The prime ministers of postwar Japan, 1945-1995 : their lives and times

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COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON UBRAKl

The Prime Ministers of Postwar Japan, 1945-1995 Their Lives and Times Edited by Akio Watanabe Supervisory Translation by Robert D. Eldridge

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

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All rights reserved. N o part o f this book m ay be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or m echanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, excep t by a review er who m ay quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information A vailable Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Watanabe, Akio, 1 9 3 2 -1Eldridge, Robert D. Title: The prime ministers of postwar Japan, 1945-1995 : their lives and times / edited by Akio Watanabe ; translated [and annotated] by Robert D. Eldridge. Other titles: Sengo Nihon no saish?otachi. English. Description: Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. |Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016004116 (print) |LCCN 2016004487 (ebook) |ISBN 9781498510011 (cloth alkaline paper) |ISBN 9781498510028 (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Prime ministers-Japan-Biography. |Japan-Politics and govemment-1945LCC DS890.A1 S4613 2016 (print) |LCC DS890.A1 (ebook) |DDC 952.04092/2-dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016004116

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Contents

Supervising Translator's Preface Robert D. Eldridge

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Preface to the English Version Akio Watanabe

xiii

Preface to the Original Japanese Version Akio Watanabe 1

2

3 4

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7 8 9

Higashikuni Naruhiko: A Liberal within the Imperial Family Hatano Sumio Shidehara Kijuro: His "Final Public Duty" and the Draft Constitution Amakawa Akira Yoshida Shigeru: A Master of Situational Thinking Akio Watanabe Katayama Tetsu: The First Batter under the New Constitution Fumio Fukunaga Ashida Hitoshi: The Intellectual and Cultured Man as Politician Masuda Fiiroshi Hatoyama Ichiro: A Tenacious Attachment to the Restoration of Relations with the Soviet Union and Constitutional Revision Yamamuro Kentoku Ishibashi Tanzan: A Coherent Liberal Thinker Inoki Takenori Kishi Nobusuke: Frustrated Ambition Kitaoka Shinichi Ikeda Hayato: The Man Who Created the "Economic Era" Nakamura Takafusa

10 Sato Eisaku: The Truth about the "Politics of Waiting" Kosaka Masataka

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9 21

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71 87 97 119 141

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Contents

11 Tanaka Kakuei: The High Point of Developmental Politics Mikuriya Takashi 12 Miki Takeo: Politics of Conviction and Public Opinion Shinkaiva Toshimitsu 13 Fukuda Takeo: Winner in Policy, Loser in Politics Iokibe Makoto 14 Ohira Masayoshi: The One Who Raised the Issue of Deficit Politics Muramatsu Michio 15 Suzuki Zenkd: The Politician Sought by Power Tanaka Zenichird 16 Nakasone Yasuhiro: The Appearance of a Presidential Prime Minister Kusano Atsushi 17 Takeshita Noboru: A Conservative Politician's Melancholy Kume Ikuo 18 Uno Sosuke: A Symbol of the Liberal Democratic Party's Unsoundness ■ Kume Ikuo 19 Kaifu Toshiki: Fatalistic Weakness Fukui Haruhiro 20 Miyazawa Kiichi: The Last Leader of the Main Line of Conservatives Igarashi Takeshi 21 Hosokawa Morihiro: The Catastrophe of Performance Politics Id Jun 22 Hata Tsutomu: The Limits of an "Ordinary Person" Id Jun 23 Murayama Tomiichi: The End of Postwar Democracy Id Jun Appendix A: List of Japanese Political Parties and Intraparty Groups Appearing in This Volume Appendix B: List of Japanese Schools and Organizations Appearing in This Volume Appendix C: Prime Ministers of Postwar Japan (1945-1995) Index About the Editor, Translator, and Contributors

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369 371 377 381 385

Supervising Translator's Preface Robert D. Eldridge

I first recognized the need for the original Japanese version of this book to be translated and published in English when I came across it in one of the classes I was taking in Japanese political and diplomatic history at Kobe University's Graduate School of Law in the latter part of the 1990s. One of the chapter authors, Dr. Iokibe Makoto, used it in his popular but de­ manding seminar. He subsequently told the editor, Dr. Watanabe Akio, about my interest in seeing the book translated and I followed up with the latter scholar after finishing my doctoral program. My own research schedule and the demands on the time of the other chapter writers inter­ ceded, and the translation project went unfinished until I myself started to use the text in one of the classes that I taught a decade later at the Osaka School of International Public Policy. Several of the graduate stu­ dents, both Japanese and foreign-born, expressed an interest in helping and the result was we were able to get several chapters translated, in addition to the ones I had done. Around the same time, I asked Brian Walsh, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University and visiting assistant professor of modern Japanese politics at Haverford College and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Dr. Graham Leonard, who graduated from Osaka Univer­ sity with a focus on U.S.-Japan diplomatic relations, to assist, and they did a brilliant job on a handful of chapters. Other former graduate stu­ dents worked on initial drafts of several other chapters as well: Dr. Sasaki Hazuki (Katayama Tetsu), Tevita Suka Mangisi (Hatoyama Ichiro), both of whom who since earned their doctorates, and Tanaka Kentaro (Murayama Tomiichi), who successfully completed his master's degree. A for­ mer student of contributor Kume Ikuo, now a leading scholar in her own right, Dr. Mary Alice Haddad, professor of Government and chair of the College of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University, did the early drafts of the chapters on Takeshita Noboru and Uno Sosuke. When it became clear a couple of years ago that I would be able to dedicate time to completing the manuscript (while combining a full-time government job as a political advisor in Japan and simultaneously contin­ uing with an aggressive research and publishing schedule), I approached Dr. Watanabe once again and we decided to move forward with the vii

