in the wake of the Anpo upheaval.3

A 1960 Anpo System By accelerating certain trends and decelerating ­others, the 1960 protests did more than merely ensure that similarly massive, nationwide protest movements would over time be increasingly unlikely to recur. In fact, they helped reshape Japa­nese politics, society, and culture in broader ways that continue to define con­temporary Japan de­cades ­later. Perhaps paradoxically, the tumultuous events of 1960 helped lead to the stabilization of Japa­nese democracy. In the 1950s, Japan’s US-­imposed demo­cratic system was still in its infancy, and remained extremely fractious. Far . 267 .

japan at the crossroads from evincing a culture based on consensus and harmony, Japan in this period was defined by an almost total lack of consensus on even the most basic ele­ments of the national identity, including the relationship between ­labor and capital, Japan’s role in the Cold War, w ­ hether the constitution should be revised, and w ­ hether Japan should remilitarize. Moreover, the United States had exacerbated the situation by bequeathing to the left a radically pacifist constitution and an extremely idealistic “demo­cratic education” curriculum while also granting the right the benefits of the “Reverse Course” and ongoing US monetary and po­liti­cal support. The result was an era of extra-­parliamentary po­liti­cal strug­gle, including violent clashes between l­ abor ­unionists and com­pany strongmen during a seemingly endless series of strikes, and between activists and police in an escalating series of po­liti­cal strug­gles over US military bases, laws and proposed laws restricting ­free expression, and Japan’s own drift ­toward remilitarization. But even inside the National Diet, it was an era of highly physical lawmaking, as the ruling conservatives made abusive use of razor thin majorities with ­little regard for minority rights, minority parties at times resorted to physical vio­lence to try to prevent laws from passing, and police officers had to be brought into the Diet on several occasions to suppress physical altercations between legislators. Moreover, within the po­liti­cal parties themselves, vicious factional infighting was a constant, destabilizing force; in essence, Japan’s politicians ­were not or­ga­nized into modern po­liti­cal parties as much as co­ali­tions of con­ve­ nience between groups of lawmakers primarily loyal to factional leaders. Although not all of t­ hese destabilizing ­factors ­were fully eliminated ­after 1960, in the wake of the Anpo protests a rhetorical turn against “vio­lence” and a furious round of norm-­setting and institution-­building in the early 1960s helped produce new methods for adjudicating po­ liti­cal disagreement that w ­ ere at least superficially more peaceful than extra-­parliamentary street protests and intra-­parliamentary fisticuffs, which allowed Japan’s democracy to assume a more durable and stable configuration. In this light, the designation of Japan’s late postwar po­liti­cal configuration as a “1955” system—­dating it back to the formation of the LDP and the reunification of the left and right socialists in 1955—is something of . 268 .

Conclusion a misnomer. In fact, the 1955 system was exceedingly unstable. Insofar as it comprised a two-­party system balanced around the JSP’s ability to maintain at least one-­third of the seats in the lower h ­ ouse of the Diet needed to prevent constitutional revision, this balance was destroyed amid the Anpo protests when Nishio and the right-­wing socialists bolted the JSP to found the DSP. Indeed, even the LDP almost came apart in the summer of 1960, but thanks in part to Ikeda’s reform efforts, it evolved into a dif­fer­ent and much more stable party ­after 1960—­a party that, even ­after it gained the supermajority needed to revise the constitution, elected not to do so. The “system” that scholars refer to when they speak of a “1955 system”—­specifically, a one-­party dominant system in which a big-­tent conservative party rules with ­little hindrance from a fractured opposition composed of numerous smaller parties—­actually dates to 1960. Thus, insofar as such labels have utility as shorthand for certain interrelated institutions and structures, it is far more appropriate to conceive of Japan in ­later years as operating ­under a “1960 system” than a “1955 system.” In addition to the “1955 system,” another, related term used with par­ tic­u­lar frequency by Japa­nese scholars to describe aspects of the post1960 settlement is Anpo taisei, the “Security Treaty system.” The term “Anpo system” was originally coined by left-­wing agitators in the 1960s to describe what was perceived as a vast network of oppression perpetrated on the Japa­nese masses and the innocent p ­ eoples of Asia by the malign collusion of US imperialism and Japa­nese mono­poly capital, as embodied in the Security Treaty. Over time, however, the term gradually lost its pejorative connotations, as well as its association with the left, and by the 1990s had come to be most commonly encountered as a dry, scholarly term used by Japa­nese historians and po­liti­cal scientists to describe a very narrowly defined set of diplomatic and security arrangements between the United States and Japan, in par­tic­u­lar ­those relating to the presence and utilization of US military bases in Japan. However, the chapters in this book suggest that if we wish to speak of an “Anpo system,” we must reconceptualize this system to encompass a much broader array of interrelated ele­ments, expanding the overall system to incorporate cultural, social, and domestic po­liti­cal aspects. . 269 .

japan at the crossroads The anti-­base protest movements in the 1950s demonstrated that US military bases could be rendered unusable by a committed domestic opposition, and the massive 1960 protests illustrated that such an opposition could even topple a popularly elected Japa­nese government. The Anpo system that began to take form around 1960 was a set of mutually reinforcing structures, institutions, and relationships that not only buttressed the US-­Japan security arrangements but also supported Japan’s emergence as a world economic power. As is well understood, the US security umbrella permitted Japan to spend less than 1 ­percent of GDP on defense, allowing the government to invest more heavi­ly in export-­ driven economic growth. However, Japa­nese economic growth was further fostered by the US government’s efforts to allow Japan increasingly unfettered access to US markets. Moreover, rapid economic growth, the steady rise in living standards, and the emergence of a mass consumer culture in Japan provided an ever-­increasing temptation to opt out of radical protest and into mainstream society, a temptation that, along with the new, more conciliatory US foreign policy represented by the “Kennedy-­Reischauer offensive,” progressively sapped popu­lar re­sis­tance to the US-­Japan alliance. Meanwhile, the stabilization of the domestic po­liti­cal system ensured that Japa­nese voters would continue to elect conservative governments that would uphold the Japa­nese half of the security bargain, the expanded interpretation of public safety ordinances and aggressive new policing tactics closed down public spaces to protest, and the fostering of a mass media more conciliatory t­ oward the government and large corporations reduced the scope for public discourse antithetical to the emerging system. Rounding out the new system was the retreat of intellectuals, artists, and l­abor ­unions from traditional forms of po­liti­cal activism, as well as the implosion of the student movement and its subsequent devolution into inward-­directed paroxysms of internecine vio­lence. All of ­these ele­ments ­were mutually constitutive, and ignoring or overemphasizing certain aspects precludes a full understanding of the ­others. It is true to say that an understanding of international politics helps us understand Japa­nese art and lit­er­a­ture, but it is equally true to say that understanding what Japa­nese artists ­were ­doing (and not ­doing) . 270 .

Conclusion a­ fter 1960 helps our understanding of the role Japan came to play in the international system. By examining the impact of a major event such as the 1960 protests across a wide variety of fields, we can gain a clearer understanding of how foreign policy and domestic politics intersect and overlap, and how po­liti­cal, social, and cultural change are inextricable from each other.

Anpo as Revolution Many of the social, cultural, and po­liti­cal transformations that took shape in the aftermath of the 1960 crisis had deep roots in the shared experience of war­time, the shock of defeat and occupation, and the ­bitter strug­ gles of the 1950s, of which the Anpo movement itself was a culmination. In this sense, the 1960 clash was less of a “turning point” than an inflection point, where trends that had been building slowly over the course of the 1950s ­were accelerated or rerouted onto dif­fer­ent trajectories by the gravitational force of the crisis. If anything, what made the 1960 Anpo strug­gle dif­fer­ent and gave it this gravitational pull was its scale and the fact that it was a shared national experience in a way that previous strug­ gles ­were not. However, even the most sudden and unexpected revolution does not emerge from nowhere, and has a long and deep prehistory if closely examined. What makes a moment in time revolutionary is not its suddenness or unexpectedness, but the sense that ­things that seemed pos­si­ble yesterday no longer seem pos­si­ble, and ­others that seemed impossible yesterday now seem pos­si­ble. Insofar as Japan ­after 1960 saw a closing down of previous possibilities, the aftermath of Anpo undoubtedly represented a moment of conservative counterrevolution, as certain forms of dissent ­were no longer tolerated, a certain style of progressive politics was abandoned, and certain forms of expression became taboo. The example of Japan a­ fter 1960 suggests that as boisterous, youthful democracies stabilize and mature, in some ways they may actually become less demo­cratic, and become more of a tool for manufacturing consent and legitimating the wealth and power of elites. Moreover, Japan provides a case where, contrary to common notions that economic growth and integration into world . 271 .

japan at the crossroads markets w ­ ill inevitably push nations in the direction of greater openness and democ­ratization, ­these conditions may actually provide power­ful incentives for governments to suppress domestic dissent and for individuals to accept certain levels of repression and consensus, in exchange for a piece of the growing economic pie. Moreover, recent history, from the civil rights movement to Tian­anmen to Occupy Wall Street, has shown that po­liti­cally progressive mass movements can often inspire conservative backlash that produces decidedly unprogressive results, especially in a globalized economy where state and nonstate actors can use a combination of economic growth and income in­equality to drive a wedge between individuals and a broader societal mainstream. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the Chinese government, for example, sought to build a national consensus around economic growth in the wake of the 1989 Tian­anmen pro-­democracy protests, and in the years since has explic­itly looked to 1960s Japan as a model for using economic growth to ameliorate social unrest, to the extent that President Hu Jintao in a 2010 speech even called for “Income Doubling” by 2020.4 But even as certain possibilities ­were foreclosed in the aftermath of the 1960 protests, the collapse of the Anpo co­ali­tion and the loosening of the grip of doctrinaire Marxism on Japa­nese intellectuals, artists, and writers combined with the excitement many ­people felt at participating in protest for the first time to clear the way for new forms of activism, new genres of artistic expression, and new voices to rise to the fore. New social movements emerged to carry the “Anpo spirit” forward, including environmental, feminist, “citizens’,” and “residents’ ” movements. By the latter half of the de­cade, Japan boasted a robust w ­ omen’s liberation movement, a power­ful anti-­Vietnam movement in the form of Beheiren, and an extremely successful environmentalist movement. By the so-­called “Pollution Diet” of 1970, which passed fourteen environmental mea­sures at once, Japan possessed the strongest set of environmental protection laws anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, the tactics of the soon-­to-be world-­famous “Anpo Zengakuren”—­particularly its emphasis on disruptive spectacle designed to attract media (and especially, televisual) attention—­provided one of the earliest models of New Left–­style protest . 272 .

Conclusion and thus became an inspiration to New Left movements that ­were only just beginning to emerge in other parts of the world. In the realms of art and lit­er­a­ture, older genres such as socialist re­ ying a slow death in alism, humanism, and reportage had already been d the 1950s and new experimental forms w ­ ere already starting to emerge. However, the thoroughgoing disillusionment with old ideologies that emerged in the wake of the 1960 protests combined with the experimentation the revolutionary zeitgeist of the protests helped inspire to catapult Japa­nese art and culture into a new, postmodern age. It is therefore not surprising that starting in the 1960s, new forms of Japa­nese film, lit­ er­a­ture, and art began to receive much more attention around the world, as Japa­nese cultural trends previously portrayed as lagging b ­ ehind developments elsewhere ­were now viewed as cutting edge. In ­these ways, the 1960 protests constituted a revolutionary moment in Japa­nese and world history. However, the protests ­were also revolutionary in the most basic, original sense of that term. Kishi was overthrown. Eisenhower’s visit was canceled. A new government was put in place that pursued dif­fer­ent policies more broadly in accordance with the ­will of the Japa­nese ­people. The 1960 protests demonstrated that even a government backed by the CIA, corporations, gangsters, and the world’s greatest military power, and moreover possessed of an absolute majority in the national legislature, could be forced from power by a broad-­based mass movement. The 1960 Anpo uprising can be a reminder to the p ­ eople of the world ­today that, as often as demo­cratic structures and institutions are employed to manufacture consensus and legitimize the power of the power­ful, they ultimately rest on the consent of the governed.

. 273 .

Abbreviations

DDEL DDE Papers DNSA FRUS JFKL JFK Papers JNPEA OMKK POF NSF WHCF

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President Digital National Security Archives Foreign Relations of the United States John F. Kennedy Presidential Library John F. Kennedy Papers Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association Ōhira Masayoshi Kaisōroku Kankōkai President’s Office Files National Security Files White House Central Files

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Notes

introduction 1. A bare minimum figure of 20 million can be derived by adding up the number of signatures on petitions gathered by the Sōhyō ­labor federation and the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). Although some p ­ eople may have signed more than one petition, many more undoubtedly protested without signing any petition. Japa­nese police figures are notoriously low, but for what it is worth, the police counted approximately 6,300 protest meetings, 5,350 demonstrations, and 86,800 workplace incidents (strikes, rallies, and work stoppages) nationwide involving a total of approximately 16.5 million ­people. See Rōmu Gyōsei Kenkyūjo, ed., Shiryō rōdō undō shi: Shōwa 35-­nen (Tokyo: Rōmu Gyōsei Kenkyūjo, 1967), 369; Keisatsuchō Keisatsu Shi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Sengo keisatsu shi (Tokyo: Keisatsu Kyōkai, 1977), 1064–1065; Kankōchō Shiryō Hensankai, ed., Nihon sengo keisatsu shi (Tokyo: Kankōchō Bunken Kenkyūkai, 1997), 97. 2. Income in­equality in Japan, as mea­sured by the top 1 ­percent and top 5 ­percent share of wage income, sharply increased ­after 1945, reaching a peak in 1961 before declining thereafter. See Chiaki Moriguchi and Emmanuel Saez, “The Evolution of Income Concentration in Japan, 1886–2005: Evidence from Income Tax Statistics,” Review of Economics and Statistics 90, no. 4 (November 2008): 730. 3. The marriage of Crown Prince Akihito to commoner Shōda Michiko in January 1959 is often cited as the first g­ reat tele­vi­sion spectacle in Japan, and is credited as being the impetus for many Japa­nese ­house­holds to purchase their first tele­vi­sion sets. By the following year, 33.4 ­percent of Japa­nese ­house­holds had tele­vi­sion sets, and many more had access via friends and neighbors. See George  R. Packard III, Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1966), 279; and Jayson Makoto Chun, “A Nation of a Hundred Million ­Idiots?” A Social History of Japa­nese Tele­vi­sion, 1953–1973 (New York: Routledge, 2009), 215–223. 4. The US escalation of the war in Vietnam did not happen u ­ ntil 1964, and the US civil rights strug­gle was just beginning to take on the character of a national movement in 1960. For cinema newsreels, see, for example, “Leftist Vio­lence in Tokyo,” News of the Day 31, no. 287 (June 17, 1960), HEA Hearst Newsreels Collection, UCLA Film and Tele­vi­sion Archive. On imitating the

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notes to pages 4–11 snake dance, see, for example, Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 187. 5. This comparison is made most explicit in the title of Maruyama Masao’s 1960 essay “8 / 15 to 5 / 19: Nihon minshushugi no rekishiteki imi” (“8 / 15 and 5 / 19: The historical meaning of Japa­nese democracy”), first published in Chūō Kōron 75, no. 8 (August 1960): 44–54. 6. Seikatsu Club Co-op founder Iwane Kunio, for example, got his first taste of activism participating in the 1960 protests, when he joined the Socialist Party out of anger at the treaty. But in the aftermath of the protests he became disillusioned with the Socialist Party b ­ ecause he felt it was too dependent on the ­labor movement. He ultimately got the idea to or­ga­nize a new movement around ­house­wives, starting Seikatsu in 1965. See Robin LeBlanc, Bicycle Citizens: The Po­liti­cal World of the Japa­nese House­wife (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 127–128. On feminist activists citing Anpo as an inspiration, see, for example, Sandra Buckley, Broken Silence: Voices of Japa­nese Feminism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 159, 248. On Anpo and Japa­nese artists, see Chapter 5. 7. See Miyazawa Kiichi, “Senzen o owaraseta Anpo sōdō,” Voice 332 (August 2005): 57–59; Itagaki Eiken, Sengoku Jimintō 50-­nen shi (Tokyo: Kadensha, 2005), 39; and Abe Shinzō, Utsukushii kuni e (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2006), 19–24. 8. Haniya Yutaka, “Rokugatsu no ‘kakumei naki kakumei,’ ” Gunzō 15, no. 8 (August 1960): 146–153. 9. The definitive account of the US Occupation period remains John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W.  W. Norton, 1999). Although the Occupation was nominally an “Allied” occupation of Japan, it was almost entirely carried out by the US military and its ­American civilian advisors. ­Great Britain participated in a small, token fashion, and the Soviet Union was entirely excluded, amid rising Cold War tensions. 10. On the “Reverse Course,” see Dower, Embracing Defeat, 268–273, 525–562. On the “Red Purge,” see Hajimu Masuda, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015), 232–244; and Dower, Embracing Defeat, 271–273. 11. Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of L ­ abor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853–1955 (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1988), 372–373. 12. On CIA support, see Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 116–121. On keiretsu, see Jean McGuire and

. 278 .

notes to pages 11–15 Sandra Dow, “Japa­nese Keiretsu: Past, Pres­ent, ­Future,” Asia Pacific Journal of Management 26, no. 2 (June 2009): 333–351. The existence of keiretsu has been questioned by ­legal scholars Yoshiro Miwa and J. Mark Ramseyer in, e.g., Miwa and Ramseyer, The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japa­ nese Economy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 6–37. However, the scholarly consensus has been that while Miwa and Ramseyer raised some valid points about exaggerated accounts in previous scholarship, their case that the keiretsu ­were entirely a myth is overstated. See, for example, reviews of the aforementioned book by Christina  L. Ahmadjian (Journal of Japa­nese Studies 34, no. 2 [Summer 2008]: 553–557); Jeffrey W. Alexander (Journal of Asian Studies 68, no. 1 [February 2009]: 305–307); Takeo Hoshi (Social Science Japan Journal 11, no. 2 [Winter 2008]: 344–346); Randall Morck ( Journal of Economic Lit­er­a­ture 45, no. 3 [September 2007]: 763–766); and R. Taggart Murphy ( Journal of Economic History 68, no. 2 [June 2008]: 632–635). 13. The San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed by forty-­eight nations including the United States and Japan on September 8, 1951. The Soviet Union boycotted the proceedings and technically remained in a state of war with Japan thereafter. 14. For the full text of the 1951 treaty, see Packard, Protest in Tokyo, 355–357. 15. See Dower, Embracing Defeat, 255–256. 16. Lloyd A. F ­ ree, Six Allies and a Neutral: A Study of the International Outlooks of Po­liti­cal Leaders in the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, and India (Glencoe, Ill.: ­Free Press, 1959), 51. 17. “Riots Sweep Tokyo in May Day Surge,” New York Times, May 2, 1952, 1, 3; “Bloodshed, Riots Mark May Day in Tokyo,” Nippon Times, May 2, 1952, 1–2; Yoshio Sugimoto, Popu­lar Disturbance in Postwar Japan (Hong Kong: Asian Research Ser­vice, 1981), 90–91. 18. Akihiko Tanaka, “The Domestic Context of the Alliances: The Politics of Tokyo” (working paper, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-­Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, January 2000), 18. 19. See Leonie Caldecott, “At the Foot of the Mountain: The Shibokusa ­Women of Kita Fuji,” in Keeping the Peace, ed. Lynne Jones (London: ­Women’s Press, 1983), 98–107. For a detailed account of the Kita Fuji conflict from a government perspective, see Koyama Takashi, “Kita Fuji enshūjō o meguru ugoki: Sono setchi kara shiyō tenkan no jitsugen made,” Bōei Kenkyūsho Kiyō 12, nos. 2–3 (March 2010): 185–214. 20. For accounts of the Sunagawa protests in En­glish, see Jennifer  M. Miller, “Building a New Kind of Alliance: The United States, Japan, and the Cold War, 1950–1961” (PhD diss., University of Madison–­Wisconsin, 2012), 194–202; and Kenji Hasegawa, “The Lost Half-­Decade Revived and Reconfigured: Sunagawa,