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project, which includes a new chapter for this English version on the role of the prime minister in postwar Japan. I felt this chapter was necessary because there is a debate on just how meaningful the prime minister really is in Japan, if the power of the premiership is in fact governed by factions and the bureaucrats as various scholars have asserted. In other words, these observers assert, the prime minister is a mere figurehead or in some cases the puppet of special interests. This may be true in the case of a few of the postwar prime ministers (of which there have been thirtythree as of 2016), it certainly is not true of all of them. We believe the reader will be able to judge for herself or himself the contribution that each prime minister made as a result of reading this book, and invite the reader to use this book alongside more political science-like works that focus on leadership styles of the prime ministers (such as Shinoda Tomohito's Leading Japan: The Role of the Prime Minister, 2000) or policy-related management skills (e.g., Kenji Hayao, The Japanese Prime Minister and Public Policy, 1993), or even as comparison with those works of other countries, such as in Britain (Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945, 2000). In my own case, working on this book has spawned an interest in me in other topics related to Japanese prime ministers, such as their respec­ tive roles and contributions after stepping down (a la Douglas Brinkley, The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Quest for Global Peace, 1998) and who they were as individuals when they were not being the prime minis­ ter, such as their personal and family lives, friendships with non-politi­ cians, and hobbies. I am already forming joint research teams to research these topics. Another very interesting topic is the influence that staff and colleagues had on the prime ministers, a la the book by British scholars Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon entitled The Powers behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of Number Ten (2000). I have written elsewhere that it is a shame the Japanese prime minister often does not leave documents or even memoirs for contemporary or future researchers to use.1Japan's public diplomacy and image suffers, as does the ability to improve politics and public policy making. I remember interviewing Hashimoto Ryutaro in December 1998 in his private office in Koji-machi, Tokyo, after he had stepped down about Okinawa policy and his relationship with then governor of Okinawa Prefecture Ota Masahide, and asked about a diary or memoirs. He stood up to either get a cigarette or ashtray (or a document) from his desk and I shot up like a rocket out of respect, which caught him off guard (suggesting his col­ leagues did not extend the same courtesy to him), and then said, "I am not important enough to leave a diary or memoirs."2 Fortunately, there has been a realization in Japan of the need to cap­ ture the memories of policymakers and politicians and as such over the last decade oral histories and other similar works are increasingly being published. Better late than never. What will be equally important are the

Supervising Translator's Preface

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preservation of and access to personal papers and other primary docu­ ments.3 The reader will notice quite a few things when using this book. First, in the two decades that have passed since this book originally appeared on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II, there have been eleven additional prime ministers to appear. These men— Hashimoto, Obuchi Keizo, Mori Yoshiro, Koizumi Junichiro, Abe Shinzo, Fukuda Yasuo, Aso Taro, Hatoyama Yukio, Kan Naoto, Noda Yoshihiko, and Abe once again—and their administrations are not introduced in this volume. There were twenty-three prime ministers in the fifty years from August 1945 to the summer of 1995 when the book was completed. At the pace the post-1995 prime ministers are changing (although the predic­ tions are the current Abe administration will be a relatively long one until 2018 when his term as party president expires), it might just take another twenty years (for a total of forty years) to equal that number of twentythree. It is not for me to suggest that one of Dr. Watanabe's disciples take the initiative to edit a similar biographic volume of prime ministers after 1995, but I do hope I will be around then to help with the writing or translation again. Second, in principle, no new or additional materials, such as post­ publication releases of memoirs, oral histories, and biographies, were used when translating the chapters. This was done to preserve the integ­ rity of the original author's work as well as the period in which the chapter appeared. Third, the reader may find some expressions unnatural to the English ear, but again, the desire is to preserve the individual writing style of the chapter author. Japanese readers have commented that the style and per­ sonality of each scholar comes through in the original version of the book, which was only lightly edited by Dr. Watanabe. Similarly, overly standardizing the English version would have been self-defeating and counterproductive, but we did try to unify and tighten up the text where and when possible. Related to this, for consistency's sake, I chose to de­ lete section breaks, which were designated with numbers, from several of the chapters that did have them, as most of them did not. Fourth, also for consistency purposes, full names were added when only family names had appeared, without the expected brackets being used. Japanese names appear as per Japanese custom, with surnames first. A list or glossary of the numerous Japanese political parties appear­ ing in the book is provided, with their English name and original Japa­ nese name, as is one for Japanese organizations. Please refer to these lists as you are reading the book if you are interested in knowing the original Japanese for it. By providing these lists initially, I hoped to eliminate repetition where possible in the book as well as possible distractions. Fifth, additional information (places, locations, relationships) was oc­ casionally inserted for the benefit of the reader who might not be familiar

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with the details, without using brackets, which we felt might distract the reader. Please note that common place names, such as Nagata-cho, which denotes the part of Tokyo where the Diet, or National Parliament, is located, and Kasumigaseki, on the east of the Diet building where the bulk of the bureaucracy, especially the Foreign Ministry, is located, are not described in the text and instead this description here should be referenced. Moreover, where prime ministers have passed away in the interim since the original version of the book was published, such as Uno Sosuke (in 1998), Takeshita Noboru (2000), Suzuki Zenko (2004), and Miyazawa Kiichi (2007), those dates are added in the beginning of each respective chapter. Readers will note, incidentally, that five of the prime ministers covered in this book are still alive today, with one (Nakasone Yasuhiro) approaching his one hundredth birthday. While his hearing is going, his memory remains strong.4 Sixth, some basic information is repeated in each chapter, so that read­ ers who wished to focus on a specific chapter or two would not have to read through the entire book to locate a particular acronym or meaning. This was kept to a minimum, however. Seventh, the career positions of the chapter authors remain in the English version as they were at the time of the writing, although all were subsequently promoted in their careers, and in a few sad cases, such as Nakamura Takafusa (chapter 9), Kosaka Masataka (chapter 10), and Igarashi Takeshi (chapter 20), have since passed away in 2013, 1996, and 2013, respectively. Eighth, in most cases the respective authors reference the subjects of other chapters, as "their" prime minister came after or before someone or that person had a close relationship or rivalry with another prime minis­ ter mentioned. It is interesting to note that the chapter authors are not of one mind when evaluating one another's subjects. The reader may come away finding some slight contradictions between the appraisals of differ­ ent prime ministers. Ninth, I have created a chart of the prime ministers covered in this book, including the years they were alive, the number that their premier­ ship^) represented in modern Japanese constitutional history, their term or terms in office, their birth place, and alma mater. The reader will see that while there is a great diversity in their hometowns, there is an over concentration in their higher education with Tokyo Imperial University (today's University of Tokyo) being the school most of them attended. On a final note, Dr. Watanabe and I, as the supervising translator, would like to thank everyone involved in this project, not least of all, the superb staff of Lexington Books, including Brian Hill, Brighid Klick, Eric Kuntzman, and Megan DeLancey. In addition, we would like to express our deep appreciation to the Suntory Foundation, whose Overseas Pub­ lishing Translation Grant helped fund some of the necessary translating and other related aspects of the project. This important grant, one of few:

Supervising Translator's Preface

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around, has helped bring about many works from the original Japanese into English and other foreign languages and we hope to see it continued in the future. NOTES 1. R obert D. Eld ridge, "F u zai n o Taikoku, N ihon: N aze Sengo n o K okusai Seiji ni Toj5 Shinai n o K a (Japan, the A b sen t P ow er: W h y Jap an D oes N o t A p p ear on Stage in International H isto ry )," Chud Koron, V ol. 122, N o. 7 (July 2007), 2 0 2 -8 . A n English version is available in: "Jap an : The A bsent P ow er: W h y It D oesn 't A p p ear in In tern a­ tional H isto ry ," Kokusai K okyo Seisaku Kenky u (International Public Policy Studies), Vol. 12, N o. 1 (Sep tem ber 2007), 2 7 -3 6 . 2. Fo rtu n ately , before he died p rem atu rely in 2006, h e did co n d u ct an interview w ith Iokibe M akoto, one of the con trib utors to this b ook and the ed ito r's acad em ic ad visor, an d M iyagi D aizo w hich w as p osth u m o u sly p ublished u n d er their editorial tutelage as Hashimoto Ryutard Gaiko Kaikoroku (The D ip lom atic M em oirs of H ash im o to R y u taro), (Tokyo: Iw an am i Shoten, 2013). 3. F o r m o re on this topic, see R obert D. Eld ridge, "Jo m ak u h a K ako ni H iraku: K obunsho Kokai to M insh ush ugi (The P ast is the P relud e to the Present: D eclassified D ocu m en ts and D e m o cracy )," Asteion, N o. 69 (O ctober 2008), 1 2 9 -5 1 . 4. Eld ridge interview w ith N akasone, N akason e Y asu h iro Office, Tokyo, O ctob er 22, 2014.

Preface to the English Version Akio Watanabe

As the title of this book suggests, this is a collection of biographies of the prime ministers who appear in postwar Japan's political history. This is not a book that seeks to provide, per se, a unified or logical framework about political leadership in Japan or about leaders in general. As editor, my only instructions to the various chapter contributors were that they write about their subjects in any way they wished, in the easiest way possible. As such, I do not intend to write about leadership here in this Preface to the English Edition, but I do wish to introduce a few points that may help readers of the English edition better understand Japanese political history. It was in 1885 that Japan adopted the Western parliamentary system of government. On December 22 that year, Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909) be­ came the first prime minister. A total of forty-two cabinet governments was formed between then and August 15,1945, when the Suzuki Kantaro Cabinet resigned with the end of World War II. Among these, several prime ministers returned to power on numerous occasions to form cabi­ nets. For example, ltd served as four times as the first, fifth, seventh, and tenth prime minister. There were several others who did so as well. As such the total number of prewar prime ministers was twenty-nine. In the postwar period covered in this book, the number is twenty-three. There have been ten more prime ministers since the book was published in 1995, for a total of thirty-three in the post-1945 period. The original constitution was enacted in 1889 and the parliament opened the following year in 1890. The "Meiji Constitution" continued until November 1946 when a new constitution was promulgated under the Allied occupation. Politically, the history of the modern Japanese state is divided between the years under the Meiji Constitution and those under the current constitution, which went into effect in May 1947. These two systems are often described as "prewar" and "postwar" and thus technically speaking, Yoshida Shigeru, whose first cabinet existed when the new constitution was promulgated and went into effect six months later, should be considered the "first postwar prime minister" of the twenty-three introduced in this book. However, as the end of World War II in August 1945 is usually the dividing point, we begin this book with xiii

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Higashikuni Naruhiko. In any case, interestingly, there is roughly the same number of prime ministers in the "prewar" (until 1945) as there are in the "postwar" (until 1995). For the reference of the reader, let's look at the average length of the cabinets and that of each prime minister. As mentioned earlier, in the prewar, forty-two cabinets were formed, with twenty-nine prime minis­ ters. In the postwar through today, there were fifty-three cabinets and thirty-three prime ministers. Looking at each cabinet and prime minister, the average length of the cabinets in the prewar was 524 days, with the average prime minister serving 759 days. In the postwar, the numbers were 475 days and 763 days, respectively. (The current, second Abe ad­ ministration is not included in these calculations.) It is often said that Japan's prime ministers do not make much of an impression on the world scene, such as at the G-7 or other high-level summits, because they change so often and almost every time one is held Japan sends a different representative, especially when compared to oth­ er countries. For example, since the first G-6 Summit in 1975, Germany has had just four chancellors, France five presidents, the United States seven presidents, and the United Kingdom seven prime ministers. In contrast, Japan has had twenty-two prime ministers, and is surpassed only by Italy with twenty-four (although several of the prime ministers served multiple terms in differing periods). An explanation for the shortness of the length of time of some of the administrations and prime ministers include illness and assassination, although fortunately there have been no killings of Japanese prime minis­ ters in the postwar period. In any case, the length of the administrations whether in the pre- or postwar periods was less about the virtu of the individual and more about his luck. Even more relevant and problematic, however, are the structural limi­ tations on the position of the prime minister, and people's thinking, in other words the political culture of a country. In the cabinet system of the Meiji Constitutional era, the prime minister was chosen from among his ministerial peers, and thus was simply one of them, not any greater than the others. As such, the prime minister was unable to interfere in the jurisdiction of the individual ministers. The extreme examples of this had to do with the military-related ministers, those of the army and navy. The army and navy ministers could only be those in uniform, and they were the direct advisors to the emperor on military matters, interpreting Arti­ cle 11 of the Meiji Constitution ("The emperor has the supreme command (tosui) of the army and the navy") to mean that civilians, including the prime minister, could not intervene. In the postwar, civilian control was institutionalized and the authority of the prime minister was strength­ ened, but the influence of the Japanese political culture, which dislikes top down decision making, remains strong. For this reason, there are

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many commentators who point out the weak political leadership charac­ teristic of Japanese politics. However, the authors of this book were not bound by that somewhat abstract view. The question, "does the age make the man, or the man make the age?" will be the subject of debate for a long time to come, but the roles the postwar prime ministers, especially the two who really formed the postwar—Yoshida Shigeru and Kishi Nobusuke—are indeed large, and should be apparent to those intellectuals observing the changes Japan is experiencing under the current administration of Abe Shinzo, a grandson of Kishi. I believe this book will help those when they think about Japan in this century, and for this reason, I am especially happy to see it available in English.