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notes to pages 16–26 1956,” Journal of the International Student Center, Yokohama National University 16 (March 2009): 117–134. 21. Hasegawa, “The Lost Half-­Decade,” 130. 22. James J. Orr, The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), 47–48. 23. For an extended account of the Girard incident, see Miller, “Building a New Kind of Alliance,” 209–227. 24. Ibid., 227–229. 25. For accounts of the treaty negotiations, see Packard, Protest in Tokyo, 69–81; and Miller, “Building a New Kind of Alliance,” 245–255. The text of the revised treaty is reproduced in Packard, Protest in Tokyo, 364–367. 26. See Miller, “Building a New Kind of Alliance,” 243–245. 27. For an extended list, see Naikaku Kanbō Naikaku Chōsashitsu, ed., Anpo kaitei mondai no kiroku: Shiryō hen (Tokyo: Naikaku Kanbō Naikaku Chōsashitsu, 1961), 680–681. 28. Hirata Tetsuo, Gendai Nihon no keisei (Tokyo: Kōkura Shobō, 1983), 147. 29. Hidaka Rokurō, ed., 1960-­nen 5-­gatsu 19-­nichi (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1960), 46. 30. The first time was on June 2, 1956, in a clash over the law that did away with the locally elected school boards established during the US Occupation in ­favor of more centralized decision-­making at the prefectural level. On June 3, 1954, police entered the Diet building, but not the ­actual Diet chambers. See Eiko Maruko Siniawer, Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan, 1860–1960 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 143–150. 31. For example, Fukumoto Kunio, who at the time was the personal assistant of Kishi’s chief cabinet secretary Shiina Etsusaburō, recalled being dispatched by Shiina at the height of the crisis to meet with a group of top bankers at a geisha ­house in Yanagibashi where he was told, “The general desire of the financial world is that Kishi should resign and that Ike’s visit should be cancelled.” He was also told, “Please replace [Kishi] with Ikeda.” When Shiina reported this to Kishi, Kishi reportedly became enraged and threatened to cut off loans from the Japan Development Bank. Fukumoto Kunio, Omote butai, ura butai: Fukumoto Kunio kaikoroku (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2007), 32–34. 32. See Soejima Takahiko, Nihon no himitsu (Tokyo: Yudachisha, 1999), 92–104; and Tanaka Seigen, Tanaka Seigen Jiden (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1993), 171–172. 33. Asahi Shinbun Hyakunen-­shi Henshū Iinkai, ed., Asahi Shinbun shashi: Shōwa sengo hen (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1994), 289; Ishida Takeshi, “Gikaisei Minshushugi,” Chūō Kōron (August 1960), reproduced in Ishida Takeshi, Sengo Nihon no seiji taisei (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1961), 221.

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notes to pages 26–33 34. Quoted in Edward Whittemore, The Press in Japan ­Today: A Case Study (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1961), 54–55. 35. US Department of State, “Memorandum of Conversation: Discussion of Recent Events in Japan,” July 12, 1960, DNSA, “Japan and the U.S., 1960–1976,” Doc. JU00061, 5. 36. The mob consisted of about 1,500 student activists, all from the Zengakuren’s JCP-­linked anti-­mainstream, and around 5,000 ­labor ­union activists. Leading the assault on the car ­were the students and several hundred ­unionists from the Tekkō Rōren local at the Japan Steel Tube Com­pany’s Kawasaki plant—­ renowned as one of the most militant locals in that ­union and, although nominally not communist, closely aligned with the JCP. 37. This incident is described in the rec­ords of the Tokyo District Court, which are cited in Tanaka Jirō, Satō Isao, and Nomura Jirō, eds., Sengo seiji saiban shiroku, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Daiichi Hōki Shuppan, 1980), 3:245–246. The he­li­ cop­ter also suffered significant damage from thrown rocks. MacArthur recalled in an interview years l­ater that a­ fter the he­li­cop­ter landed in Tokyo, one of the rotor blades fell off: “We got back into Tokyo and as the blades wound down one of them fell off, which if it had happened a minute earlier we would have been eight hundred feet up in the air and that would have been the end of us all.” However, this account is not supported by con­ temporary documents. See Douglas MacArthur II, “Oral History Interview with Mac Teasley, August 6, 1990,” DDEL, 78. 38. See MacArthur to Department of State, June 10, 1960, in FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, Japan; ­Korea, ed. Madeline Chi and Louis J. Smith (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994), 331–332; and MacArthur to Department of State, June  12, 1960, reproduced in Documents on United States Policy ­toward Japan III: Japa­nese Internal Affairs as Seen by the American Diplomats, 1960, 9 vols., ed. Ishii Osamu and Ono Naoki (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1997), 2:219–222. 39. See Chapter 6 of this volume. 40. Kishi Nobusuke, Kishi Nobusuke no kaisō (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1981), 243. 41. MacArthur to Secretary of State, June 16, 1960, White House Office Rec­ords, Rec­ords of the Staff Secretary 1952–61, International Series, Box 9, Folder “Japan—­Vol. III of III (1),” DDEL. 42. The text of the En­glish translation of this joint statement is reproduced in Packard, Protest in Tokyo, 380. 43. Matsuda Hiroshi, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II: Sōsa to jaanarizumu (Zushi, Japan: Sōshinsa, 1981), 173. Keidanren (Keizai Dantai Rengōkai, the “Federation of Economic Organ­izations”) was an association of large corporations established with the encouragement of Occupation authorities in 1946.

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notes to pages 34–38 Nikkeiren (Nihon Keieisha Dantai Renmei, the “Japan Federation of Employer’s Associations”) was another federation of major businesses established in 1948 to coordinate negotiations with or­ga­nized ­labor. The Keizai Dōyūkai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives) was an association of top corporate executives in leading Japa­nese companies. The Japan Chamber of Commerce—­the oldest of the four groups—­was founded in 1878 and also sought to represent the interests of small and medium-­sized enterprises. 44. Quoted in Mainichi Shinbunsha, ed., Iwanami Shoten to Bungei Shunjū: Sekai, Bungei Shunjū ni miru sengo shichō (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1996), 323. 45. Fujiyama Aiichirō, Seiji waga michi: Fujiyama Aiichirō kaisōroku (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1976), 106–107.

1. reformulating the us-­japan alliance 1. John M. High­tower, “Cancellation of Ike’s Visit Seen Defeat,” Pittsburgh Post-­ Gazette, June 17, 1960, 1; James Reston, “Tyranny of the Minority in Tokyo and Washington,” New York Times, June 17, 1960, 30; “Hosmer Urges Boycott on Japa­nese Imports,” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1960, 4. 2. Carroll Kilpatrick, “Congress Is Shocked by U.S. ‘Defeat’ as Japan Cancels Eisenhower’s Visit: Dismayed Senate Speeds Ratification of Security Treaty,” Washington Post, June  17, 1960, A11; 86th  Cong., 2nd  sess., Congressional Rec­ord 106, pt. 11 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), 13903–13905. 3. Although brief sections or chapters occasionally appear within larger works, a monograph-­length treatment has yet to be written in ­either En­glish or Japa­ nese. Notable short treatments can be found in Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Timothy P. Maga, Hands across the Sea? U.S.-­Japan Relations, 1961–1981 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997); and Walter LaFeber, The Clash: A History of U.S.-­Japan Relations (New York: W.  W. Norton, 1997). 4. Frederick L. Shiels, Tokyo and Washington: Dilemmas of a Mature Alliance (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1980), 84. 5. Bert Edström, Japan’s Evolving Foreign Policy Doctrine: From Yoshida to Miyazawa (New York: St.  Martin’s Press, 1999), 56; Nicholas Sarantakes, Keystone: The American Occupation of Okinawa and U.S.-­Japan Relations (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000), 112–113. 6. Allison to Department of State, August 25, 1954, FRUS 1952–1954, vol. 14, part 2, China and Japan, ed. David W. Mabon and Harriet D. Schwar (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985), doc. 796, 1715; Sayuri Shimizu, Cre-

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notes to pages 39–43 ating P ­ eople of Plenty: The United States and Japan’s Economic Alternatives, 1950–1960 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2001), 27, 212; Jennifer M. Miller, “Building a New Kind of Alliance: The United States, Japan, and the Cold War, 1950–1961” (PhD diss., University of Madison–­Wisconsin, 2012), 215–218. 7. Memorandum of Conversation: Second Meeting with Shigemitsu, August 30, 1955, FRUS 1955–1957, vol. 23, part 1, Japan, ed. David W. Mabon (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991), doc. 45, 98–99; Kishi Nobusuke, Anpo jōyaku kaitei no ikisatsu to sono haikei (Tokyo: Jiyūminshutō Kōhō Iinkai, 1969), 19–22. 8. Department of State to MacArthur, April 18, 1957, FRUS 1955–1957, vol. 23, part 1, doc. 127, 280; Memorandum of Discussion at the 244th Meeting of the National Security Council, April 7, 1955, FRUS 1955–1957, vol. 23, part 1, doc. 26, 41. 9. Shimizu, Creating ­People of Plenty, 216; Memorandum of Conversation: Japa­ nese Economic Prob­lems, January 19, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, Japan; ­Korea, ed. Madeline Chi and Louis J. Smith (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994), doc. 139, 270. 10. Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, September 20, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 201, 409; MacArthur to Department of State, June 16, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 183, 366. For a gossip-­laced critique of MacArthur’s management of the embassy and additional criticisms of his wife, see George Packard, Edwin O. Reischauer and the American Discovery of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 166–167. 11. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between the Secretary and Mr. Steeves, June 20, 1960, CAH Telephone Calls 3/28/60-6/30/60 (1), box 12, Christian A. Herter Papers, DDEL. 12. “Konnichi no mondai: Nichi-­Bei no aida,” Asahi Shinbun, March 10, 1961, eve­ ning edition, 1. 13. Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, September 20, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 201, 407. Some of t­ hese letters are preserved in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers at the Eisenhower Library. See, for example, Trip to Rus­sia, Japan—­Japan (7), box 64, President’s Personal File, WHCF, DDE Papers, and 122 Japan 1959–1960 (2), box 820, General File, WHCF, DDE Papers, DDEL. 14. MacArthur to Department of State, June 24, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 190, 378–384; Memorandum of Conversation, Secretary of State and French Ambassador, June 24, 1960, reproduced in Ishii and Ono, Documents on United States Policy t­oward Japan III, 3:30–31; “Staff Notes No.  790,” June 24, 1960, Toner Notes–­June 1960, box 50, DDE Diary Series, WHCF, DDE Papers, DDEL.

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notes to pages 43–50 15. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Radio and Tele­vi­sion Report to the American ­People on the Trip to the Far East, June 27, 1960,” in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960–61 (Washington, D.C., 1961), 533; “United States Policy t­oward Japan,” Secret State Department Memorandum, July 1, 1960, “Japan and the U.S., 1960–1976,” DNSA, Doc. JU00060, 5. 16. Department of State to MacArthur, July 18, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 193; MacArthur to Department of State, July 27, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 195; MacArthur to Department of State, July 28, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 196. 17. Memorandum of Conversation: Recent Developments in Japan, August 25, 1960, “Japan and the U.S., 1960–1976,” DNSA, Doc. JU00070; see also Asakai to Kosaka, “Pāsonzu Jikanho to no kaidan ni kansuru ken,” August 31, 1960, reel A’0361, 14th Disclosure of Diplomatic Rec­ords, Diplomatic Rec­ords Office, Japa­nese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 18. Summary of Tokyo Dispatch, “The Student Demonstrations in Japan: Po­liti­cal Attitudes of the Students and Japa­nese Intelligent­sia,” August 29, 1960, Overseas Education (3), box 56, Edward P. Lily Papers, DDEL. 19. Memorandum of Conversation: Japa­nese Domestic Situation and U.S.-­Japan Relations, September 12, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 198, 400–401. 20. Edwin O. Reischauer, “The Broken Dialogue with Japan,” Foreign Affairs 39 (October 1960): 11–26. 21. Edwin O. Reischauer, My Life between Japan and Amer­i­ca (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 154; Packard, Reischauer, 137. 22. Maga, Hands across the Sea?, 8. 23. “US Buying Shows Some Diminution,” Japan Times, June 27, 1960, 10; “Few Respond to Pleas for U.S. Boycott of Japa­nese Goods as Reprisal for Riots,” Wall Street Journal, June 27, 1960, 4; “Boycotts Said Gaining,” Japan Times, June 22, 1960, 2; “JESIA to Ask Aid from Gov’t,” Japan Times, June 25, 1960, 3; “Toymakers Fear Drop in U.S. Trade,” Japan Times, June 25, 1960, 3. 24. OMKK, ed., Ōhira Masayoshi kaisōroku: Denki hen (Tokyo: OMKK, 1982), 192. 25. Kosaka Zentarō, Giin gaikō yonjū nen (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1994), 65; Jiyūminshutō Seimu Chōsa Kai, Han’ei e no shihyō: Jiyūminshutō shin seiyaku kaisetsu (Tokyo: Shin Seikei Kenkyukai, 1960), 9–10. 26. Asakai to Kosaka, “Diron Kokumu Chōkan Dairi to no kaidan ni kansuru ken,” August 22, 1960, reel A’0361, 14th Disclosure of Diplomatic Rec­ords, Diplomatic Rec­ords Office, Japa­nese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Memorandum of Conversation: Japa­nese Domestic Situation and U.S.-­Japan Relations, September 12, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 198, 398–399. 27. Maga, Hands across the Sea?, 4–6.

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notes to pages 50–59 28. Numerous letters between Hosono and the White House and memos regarding Hosono’s visits are preserved in box 120, POF, and box 123, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 29. “Reischauer Being Eyed as U.S. Envoy to Japan,” Japan Times, January 14, 1961, 1; Oral History Interview with James C. Thompson, February 29, 1980, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, JFKL, 23–27; Raymond Moley, “A Nomination Pleasing to Leftists,” Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1961, B5. 30. Schaller, Altered States, 167; Oral History Interview with James C. Thompson, February 29, 1980, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, JFKL, 31; Oral History Interview with Edwin O. Reischauer, April 25, 1969, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, JFKL, 2; Oral History Interview with Chester  B. Bowles, July 1, 1970, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, JFKL, 74. 31. “Gaimusho Lauds U.S. Envoy Choice,” Japan Times, March 14, 1961, 1. 32. “600 Greet Arrival of Reischauer H ­ ere,” Japan Times, April 20, 1961, 1; Packard, Reischauer, 154. 33. Packard, Reischauer, 181–184. The truly astonishing extent of Reischauer’s travels and outreach activities can be judged from his appointment books and schedules, boxes 8–11, Papers Relating to the Ambassadorial Years 1961–1966, Edwin Oldfather Reischauer Papers, Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, Mass. 34. Reischauer, My Life, 236; Thayer, “American Ambassadors,” 71; Packard, Reischauer, 191–193; Oral History Interview with Edwin O. Reischauer, April 25, 1969, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, JFKL, 2, 14. 35. Oral History Interview with Edwin O. Reischauer, April 25, 1969, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, JFKL, 11–12 (emphasis in the original). 36. Rostow to Kennedy, “Prime Minister Ikeda’s Visit,” June  19, 1961, Japan Security 1960–1963, box 120, POF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 37. OMKK, Ōhira Masayoshi, 214. 38. “Policy ­toward Communist China,” State Department briefing book for Ikeda visit, June 14, 1961, Japan Security Ikeda Visit 6 / 61 Briefing Book Substantive, box 120, POF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 39. Memorandum of Conversation: Sino-­Japanese Relations, June 21, 1961, FRUS 1961–1963, vol. 22, Northeast Asia, ed. Edward C. Keefer, David W. Mabon, and Harriet Dashiell Schwar (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996), doc. 337, 697. 40. Reischauer to Rusk, June 4, 1962, Japan 6 / 1 / 62-6 / 14 / 62, box 124, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 41. Memorandum of Conversation: Trade Prob­lems, September 12, 1960, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. 18, doc. 199, 403. 42. Memorandum of Conversation: Japa­nese Copper Ore Purchases; Trade Liberalization by Japan; Trade Expansion Act, December 4, 1962, FRUS 1961–1963,

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notes to pages 60–67 vol. 22, doc. 363, 757; John. F. Kennedy, “Remarks upon Signing the Trade Expansion Act,” October  11, 1962, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John  F. Kennedy, 1962 (Washington, D.C., 1962), 759; John  F. Kennedy, “Address in New Orleans at the Opening of the New Dockside Terminal,” May 4, 1962, in Public Papers of the Presidents, 1962, 361. 43. Memorandum of Conversation: Liberalization of Trade and Payments, June 20, 1961, FRUS 1961–1963, vol. 22, doc. 332, 685, 687; United States Department of State, “Text of Joint Communique [Second Meeting of the Joint United States–­Japan Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs],” State Department Bulletin 47, no. 1226 (December 24, 1962): 960. 44. Memorandum of Conversation: Po­liti­cal Consultation, June 21, 1961, FRUS 1961–1963, vol. 22, doc. 335. 45. Hayashi Fusao, Zuihitsu Ikeda Hayato: Haisen to kukō no gendaishi (Tokyo: Sankei Shinbunsha, 1968), 467; Fujimoto Kazumi, Sengo seiji no sōten (Tokyo: Senshū University Press, 2000), 239; “Shasetsu: Ikeda shushō hōbei no seika,” Asahi Shinbun, June 24, 1961, morning edition, 2. 46. Reischauer to Rusk, August 7, 1961, “Japan and the U.S., 1960–1976,” DNSA, Doc. JU00126, 1; Memorandum of Conversation: Current U.S.-­Japanese and World Prob­lems, January 12, 1965, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. 29, part 2, Japan, ed. Karen L. Gatz (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2006), doc. 42, 75–76. 47. Reischauer to Rusk, February 13, 1962, Japan 2 / 62, box 124, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL; Personal message, Kennedy to Ikeda, February 28, 1962, Japan Security 1960–1963, box 120, POF, JFK Papers, JFKL; Reischauer to Rusk, March  1, 1962, Japan 3 / 1 / 62-3 / 16 / 62, box 124, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 48. Rusk to Reischauer, February  28, 1962, Japan Security 1960–1963, box 120, POF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 49. Personal message, Ikeda to Kennedy, March 2, 1962, Japan General 1962, POF, box 120, JFK Papers, JFKL; Rusk to Reischauer, February 28, 1962, Japan Security 1960–1963, box 120, POF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 50. See, for example, Reischauer to Rusk, May 18, 1962, and Rusk to Reischauer, May 18, 1962, Japan 5 / 15 / 62-5 / 31 / 62, box 124, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL, and Reischauer to Rusk, June  25, 1962, Japan 6 / 15 / 62-6 / 30 / 62, box 124, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 51. OMKK, Ōhira Masayoshi, 222; Department of State memorandum for McGeorge Bundy, November 16, 1962, Japan 11 / 1 / 62-11 / 15 / 62, box 124a, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 52. Masumi, Gendai seiji, 175. For a detailed account of the effect of the Nixon shocks on Satō and his administration, see Fintan Hoey, Satō, Amer­i­ca, and the Cold War: US-­Japanese Relations, 1964–72 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 138–160.