Preface to the Original Japanese Version Akio Watanabe

Unlike "Meiji" and "Showa," the word "postwar" is not a name designat­ ing numerical years. However, for those of us living today, August 1945 naturally becomes the starting point or basis from which we think about things. In other words, "postwar" symbolizes for us an era. Thinking about the "postwar" as one era has an advantage. That is, the huge event that brought about the "postwar," World War II, was literally worldwide and, thus, regardless of country or region, the people of the world were forced to live at the same time with a common experi­ ence. After that, mankind, whether Japanese, Chinese, or American, while living in their respective cultures, came to see itself in the common framework of a larger world history. Still, in the true sense of the word, the world is still not "one." That "Hiroshima" does not portray the same image to the rest of the world as it does to the Japanese people is some­ thing we saw at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. At the same time, while it is true that we do not yet possess a common world history, it cannot be denied that day by day we are coming to a greater recognition of our respective countries' history in the context of world history. Now, this era known as the "postwar" is beginning to end, not only in Japan but throughout the world. In every situation like this, it is impos­ sible to know beforehand what the new era will be like and what charac­ teristics it will have. Unlike the "postwar," whose door was suddenly forced open by the type of madness known as war, the door to this new age has opened quietly. Although the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the later collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, brought about excitement around the world, a chapter of history closed without the violence and heavy bloodshed as compared to the wars of the past. Mankind is facing a test now to see whether we can begin a new age under this calm ration­ ality. For Japan, which is also living in this flow of world history, it is critically important that it has politicians and leaders who understand the world and in turn are understood by the world. Reflecting on the fifty some years of the postwar, vividly describing the "shape of Japan" X V II

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through the eyes of its leaders, the prime ministers, at the time is the reason why we wrote this book. What makes an era is in the end the people. Japan's not having a tradition of writing biographies is a major weak point in its culture. A result of this has been the failure over the years to develop political critiques of outstanding quality. While many of the contributors to this book were participants in the Monbusho Kagaku Kenkyu Josei Juten Rydiki Kenkyu (Ministry of Education Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Area1) project "Sengo Nihon Keisei no Kisoteki Kenkyu (Basic Research on the Formation of Postwar Japan)" from 1994 to 1996, I am also very happy to say that we were able to get the cooperation of several others as well. For example, the chronology that appears at the end of the book was developed for a database on postwar Japan by Nonaka Naoto, an associate professor at Gakushuin Daigaku (Gakushuin University) in Tokyo.2 On behalf of the contributors to this volume, I would like to thank him for his work. Also, I would like to thank those prime ministers and their associates who are still alive for their assistance with the research that went into this book that is in part a collection of biographical portraits. NOTES 1. Since 2 001, the M inistry of E d u catio n h as b een k now n as the M inistry of E d u ca­ tion, C u lture, Sports, Science, and Techn ology, o r M E X T (Monbu Kagakusho). 2. N on ak a is a full p ro fessor now .

ONE Higashikuni Naruhiko A Liberal within the Imperial Family Hatano Sumio

One day in May 1943, Kido Koichi, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, con­ fided to Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito that he anticipated difficulties when the time came to cease hostilities with the United States and its Allies. He feared that just as had happened in Germany after the First World War, the army and the government would fall to squabbling over the terms of peace, that it would be exceedingly difficult to reconcile their views, and it would thus be necessary to impose upon the good offices of the Imperi­ al family. As fortune had it, there was no need to trouble the Imperial family with negotiating the terms of surrender, but there were neverthe­ less problems. The army, both at home and abroad, still maintained a surfeit of fighting spirit and insisted that honor demanded unconditional surrender be steadfastly rejected. The questions facing the Japanese lead­ ership were how to persuade them to lay down their arms and to prepare to receive the Allied military's advance into the home islands in an order­ ly and peaceful manner. Emperor Hirohito was anxious about these mat­ ters and so dispatched three members of the Imperial family, including Prince Asaka Yasuhiko (Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko's half-brother), to the overseas commands of the Imperial Japanese Army in order to per­ suade them to surrender. Kido believed that Prince Higashikuni, who was a general in the IJA, could handle the heavy responsibilities associat­ ed with ensuring that the surrender and the arrival of the occupation forces went smoothly. On the evening of August 15, 1945, the day Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, Kido secured Hirohito's 1