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notes to pages 67–71 53. Memorandum of Conversation with Ambassador Reischauer, January  19, 1976, box 5, J. Robert Schaetzel Papers, DDEL, 1–2. For examples of Reischauer condemning Nixon’s actions, see “Fateful Triangle—­ The United States, Japan, and China,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, September 19, 1971; Edward Schumacher, “The  U.S. Affront to Japan,” Boston Globe, ­October 18, 1971, 16; “Reischauer Calls Nixon Trip Dangerous,” Boston Globe, February 21, 1972; “Nixon’s ‘Style’ Hit: Reischauer Sees Disaster in China Trip,” Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1972, 12; “Reischauer Hits U.S. Policy on Eve of Talks with Japan,” Washington Post, July  14, 1973, A9; “Reischauer Describes U.S.-­Japan ‘Uneasiness,’ ” Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1973, D4; “Reischauer Hits Kissinger Policy,” Boston Globe, February 27, 1974, 22; “U.S. Policies Said to Strain Japan Links,” Washington Post, May  3, 1974, A2. Reischauer’s successor as U.S. ambassador to Japan, U. Alexis Johnson, was equally incensed; see U. Alexis Johnson, The Right Hand of Power (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-­Hall, 1984), 553–556. 54. Fintan Hoey, “Henry Kissinger, Japan, and the Fallout from the ‘Nixon China Shock’ ” (paper presented at the symposium “Henry Kissinger and American Power,” University College, Dublin, February 26, 2009); Henry Kissinger, speech to the Japan Society of New York, June 1975, quoted in Thomas R. H. Havens, Fire across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan, 1965–1975 (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1987), 242; Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: ­Little, Brown, 1979), 761–763. 55. See “Sign of Secret U.S.-­Japan Pact Found,” New York Times, April 7, 1987; Havens, Fire across the Sea, 161; Honda Masaru, “Mitsuyaku,” in Nichi-­Bei dōmei han-­seiki, ed. Sotooka Hidetoshi, Honda Masaru, and Miura Toshiaki (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2001), 541–585. 56. Guidelines of U.S. Policy and Operations ­toward Japan, undated policy paper, FRUS 1961–1963, vol. 22, doc. 354, 731–734. 57. NSC 6008 / 1: United States Policy t­ oward Japan, June 11, 1960, FRUS 1958– 1960, vol. 18, doc. 175, 339. 58. Reischauer to Department of State, September  21, 1962, Japan 9 / 21 / 62-9 /  30 ​/ 62, box 124, NSF, JFK Papers, JFKL. 59. Quoted in Hayashi, Zuihitsu Ikeda Hayato, 462. 60. See, for example, Ikeda Hayato, “General Policy Speech to the 42nd (Extraordinary) Diet,” December 10, 1962, reproduced in Naikaku Seido Hyakunenshi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Rekidai naikaku sōri daijin enzetsu shū (Tokyo: Ōkurashō Insatsukyoku, 1985), 668; Ikeda Hayato, “Administrative Policy Speech to the 43rd (Ordinary) Diet,” January 23, 1963, reproduced in ibid., 674; and John F. Kennedy, “Remarks at the 18th Annual Washington Conference of the Advertising Council,” March 7, 1962, in Public Papers of the Presidents, 1962, 73–74.

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notes to pages 71–81 61. Hayashi, Zuihitsu Ikeda Hayato, 462; Rec­ord of Third Meeting of Joint ­U.S.-­Japan Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs, Tokyo, January 24, 1964 (after­noon, continued), “Japan and the U.S., 1960–1976,” DNSA, Doc. JU00302, 7. 62. Memorandum of Conversation: United States-­Japan Relations, November 25, 1963, FRUS 1961–1963, vol. 22, doc. 385. 63. Department of State Policy Paper: The F ­ uture of Japan, June 26, 1964, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. 29, part 2, doc. 15, 17–18. 64. Johnson to Department of State, February 17, 1968, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. 29, part 2, doc. 116, 265. 65. Indeed, it was only during the Ikeda years that it first became pos­si­ble for Japa­nese politicians and commentators to start publicly referring to the U.S.-­ Japan relationship as an “alliance” (dōmei). 66. James Sterngold, “Tokyo Agrees to Pay Off Shortfall in Gulf War Aid,” New York Times, May 22, 1991, A15.

2. stabilizing conservative rule 1. “Ikeda zōshō ‘binbōnin wa mugi o kue’ to hatsugen,” in Shōwa Mainichi, ed. Mainichi Shinbun, http://­showa​.­mainichi​.­jp​/­news​/­1950​/­12​/­post​-­e58e​.­html; “1950-12-07: Binbōnin wa mugi o kue,” Time-­AZ, http://­time​-­az​.­com​/­main​ /­detail​/­8325; “Danjō de momiai: Tsūsanshō tōben de giba Koran,” Yomiuri Shinbun, November  28, 1952, 1; Ōhira Masayoshi, Watakushi no rirekisho (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1978), 88. 2. Quoted in Uchida Kenzō, Sengo Nihon no hoshu seiji: Seiji kisha no shōgen (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1969), 167. 3. OMKK, ed., Ōhira Masayoshi kaisōroku: Denki hen (Tokyo: OMKK, 1982), 192. 4. Miyazawa Kiichi, Shakaitō to no kaiwa: Nyū raito no kangaekata (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1965), 118. 5. Seitō Seiji Kenkyūkai and Mitsuzuka Hiroshi, eds., Gikai seiji 100-­nen: Seimei o kaketa seijikatachi (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 1988), 599; “Ikeda shushō, shin seikyoku o kataru: Hatsu no kisha kaiken,” Yomiuri Shinbun, July 20, 1960, morning edition, 1. 6. Masaru Kohno, Japan’s Postwar Party Politics (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1997), 118. 7. Chal­mers M. Roberts, “Ikeda’s ‘Soft Sell’ Smooths Japa­nese Pro­gress,” Washington Post, January 27, 1963, E1. 8. “Gojō no seishin de matomeru: Ikeda shushō, Kim buchō kaidan de itchi,” Yomiuri Shinbun, October 23, 1962, morning edition, 1. 9. Ikeda Hayato, “Administrative Policy Speech to the 36th  (Extraordinary) Diet,” October 21, 1960, reproduced in Rekidai naikaku sōri daijin enzetsu shū,

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notes to pages 82–98 ed. Naikaku Seido Hyakunenshi Hensan Iinkai (Tokyo: Ōkurashō Insatsukyoku, 1985), 622; “Ryōin daihyō shitsumon tsuzuku,” Asahi Shinbun, October 22, 1960, eve­ning edition, 1. 10. Kishi Nobusuke, Kishi Nobusuke no kaisō (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1981), 123. 11. I am indebted on this point to Matsushita Keiichi, Sengo seitō no hassō to bunmyaku (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 2004), 257–258. 12. Miyazawa, Shakaitō to no kaiwa, 51–53, 118–119. 13. Hanai Hitoshi, Sengo Nihon o kizuita saishōtachi: Yoshida Shigeru kara Tanaka Kakuei made (Tokyo: Esuko, 1996), 140; Gotō Motoo, Uchida Kenzō, and Ishikawa Masumi, Sengo hoshu seiji no kiseki: Yoshida naikaku kara Suzuki naikaku made (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1982), 180; Sankei Shinbun, January 1, 1961, quoted in Hayashi Fusao, Zuihitsu Ikeda Hayato: Haisen to kukō no gendaishi (Tokyo: Sankei Shinbunsha, 1968), 460. 14. Watanabe Tsuneo, Habatsu to tatōka jidai (Tokyo: Sekkasha, 1967), 103. 15. Itō Masaya, Ikeda Hayato to sono jidai: Sei to shi no dorama (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1985), 126–129. 16. Ibid., 116–117. 17. Ibid., 114–115. 18. Chitoshi Yanaga, Big Business in Japa­nese Politics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968), 286. 19. Masumi Junnosuke, Gendai seiji: 1955-­nen igo (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1985), 107; “ ‘Shintō kessei omoitomare’: Masutani shi Kōno shi o settoku e,” Asahi Shinbun, August 11, 1960, morning edition, 1. 20. Matsushita, Sengo seitō, 121–125. 21. Masumi, Gendai seiji, 339, 381–385. 22. Tominomori Eiji, Sengo hoshutō shi (Tokyo: Nihon Hyōronsha, 1977), 124–127; Maeo Shigesaburō, Sejika no hōsaiki (Tokyo: Risōsha, 1981), 376. 23. Masumi, Gendai seiji, 355–357. 24. Ibid., 354, 360–361. 25. “Ikeda shushō, shin seikyoku o kataru: Hatsu no kisha kaiken,” Yomiuri Shinbun, July 20, 1960, morning edition, 1. 26. Fukuda would ­later become prime minister (1976–1978) and was the ­father of ­future prime minister Fukuda Yasuo. 27. Fukuda Takeo, Kaisō kyūjū nen (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), 150–152. Ultimately, the Sasshin Renmei would go on to form the core of the Fukuda faction. 28. Fukuda, Kaisō, 152; Masumi, Gendai seiji, 125; Gotō, Uchida, and Ishikawa, Sengo hoshu seiji no kiseki, 218. 29. The Sasshin Renmei itself was an early example, originally or­ga­nized around a policy issue and evolving into the ninth (Fukuda) LDP faction.

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notes to pages 99–105 30. I am indebted for this last point to Hirosawa Takayuki, Gendai Nihon seiji shi (Kyoto: Kōyō Shobō, 2005), 72. 31. OMKK, Ōhira Masayoshi, 257–258; Ōhira Masayoshi, Watakushi no rirekisho (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1978), 118. 32. Nakayama Ichirō, “Chingin nibai o teishō,” Yomiuri Shinbun, January 3, 1959, morning edition, 5; George Waldner, “Japa­nese Foreign Policy and Economic Growth: Ikeda Hayato’s Approach to the Liberalization Issue” (PhD diss., Prince­ton University, 1975), 121–130; Ikeda Hayato, “Watakushi no gekkyū nibai ron: Saisetsu,” Shinro (April 1959): 6–16. 33. Hoshi Hiroshi and Ōsaka Iwao, Terebi seiji: Kokkai hōdō kara TV takkuru made (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 2006), 39; Waldner, “Japa­nese Foreign Policy,” 135–136. 34. Itō, Ikeda Hayato, 96. 35. Hosaka Masayasu, “Sengo Nihon no tsūka gishiki: Ano nekki wa nan datta no ka?,” in Iwanami Shoten to Bungei Shunjū: Sekai, Bungei Shunjū ni miru sengo shichō, ed. Mainichi Shinbunsha (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1996), 219. The written text attributes this quotation to “one of Ikeda’s close aides.” I confirmed that the aide in question was Itō in an interview with Hosaka, Tokyo, March 26, 2010. 36. Jiyuminshtō Kōhō Iinkai Shuppankyoku, ed., Hiroku: Sengo seiji no jitsuzō (Tokyo: Toritsu Shobō, 1976), 179. 37. Ōhira, Watakushi no rirekisho, 105. 38. Itō, Ikeda Hayato, 104. 39. Ibid. 40. “Shasetsu: Takai seichō mokuhyō wa tassei sareru ka,” Asahi Shinbun, September 6, 1960, morning edition, 2; “Shasetsu: Kōdō seichō seisaku ni taisuru kenen,” Yomiuri Shinbun, September 8, 1960, morning edition, 1. 41. The communists derisively referred to the plans of the other parties as “price-­ doubling plans.” 42. “Shasetsu: Shakaitō no 10% seichō keikaku,” Asahi Shinbun, September 15, 1960, morning edition, 2. 43. Quoted in Kōsei Yutaka, Kōdō seichō no jidai: Gendai Nihon keizai shi nōto (Tokyo: Nihon Hyōronsha, 1981), 142; see also Economic Planning Agency, Japa­nese Government, New Long-­Range Economic Plan of Japan (1961–1970): Doubling National Income Plan (Tokyo: Japan Times, 1961), 8. 44. Jiyuminshtō Kōhō Iinkai Shuppankyoku, Hiroku, 175. 45. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of ­Labor, Wage Prob­lems in Japan (Tokyo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of ­Labor, 1962), 11. 46. Seitō Seiji Kenkyūkai and Mitsuzuka, Gikai seiji 100-­nen, 602; Satō Susumu and Miyajima Hiroshi, Sengo zeisei shi (Tokyo: Zeimu Keiri Kyōkai, 1990), 98–99.

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notes to pages 108–116 47. See Kent E. Calder, Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Po­liti­cal Stability in Japan, 1949–1986 (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1991), 265–267; and Masumi, Gendai seiji, 112–116.

3. the waning of the opposition parties 1. Ishida Hirohide, “Hoshu seitō no bijon,” Chūō Kōron 78, no. 1 (January 1963): 88–97. See also Yamada Hiroshi, Kitanishi Makoto, Ichikawa Taichi, and Takada Kazuo, Sengo seiji no ayumi (Kyoto: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 1990), 144–148. 2. Allan B. Cole, George O. Totten, and Cecil H. Uyehara, Socialist Parties in Postwar Japan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966), 73. 3. Sakisaka Itsurō, “Tadashii kōryō, tadashii kikō,” Shakaishugi 88 (December 1958): 46–52. 4. Masumi Junnosuke, Gendai seiji: 1955-­nen igo (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1985), 509–510. 5. See George R. Packard III, Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1966), 129. 6. Ibid. 7. Masumi, Gendai seiji, 110. 8. The Italian “structural reform” policy line had developed out of a treatise, The Road to Communism in Italy, published by Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti in December 1956. 9. Matsushita Keiichi, Sengo seiji no shisō to bunmyaku (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2004), 154. Specific proposals included abolishing the automatic right of Diet members to be party representatives, reducing the size of the Central Executive Committee and filling party posts by direct elections, limiting Central Committee terms to four years, subdividing the regional party organs into smaller units, officially recognizing the ­Labor Union Party Member Conference, charging a subscription fee for the party newspaper (Shakai Shinpō), and officially organ­izing the League of Socialist Youths (Shaseidō). By 1962, many of t­ hese proposals had actually been implemented, including eliminating the automatic right of Diet members to be representatives, charging for the newspaper, and officially organ­izing the ­union conference and Shaseidō. As a result of the new subscription fee, the Shakai Shinpō was able to expand from four to six pages and be published weekly instead of just three times a month. 10. Koyama Hirotake and Shimizu Shinzō, eds., Nihon Shakaitō shi (Tokyo: Haga Shoten, 1965), 209. 11. Kijima Masamichi, Katō Nobuyuki, Hirosawa Ken’ichi, Itō Shigeru, Fujimaki Shinpei, Morinaga Eietsu, Takazawa Torao, et al., “Kōzō kaikaku no tatakai,” Shakai Shinpō, January 1, 1961, reproduced in Shiryō: Nihon Shakaitō