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approval of his choice and dispatched an official envoy to Higashikuni. The prince, expressing his belief that members of the Imperial family should not be involved in politics, flatly refused but he had actually already resolved to accept the job. Higashikuni Naruhiko was born the ninth son of Prince Kuni Asahiko on December 3,1887. In accordance with the usual custom of the Imperial family, he received a military education in the Cadet Corps from his early childhood, later entering the twentieth class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. After graduating from the Imperial Army War College he married Princess Toshiko, the ninth daughter of Emperor Meiji, and from 1920 went abroad to study in France for seven years. While he was there, the prince neglected the study of military science and took up the study of painting as a pastime, becoming quite friendly with Claude Monet, master of the Impressionist school. Through Monet he met George B. Clemenceau, studied political science and social thought, and associated with a number of Socialists and liberals. Thus, in reflecting on the true meaning of human liberty he regained the individuality he had lost in the cloistered environment of his childhood and early youth. After returning to Japan, Prince Higashikuni served in such posts as commander of the Second Division and commander of the Second Army before being appointed as the head of the General Defense Command in 1941. In this position, he was responsible for the defense of the Imperial Capital. Until the air raids on Tokyo began in earnest, he did not really have much of a job and so he devoted several hours a day to practicing golf in the Shinjuku Imperial garden and became absorbed in reading. Actually, he did not neglect to keep abreast of developments, lending his ear to political discussions with all manner of callers. For example, in February 1945 Hirano Rikizo paid a visit, telling Higashikuni that in situations like the present, which was "an extreme and anomalous time when bureaucrats and military men run the government," the people looked to the emperor to exercise personal leadership, and once affairs of state were back in order, "we should return to the regular path of consti­ tutional government in which politics is left to the politicians." In his journal, he noted that the conversation was "most informative."1 Often, when the prince recorded that a conversation was "most informative" it was not with one of the bureaucrats or military men that argued for pressing forward with the prosecution of the war, but rather the opinions of intellectuals who were far from the center of power. Nevertheless, despite his personal sympathies, he did not involve himself deeply in the peace movement or in political activities. In the latter, his role was limited to facilitating the exchange of information. In the peace initiative toward China near in the final period of the war and in the Miao Ping peace initiative Ota Teruhiko and Tamura Shinsaku, both correspondents with the Asahi Shimbun, had gathered some information in Shanghai. Through his old acquaintance, Ogata Taketora, chief of the Cabinet Information

Higashikuni Naruhiko

3

Board, Higashikuni arranged to have the information passed on to Prime Minister Koiso Kuniaki. When it came time for him to form his cabinet, Higashikuni himself stated that he settled on "innocuous, conservative people" rather than choosing up-and-comers. This was due less to the opinions of Prince Konoe Fumimaro, his advisor on cabinet formation, or those of Ogata, his incoming chief cabinet secretary, and more the result of Higashikuni's priorities for his new government, keeping control of the army, maintain­ ing order in the country, and overseeing the reception of the occupation forces. However, even allowing for the importance he attached to dealing with the occupation forces, Higashikuni set himself up for future difficul­ ty with his selection of Shigemitsu Mamoru as foreign minister. Shigemitsu had clashed with Ogata over the Miao Ping affair and Shigemitsu's memory of the incident had not faded. This would become the root of future trouble. Higashikuni's cabinet was inaugurated on August 17,1945, the first to be headed by a member of the Imperial family. The prince and his minis­ ters were faced with a number of important problems in rapid succes­ sion: disarming the military both at home and abroad, arranging for the advance into the home islands of the allied forces, and the signature of the instrument of surrender. They were able to accomplish all of these tasks without incident. In Ogata's view, the accomplishment of these tasks, and especially of the bloodless occupation of Tokyo, was as impor­ tant as the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration by the previous cabinet of Suzuki Kantaro, proudly declaring, "simply by these accomplish­ ments, the Higashikuni cabinet more than demonstrated its historical significance." However, the prince planned to achieve more than was circumscribed within the limits of war termination once the emergency was handled. At a cabinet meeting on August 18, he elucidated his sup­ port for a policy under which political prisoners would be released and freedom of expression, assembly, and association, would be recognized, calling for its immediate implementation. Two days later, in a meeting with the head of the House of Representatives he reiterated the gist of the same ideas and further announced his resolute intention to revise the election law and call a new general election, demonstrating the political prospects of the freedom of association. In other words, he intended to reestablish parliamentary government. As such a move presupposed the right to free speech, he first moved to end the laws permitting wartime controls on freedom of expression. Moreover, at his first press confer­ ence, he told of his resolve to establish "the right to free speech." At the end of August he called on the Japanese people, through all the news­ papers, to "write letters to him personally," as "I would like to conduct government in consultation with the frank opinions of all our country's people." As another vital part of this government incorporating public opinion, he gave frequent interviews to foreign journalists and ex-

4

Hatano Sumio

changed opinions with them in what he himself called "newspaper diplo­ macy" (shimbun gaiko). This fresh and open-style of government was something that only the prince could or even wanted to conduct. Even while his own cabinet heaped criticism on his ideas as, in the words of Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, "the thoughts of an amateur," his cabinet's popularity rose. Nevertheless, this style of governance was soon stymied by the baleful influence of bureaucratic politics. In particular, the immediate release of political prisoners, something the prince regarded as an important task, was bogged down in red tape within the Justice Ministry until the Japa­ nese government was overtaken by General Headquarters, or GHQ, the name for the occupation forces, while the revision of the election law and the planned general election ran into a bottleneck over the question of the number of eligible voters. Neither of these latter initiatives was realized during the Higashikuni cabinet. Similarly, Higashikuni's plan to central­ ize diplomacy by putting the Central Liaison Office under the direct con­ trol of the prime minister ended in failure due to bureaucratic turf protec­ tion. In this case, Shigemitsu had agreed to join the cabinet as foreign minister on the condition that the "only way" negotiations with the occu­ pation forces be conducted was "under the control of the authorities in the Foreign Ministry." Even the prime minister found that it was no easy task to tear down the wall Shigemitsu had erected. Incidentally, Prince Higashikuni's management of an open govern­ ment was based on the tacit understanding that the relationship between the Japanese government and the occupation forces would be one of indirect administration, but an incident that took place shortly after the surrender ceremony cast serious doubt on this crucial assumption. GHQ delivered to the Japanese government three proclamations, declaring that the Americans intended to: print military scrip and force its acceptance as legal tender, set up military courts to try Japanese accused of crimes disruptive to the occupation, and to rule Japan through direct military administration. The Imperial cabinet immediately dispatched Shigemitsu to prevail upon Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers general Douglas MacArthur to rescind the three proclamations. Shigemitsu was successful in this but on September 11 the occupation authorities arrested a number of suspected war criminals including Tojo Hideki, thus ignor­ ing Japanese jurisdiction. Higashikuni's cabinet proposed that warrants for arrest be executed by the Japanese government and that punishment of war criminals, likewise, be left to Japan. GHQ agreed to the former but rejected the latter. Ogata was on the second list of war crimes suspects (though the warrant was never executed). The problem of war respon­ sibility, including the issue of war criminals, inevitably became a point of contention between the two sides. Higashikuni took the problem of war responsibility seriously and even proposed plans such as sending Konoe to China as an "ambassador

Higashikuni Naruhiko

5

of apology" (shazai no shisetsu), but he was fundamentally of the mindset that war responsibility was a burden that should be borne by the Japa­ nese people as a whole. His decision to entrust the rebuilding of national morality ("dogi no saiken") to a Christian named Kagawa Tomihiko who was appointed as a consultant to the cabinet was likely a result of this mindset as well. Higashikuni believed that the misdeeds and barbaric acts Japanese had committed during and prior to the Second World War had their origins in the animosity and prejudices toward the peoples of former enemy nations. With this idea as his premise, he addressed the issue at a press conference on August 28. He raised the decline of the Japanese people's morality as the cause for the country's defeat. He then said, "I think that in this instance, the army, the bureaucracy and all the people of our nation must reflect on what happened and repent." This became the basis for the theory that the repentance of the whole Japanese nation was necessary (the so-called sozange theory). With this idea, the government tried to ride out the storm on the question of war respon­ sibility and increasingly became the object of criticism both at home and abroad. Within the cabinet the chief critic of this policy was Shigemitsu. To Shigemitsu the difference in degree of responsibility between the lead­ ers of past governments and everyone else was so great that the leaders should shoulder all of the responsibility while the Imperial House and the nation at large should be protected. Accordingly, Shigemitsu could not support the prince's sozange theory. Thus, he advised Higashikuni of the necessity of setting an example: "In this situation, in order for the government to move forward, we must a clean sweep of all those who were involved in the old governments. . . . We should recruit those who can go ahead without having to bear any responsibility. In this manner we can be a model for the political and financial worlds."2 In reality this was tantamount to calling for the cabinet to resign en masse. But neither Higashikuni nor Konoe would assent to this and instead Shigemitsu alone ended up resigning from the cabinet on September 17. In the meantime, Prime Minister Higashikuni began to feel it was necessary for him to meet with MacArthur. He wanted to ascertain the fundamental policy of the occupation, which showed from time to time the inclination toward direct military administration. In addition, he wanted to find out what implications the developing war criminal issue had for the legitimacy of his government. He thought these views were essential to address before deciding on how the government should move next. The first meeting between Higashikuni and MacArthur was on September 15. However, their second meeting on September 29 was particularly important. Higashikuni directly asked MacArthur his opin­ ions about the propriety of having the government be headed by a mem­ ber of the "feudal relic" of the Imperial family as well as about the quality of the administration of the Imperial cabinet and the suitability of the ministers serving in it. MacArthur expressed no dissatisfaction with the

6

Hatano Sumio

government. On the contrary, he pledged to support maintaining it in power. After this second visit, the Higashikuni cabinet earned the trust of the supreme commander. This was even a greater boost in confidence to Ogata than it was to the prince as Ogata was keen to keep the present government in power. Ogata wanted to oversee a return to representative government through a process of constitutional revision. At the very least, he wanted the current administration to remain in power until a general election could be carried out under a revised election law. Near the end of September, he got to work on constitutional revision that would include reform of the parliamentary system. Ogata anticipated that the general election would be held the following spring. With an eye toward the election, he set out to reorganize the cabinet and engage in maneuvers to strengthen his hand in the Diet. He also planned the crea­ tion of a new cabinet that would exclude old party politicians such as Nakajima Chikuhei, a former Imperial Navy officer and founder of Nakajima Aircraft Company.3 However, the world around Ogata and Higashikuni was changing and domestic politics were moving in a direction not favorable to the realization of such plans. First, criticism toward the associates of people like Ota, now Higashikuni's private secretary, and Nakamura Shogo, Og­ ata's private secretary, and cabinet consultant Tamura was growing stronger, almost all of whom were involved in the Miao Ping initiative. Higashikuni had brought these people on in order to overcome the prob­ lems associated with a government staffed with bureaucrats. An example of the fresh perspective provided by these people comes from Tamura who was said to be the one who advised Higashikuni to send Konoe to China to apologize on behalf of the nation. However, the more Higashi­ kuni revealed his desire to stay in office the more intense criticism grew. Shigemitsu declared, "He's inexperienced, with no ideas of his own and surrounded by scheming politicians."4 Moreover the war crimes issue was having ripple effects on the renas­ cent political parties, just then beginning to show life. It also engulfed prewar bureaucrats and its effects extended into the Imperial cabinet itself. Konoe, Navy Minister Yonai Mitsumasa, and State Minister Obata Toshiro all began to lean toward resignation. In the midst of this rising wave of uncertainty was Konoe, who had been in contact with GHQ and was leaning toward withdrawing from the cabinet. Around Konoe was a group that had first come together for the drafting of Konoe's February 1945 memorial to the throne in which he stated his belief that the war was lost and urged Emperor Hirohito to seek peace. Within the cabinet, peo­ ple like Obata and the new foreign minister, Yoshida Shigeru, showed signs that they were moving to create a new political party centered on Konoe and that they would bring Ogata in.5 The Imperial cabinet resigned en masse on October 5,1945. The imme­ diate cause for this is thought to be that GHQ's Civil Liberties Directive