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notes to pages 116–125 yonjūnen shi, ed. Nihon Shakaitō Kettō Yonjū Shūnen Ki’nen Shuppan Kankō Iinkai (Tokyo: Nihon Shakaitō Chūō Honbu, 1986), 485. 12. For a fairly exhaustive anthology of the early documents theorizing and systematizing structural reform, see Nihon Shakaitō Chūō Tō Gakkō, ed., Kōzō kaikaku no riron: Shakaishugi e no atarashii michi (Tokyo: Shin Jidaisha, 1961). 13. R. P. Dore, “The Japa­nese Socialist Party and ‘Structural Reform,’ ” Asian Survey 1, no.  8 (October  1961): 5; Eda Saburō, “Kōzōteki kaikaku to rōdō undō,” Gekkan Sōhyō (January 1961), reproduced in Nihon Shakaitō Chūō Tō Gakkō, Kōzō kaikaku no riron, 244. 14. Kubota Tadao, “Kōzō kaikaku to kokumin undō,” Gekkan Shakaitō (February 1961), reproduced in Nihon Shakaitō Chūō Tō Gakkō, Kōzō kaikaku no riron, 213; Kijima et al., “Kōzō kaikaku no tatakai,” 486. 15. “Shin Anpo no ichinen (4),” Mainichi Shinbun, June 19, 1961, morning edition, 2. 16. Kijima et al., “Kōzō kaikaku no tatakai,” 486. 17. Ibid. 18. Japan Socialist Party Central Committee, “Tōmen no seiji hōshin: Anpo soshi tōsō,” policy statement issued July 5, 1960, reproduced in Nihon Shakaitō Kettō Yonjū Shūnen Ki’nen Shuppan Kankō Iinkai, Shiryō Shakaitō yonjūnen shi, 452. 19. Kijima et al., “Kōzō kaikaku no tatakai,” 486–487; Dore, “The Japa­nese Socialist Party and ‘Structural Reform,’ ” 10. 20. Japan Socialist Party Central Committee, “Seiji hōshin no kaisetu,” policy statement issued July 15, 1960, reproduced in Nihon Shakaitō Kettō Yonjū Shūnen Ki’nen Shuppan Kankō Iinkai, Shiryō Shakaitō yonjūnen shi, 455, 459. 21. Kijima et al., “Kōzō kaikaku no tatakai,” 487. 22. Ōta Kaoru, “Shakaitō no kōzō kaikaku ron ni taisuru nanatsu no gimon,” Gekkan Sōhyō (January  1961), reproduced in Nihon Shakaitō Kettō Yonjū Shūnen Ki’nen Shuppan Kankō Iinkai, Shiryō Shakaitō yonjūnen shi, 491–498; Ōta Kaoru, “Shakaitō no kōzō kaikaku ron ni taisuru nanatsu no gimon,” Chūō Kōron 76, no. 3 (March 1961): 136–145. 23. Nihon Shakaitō Kettō Yonjū Shūnen Ki’nen Shuppan Kankō Iinkai, Shiryō Shakaitō yonjūnen shi, 495. 24. “Seisaku, soshiki no dappi o: Shatō orugu kaigi, Eda kikichō kyōchō,” Asahi Shinbun, July 28, 1962, morning edition, 1. 25. Eda Saburō, “Shakaishugi no atarashii bijon,” Ekonomisuto (October 1962), reproduced in Nihon Shakaitō Kettō Yonjū Shūnen Ki’nen Shuppan Kankō Iinkai, Shiryō Shakaitō yonjūnen shi, 570. 26. Gekkan Shakaitō Henshūbu, ed., Nihon Shakaitō no sanjū nen (Tokyo: Nihon Shakaitō Chūō Honbu Kikanshi Kyoku, 1976), 445; Sasaki Kōzō, “Eda miraizō ni tsuite,” Shakai Shinpō 636 (October  28, 1962), quoted in Okada Ichiro, Nihon Shakaitō: Sono soshiki to taibō no rekishi (Tokyo: Shinjidaisha, 2005),

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notes to pages 126–135 105; Gotō Motoo, Uchida Kenzō, and Ishikawa Masumi, Sengo hoshu seiji no kiseki (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1982), 221; Koyama and Shimizu, Nihon Shakaitō shi, 235. 27. The results of the 1969 election ­were LDP, 300 seats (20-­seat increase), JSP, 90 seats (51-­seat decrease), Kōmeitō, 47 seats (22-­seat increase), DSP, 32 seats (2-­seat increase), and JCP, 14 seats (9-­seat increase). For further discussion of this election, see Okada, Nihon Shakaitō, 132–135. 28. See Nakakita Kōji, “Nihon Shakaitō no bunretsu: Nishio ha no ritō to kōzō kaikaku ha,” in Nihon Shakaitō: Sengo kakushin no shisō to kōdō, ed. Yamaguchi Jirō and Ishikawa Masumi (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyōronsha, 2003), 45–74, esp. 70–71. 29. Gekkan Shakaitō Henshūbu, Nihon Shakaitō no sanjū nen, 423. 30. Kijima Masamichi, Kōzō kaikaku ha: Sono kako to mirai (Tokyo: Gendai Rironsha, 1979), 65. 31. Robert A. Scalapino, The Japa­nese Communist Movement, 1920–1966 (Berke­ley: University of California Press, 1967), 87. 32. Hakamada Satomi, Watakushi no sengo shi (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1978), 159. 33. Ibid., 163. 34. Jon Halliday, A Po­liti­cal History of Japa­nese Capitalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), 236. 35. Nihon Kyōsantō Chūō Iinkai, ed., Nihon Kyōsantō no shichijū nen (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1994), 1:287. 36. Shiota Shōbē, Sengo Nihon no shakai undō (Tokyo: Rōdō Junpōsha, 1986), 65. 37. Hirotsu Kyosuke, “The Strategic Triangle: Japan,” Survey 54 (January 1965): 123–130, 128; C. W. Braddick, Japan and the Sino-­Soviet Alliance, 1950–1964: In the Shadow of the Monolith (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 184–185. 38. Halliday, Japa­nese Capitalism, 254. 39. Hirotsu, “The Strategic Triangle,” 129. 40. Hakamada, Watakushi no sengo shi, 159.

4. the collapse of the 1960 co­a li­t ion 1. The term “forced layoffs” may at first glance appear redundant, but in this period Japa­nese companies generally adhered to a policy of seeking to minimize layoffs as much as pos­si­ble in ­favor of other means of workforce reduction, such as voluntary retirements or attrition. Even in the rare cases when layoffs ­were deemed unavoidable, the companies sought to first reach some sort of understanding with their l­ abor ­unions. Thus I employ the term “forced layoffs” ­here to distinguish truly unilateral layoffs from layoffs pursued within a more conciliatory framework.

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notes to pages 137–150 2. For accounts of the Miike strug­gle, see Hirai Yōichi, Miike sōgi: Sengo rōdō undō no bunsuirei (Tokyo: Mineruva Shobō, 2000); John Price, “The 1960 Miike Coal Mine Dispute: Turning Point for Adversarial Unionism in Japan?,” in The Other Japan: Conflict, Compromise, and Re­sis­tance since 1945, ed. Joe Moore (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 49–73; and Masumi Junnosuke, Gendai seiji: 1955-­nen igo (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1985), 580–587. 3. Ōta Kaoru, Tatakai no naka de: Rōdō undō nijūgo nen (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1971), 103. 4. Masumi, Gendai seiji, 590. 5. Sōhyō Shijū-­Nen Shi Henshū Iinkai, ed., Sōhyō shijū-­nen shi, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Daiichi Shorin, 1993), 1:227–228. 6. Hyōdō Tsutomu, Rōdō no sengo shi (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1997), 1:229–230; Satō Kōichi, ed., Sengo Nihon rōdō undō shi, vol. 2, 1955–1977 (Tokyo: Shakai Hyōronsha, 1977), 60. 7. Ōta, Tatakai no naka de, 165. 8. Ibid., 166–167. 9. Masumi, Gendai seiji, 587; Hyōdō, Rōdō no sengo shi, 233. 10. Ōta, Tatakai no naka de, 199–201. 11. Arahara Bokusui, Dai uyoku shi (Tokyo: Dai Nihon Kokumintō, 1966), 524. 12. For an outstanding overview of the history of the Japa­nese student movement in the 1950s, see Kenji Hasegawa, “Waging Cold War in 1950s Japan: Zengakuren’s Postwar Protests” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2007). 13. Takagi Masayuki, Zengakuren to Zenkyōtō (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1985), 54. 14. Takagi Masayuki, Shinsayoku sanjū-­nen shi (Tokyo: Doyō Bijutsusha, 1988), 49. 15. “Anpo tōsō no zasetsu to Ikeda naikaku no seiritsu: Anpo tōsō ni okeru rironteki sho mondai,” Senki 27 (August 14, 1960), reproduced in San’ichi Shobō Henshūbu, ed., Shiryō sengo gakusei undō 5: 1959–1961 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1969), 455–468. 16. Takazawa Kōji, Takagi Masayuki, and Kurata Kazunari, Shinsayoku nijūnen shi: Hanran no kiseki (Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1995), 45. “Himeoka Reiji” was the pen name of Aoki Masahiko, who l­ater became a Stanford University economics professor. Himeoka’s doctrine had been initially laid out in an article in the June 1959 issue of the journal Kyōsanshugi. 17. San’ichi Shobō Henshūbu, ed., Shiryō sengo gakusei undō 5: 1959–1961 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1969), 455; Takazawa, Takagi, and Kurata, Shinsayoku nijūnen shi, 45; Yun Kyŏng-­ch’ŏl, Nihon shinsayoku no kenkyū (Tokyo: Bokutakusha, 2001), 23. 18. For exhaustive further details, see Shakai Mondai Kenkyūkai, ed., Zengakuren kaku ha: Gakusei undō jiten (zōho kaitei ’70-­nen han) (Tokyo: Futabasha, 1969).

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notes to pages 151–158 19. “Konnichi no mondai: Daigaku no kiki,” Asahi Shinbun, May 19, 1963, eve­ ning edition, 1. 20. In the Asama Sansō incident, members of the United Red Army (Rengō Sekigun) holed up in the mountains and tortured each other to death before the survivors ­were killed in a shootout with police at the Asama Mountain Lodge following a twenty-­four-­hour standoff that was broadcast live on national tele­vi­sion. A dif­fer­ent group, the Japan Red Army (Nihon Sekigun), engaged in embassy bombings, plane hijackings, and kidnappings, among other international terrorist activities; most infamously, it was involved in a shooting spree against civilians at Israel’s Lod Airport. 21. This description of Zenkyōtō’s worldview draws heavi­ly on Suzuki Hideo, Shinsayoku to rosugene (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 2009), 100–104. 22. According to Bund leader Shima Shigeo, one of the defining characteristics of the Bund was “brightness.” See Kenji Hasegawa, “In Search of a New Radical Left: The Rise and Fall of the Anpo Bund, 1955–1960,” Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs 3, no. 1 (2003): 86. 23. Takeuchi Yoshimi, “Minshu ka dokusai ka: Tōmen no jōkyō handan” (May 31, 1960), reproduced in Takeuchi Yoshimi, Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshū 9 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1981), 110. For more on Takeuchi, see Lawrence Olson, Ambivalent Moderns: Portraits of Japa­ nese Cultural Identity (Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992). 24. On the Voiceless Voices, see Simon Andrew Avenell, Making Japa­nese Citizens: Civil Society and the My­thol­ogy of the Shimin in Postwar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 62–105. On Beheiren, which is short for Peace in Vietnam! Citizens Alliance (Betonamu ni Heiwa o! Shimin Rengō), see ibid., 106–147, and Thomas R. H. Havens, Fire across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan, 1965–1975 (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1987). 25. See Yoshimoto Takaaki, “Roku-­jūgo to watakushi,” Shisaku to Seikatsu 2 (December  1961), reproduced in Yoshimoto Takaaki, Yoshimoto Takaaki Zenchosakushū (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1969), 13:595–600. 26. Yoshimoto Takaaki, “Gisei no shūen,” in Minshushugi no shinwa: Anpo tōsō no shisōteki sōkatsu, ed. Tanigawa Gan et al. (Tokyo: Gendai Shichōsha, 1960), reproduced in Yoshimoto, Zenchosakushū, 13:595–600. 27. Yoshimoto Takaaki, “Taihai e no izanai,” reproduced in Yoshimoto, Zen­ chosakushū, 13:77. 28. Yoshimoto Takaaki, Gisei no shūen (Tokyo: Gendai Shichōsha, 1962); Yoshimoto Takaaki, Jiritsu no shisōteki kyoten (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 1966). 29. Carl Cassegard, “From Withdrawal to Re­sis­tance: The Rhe­toric of Exit in Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin,” Asia-­Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 6, no. 3 (March 4, 2008), http://­apjjf​.­org​/­​-­Carl​-­Cassegard​/­2684​/­.

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notes to pages 158–166 30. Nor did Yoshimoto find the efforts of Tsurumi Shunsuke to forge a new kind of “citizen’s movement” (shimin undō), which lacked or­ga­nized hierarchy and was in­de­pen­dent of any preexisting organ­ization, any more appealing. Instead, Yoshimoto savaged Tsurumi and his circle as “professional citizens” (puro shimin). 31. Yoshimoto Takaaki, “Haiboku no kōzō” (June 10, 1970), reproduced in Yoshimoto Takaaki, Haiboku no kōzō: Yoshimoto Takaaki kōen shū (Tokyo: Yudachisha, 1972), 409–411. 32. On Shimizu’s role at Uchinada, see Rikki Kersten, “The Social Imperative of Pacifism in Postwar Japan: Shimizu Ikutarō and the Uchinada Movement,” Critical Asian Studies 38, no. 3 (2006): 303–328. 33. Shimizu Ikutarō, “Ima koso, kokkai e: Seigan no susume,” Sekai (May 1960), 18–28. Shimizu’s passionate intensity and wide-­eyed zeal at the power and grandeur of his own vision is immediately apparent upon reading this article. Shimizu would ­later recall that whereas other critics routinely contributed articles to journals or newspapers for f­ ree on topics they cared about, this was the only article he ever wrote for ­free in his entire ­career. 34. Shimizu Ikutarō, “Katteru tatakai ni naze maketa no ka—­Anpo hantai undō sōkatsu no susume,” Shūkan Dokushojin, July 25, 1960, 2. 35. See, for example, Shimizu Ikutarō, “Anpo tōsō no fukō na shuyaku: Anpo tōsō wa naze zasetsu shita ka? Watakushi shōsetsufū no sōkatsu,” Chūō Kōron 75, no. 10 (September 1960): 45–57; “Taishū shakai ron no shōri: Anpo kaitei soshi tōsō no naka de,” Shisō 436 (October 1960): 26–43; and “Anpo tōsō ichinen go no shisō: Seiji no naka no chishikijin,” Chūō Kōron 76, no. 7 (July 1961): 45–57. 36. See Kenneth  B. Pyle, “The ­Future of Japa­nese Nationality: An Essay in Con­temporary History,” Journal of Japa­nese Studies 8, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 234, 237–238, 257–259. 37. Shimizu Ikutarō, Waga jinsei no danpen (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1975), reproduced as Shimizu Ikutarō, Shimizu Ikutarō chosakushū 14 (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1993), 480–483. 38. Maruyama Masao, “Sentaku no toki” (May 24, 1960), reproduced in Maru­ yama Masao, Maruyama Masao shū, 17 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1996), 8:347–350. 39. Maruyama Masao, “8 / 15 to 5 / 19: Nihon minshushugi no rekishiteki imi,” Chūō Kōron 75, no.  8 (August  1960), reproduced in Maruyama Masao, Maruyama Masao shū, 8:359–377. 40. Maruyama Masao, Katō Shūichi, Arai Tatsuo, and Tōda Nobukatsu, “Zadankai: Gikaisei minshushugi no yukue,” Ekonomisuto bessatsu: “Anpo” ni yureta Nihon no kiroku (September 10, 1960), 93. 41. Shimizu, “Katteru tatakai ni naze maketa no ka.”

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notes to pages 166–178 42. Yoshimoto, “Gisei no shūen,” 67–69. 43. See, for example, Matsuzawa Hiroaki and Uete Michiari, eds., Maruyama Masao kaikodan, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2006), 2:224, 241–245. 44. See, for example, Tsurumi Shunsuke, “Nemoto kara no minshushugi,” Shisō no Kagaku 19 (July  1960): 20–27; Kuno Osamu, Sejiteki shimin no fukken (Tokyo: Ushio Sensho, 1973); Takabatake Michitoshi, Seiji no ronri to shimin (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1971); and Takabatake Michitoshi, “Rokujū-­nen Anpo no seishinshi,” in Kawashima Jirō, Maeda Ai, and Tetsuo Najita, eds., Sengo Nihon no seishinshi (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1988). For an English-­ language elaboration on ­these arguments, see Wesley Sasaki-­Uemura, Organ­ izing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001). 45. Avenell, Making Japa­nese Citizens. 46. Miyazaki Manabu, Toppamono: Sengo shi no kage o kakenuketa 50 nen, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Gentōsha Autorō Bunko, 1998), 1:73–76. 47. Altogether, the Kokumin Kaigi umbrella organ­ization included forty-­one ­women’s groups. Itō Yasuko, Sengo Nihon josei shi (Tokyo: Ōtsuki Shoten, 1974), 168. 48. Amano Masako, “Kobayashi Tomi: ‘Shimin’ to natta shufutachi,” in Hitobito no seishinshi, vol. 3, Rokujūnen Anpo: 1960-­nen zengo, ed. Kurihara Akira (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2015), 56, 62. 49. Onnatachi no Ima o Tō Kai, ed., Onnatachi no 60-­nen Anpo (Tokyo: Inpakuto Shuppankai, 1990), 27–28. 50. The number of full-­time ­house­wives as a percentage of all married w ­ omen ­rose from 29.9 ­percent in 1955 to a postwar peak of 37.1 ­percent in 1980, before gradually declining thereafter. Naikaku Fu, Heisei 13-­nendo kokumin seikatsu hakusho: Kazoku no kurashi to kōzō kaikaku (yōshi) (Tokyo: Naikaku Fu, 2002), 6.

5. new directions in lit­e r­a­t ure and the arts 1. Other prominent members of the Wakai Nihon no Kai included composers Takemitsu Tōru, Hayashi Hikaru, and Mamiya Michio, filmmaker Hani Susumu, critic Akiyama Kuniharu, novelist Sono Ayako, and stage director Asari Keita. 2. Art Informel, pronounced anforumeru in Japa­nese, was a school of abstract art that emphasized spontaneous, automatic expression. It evolved in France during and ­after World War II in parallel with abstract expressionism in the United States. 3. See, for example, Chiba Shigeo, interview with Thomas Havens, March 11, 2002, cited in Thomas R. H. Havens, Radicals and Realists in the Japa­nese

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notes to pages 178–195 Nonverbal Arts: The Avant-­Garde Rejection of Modernism (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), 130. 4. Katsuragawa Hiroshi, Haikyo no zen’ei: Kaisō no sengo bijutsu (Tokyo: Ichiyōsha, 2004), 201. 5. On the thematic unity of t­hese three films, see Kari Shepherdson, “Fists, Youth, and Protest: Oshima Nagisa’s Filmic Rebellion in 1960” (Master’s thesis, University of British Columbia, 2002). 6. Abé Mark Nornes, Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japa­nese Documentary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 21–22. 7. Hamaya and Hayashi would go on to become among the most renowned photog­raphers and composers, respectively, of the entire postwar period. 8. See Nihon Bijutsukai, “1961 Nihon Andepandan Ten shuppin mokuroku,” special collections of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo, 2–3. 9. Akasegawa Genpei, “Obuje kara kōi e,” in Nihon sengo bijutsu kenkyū, ed. Nihon Sengo Bijutsu Kenkyūkai (Kodaira, Japan: Nihon Sengo Bijutsu Kenkyūkai, 1983), 86. 10. For an account of the Sorge spy ring case, see Chal­mers Johnson, An Instance of Treason: Ozaki Hotsumi and the Sorge Spy Ring (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990). 11. This connection seems even more clear in Japa­nese, in which the word zen’ei is used for both “avant-­garde” (in the artistic sense) and “vanguard” (in the Marxist, revolutionary sense), as encapsulated by such Communist Party catchphrases as “artistic avant-­garde and po­liti­cal vanguard” (geijutsu no zen’ei to seiji no zen’ei). 12. Imaizumi Yoshihiko, “60-­nen anpo tōsō go no nashikuzushi no jōtai no naka de nanika ga umaretsutsu atta,” Aida 49 (January 20, 2000): 14–15. 13. Katsuragawa, Haikyo no zen’ei, 118–135. Images of Katsuragawa’s artworks can be found in Ātogyararī Kan, ed., Katsuragawa Hiroshi sakuhinshū: Sengo kara seikimatsu e, 1950–1994 (Tokyo: Ātogyararī Kan, 1994). 14. Images of Bitō’s artworks can be found in Ātogyararī Kan, ed., Bitō Yutaka sakuhinshū: Ushinawareta tochi, 1947–1991 (Tokyo: Ātogyararī Kan, 1995). 15. Katsuragawa Hiroshi, “Sengo avangyarudo to ‘zasetsu’ no imi,” Bijutsu Nōto 1 (March 1961), reproduced in Katsuragawa, Haikyo no zen’ei, 254. 16. Akasegawa Genpei, “Jikai shita kaiga no uchigawa,” Aaruvivan 21 (1986): 91. 17. Ibid., 90. The fatality to which Akasegawa refers is, of course, the death of Kanba Michiko on June 15, 1960. 18. Akasegawa, “Jikai shita kaiga,” 93. 19. Ibid. The term objet comes from the French objet d’art, literally referring to any object of artistic value. In Japa­nese usage, the term “objet” (obuje) most

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notes to pages 196–201 often referred to the Duchampian sense of a found or appropriated item not personally created by the artist, to which artistic value had been retrospectively assigned. 20. For an extended discussion of the concept of anti-­art, see Reiko Tomii, “Geijutsu on Their Minds: Memorable Words on Anti-­Art,” in Art, Anti-­Art, Non-­Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan, 1950–1970, ed. Charles Merewether (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007), 35–58. 21. See Kuroda Raiji, ed., Neo-­Dada no shashin (Fukuoka, Japan: Fukuoka Art Museum, 1993), frontispiece. 22. Akasegawa, “Jikai shita kaiga,” 91. 23. See Yoshida Yoshie, “Kyōran no neo-­dada,” in Yoshida Yoshie, Kaitai geki no maku orite: 60-­nendai zen’ei bijutsu shi (Tokyo: Zōkeisha, 1982), 97–98. 24. Hariu Ichirō, Sengo bijutsu seisui shi (Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki, 1979), 123. 25. Nakanishi Natsuyuki, Akasegawa Genpei, and Takamatsu Jirō, with Kawani Hiroshi (moderator), “Chokusetsu kōdō ron no kizashi—­hitotsu no jikken rei ni tsuite,” Keishō 7 (February 1963): 16–17. 26. The list of organ­izations allegedly supporting Cleaning Event included the following groups: Metropolitan Environmental Hygiene Executive Committee, Tokyo Metropolitan Department of Purity, Pollution Prevention Task Force, Sightseeing Research Institute, National Alliance of Shopping Streets, Ginza All-­Shops Youth League, Rear-­End Society, Imperial Palace Volunteer Cleaning Corps, Nationwide Put Flowers Everywhere Movement, Japan House­wives’ Association, Chuo Ward Satsuki ­Women’s Association, Voices of Young Japan, Committee to Prevent Youth Delinquency, In­de­pen­dent School Teachers’ Association, Taimei Elementary School PTA, Kikan Magazine Editorial Department, Yomiuri Newspaper Group, Small Kindness Movement, Tokyo Olympics Organ­izing Committee, Fluxus Japa­nese Section, Group Ongaku, and Hi-­Red Center. 27. Akasegawa, “Jikai shita kaiga,” 98. 28. For a more detailed discussion of this trial as an artistic event, see Reiko Tomii, “State v. (Anti-)Art: Model 1,000-­Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Com­pany,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 10, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 141–172. For another study that touches on this trial, see William Marotti, Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2013). 29. Akasegawa, “Jikai shita kaiga,” 98. 30. Hariu, Sengo bijutsu seisui shi, 123. 31. Takamatsu Jirō, Akasegawa Genpei, and Nakanishi Natsuyuki, “Sabishige de hiyayaka na shintōryoku: Fikushon to shite no haireddo sentā,” in Tokyo

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notes to pages 201–208 mikisā keikaku: Haireddo sentā chokusetsu kōdō no kiroku, ed. Akasegawa Genpei (Tokyo: PARCO, 1984), 213. 32. See Brian Powell, “Japan’s First Modern Theater: The Tsukiji Shogekijo and Its Com­pany, 1924–26,” Monumenta Nipponica 30 (Spring 1975): 69–85; David G. Goodman, “Shingeki u ­ nder the Occupation,” in The Occupation of Japan: Arts and Culture, ed. Thomas  W. Burkman (Norfolk, Va.: General Douglas MacArthur Foundation, 1988), 189–198; and Thomas R. H. Havens, Artist and Patron in Postwar Japan: Dance, M ­ usic, Theater, and the Visual Arts, 1955–1980 (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1982), 150–151. 33. A. Horie-­Webber, “Modernisation of the Japa­nese Theatre: The Shingeki Movement,” in Modern Japan: Aspects of History, Lit­er­a­ture and Society, ed. W. G. Beasley (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975), 148. 34. Havens, Artist and Patron, 152–158; Senda Koreya, “Senda Koreya: An Interview,” Concerned Theatre Japan 1, no. 2 (Summer 1970): 72. 35. Brian Powell, Japan’s Modern Theatre: A C ­ entury of Change and Continuity (London: Japan Library, 2002), 168. 36. David G. Goodman, “Virtual CJT: A Personal Introduction,” in Concerned Theatre Japan, ed. David G. Goodman (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Michigan Electronic Reprint, 2005), 5. 37. Powell, Japan’s Modern Theatre, 174. 38. Tsuno Kaitarō, “The Tradition of Modern Theater in Japan,” trans. David G. Goodman, Canadian Theater Review 20 (Fall 1978): 11. 39. Powell, Japan’s Modern Theatre, 166; “Konnichi no mondai: Shingeki hōchū,” Asahi Shinbun, August 14, 1960, eve­ning edition, 1. 40. Powell, Japan’s Modern Theatre, 169–170. 41. Kanze, the scion of the renowned Kanze ­family of noh actors, had trained in classical noh per­for­mance from the age of two. He would l­ater be expelled from the conservative noh profession for having participated in the Anpo protests and for daring to take part in modern theater productions such as ­those of Seigei, although he would eventually be rehabilitated years l­ater. See “Noh Business,” Concerned Theatre Japan 1, no. 4 (Winter / Spring 1971): 5–17. 42. Ibid., 13. 43. Fukuda Yoshiyuki, “Shibai to minshū to,” in Dentō to sōzō, ed. Hirosue Tamotsu (Tokyo: Gakugei Shorin, 1971), 62. 44. Fukuda Yoshiyuki, “Kiroku Nanbā 1,” Kikan Dōjidai Engeki 1, no. 2 (June 1970): 85–105; Fukuda, “Shibai to minshū to,” 56–66, 62–64. 45. David G. Goodman, The Return of the Gods: Japa­nese Drama and Culture in the 1960s (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University East Asia Program, 2003), 37, 39. 46. Fukuda, “Shibai to minshū to,” 63.

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notes to pages 208–212 47. The term “underground theater” (angura gekijō) seems to have originated as a nickname for Satō Makoto’s Liberty Theater ( jiyū gekijō, founded in 1966), which staged its early productions in a tiny rented basement location beneath a plate glass store. Another term in use at the time for the genre that ­later became known as angura was “small theater movement” (shōgekijō undō). 48. Hirano Ken, “ ‘Gunzō’ jūgo-­nen no ni yosete,” Asahi Shinbun, September 13, 1961, 7. See also Hirano Ken, “ ‘Gunzō’ 15-­nen no ashiato,” Shūkan Dokushojin (September 23, 1961), reproduced in Hirano Ken, Hirano Ken zenshū (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1975), 5:61–63. 49. See Itō Sei, “ ‘Jun’ bungaku wa sonzai shieru ka,” Gunzō 16, no.  11 (November 1961): 180–187; Ōoka Shōhei, “Hihyōka no jirenma,” Chūō Kōron 76, no. 11 (November 1961): 200–201; Hirano Ken, “Chūkan no shimekukuri,” Bungakkai 15, no.  12 (December  1961): 137–145; Hirano Ken, Itō Sei, and Yamamoto Kenkichi, “Zadankai: Junbungaku to taishū bungaku,” Gunzō 16, no. 12 (December 1961): 154–172; Itō Sei, Haniya Yutaka, and Hirano Ken, “Zadankai: Bundan 1961-­nen” (five parts), Tokyo Shinbun, December 25–29, 1961, eve­ning edition; Takami Jun, “Junbungaku kōgeki e no kōgi,” Gunzō 17, no. 1 (January 1962): 192–200; Nakamura Mitsuo, “Kenka de naku giron o: Hirano Ken shi e no tegami” (two parts), Tokyo Shinbun, January 5–6, 1962, eve­ning edition; Yamamoto Kenkichi, “Bungaku wa doko e iku?” (two parts), Yomiuri Shinbun, January 5–6, 1962, eve­ning edition; Noma Hiroshi, “Hirano Ken no hihan ni kotaeru” (two parts), Mainichi Shinbun, January 25–26, 1962; Senuma Shigeki, “Kindai bungaku gainen to sono hensen,” Gunzō 17, no.  2 (February  1962): 150–160; Hirano Ken, “Saisetsu: Junbungaku henshitsu,” Gunzō 17, no. 3 (March 1962): 154–163; Etō Jun, “Bundan no shitō o haisuru,” Shinchō 59, no.  3 (March  1962): 32–39; Fukuda Tsuneari, “Bundanteki na, amari ni bundanteki na,” Shinchō 59, no.  4 (April  1962): 6–13. 50. Sasaki Kiichi, “ ‘Sengo bungaku’ wa gen’ei datta,” Gunzō 17, no. 8 (August 1962): 125, 127–129. 51. Ibid., 126. The phrase “revolutionless revolution” was drawn from the title of Haniya Yutaka, “Rokugatsu no ‘kakumei naki kakumei,’ ” Gunzō 15, no. 8 (August 1960): 146–153. 52. Ibid., 134–135. 53. Honda Shūgo, “Sengo bungaku wa gen’ei ka,” Gunzō 17, no. 9 (September 1962): 150–156; Ōoka Shōhei, “Sengo bungaku wa fukkatsu shita,” Gunzō 18, no. 1 (January 1963): 176–184; Ōe Kenzaburō, “Sengo bungaku o dō uketometa ka?,” Gunzō 18, no. 2 (February 1963): 184–190; Isoda Kōichi, “Sengo bungaku no

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notes to pages 212–216 seishinzō: Rearizumuteki shii no mondai,” Bungei 2, no.  3 (March  1963): 272–282. See also Sasaki Kiichi, “Saisetsu: ‘Sengo bungaku wa gen’ei datta,’ ” Gunzō 18, no. 3 (August 1962): 180–187. 54. Okuno Takeo, “ ‘Seiji to bungaku’ riron no hasan,” Bungei 2, no. 6 (June 1963): 216–226. 55. Ibid., 216, 219. 56. Ibid., 218. 57. Ibid., 217. 58. See Hariu Ichirō, “Waga tō no shūhen,” Shin Nihon Bungaku 192 (July 1963): 176–180; Takahashi Kazumi, “Sengo bungaku shiron,” Bungei 2, no.  7 (July 1963): 248–258; Takei Teruo, “Sengo bungaku hihan no shiten,” Bungei 2, no. 9 (September 1963): 176–188; Yoshimoto Takaaki, “Ima bungaku ni nani ga hitsuyō ka? Mazu hihyō no kijun ni tsuite,” Bungaku 32, no. 1 (January 1964): 117–123. 59. “Shinri to kakumei no tame ni tō saiken no dai-­ippo o fumidasō,” July 22, 1961; “Kakumei undō no zenshin no tame ni futatabi zentō ni uttaeru,” August 18, 1961. 60. Nihon Kyōsantō Chūō Iinkai, “Nihon Kyōsantō dai-­hakkai taikai chūō iinkai no seiji hōkoku,” Zen’ei 187 (September 1961): 47. 61. Shin Nihon Bungakkai Dai-10 Kai Taikai Junbi Iinkai, “Shin Nihon Bungakkai dai-10 kai taikai o mukaete,” Shin Nihon Bungaku 174 (January 1962): 5. 62. Nakano Shigeharu, “Bungaku oyobi bungei undō soshiki no kyō ni okeru kada: Shin Nihon Bungakkai dai-­jūkai ni okeru ippan katsudō hōkoku,” Shin Nihon Bungaku 176 (March 1962): 93–104. 63. Noma Hiroshi, “Nihon bungaku no genjō to sōzō no hōkō: Shin Nihon Bungakkai dai-­jūkai ni okeru sōzō katsudō hōkoku,” Shin Nihon Bungaku 176 (March 1962): 105–113. 64. Okuno Takeo, Nihon bungaku shi: Kindai kara gendai e (Tokyo: Chūō Kōr­on­sha, 1970), 255–256. 65. Ōe Kenzaburō, Man’en gannen no futobōru (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1967). Translated into En­glish as Ōe Kenzaburō, The ­Silent Cry, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974). 66. Ōe Kenzaburō, “Japan’s Dual Identity: A Writer’s Dilemma,” in Postmodernism and Japan, ed. Masao Miyoshi and H. D. Haratoonian (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989), 208–209. 67. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Po­liti­cal Ideas in the Fifties (Glencoe, Ill.: ­Free Press, 1960). 68. Isoda Kōichi, “Sengo bungaku no seishinzō: Rearizumuteki shii no mondai,” Bungei 2, no. 3 (March 1963): 278, 276.

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notes to pages 217–226 6. reshaping the landscape of expression 1. Lawrence Ward Beer, Freedom of Expression in Japan: A Study in Comparative Law, Politics, and Society (New York: Kodansha International, 1984), 181. 2. Saikō Saibansho, July 20, 1960, Case 1960-­A-112, “Shōwa ni go nen Tōkyō-to jōrei dai yon yon go shūkai, shūdan kōshin oyobi shūdan jii undō ni kansuru jōrei ihan,” http://­www​.­courts​.­go​.­jp​/­app​/­files​/­hanrei​_­jp​/­694​/­051694​ _­hanrei​.­pdf, 3. 3. Ibid., 2; emphasis added. 4. The “French protest” ( furansu demo) was a style of Japa­nese demonstration march, made famous during the 1960 Anpo protests, in which protesters would hold hands and spread out as far apart as pos­si­ble to occupy the entire width of the street. 5. ­Inoue Yoshikazu, “Suneeku dansu no tekunorojii—­gaitō o kakusei saseru dochakuteki shintai,” in Sengo seiron no media shakaigaku, ed. Satō Takumi (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 2003), 160. 6. Hironaka Toshio, Keibikōan keisatsu no kenkyū (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1973), 230. 7. Hironaka, Keibikōan, 224, 232–274; Tahara Sōichirō, Keisatsu kanryō no jidai (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1986), 144–146; Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 77–98. 8. See Katzenstein, Cultural Norms, 89. 9. David H. Bayley, Forces of Order: Policing in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 162; Hironaka, Keibikōan keisatsu, 231. 10. Keisatsuchō Keisatsushi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Sengo keisatsu shi (Tokyo: Keisatsu Kyōkai, 1977), 495–496. 11. In 1960, Japan had a population of just over 93 million, and a total nationwide police headcount of 124,430. By 2015, the police force had steadily increased to 258,581, representing 208 ­percent of the 1960 total, while Japan’s population stood at approximately 127 million, which represented just 137 ­percent of the 1960 population and a decrease of around 1 ­percent from the population in 2010. Japan’s police force increased at roughly double the rate of the overall population over this fifty-­five-­year period and has continued to increase even as the population has begun to decline. See Ralph J. Rinalducci, The Japa­nese Police Establishment (Tokyo: Obun Intereu­rope, 1972), 187; and Keisatsuchō, Heisei 27-­ nen keisatsu hakusho (Tokyo: Keisatsuchō, 2015), 192. 12. JNPEA, ed., The Japa­nese Press, 1961 (Tokyo: JNPEA, 1961), 8; JNPEA, ed., The Japa­nese Press, 1965 (Tokyo: JNPEA, 1965), 8.

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notes to pages 226–233 13. JNPEA, ed., The Japa­nese Press, 1965, 3; JNPEA, ed., The Japa­nese Press, 1970 (Tokyo: JNPEA, 1970), 40. 14. Although monthly magazines had been a staple of Japa­nese life since the prewar period, weekly magazines began to be published in large numbers only in 1959, when newspapers began to take note of a sudden “weekly magazine boom.” 15. JNPEA, The Japa­nese Press, 1961, 4–11. 16. For a detailed discussion of circulation statistics for newspapers and other publications, see Bin Umino, Kyo Kageura, and Shinichi Toda, “A Sixty Year History and Analy­sis of the Japa­nese Publishing Industry: A Statistical Analy­sis of Circulation,” Publishing Research Quarterly 26, no.  4 (December 2010): 272–286. 17. Tsumura Hiroshi, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka Jiken,” in Kōza gendai jānarizumu I: Rekishi, ed. Kido Mataichi (Tokyo: Jiji Press, 1974), 214–215. 18. Edward P. Whittemore, The Press in Japan ­Today: A Case Study (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1961), 17. 19. Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 214–215. 20. Kowada Jirō and Ōsawa Shinichirō, Sōkatsu Anpo hōdō: Sengo shi no nagare no naka de (Tokyo: Gendai Jānarizumu Shuppankai, 1970), 126; Arai Naoyuki, Shinbun sengo shi: Jānarizumu no tsukurikae (Tokyo: Kurita Shuppankai, 1972), 153. 21. For further discussion of the Japa­nese press’s self-­appointed role as a check on government tyranny, see Arai, Shinbun sengo shi, 167–168; George  R. Packard III, Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1966), 215–216; and Whittemore, The Press in Japan ­Today, 17. 22. See Igarashi Chiyū, Rekishi no shunkan to jānarisutotachi: Asahi Shinbun ni miru 20 seiki (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1999), 347. 23. “Yomiuri sunpyō,” Yomiuri Shinbun, May 20, 1960, eve­ning edition, 1; “Shasetsu: Sōjishoku no hoka shūshū no michi nashi,” Yomiuri Shinbun, May 26, 1960, morning edition, 1. 24. Shinbun Kenkyū (September 1960), cited in “Kenshō Shōwa hōdō: Anpo tōsō 3,” Asahi Shinbun, November 18, 2009, eve­ning edition, 8. 25. “Shasetsu: Demo no ikisugi o keikai seyo,” Asahi Shinbun, May  22, 1960, morning edition, 2; “Shasetsu: Setsudo no aru taishū undō o,” Asahi Shinbun, May 26, 1960, morning edition, 2. 26. For detailed discussions of newspaper coverage of the June 4 strike, see Whittemore, The Press in Japan ­Today, 59–62; and Jung Bock Lee, The Po­liti­cal Character of the Japa­nese Press (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 1985), 150–152.