Higashikuni Naruhiko

7

of October 4, which removed controls on religious practice and free ex­ pression, also ordered the dismissal of Home Minister Yamazaki Iwao. However, Prince Higashikuni, who had just the previous week been as­ sured of MacArthur's support did not take this order as something that would necessarily compel the resignation of the entire cabinet. Higashikuni's reaction was to say, "I asked him if there was something that didn't meet his liking to simply inform me so there is nothing stopping him from doing that."6 In contrast, Ogata had given up on the Imperial cabinet. One of the provisions of the Civil Liberties Directive was the abolition of the law restricting thought and speech about the Emperor system. Ogata saw this as implying that cabinets led by members of the Imperial family ought to be avoided and so he recommended that the government resign en masse. Higashikuni immediately replied, "You're right. Why don't we quit now?" Higashikuni had been thinking of re­ shuffling the cabinet to bring in the Socialist Party, but understood that he had now lost the confidence of both Ogata and GHQ. Without even discussing the matter with Konoe, he decided on a general resignation. From these circumstances one can glimpse a plan of Ogata's to exploit the October 4 directive as a means to push Higashikuni into resigning. When asked by Konoe about a possible successor, Higashikuni replied "either Yoshida or Shidehara Kijuro, whichever the Americans find to their fan­ cy."7 That shows that Higashikuni wanted to avoid the possibility of a Konoe or Ogata cabinet becoming his successor. NOTES 1. "H igashiku ni n o M iya N isshi (D iary of P rince H igash ik un i)," en try for February 2 4 ,1 9 4 5 . 2. ltd Takashi et al., ed s. Shigemitsu Mamoru Shuki (The D iary of Shigem itsu M am o ru), Vol. 2 (Tokyo: C h u o K oron, 1988), 260. 3. "K yogi Jiko (A gen d a for D iscussion), Septem ber 29 [1945]," Tanaka Sokichi P ap ers, N ational D iet L ib rary, Tokyo. 4. ltd et al., eds., Shigemitsu Mamoru Shuki, 264. 5. A m ak aw a A kira, "H igash ik u n i n o M iya N aikaku (The P rince H igashikuni C abi­ n et)," in Tsuji K iyoaki et al., eds., Nihon Naikaku Shiryoku (A H isto ry of Jap an ese Cabinets), Vol. 4 (Tokyo: D aiichi H oki, 1981), and "T an ak a Sokichi N ikki (D iary of Tanaka Sokichi), Septem ber 29 [1945]," Tanaka Sokichi Papers. 6. "O g a ta Z en K oku m u Daijin C h ok u w a (A F irst-h an d A cco u n t of F o rm er State M inister O gata), O ctob er 12 [1945]," Takagi Sokichi Papers. 7. Ibid.

TWO Shidehara Kijuro His "Final Public Duty" and the Draft Constitution Amakawa Akira

On October 9, 1945, a new cabinet was inaugurated with Shidehara Kijuro as prime minister. The need to form a new government was unan­ ticipated. The reason Shidehara was suddenly called to the premiership was Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur's "Civil Liberties Directive" of October 4. This directive ordered the dismissal of Home Minister Yamazaki Iwao and Prime Minister Higashikuni Naruhiko chose to have the cabinet resign en masse with the result that Shidehara was called on to form a new government. At seventy-three, Shidehara had no expectation of receiving the Impe­ rial summons. When he received notice from the emperor on October 6, he initially declined, citing his advanced age and his lack of interest in domestic politics. However, after the emperor's strong urging, he ac­ cepted. When addressing the public on the occasion of his inauguration Shidehara said accepting the post would be his "final public duty." It was very likely a frank expression of his true feelings. Shidehara was born on August 11, 1872, in what was then the village of Kadoma (now Kadoma City) in Osaka Prefecture to a prosperous peas­ ant household. He was the second son of Shidehara Shinjiro. His elder brother, Taira, eight years his senior, was a doctor of literature in Japa­ nese history and served in such prestigious posts as president of Taihoku Imperial University (now National Taiwan University). Kijuro graduated from Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo) in 1895. The following year, he entered the foreign ministry. After working at 9

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Amakawa Akira

such posts as the consulates in Korea and Great Britain, he returned to Tokyo in 1904. There his jobs included chief of the telegraphic section and head of the investigative section. Beginning in 1912, he worked for two years in the embassies of Great Britain and the United States. After that he served as the vice foreign minister for two years. From 1919 to 1922 he served as ambassador to the United States and in that capacity he partici­ pated in the Washington Conference. In 1924, he became foreign minister in the cabinet of Kato Takaaki and would then serve in that post in the next four Constitutional Democratic Party cabinets in a period ranging over more than five years. Shidehara's diplomacy, which was based on cooperation with Great Britain and the United States, was ridiculed by the militarists as "weak-kneed diplomacy." From 1932, he was a member of the House of Peers, but he did not have any notable accomplishments in that position. Upon hearing of Shidehara's appointment to the top post, one newspaper journalist asked if Shidehara was actually still alive. As this episode clearly shows, Shidehara was thought to be a man of a bygone day. Shidehara served as premier for approximately seven months until he passed the torch to Yoshida Shigeru on May 22,1946. During his time in office, the biggest job his government faced was the announcement of a new draft constitution in March 1946. The draft included extraordinary clauses including one which changed the status of the emperor to being merely a symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of its people and another that renounced war and Japan's right of belligerency. Shideha­ ra's "final public duty" was to present a new draft constitution to the Japanese people. However, neither Shidehara nor the other cabinet min­ isters anticipated that the announcement of this kind of a draft constitu­ tion would become their greatest task. From its inception to its dissolution, the Shidehara cabinet was contin­ ually forced to respond to unexpected situations and problems. The con­ stant stream of unexpected developments was born of the unprecedented circumstances of defeat and occupation. More than that, the Japanese response to these unprecedented developments created further unantici­ pated situations. After the resignation en masse of the Higashikuni cabinet, Lord Keep­ er of the Privy Seal Kido Koichi and President of the Privy Council Hiranuma Kiichiro set about looking for candidates for a successor. Their crite­ ria for selection were "someone who arouses no antipathy from the Americans, who is clean of any taint of war responsibility and who is well versed in diplomacy." Their first candidate was Shidehara and their second was Foreign Minister Yoshida Shigeru. During a time of occupa­ tion, they placed great importance on the relationship between the prime minister and GHQ, the nickname for the headquarters of MacArthur's SCAP. Yoshida took on the job of persuading Shidehara to take the posi­ tion, but before he met with Shidehara himself, Yoshida first sounded out