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notes to pages 233–240 27. Matsuda Hiroshi, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II: Sōsa to jaanarizumu (Zushi: Sōshinsa, 1981), 149. 28. See, for example, Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 143–144. 29. Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, ed., Hōsō gojū nen: Shōwa to tomo ni (Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai, 1977), 211–212; Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 145–148. 30. “Murayama kaichō ni kyōryoku yōsei: Kishi shushō, Aiku hōnichi de,” Asahi Shinbun, June 9, 1960, eve­ning edition, 1; “Murayama Tells Kishi: Asahi ­Will Do All It Can to Help Make Eisenhower’s Trip a Success,” Asahi Eve­ning News, June 11, 1960, 1. 31. Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 168. 32. “Konnichi no mondai: Genron no kurui,” Asahi Shinbun, June 16, 1960, eve­ ning edition, 1. Some editions carried an alternative title, “Cool-­Headed Discernment Is Needed” (Reisei na handan o). 33. Gotō Motoo, Uchida Kenzō, and Ishikawa Masumi, Sengo hoshu seiji no kiseki (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1982), 176. 34. Quoted in Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 217. 35. See Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 220. 36. Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 118. 37. Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 219. 38. “Kenshō Shōwa hōdō: 60-­nen Anpo 7,” Asahi Shinbun, November 25, 2009, eve­ning edition, 12. 39. Ibid.; Arai, Shinbun sengo shi, 158. 40. “Kenshō Shōwa hōdō: 60-­nen Anpo 7,” Asahi Shinbun, November 25, 2009, eve­ning edition, 12; Arai, Shinbun sengo shi, 158–159. 41. Arai, Shinbun sengo shi, 159. 42. Ibid., 159–160. 43. Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 219; Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 152, 162. 44. “Kenshō Shōwa hōdō: 60-­nen Anpo 8,” Asahi Shinbun, November 26, 2009, eve­ning edition, 16. 45. Kishi Nobusuke, Kishi Nobusuke kaikoroku: Hoshu gōdō to Anpo kaitei (Tokyo: Kōsaidō, 1983), 638. 46. See Kowada and Ōsawa, Sōkatsu Anpo hōdō, 34; Ide Yoshinori, Gyōsei kōhōron (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1967), 97; Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 185. 47. Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 185; Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 221. 48. OMKK, ed., Ōhira Masayoshi kaisōroku: Denki hen (Tokyo: OMKK, 1982), 203. 49. See Kowada and Ōsawa, Sōkatsu Anpo hōdō, 33.

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notes to pages 240–250 50. Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 177–178; Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 221; Arai, Shinbun sengo shi, 169; Kowada and Ōsawa, Sōkatsu Anpo hōdō, 30–31. 51. Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 177; Tsumura, “Keishokuhō, Anpo, Shimanaka,” 221. 52. Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 178–181. 53. Ibid., 181. 54. Ibid., 182–185. 55. JNPEA, The Japa­nese Press, 1961, 40. 56. Packard, Protest in Tokyo, 305. 57. Asahi Shinbun internal report, quoted in “Kenshō Showa hōdō: 60-­nen Anpo 11,” Asahi Shinbun, December 1, 2009, eve­ning edition, 8. 58. Roundtable discussion published in Minkan Hōsō (January 3, 1969), quoted in Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 169–170. 59. Matsuda, Dokyumento hōsō sengo shi II, 185. 60. For an exhaustive account of tele­vi­sion program cancellations, see Matsuda Hiroshi and Media Sōgō Kenkyūsho, Sengo shi ni miru terebi hōsō chūshi jiken (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1994). 61. Arai, Shinbun sengo shi, 177–178. 62. “­Free Press Gone Wrong,” Time, June 27, 1960. 63. For a detailed account of this incident by Ōmori himself, see Ōmori Minoru, Ishi ni kaku: Raishawā jiken no shinsō (Tokyo: Shio Shuppansha, 1971). 64. Packard, Protest in Tokyo, 319. 65. Ekonomisuto bessatsu: “Anpo” ni yureta Nihon no kiroku (September  10, 1960), 81. 66. Hori Yukio, Sengo Nihon no uyoku seiryoku (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1983), 34; “Anpo” ni yureta Nihon, 80–81. 67. Kodama promised to mobilize 146,879 men, whereas the National Police Agency estimated that he could realistically mobilize 120,506. “Anpo” ni yureta Nihon, 60. 68. See Hugh Borton, Paul F. Langer, Jerome B. Cohen, Donald Keene, Martin Wilbur, and William  J. Jorden, Japan between East and West (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1957), 38; Packard, Protest in Tokyo, 323; and Masayuki Takagi, “The Japa­nese Right Wing,” Japan Quarterly 36, no. 3 (July 1, 1989): 301. 69. For further discussion of this crucial period in Mishima’s life, see Henry Scott Stokes, The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 156–166; John Nathan, Mishima: A Biography (Boston: L ­ ittle, Brown, 1974), 169–189; and Naoki Inose, with Hiroaki Sato, Persona: A Bi-

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notes to pages 251–260 ography of Yukio Mishima (Berkeley, Calif.: Stonebridge Press, 2012), 350–388. 70. Mishima Yukio, “Hitotsu no seijiteki iken,” Mainichi Shinbun, June 25, 1960, morning edition, 7. 71. Robert Jay Lifton, Shūichi Katō, and Michael Reich, Six Lives, Six Deaths: Portraits from Modern Japan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), 255–256. 72. Arahara Bokusui, Dai uyoku shi (Tokyo: Dai Nihon Kokumintō, 1966), 934. 73. See “Rikushi shusshinshara 13-­nin taiho shushōra ansatsu o keikaku,” Asahi Shinbun, December 12, 1961, eve­ning edition, 1; Edward Neilan, “Japa­nese Arrest 13  in Plot,” Christian Science Monitor, December  12, 1961, 14; “Japa­nese Condemn Antigovernment Plot,” Christian Science Monitor, December  13, 1961, 4; and “13 Japa­nese Seized in Plot to Kill Premier: Rightists Attempted to Forestall Red Revolt, Police Say,” Los Angeles Times, December 12, 1961, 1. The name “Sanyū incident,” written with Japa­nese characters meaning “three no’s,” came from the Kokushikai’s policy platform of “no taxes, no unemployment, no wars.” The group hoped to obviate the need for taxes by eliminating the government bureaucracy and privatizing government functions, somewhat contradictorily ensure full employment via massive public works proj­ ects, and prevent any attack on Japan by developing a space-­based missile shield. The name of the incident is sometimes pronounced “Sanmu,” which is the normal way to say the two characters, but tradition holds that the Kokushikai pronounced it “Sanyū,” based on the saying by the Daoist phi­los­o­pher Laozi (from chapter 40 of the Dao De Jing) that “non-­existence [mu] begets existence [yū].” 74. Fukazawa Shichirō, “Fūryū mutan,” Chūō Kōron 75, no. 13 (December 1960): 328–340. 75. Chūō Koronsha, “Shakoku,” reproduced in Nezu Tomohiko, Sengo Chūō Kōron to “Fūryū mutan” jiken: “Rondan,” henshūsha no shisōshi (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyōronsha, 2013), 356. 76. Shimanaka Hōji, “Owabi,” reproduced in Nezu, Sengo Chūō Kōron, 356. Incredibly, the left-­leaning Asahi Shinbun refused to publish the “Shakoku,” citing its new post-­Anpo policy of “refraining from involvement in po­liti­cal ­matters,” but it did publish Shimanaka’s “Owabi.” 77. See Nathan, Mishima, 186–187; and Naoki, Persona, 386–387. 78. Nezu, Sengo Chūō Kōron, 172. 79. Ibid. 80. Ibid., 173.

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notes to pages 260–272 81. Ibid., 175. 82. See Nezu, Sengo Chūō Kōron, 189–201.

conclusion 1. An impor­tant exception must be made for Okinawa, which has maintained a vibrant protest culture b ­ ecause of the ongoing disruptive presence of massive US military bases. 2. See Nakane Chie, Tate shakai no ningen kankei: Tan’itsu shakai no riron (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1967), published in En­glish as Chie Nakane, Japa­nese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970); and Doi Takeo, “Amae” no kōzō (Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1971), published in En­glish as Takeo Doi, The Anatomy of Dependence: The Key Analy­sis of Japa­nese Be­hav­ior, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1973). 3. Another popu­lar genre of Nihonjinron sought to similarly naturalize and justify Japan’s new obsession with economic growth by explaining why the Japa­ nese race was uniquely suited to succeed in manufacturing and international business. 4. Fang Yunyu, “Income Doubling Goal Needs Strategy,” ­People’s Daily Online, December 3, 2012, http://­en​.p ­ eople​.­cn​/­90778​/­8042502​.­html.

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Acknowl­edgments

A book is never the work of just one person. It is a plea­sure to acknowledge the advice, assistance, and support of so many wonderful p ­ eople and institutions. My friend and mentor Andrew Gordon, who first suggested this topic to me, has not only deeply ­shaped my understanding of modern and con­temporary Japan but also supported this proj­ect in almost ­every conceivable way. I also owe a profound debt of gratitude to Akira Iriye, who, despite being one of the busiest ­people I know, never failed to make time to meet with me or help me out in an hour of need. It was truly an honor and a privilege to be his final PhD advisee, and this book would not have been pos­si­ble without his tireless dedication. Several other mentors and colleagues provided timely assistance at crucial moments in the research and writing pro­cess. The late Ernest May was one of my first mentors in gradu­ate school, and his early enthusiasm helped get this book started. Mikael Adolphson has been a tireless supporter of the proj­ect from beginning to end, and Ian Miller provided insightful suggestions as I finished up my initial draft. In the final writing and editing stages, I benefited tremendously from the advice and support of my colleagues at Rutgers-­Camden, of whom Lorrin Thomas, Andrew Shankman, Laurie Bern­stein, Katherine Epstein, Janet Golden, Andrew Lees, Kriste Lindemeyer, Susan Mokhberi, and Wendy Woloson deserve special mention. In addition to the p ­ eople mentioned above, several dear friends and colleagues read drafts of part or all of this book. Any errors or omissions are entirely my responsibility, but I am grateful for the incisive feedback I received from Adachi Gen, Arimitsu Michio, David Boyd, Sarah Green Carmichael, Craig Colbeck, Fujii Yūko, Thomas Havens, Joshua Hill, Fintan Hoey, Konrad Mitchell Lawson, Annie Manion, Peter Mauch, Jennifer Miller, Matsutani Motokazu, Andrea Murray, Nakajima Izumi, Franz . 309 .

Acknowl­e dgments Prichard, May-yi Shaw, Kristin Williams, Mika Yoshitake, and two anonymous reviewers at Harvard University Press. During my research years in Japan, the inimitable Tanaka Takahiko provided a home away from home in his Waseda University “zemi.” I also was warmly welcomed by Suzuki Akira, Igarashi Jin, and the community of scholars at the Ōhara Institute for Social Research. O ­ thers who helped facilitate my research in Japan include Nakakita Kōji of Hitotsubashi University, Tanaka Atsushi and Sasaki Shigeo of the Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo, Seo Yasunobu of Bungei Shunjū, journalist Hosaka Masanobu, and Jōmaru Yōichi of the Asahi Shinbun. Several organ­izations provided crucial material support for my research and writing. I gratefully acknowledge ­here the assistance of the Blakemore Freeman Foundation, the IIE Fulbright program and the dedicated, hardworking staff of the Japan-­US Educational Commission, Waseda University, the Reischauer Institute of Japa­nese Studies, the Harvard University Program on US-­Japan Relations, the Harvard University Department of History, the Rutgers-­Camden Department of History, and the Rutgers-­Camden Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Over the years I also received additional encouragement, advice, and invaluable assistance from a large number of friends and colleagues in the field of Japan studies and beyond. At the risk of omitting many o ­ thers I would especially like to acknowledge Marië Abe, Thomas Berger, Daniel Botsman, Adam Bronson, Amy Catalinac, Sayaka Chatani, Sakura Christmas, Ryan Cook, Julie Davis, Molly Des Jardin, Frederick Dickinson, Fabian Drixler, Maren Ehlers, Siyen Fei, William Fleming, Sarah Frederick, Shinju Fujihira, Fujino Yūko, Susan Westhafer Furukawa, Timothy George, Christopher Gerteis, Ted Gilman, Carol Gluck, Gomi Ryōko, Robert Goree, David Gundry, Laura Hein, Kendall Heitzman, Linda Hoaglund, David Howell, Kyle Ikeda, Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, Ayako Kano, Brendan Karch, Hasegawa Kenji, John Lee, David Leheny, Shi-­Lin Loh, Matsui Takashi, Stacie Matsumoto, Noah McCormack, Hanna McGaughey, Kuniko Yamada McVey, Mimaki Seiko, Hiromu Nagahara, Patrick Noonan, Emer O’Dwyer, Vanessa Ogle, Oguma Eiji, Thomas O’Leary, Lisa Onaga, Halle O’Neal, George Packard, Rho Myoung Whan, Paul Roquet, Benny Rubin, Saruya Hiroe, Franziska Seraphim, Kari . 310 .

Acknowl­e dgments Shepherdson-­Scott, Seiji Shirane, David Spafford, Holly Stephens, Satsuki Takahashi, Ming Tiampo, Toba Kōji, Reiko Tomii, Benjamin Uchiyama, Wakamatsu Fumitaka, Kenneth Weisbrode, Roderick Wilson, Timothy Yang, Jeremy Yellen, Alexander Zahlten, and Kirsten Ziomek. At Harvard University Press, I have been extremely fortunate to have Kathleen McDermott as my editor. The patience and care with which she has shepherded a first-­time author through the editorial pro­cess have been a godsend. I also gratefully acknowledge the advice and assistance of Stephanie Vyce and the expert attention to detail the manuscript received from John Donohue and Liz Schueler at Westchester Publishing Ser­vices. Fi­nally, ­there are t­hose individuals who have supported me to such an extent and in so many ways that anything I say ­here ­will be entirely inadequate. Words cannot describe my admiration for my parents, Patricia and Vijay Kapur, and my appreciation for their love and support for all my endeavors ­these many years. They have also contributed directly and indirectly to my research and writing in a variety of ways. I also thank my endlessly amazing and amusing ­children, Clarity and Kenning, for their daily hugs, constant smiles, and unconditional love. Although they did not contribute directly to this book, they have made the writing pro­cess infinitely more joyful and entertaining. Last and most of all, I humbly thank my wife, Chinghsin Wu. Without her boundless love, endless patience, and unshakable good cheer, this book would not have been pos­si­ble.

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Index

Abe Genki, 249 Abe Kōbō, 177, 179, 213 Abe Shinzō, 4 advertising: explosive growth of, 226–227; strategic use of by businesses, 227, 245, 241 Aichi Kiichi, 67 Akagi Munemori, 33 Akahata, 130 Akao Bin, 252, 254, 256–257 Akasegawa Genpei, 193–202 Allison, John, 38, 51 Amano Masako, 171–172, 174 angura (“underground” theater), 176, 202, 208–209, 301n47 Ankoku Butoh, 176 Anpo Hihan no Kai, 20, 29, 177, 229 Anpo Mondai Kenkyūkai. See Security Treaty Prob­lems Research Association Anpo sedai. See Security Treaty generation anti-­art, 176, 196, 197 Anti-­Subversive Activities Law, 145 Arakawa Shūsaku, 195, 197 Article 9. See Constitution of Japan: Article 9 of Art Informel, 178, 196, 297n2 artists, 176–202; response to the 1960 protests, 4, 6, 180, 183, 185, 189, 192–195, 198–199, 202, 217, 266, 270, 272; role during the 1960 protests, 20, 29, 177–180, 196–198, 217; and the JCP, 132, 182–183, 192, 195, 266; dissatisfaction with existing art systems, 181, 193, 194; turn to socialist realism ­after World War II, 182, 218 Asahi Eve­ning News, 234

Asahi Shinbun, 211, 229, 307n76; involvement in June 17 joint declaration, 33, 238–239; editorial stances, 41, 62, 101, 102, 151, 206, 228, 232–233, 235, 237; coverage of the 1960 protests, 232–239, 243 Asakai Kōichirō, 45, 49, 63 Asakura Setsu, 132 Asama Sansō incident, 152, 295n20 Asanuma Inejirō, 29; assassination of, 80, 85–86, 114, 127, 252–254, 257 Avenell, Simon, 169 bases. See military bases Beheiren, 155, 168–169, 272 Bitō Yutaka, 183, 185–186, 191–192 “Bloody May Day,” 14–15, 72 Bowles, Chester, 52 Bund, 146–153, 195 bundan (literary cliques), 181, 209–210 Bundy, McGeorge, 53, 54, 66 Bungakkai, 210 Bungaku-za, 203, 206 Bungei, 212 Bunto. See Bund Central Intelligence Agency. See CIA ­children: involvement in protests, 26, 202; incentivized to attend high school, 105 China. See ­People’s Republic of China Chūkaku Ha, 150–151 Chūō Kōron, 108, 121, 166, 241; and the Shimanaka incident, 256–261 Chūritsu Rōren, 19, 142 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 10, 273

. 313 .

INDEX cinema. See film citizens’ movements (shimin undo), 154–155, 168–169, 173, 272, 296n30 civil rights movement, 3, 37, 272, 277n4 Cleaning Event, 199–200, 299n26 Cold War, 21; Japan’s role in, 1, 6, 13, 38, 49, 73, 109, 117, 137, 268; rhe­toric of, 6, 38, 49, 52; origins of, 9; US policies and objectives in, 9, 58, 73; relation of US-­Japan Security Treaty to, 36; end of, 74 Cominform, 128 Communist Party. See Japan Communist Party Constitution of Japan, 124; potential revision of, 2, 25, 80–82, 162, 165, 264, 268–269; Article 9 of, 9–10, 25, 162, 264; creation of, 9, 11, 219, 268; ­labor rights in, 9, 137; ­women’s rights in, 9, 32; protection of 15, 19, 123; right to petition in, 161; Article 21 of, 219, 221; freedom of expression in, 219–221 courts, 14, 17, 200–201, 218–222, 261, 265 Cuban Missile Crisis, 37, 65–66 Dai Nippon Aikokutō, 252–253, 256–257 dance, 176, 182 Demo­cratic Party (Japan). See Demo­cratic Party of Japan; Liberal Demo­cratic Party: formation of Demo­cratic Party (United States), 35; 1968 National Convention, 4 Demo­cratic Party of Japan, 107 Demo­cratic Socialist Party (DSP), 102, 107–113, 124, 126, 139, 269 Dillon, C. Douglas, 49 Dore, Ronald, 118–119 DSP. See Demo­cratic Socialist Party Dulles, John Foster, 12, 38–40 economic growth: of Japan, 2, 59–60, 70, 72, 87, 94, 101–107, 126–127, 138, 141, 151, 174, 264–265, 270–272; of China, 2, 272

Eda Saburō, 114, 117, 127, 141; “Eda Vision” of socialism, 114, 123–125, 128 education: “demo­cratic education,” 9, 218; education reform in Japan, 77, 162, 165; Japa­nese government, support of, 103; increasing education in Japan, 108; prewar education system, 162 Eisenhower, Dwight D.: planned visit to Japan, 6, 22–24, 27, 33, 35, 42, 48, 50, 234–235, 250, 280n31; administration of, 17, 38, 46–47, 49–50, 68, 73; diplomacy with the Soviet Union, 21; signing of the US-­Japan Security Treaty, 21; policies ­toward Japan, 36–46, 58–60 Ekonomisto, 124, 166 emperor of Japan. See Hirohito “emperor system” (tennōsei), 157, 218, 261 environmentalist movement, 3, 4, 6, 168, 175, 272 Etō Jun, 177, 211 Expo ’70. See Osaka World’s Fair (1970) farmers: involvement in protests, 15, 19, 183; as target of the Income Doubling Plan, 99; as base of the LDP, 108; as potential base of the socialist parties, 109, 111; as target of communist agitation, 128, 183 feminism. See ­women’s liberation movement film, 16, 176, 178, 181–182, 218, 261, 273 “fixers” (fikusā). See rightists: right-­wing “fixers” Ford, Gerald, 50 Foreign Affairs, 46, 53 Frachon, Benoît, 141 ­free trade, 38, 41, 59–60, 74, 109 Fujita Hachirō, 221 Fukazawa Shichirō, 256–259 Fukuda Takeo, 96 Fukuda Tsuneari, 211

. 314 .

INDEX Fukuda Yoshiyuki, 207–208 Fulbright, J. William, 52 “Fūryū mutan.” See Shimanaka incident GATT. See General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gekidan Kumo, 206 Gekidan Mingei, 203, 206–207 gekiga, 176 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 38 Gensuikyō, 16, 19, 134 Girard, William S. See Girard incident Girard incident, 16–17, 38, 42, 72 Godzilla (1954 film), 16 Goodman, David G., 208 Gotō Motoo, 96 Group Ongaku, 196 Gunzō, 211

Himeoka Reiji, 149, 294n16 Hirano Ken, 210–211 Hi-­Red Center, 196, 198–202 Hirohito, 8–9, 256, 263 Hironaka Toshio, 7 Hirooka Tomoo, 237 Hokkaidō Shinbun, 234 Honda Chikao, 238 Honda Shūgo, 212 Hosmer, Craig, 35, 47 Hosono Gunji, 51 Hotta Yoshie, 180, 213 house­wives, 26, 105, 170–171, 173–174, 278n6, 297n50 humanism, 177, 181–182, 216, 218, 273; Nishio Suehiro’s “idealistic humanism,” 109 Humphrey, Hubert, 36 Hungary, Soviet invasion of, 13, 146

Hagerty, James. See Hagerty incident Hagerty incident, 27–29, 32, 35, 54, 148, 234, 236, 281nn36–37 Haiyū-za, 203, 207 Hakamada Satomi, 130, 133 Hamaya Hiroshi, 179, 298n7 Hanada Kiyoteru, 213 Haneda Airport: student protests at, 20–21, 147, 152; Reischauer’s arrival at, 52. See also Hagerty incident Haniya Yutaka, 7, 212 Han no Kai, 177 Hariu Ichirō, 197, 201, 213 Harvard University, 6, 37, 46, 47, 53 Hata Tokio, 260 Hatoyama Ichirō, 80–81 Hayashi Hikaru, 179, 207, 297n1, 298n7 Heiwa Mondai Danwakai. See Peace Prob­lems Discussion Group Herter, Christian, 40–41, 43–46, 49 Hidaka Rokurō, 22 high-­speed economic growth. See economic growth

Ide Takashi, 132 Ikeda Hayato: administration of, 36, 49, 56, 75–107, 148–149, 255–256; and John F. Kennedy, 36–37, 47, 49–51, 54–66, 70–71, 73–76; death of, 36, 71, 98; and Satō Eisaku, 36, 63, 66, 81, 89, 90, 94–96, 98; 1961 summit with Kennedy, 37, 50, 53–62, 73, 94; and Kishi Nobusuke, 37, 47–48, 58, 76–79, 81–82, 84–85, 89–90, 95, 99–100; and Christian Herter, 44; and Douglas MacArthur II, 44–45; and Japa­nese business community, 47–48, 75, 280n31; and the 1960 general election, 48, 75, 85, 94; policies ­toward the United States, 48–49, 70; and trade with China, 57–58, 71; and Lyndon Johnson, 71; rise to power, 75, 77–78; popu­lar image of, 76–77, 84–87, 265; as member of the Yoshida cabinet, 76–77, 87; as member of the Kishi cabinet, 77, 99; effect of the 1960 protests on, 77–80, 82–83, 87, 100–101, 223, 240;

. 315 .

INDEX Ikeda Hayato (continued) relations with the media, 77, 85, 88, 99–101, 240, 242; and opposition parties, 79, 81–86, 107–108; and diplomatic normalization with South ­Korea, 79–80; and constitutional revision, 80, 265; and LDP factions, 88–98, 107–108, 269; and Kōno Ichirō, 90, 94–95, 98–100; and Miki Takeo, 90, 94–96; and the l­ abor movement, 136, 143–144; plot to assassinate, 254–255. See also Income Doubling Plan Imaizumi Yoshihiko, 182–183 Imamichi Junzō, 244 Imperial House­hold Agency, 256 Imperial Rescript on Education, 162 Income Doubling Plan, 47, 70, 85, 98–107, 133, 141, 150, 272 income in­equality, 2, 272, 277n2 intellectuals, 6, 53, 56, 168; role in the 1960 protests, 20, 144, 154–156, 159–165; role as “ideological pathfinders,” 46; support for the DSP, 112; as potential base of the JSP, 118; and the JCP, 128, 132, 266; retreat from activism, 134, 154–168, 174, 266, 270; targeted by Zenkyōtō, 153; government surveillance of, 240; attempts by business interests to co-­opt or countermand, 241, 246; supposed presence in newsrooms, 247; assassination attempts against, 254; opposition to censorship, 261; loosening grip of Marxism on, 272 International Metalworkers Federation, Japan Council of, 142 Ishibashi Tanzan, 12, 80, 89; Ishibashi faction, 89, 94, 136 Ishida Hirohide, 94, 108, 136 Ishida Takeshi, 26 Ishihara Shintarō, 177 Ishii Mitsujirō, faction of, 89, 97

Ishin Kōdō Tai, attack on shingeki protesters, 29–30, 205, 207, 248–249 Isoda Kōichi, 212, 216–217 Itō Masaya, 87, 100–101 Itō Sei, 211 Iwai Akira, 112, 138–139, 143 Japan Chamber of Commerce, 33, 282n43 Japan Communist Party (JCP), 102, 128–133; postwar legalization of, 9; and the ­labor movement, 10, 27, 128, 137, 203; “lovable” image of, 12, 128; relations with the Chinese Communist Party, 12, 132; relations with the Soviet Union, 12; and the student movement, 16, 26–27, 128, 132, 145–150, 178, 183, 195, 266; role in the 1960 protests, 19, 27, 42, 109, 112, 129–131; retreat from militancy, 108, 129, 133, 145, 183; electoral outcomes, 125, 129, 130, 133; militant line in the 1950s, 128–129, 145, 183, 192; and intellectuals, 128, 132, 266; and writers, 132, 210, 212–215, 266; and artists, 132, 182–183, 192, 195, 266, 298n11; and theater, 203, 206, 209; targeted in the Sanyū incident, 255 Japan Congress of Journalists, 229 Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. See Gensuikyō Japan Red Army, 152, 295n20 Japan Self-­Defense Forces, 33, 10, 19 Japan Socialist Party (JSP), 52, 77, 86, 89, 102, 113–128; 1955 reunification of, 10, 12, 107, 110–111, 113, 139, 268; relationship with Sōhyō, 12, 109, 123, 127, 137, 139, 141, 144; relations with the Chinese Communist Party, 12; relations with the Soviet Union, 12; role in the Sunagawa strug­gle, 16; efforts to prevent revision of the US-­Japan Security Treaty, 19–23, 139; retreat from militancy, 79, 133; and

. 316 .

INDEX constitutional revision, 81–82, 269; decline of, 81–82, 108, 114, 174; split with the DSP, 107, 109–112, 139, 269; electoral outcomes, 111–113, 125–126, 139; reaction to the 1960 protests, 114–128; and the student movement, 149–150; and theater, 205 Japan Teachers Union. See Nikkyōsō JCP. See Japan Communist Party Jiji Press, 234 Johnson, Lyndon B., 36, 63, 71, 152; administration of, 66, 71 Johnson, U. Alexis, 72 Joint Declaration of the Seven Tokyo Newspapers (June 17, 1960), 33, 228–229, 238–239, 247 JSP. See Japan Socialist Party jumin undo. See residents’ movements junbungaku (“pure” lit­er­a­ture), 210–212 June 15 incident, 1, 3, 5, 19–20, 29–33, 77, 100, 169–170, 195; incursion by protesters into National Diet compound, 1, 3, 20, 30–32, 148, 156–157, 195; media reporting of, 1, 3, 227, 236–238; right-­wing attack on shingeki protesters, 29–30, 32, 205, 207, 227, 249 kabuki, 202 Kaihō Ha, 151 Kakukyōdō, 146–147, 149–151 Kakumaru Ha, 150 Kanba Michiko, 30–32, 34, 77, 120, 170, 179, 197, 222, 245 Kansai Gokokudan, 248 Kanze Hideo, 207, 300n41 Kara Jūrō, 208–209 Karashima Kichizō, 242 Kashiwamura Nobuo, 33 Kasuga Shōjirō, 129, 131–132, 150 Katayama Tetsu, 12 Katsuragawa Hiroshi, 183–192 Kawakami Jōtarō, 112, 125, 252

Kawanami Toyosaku, 255 Kazakura Shō, 195 Keidanren, 33, 281n43 keiretsu (informal business associations), 11, 278–279n12 Keizai Dōyūkai, 33, 92, 282n43 Keizai Saiken Kondankai, 91–92 Kennedy, John F.: administration of, 36–37, 47, 50; and Hayato Ikeda, 36–37, 47, 49–51, 54–66, 70–71, 73–76; assassination of, 36, 50, 71; nomination of Reischauer as ambassador to Japan, 37, 47, 51–52; policies ­toward Japan, 37, 49–50, 53, 59, 71–73, 270; 1960 presidential campaign of, 46; 1961 summit with Ikeda, 50, 53–62, 73, 94; decision to resume atmospheric nuclear testing, 50, 63–65; planned visit to Japan, 50 Kennedy, Robert, 50, 53 Khrushchev, Nikita, 12, 21, 64, 146 Kijima Masamichi, 30 Kim Jong-­pil, 80 Kinoshita Junji, 180 Kishigami Daisaku, 179 Kishi Nobusuke: efforts to revise the US-­Japan Security Treaty, 2, 4, 12, 17–25, 66, 75, 80, 90, 136, 222; popu­lar opposition to, 2, 25–27, 42, 78, 119–120, 147, 154–155, 164–165, 173, 177, 185, 264, 266, 273; relationship with Abe Shinzō, 4; resignation as prime minister, 4, 32–34, 36, 47, 77, 78, 90, 120, 179; and Dwight D. Eisenhower, 4–6, 17, 21, 23–24, 32–33, 35, 40, 42–43, 120, 250; and the formation of the LDP, 10; rise to power, 12, 25; efforts to revise the Police Duties Law, 18–19, 25, 110, 223; and LDP factions, 19, 21–22, 75, 88–89, 94–96; relations with the media, 21, 25, 32–33, 231–240, 246; and constitutional revision, 25, 80–81; and Japa­nese business community, 25–26,

. 317 .

INDEX Kishi Nobusuke (continued) 47–48, 280n31; association with Kodama Yoshio, 26, 250; and Hayato Ikeda, 36–37, 47–48, 58, 76–79, 81–82, 84–85, 89–90, 95, 99–100; and Satō Eisaku, 36, 72, 81, 89–90, 94–96; and John Foster Dulles, 39–40; and Christian Herter, 40; and Nishio Suehiro, 110; stabbed by a right-­wing youth, 252 Kiyose Ichirō, 22–23 Kōchikai, 97, 99, 101 Kodama Yoshio, 26, 250, 257 Koe Naki Koe no Kai, 155, 168 kōenkai, 88, 90–91 Kōkai Ha, 150 Kokumin Kaigi, formation of, 18–20; composition of, 19, 90, 134, 147, 199; role of JCP within, 19–20, 27, 109, 130, 133; actions during the 1960 protests, 20–34; role of Zengakuren within, 27, 134, 147; and Shimizu Ikutarō, 155, 159–162 Kokumin Kyōkai, 92–93 Kokumin Seiji Kenkyūkai, 241–242 Kokurō, 138–139, 144 Kokushikai, 255 Kokusuikai, 257 Kōmeitō, 125, 133 Komori Kazutaka, 257–258 Kōno Ichirō, 89–90, 94–95, 98–100, 254 ­Korea. See North ­Korea; South ­Korea Korean minority in Japan, 219 Korean War, 10 Kōrōkyō, 143 Kosaka Zentarō, 44–46, 48–49, 59, 63 Kōza Ha, 129–130 Kubo Kiyoshi, 135 Kudō Tetsumi, 179–180, 195 Kuno Osamu, 154, 168 Kurahashi Yumiko, 178, 210, 212 Kuroda Kan’ichi, 146, 150 Kurogane Yasumi, 143

Kyodo News, 229, 234, 235 Kyōsandō. See Bund ­labor movement, 134–144; early postwar militancy of, 2, 15, 116, 137, 218, 268; Occupation encouragement of, 9, 11, 128, 137; public sector ­unions within, 9, 25, 139, 142–144; “Reverse Course” suppression of, 9–10; and the JCP, 10, 27, 128, 137, 203; role in the 1960 protests, 19–20, 24, 27, 134–136, 144, 219, 228–229; targeted by the “Reischauer offensive,” 53; targeted by structural reformers, 116; as a base of the JSP, 118; decline of, 126, 141, 173–174, 242; retreat from militancy, 134, 142, 144, 242, 265, 270; weakness of, 137, 144; enterprise ­unions within, 138, 140; role of ­women within, 170–171; support for shingeki, 203; criticized by authors, 215–216; targeted in the Sanyū incident, 255. See also Chūritsu Rōren; Kokurō; Kōrōkyō; Miike Coal Mine strike; Nikkyōsō; Shinbun Rōren; Sōhyō; Tanrō; Zenrō ­labor ­unions. See ­labor movement Laotian Border Crisis (1962), 65–66 LDP. See Liberal Demo­cratic Party Liao-­Takasaki memorandum, 71; and the media, 233, 242 Liberal Demo­cratic Party (LDP), 2, 165; efforts to reform, 6, 77–78, 91–97, 107–108, 110, 269; formation of, 10, 88, 110, 268; supported by the CIA, 10; and neutralism, 13; factional infighting within, 21, 75–76, 88–90, 93–97, 107, 113–114, 269; efforts to revise the US-­Japan Security Treaty, 22–23, 90; and trade with China, 57; expenditures of, 70, 91; 1960 leadership contest, 77–78; relations with opposition parties, 79, 87; and constitutional revision, 80–82, 265;

. 318 .

INDEX and “income doubling,” 99–100, 102, 105; and the 1960 election, 102, 113; anticipated electoral decline of, 108; and the ­labor movement, 143 Liberal Party. See Liberal Demo­cratic Party: formation of lit­er­a­ture, 176–177, 181, 209–216, 218, 256, 264, 270, 273. See also Shimanaka incident; writers Lod Airport Massacre, 152, 295n20 Lucky Dragon incident, 16, 63, 219 MacArthur, Douglas (general), 8–9, 69 MacArthur, Douglas, II (diplomat), 44, 46, 51; involvement in the Hagerty incident, 27–28; involvement in treaty revision, 39; diplomatic style, 40–41; assessments of the 1960 protests, 43, 45; meetings with media outlet heads, 234, 236, 246 Macmillan, Harold, 48 Maeda Yoshinori, 244 Maeo Shigesaburō, 76, 91, 96, 103 magazines, 227, 228, 260–261, 304n14. See also Chūō Kōron; Sekai Mainichi Shinbun, 33, 228–229, 232, 234, 237–238, 247–248, 251 manga, 176, 180 Mansfield, Mike, 36 Maoism, 128, 129, 146, 183 Mao Zedong, 9, 83 Marugakudō, 149–150 Maruyama Masao, 155, 159, 163–168 Marxism, 26, 45, 109, 118–119, 121–123, 125–126, 140, 151–152, 156, 181–182, 212, 272 mass media, 226–248; coverage of the Sunagawa protests, 15; relationship with Kishi, 21, 25, 32–33, 231–240, 246; coverage of the 1960 protests, 26, 234; turns against the 1960 protests, 33, 236–239; coverage of Robert Kennedy’s visit, 50; coverage of first meeting of

the Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs (1961), 56; coverage of the 1961 Kennedy–­Ikeda summit, 57, 62; relationship with Ikeda, 77, 85, 88, 99–101, 240, 242; growing importance of, 84; coverage of the DSP, 112; coverage of Eda Vision, 124; coverage of “structural reform,” 127; coverage of the JSP, 130; coverage of Neo-­Dada Organizers, 198; response to the 1960 protests, 218; shared ideal of “speaking truth to power,” 218, 226, 237, 246, 260; and the right wing, 252, 254; adopts more conciliatory stance ­after 1960, 260–262, 265, 270 “mass media countermea­sures” (masukomi taisaku), 233, 239–242 Masutani Shūji, 91 Masuzawa Kinpei, 178, 195 Matsubakai, 248, 257 Matsumoto Seichō, 210 Matsumoto Toshio, 178 Matsumura Kenzō, 89–90, 94 Matsunaga Anzaemon, 26 Matsuoka Yōko, 177 Matsuura Sōzō, 260 May 19 incident, 2, 22–25; mass media reaction to, 25, 231–232, 236, 239; JCP reaction to, 27, 130; Kishi’s actions ­after, 32, 155, 232, 239; DSP reaction to 113; the ­labor movement’s reaction to, 136; intellectuals’ reaction to, 154–155, 163–167; ­women’s reaction to, 171, 173; artists’ reaction to, 177, 205 media. See mass media Miike Coal Mine strike, 75, 80, 118, 121–123, 135–137, 139–142, 179, 250, 265 Mikami Taku, 255 Miki Takeo, 89, 90, 94–97 Miki Tomio, 195 Mikoyan, Anastas, 255

. 319 .

INDEX military bases, 1, 264; protests against, 13–17, 19, 41, 74, 145–146, 159, 165, 183, 195, 268, 270; utilization of, 18, 22, 65, 269. See also Sunagawa; Uchinada Minpō Rōren, 241 Minseidō, 132 Mishima Yukio, 213, 250–252, 259 Mitarai Tatsuo, 240 Mitsui. See Miike Coal Mine strike Miyamoto Kenji, 129 Miyazawa Kiichi, 4, 60–61, 76–78, 82–83, 99 Mizukami Tsutomu, 210 Modern Drama Association. See Shingekijin Kaigi modernism, 177 Moriyama Masamichi, 26 Moscow, Eisenhower’s planned trip to, 22, 36 Murakami Namiroku, 252 Murayama Nagataka, 234 Nakajima Kenzō, 177 Nakamura Mitsuo, 211 Nakanishi Natsuyuki, 195, 198, 202 Nakano Shigeharu, 215 Nakasone Yasuhiro, 67 Nakayama Ichirō, 98–99 Nakayama Masa, 94 Narita Airport, protests against, 152, 158 Narita Tomomi, 125 National Federation of Neutral ­Labor Unions. See Chūritsu Rōren National Income Doubling Plan. See Income Doubling Plan National Police Agency, 33, 223, 225, 250, 255 National Police Reserve, 10 Neo-­Dada Organizers, 177–178, 193–198, 201 neutralism, 13, 27, 44, 55, 59, 69, 70, 109, 117, 137, 159, 161, 264

New Left, 7, 133, 144, 151–158, 199, 222, 249, 263, 266–267, 272–273 newspapers, 226–248; reaction to the May 19 incident, 25, 231–232, 236, 239; coverage of the 1960 protests, 26, 231–239; issue joint declaration condemning “vio­lence,” 33, 228–229, 238–239, 247; coverage of the Shimanaka incident, 258; response to proposed revival of lese-­majesté, 261 New Wave cinema, 176 New York Times, 35 NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai), 23, 233–235, 239, 244–245, 254 Nihon Bungeigaku Kai, 213 Nihon Educational Tele­vi­sion, 241 Nihon Hahaoya Taikai, 134 Nihon Indépendant, 179, 193–194 Nihonjinron (theories about the Japa­nese race), 267, 308n3 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 25, 33, 232, 234, 236 Nikkeiren, 33, 240, 282n43 Nikkyōsō, 25, 255 nikutai shōsetsu (“carnal body” novels), 218 “1955 system,” 107, 268–269 Ninja bugeichō, 176, 180 Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai. See NHK Nishi Nihon Shinbun, 234 Nishio Suehiro, 109–113, 124, 126, 139, 269 Nixon, Richard M., 32, 46, 58, 66–67, 72 Nixon shocks, 66–67, 73–74 noh, 202, 207, 300n41 Noma Hiroshi, 132, 213, 215 Nomura Hiroshi, 233–234 non-­art, 176, 201 North ­Korea, 74 Nosaka Sanzō, 12, 128, 254 November 27 incident, 20, 29, 147, 159, 162, 219 Noyori Hideichi, 257

. 320 .

INDEX nuclear weapons: Japan protected by US “nuclear umbrella,” 13, 109, 264, 270; testing of, 13, 16, 42, 50, 63–65; movement against, 16–17, 19, 134, 145, 159; treaty banning testing of, 37, 132; resumption of atmospheric tests of, 50, 63–65; US vessels carry­ing into Japa­nese ports, 68; Japan’s potential development of, 162 Occupation of Japan, 8–11, 76, 271, 278n9; “Reverse Course,” 9–11, 25, 223, 268; and the ­labor movement, 9–10, 128, 137; end of, 10, 37, 80; and censorship, 218, 226 O’Donnell, Kenneth, 65 Ōe Kenzaburō, 177, 212, 216, 257, 259 Ōhira Masayoshi, 48, 56, 63, 76, 79, 98, 100 Okinawa, 11, 14, 55, 68, 72, 74, 80, 308n1 Okuno Takeo, 212–213, 215–216 Old Left, 152–153, 169, 195, 199, 266 Olympic Games (1964), 95, 199 Ōmori Minoru, 247 1,000-­Yen Note incident, 199–201 Ōno Banboku, faction of, 90 Ōoka Shōhei, 211–212 Osaka World’s Fair (1970), 201–202 Ōshima Nagisa, 178 Ōta Kaoru, 121–122, 137–144 Ōuchi Hyōe, 141 Ozawa Ichirō, 4 Park Chun Hee, 255 Parsons, Graham, 45–47, 51 “Parutai” (The Party), 178, 210, 212 Peace Prob­lems Discussion Group, 159 ­People’s Council for Preventing Revision of the Security Treaty. See Kokumin Kaigi ­People’s Republic of China, 12–13, 19, 74, 128, 137, 264; economic growth of, 2, 272; fall to the communists, 9, 25, 38; trade and diplomatic relations with

Japan, 13, 44, 55, 57–58, 71–73, 80, 99; Nixon’s 1972 visit to, 66–67; relations with the JCP, 129; shingeki joint tour of, 179, 206 photography, 3, 15, 31, 176, 179, 182, 238 poetry, 176, 179, 182 police, 218–226; clash with protesters in the June 15 incident, 1, 30–31, 34, 121, 156, 170, 227, 247, 236–237; localization of during the Occupation, 8, 223; 1954 renationalization of, 9, 10, 223; clash with protesters during “Bloody May Day,” 14; clash with protesters at Sunagawa, 15–16; clash with protesters in first Handa incident, 21, 147; introduced into the National Diet, 23, 268, 280n30; clash with protesters during the Hagerty incident, 27; riot police (kidōtai), 27, 136, 223, 225; implement de facto ban on protesting near the Diet, 29, 159, 161, 223, 225, 266; inability to guarantee Eisenhower’s safety, 33, 250; targeted by militant communists in the early 1950s, 128, 145; targeted by New Left student protesters in the late 1960s, 132; support for second ­union at Miike, 136; clash with protesters in second Haneda incident, 152; efforts to limit protests without new legislation, 225, 265; growth of, 225–226, 303n11; prewar “thought police,” 226, 249; tracking of right-­wing groups, 250; discovery of right-­wing plots against po­liti­cal leaders, 254–255; protection of writers from right-­wing threats, 259 Police Duties Law, 1958 protests against proposed revision of, 18–20, 25, 99, 109–112, 118, 139, 145, 223 Police Law, 1954 revision of, 10, 223 Po­liti­cal Vio­lence Prevention Bill, 79, 150, 157, 223, 258 “Pollution Diet” of 1970, 272

. 321 .

INDEX postmodernism, 177, 202, 208, 216, 273 Powers, Francis Gary, 21 public safety ordinances (kōan jōrei), 219–222, 265, 270

Rōnō Ha, 129 Rostow, Walt, 54–55 Rusk, Dean, 50–51, 56, 63–65 Ryū Shintarō, 238, 243–244

radio, 1, 153, 170, 227, 232–233, 243, 263 realism, 177, 182, 202. See also socialist realism Rec­ord Number 1, 207–208 Red Purge (reddo pāji), 10, 128 Reischauer, Edwin O., 6, 58, 72–73; nomination as ambassador to Japan, 37, 51–52; writes “The Broken Dialogue with Japan,” 46; actions as ambassador, 52–54, 247; “(Kennedy-) Reischauer offensive,” 53, 247, 270; promotes advance consultations with Japan, 63–67; compares Japan to a child growing up, 69–70; stabbed by a right-­wing youth, 255 reportage (art), 15, 182, 273 Republican Party (United States), 38, 40, 51 residents’ movements (jumin undo), 168, 171, 173–174, 272 “Reverse Course” (gyaku kōsu). See Occupation of Japan rightists, 248–262; right-­wing “fixers,” 6, 26, 249–250, 260; and neutralism, 13; greet Reischauer’s arrival, 52; commit wave of terror attacks ­after 1960, 79, 252–263, 266–267; violent actions during the 1960 protests, 121, 264; oppose striking workers at Miike, 135, 250; reaction to the 1960 protests, 218–219, 248, 251–252, 265–266; mobilized to protect Eisenhower, 250. See also Asanuma Inejirō: assassination of; Ishin Kōdō Tai; Sanyū incident; Shimanaka incident rōen (workers’ theater councils), 203–204 Rogers, William, 67

Sakai Naka. See Girard incident Sakisaka Itsurō, 111 Sakurai Tokutarō, 255 San Francisco Peace Treaty, 11, 145, 279n13 Sankei Shinbun, 25, 33, 84, 232, 234, 237–238, 243 Sanpa Zengakuren, 151–152 Sanyū incident, 255, 307n73 Sasaki Kiichi, 211–212 Sasaki Kōzō, 124–125, 127 Sata Ineko, 132 Satō Eisaku: inheritance of Ikeda’s policies, 36, 66, 240; and Edwin Reischauer, 63; and Lyndon Johnson, 63; and Nixon shocks, 66–67, efforts to secure reversion of Okinawa, 72–73, 80; and constitutional revision, 81; Satō faction, 89–90, 94–97; member of Ikeda’s “heavyweight cabinet,” 94; succeeds Ikeda as prime minster, 98; and second Haneda incident, 152 Satō Makoto, 208–209, 301n47 Scalapino, Robert, 128–129 SCAP (Supreme Command for the Allied Powers). See Occupation of Japan Science of Thought, Institute for the. See Shisō no Kagaku Kenkyūkai Scott Stokes, Henry, 250 secret agreements (between the United States and Japan), 68, 265 Security Treaty generation (Anpo sedai), 4, 202, 217 Security Treaty Prob­lems Research Association, 159, 163 Seijiteki Bōryoku Bōshi Hōan. See Po­liti­cal Vio­lence Prevention Bill

. 322 .

INDEX Seinen Geijutsu Gekijō (Seigei), 207 Sekai, 161, 163, 228, 241 Self-­Defense Forces. See Japan Self-­ Defense Forces Senda Koreya, 179 Senuma Shigeki, 211 Seventeen (Ōe Kenzaburō novella), 257, 259 Shaseidō, 149–151, 291n9 Shiga Yoshio, 132 Shigemitsu Mamoru, 12, 39 Shikanai Nobutaka, 242 Shimanaka incident, 255–261 shimin undo. See citizens’ movements Shimizu Ikutarō, 155, 159–163, 165–167, 296n33 Shimomura Osamu, 101, 104 Shinbun Rōren, 229–230, 235, 243 shingeki (modern drama), 181, 202–209. See also Shingekijin Kaigi Shingekijin Kaigi (Modern Drama Association), 29–30, 32, 205, 207, 248–249 Shin Nihon Bungakkai, 213–215 Shin Nihon Bungaku, 215 Shin Nippon Kyōgikai, 249 Shinoda Hajime, 213 Shinohara Ushio, 195–196 Shin Sanbetsu, 138 Shiraishi Kayoko, 209 Shirato Sanpei, 176, 180 Shisō no Kagaku, 261 Shisō no Kagaku Kenkyūkai (Institute for the Science of Thought), 154–155, 168 Shōriki Matsutarō, 242 shuntō. See “spring wage offensive” “Sino-­Soviet Split,” 12 snake dance, 4, 20, 145, 222–224 Socialist Party. See Japan Socialist Party socialist realism, 182–183, 185–186, 192–194, 196–197, 209, 218, 273 Social Masses Party, 109

Society for Criticizing the Security Treaty. See Anpo Hihan no Kai Sōdōmei, 137 Sōhyō, 134–144, 152; formation of, 10; role in 1950s protests, 14, 16, 137; and the JSP, 12, 109, 123, 127, 137, 139, 141, 144; relations with Communist China, 12, 137; relations with the Soviet Union, 12, 137; role in the 1960 protests, 19, 24–25, 29, 34, 109, 112, 134–135, 139, 154, 168, 232; and Nishio Suehiro, 109–112, 139; and “structural reform,” 121, 123, 126, 141; reaction to the 1960 protests, 123, 140–141, 265; retreat from militancy, 133, 141–144, 168, 174, 265; and newspaper ­unions, 229, 232, 235, 243; targeted in the Sanyū incident, 255. See also “spring wage offensive” South ­Korea, 21, 79–80, 150, 245–246, 255 Soviet Union, 12–13, 264; occupation of Eastern Eu­rope, 9; 1956 invasion of Hungary, 13, 146; conflict with the United States, 42, 50, 65–66; resumption of atmospheric nuclear tests, 50, 63–64; diplomatic normalization with Japan, 80; pillar of Eda Saburō’s “vision,” 124–125; and the JCP, 128–129, 132; and Sōhyō, 137; exclusion from the Occupation, 278n9. See also Cuban Missile Crisis; U-2 incident “spring wage offensive” (shuntō), 138, 143, 265 Stalin, Joseph, 12–13, 128–129, 146 Stalinism, 125, 146, 150 strikes, 9, 19, 22, 25; aborted general strike of 1947, 9; 1950s strikes, 10, 137, 218, 268; against the Security Treaty, 24–25, 29, 34, 123, 135, 156, 178, 232–233, 248; Zenrō’s antipathy ­toward, 109; Sakisaka Itsurō’s call for, 111; reluctance of enterprise ­unions to employ, 138; ban on public sector

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INDEX strikes (continued) strikes, 142–143; disastrous 1970s strikes, 144. See also ­labor movement; Miike Coal Mine strike; “spring wage offensive” “structural reform,” 114–128, 141, 150, 291n9 student movement, 3, 40, 144–154, 202, 205, 243, 263; role in the 1960 protests, 19–20, 30–31; and the JCP, 128, 132, 178; implosion of, 134, 270; and Yoshimoto Takaaki, 156, 158, 162; retreat from militancy, 266. See also New Left; Zengakuren; Zenkyōtō studio system, 181–182 Sumimoto Toshio, 238 Sunagawa, anti-­base protests at, 15–16, 19, 145–146, 183 Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP). See Occupation of Japan surrealism, 186, 189, 191 Suzuki Ichizō, 132 Suzuki Tadashi, 209 taishū bungaku (“mass” lit­er­a­ture), 210–211 Takabatake Michitoshi, 154, 168 Takahashi Kazumi, 213 Takamatsu Jirō, 198, 202 Takami Jun, 211 Takano Minoru, 137–138 Takeda Michitarō, 34 Takei Teruo, 213 Takemori Kiyoshi, 256, 258 Takeuchi Yoshimi, 154, 161, 165, 167 Tanaka Seigen, 26 Tanrō, 136–137 Teito Nichi Nichi Shinbun, 257 tele­vi­sion: power of, 1, 3, 26, 244; spread of, 1, 84, 153, 226–228, 277n3; conservatives’ use of, 85, 241–243; Eda Saburō’s use of, 127; protesters’ use of, 153;

artists’ use of, 197–198; censorship of, 244–245 theater, 176, 181–182, 202–209. See also angura; shingeki Time magazine, 246–247 Tōfū Sasshin Renmei, 95–96, 289n29 Togawa Isamu, 242 Tokyo Shinbun, 33, 234, 238 Tokyo Times, 33, 238 Tokyo University, 30–31, 40, 148, 151, 159, 167 Tōno Yoshiaki, 196 Trade Expansion Act of 1962, 59 Trotskyism, 146–147 Truman, Harry S., 38; administration of, 57 Tsumura Hiroshi, 236 Tsurumi Shunsuke, 154–155, 168, 261, 296n30 Turkey, 21 TV Asahi, 241 Uchinada, anti-­base protests at, 14–15, 159 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. See Soviet Union ­unions. See ­labor movement United Red Army, 295n20 USSR. See Soviet Union U-2 incident, 21–22, 36 Vietnam War, 37, 58, 72, 247, 277n4; protests against, 3, 74, 155, 168, 272 visual arts, 176, 181–202. See also artists Voiceless Voices Society. See Koe Naki Koe no Kai Wakai Nihon no Kai, 177, 180, 297n1 Waseda ­Little Theater, 209 Waseda University, 50 Washington Post, 35, 47 Watanabe Tsuneo, 85 ­women: right to vote of, 8–9; involvement in anti-­base protests, 15; role in

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INDEX the 1960 protests, 18–19, 30, 32, 90, 169–171; incentivized to be ­house­wives, 105; actions ­after the 1960 protests, 171–175, 278n6; expected to write “­women’s lit­er­a­ture,” 210. See also ­women’s liberation movement ­women’s liberation movement, 4, 6, 168, 175, 272 World War II, Japan’s defeat in, 1–2, 8, 11–12, 156, 158, 163, 166 writers, 209–216; response to the 1960 protests, 6, 209, 211–216; role during the 1960 protests, 20, 29, 164–165, 177; and the JCP, 132, 210, 212–215, 266 yakuza, 6, 170, 218, 248–250, 252, 257 Yamada Katsujirō, 132 Yamaguchi Otoya, 252–254, 257 Yamamoto Kenkichi, 211 Yamashita Kikuji, 178 Yomiuri Indépendant, 179, 194–195, 198 Yomiuri Shinbun, 26, 33, 85, 98, 101, 229, 232–234, 238 Yoshida Hideo, 240–241, 260 Yoshida Shigeru, 9, 13, 40, 45, 58, 76, 80, 87

Yoshimoto Takaaki, 151, 155–159, 166–167, 177, 213, 296n30 Yoshimura Masanobu, 178, 195, 197 zaibatsu (industrial conglomerates), 8–11 zainichi. See Korean minority in Japan Zen Ai Kai, 249, 254 Zen’ei Bijutsukai, 178, 185 Zengakuren, 144–154; role in the Sunagawa protests, 15–16, 145–146; and the JCP, 16, 132, 145–146; formation of, 16, 145; actions during the 1960 protests, 19–20, 26–29, 134, 146–148, 156, 162, 272; funding from right-­wing fixers, 26, 249–250; confrontation with Robert Kennedy, 50; dissolution of, 144, 147–150, 152, 168, 174; numerical strength of, 145; and Yoshimoto Takaaki, 155–156; media coverage of, 238 Zenjiren, 149 Zenkyōtō, 152–153, 158, 167 Zenrō, 109–110, 135, 137, 139, 142 Zero Dimension, 196

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