Shidehara Kijuro

11

MacArthur about the possibility of a Shidehara premiership. In view of this it is conceivable that when Yoshida asked about it he did so with the expectation that he himself would continue in the post of foreign minis­ ter. Shidehara asked his old acquaintance Tsugita Daisaburo, a former Home Ministry official, to serve as his chief cabinet secretary. Tsugita and Yoshida acted as advisors on cabinet selection and together chose candi­ dates to fill the various posts. Their underlying policy on selecting candi­ dates was much the same as that of Kido and Hiranuma: the exclusion of anyone with responsibility for the past war. This was due to the facts that occupation authorities had begun to arrest suspected war criminals and many Japanese were now openly criticizing their wartime leaders. In addition to Yoshida five more veterans of the Higashikuni cabinet contin­ ued in their posts and four new cabinet members were chosen from among the members of the House of Representatives. A glance at the lineup made clear that this cabinet was not based so much on political parties as it was on personal connections. The new cabinet met with popular approval, but actually was never regarded as anything more than a placeholder government, filling in during the transitional time until the general election promised by the previous administration could be carried out. George Atcheson, MacArthur's political advisor dispatched from the State Department, reported that the Shidehara government was conservative and as such should be considered nothing more than a temporary government until a new gen­ eral election could be held. The popular expectation was that the new government would anticipate the directives of the occupation forces and implement the various policies required. Since about the middle of Sep­ tember, GHQ had been issuing directives one after the other to the Japa­ nese government. These directives were meant to put the policy of de­ mocratization into full swing. The "Civil Liberties Directive" called for establishing the freedom of expression and even for allowing criticism of the Emperor system and the tone of newspapers and radio changed abruptly. The new government was launched in the midst of a stormy environment. Incidentally, shortly after the defeat, Shidehara wrote a friend sharing his thoughts about the best way to rebuild a new Japan: "Domestically, we must maintain perfect public order and public safety. In foreign rela­ tions, we must give foreign nations real proof of our good faith and commitment to international law. Only thus can we deepen the trust of the world toward our country." Afterward, he used this as the basis of his draft for the "Remedial Measures Regarding War Termination." He sent this to others in senior positions, Foreign Minister Yoshida foremost among them, seeking their feedback. The very first sentence of Shideha­ ra's proposal called on the country to "deepen the trust of the Allied nations towards our country."

12

Amakawa Akira

Shidehara met with MacArthur for the first time on October 11. At the outset of the conversation, MacArthur told Shidehara of the need to liber­ alize the Japanese constitution. In order to realize this goal, he said, there were five reforms (subsequently known as the Five Great Reforms) which he expected the new government to achieve posthaste: the establishment of women's right to participate in the political process; the encourage­ ment of the organization of labor unions; the liberalization of education; the abolition of the state apparatus of secret inquisition; and the democ­ ratization of the economic system. Shidehara replied that realizing the Five Great Reforms would be difficult, but not impossible and promised he was resolved to see that once the government took the problem in hand, it would realize the reforms quickly and without any duplicity. He thought Japan had lost the trust of the international community because of the war and that a faithful implementation of the reforms was prereq­ uisite to reestablishing that trust. Shidehara said that he understood MacArthur's reforms to be aimed at the democratization and liberaliza­ tion of various Japanese systems. Then he expressed his belief that in order for the democratization of Japan to be successful, he thought it would have to be a democracy appropriate for the environment of Japan. What Shidehara had in mind by "a democracy appropriate for the envi­ ronment of Japan," was a system of government that remained centered on the emperor but which was carried out based on serious consideration of the will of the people. This was to be nothing less than a revitalization of the spirit honoring the public will that was the basis of the Imperial Charter Oath upon which Japan's modern state was founded in the first year of the Meiji period, or 1868. During this meeting Shidehara never addressed MacArthur's direc­ tive to liberalize the constitution. This was due to his understanding of "a democracy appropriate to the Japanese environment." MacArthur had already suggested constitutional revision in his October 4 meeting with Konoe Fumimaro. It was not only Konoe; both Kido and the emperor also expressed a strong interest in GHQ's demands for constitutional reform. Shortly after Shidehara was inaugurated, Kido passed this information along to him. Shidehara was "most unenthusiastic" about constitutional revision. If they were forced to adopt a new constitution, however, Shidehara's attitude was along the lines of, "We must remember that we lost and for now there is nothing to do but comply." Shidehara thought, if it were handled correctly, the democratization of Japan could be achieved without resorting to constitutional revision. He believed that had it not been for the last decade and a half of oppres­ sion by the militarists, democracy would have developed on its own. This was a historical outlook shared by most ministers of his generation. Shid­ ehara believed that it was not the constitution that needed revision, but rather the body of laws pertaining to it. In his view, if this were done it was possible that a democracy suited to Japan's special circumstances

Shidehara Kijurd

13

could emerge. That he was so thoroughly imbued with this notion likely accounts for the fact that in his meeting with MacArthur, he neglected to say anything about constitutional revision and only vowed to carry out the Five Great Reforms. Contrary to Shidehara's intention, constitutional revision became an issue for the new government immediately after its inauguration. The cabinet and people in the emperor's circle were out of sync in their re­ sponses to the policies of the occupation. As a result, constitutional revi­ sion became a political issue. The impetus for this development was a public announcement by the Office of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal that Konoe had been named as a special appointee to conduct an investi­ gation into the issue of constitutional revision. This triggered a debate about what share of responsibility for revising the constitution lay with the cabinet and what share lay with the above office. In response, the cabinet launched its own committee to investigate the issue of constitu­ tional revision with Minister of State Matsumoto Joji, a legal scholar, as its chairman. Matsumoto, like Shidehara approached constitutional revi­ sion with great caution, but the issue was increasingly growing conten­ tious both at home and abroad. The biggest problems facing the Shidehara government were mainly those of domestic administration that related to rebuilding after the war. As Shidehara had little interest in domestic issues, these were taken up in his stead by Chief Cabinet Secretary Tsugita. The latter urged officials to strive to realize the government's public pledges, but it was not easy to deal swiftly with the unprecedented situation resulting from the lost war. Even so, in December 1945, the government managed to get three crucial bills through the Imperial Diet. The first one was a revision of the election law that provided for women's suffrage. The second was a law providing for the establishment of labor unions. And the third was a revision of the land regulation law passed for the purpose of making land reform pos­ sible. After the passage of electoral reform, the preparations for a general election were now complete. Foreign Minister Yoshida Shigeru assumed responsibility for the negotiations the Shidehara cabinet was expected to conduct with GHQ. Yoshida principally dealt with military staff officers who were cool to­ ward the idea of rapid reform in Japan. He had little contact with MacAr­ thur's political advisor Atcheson. The latter acted as a liaison between CHQ and Konoe on constitutional questions, but after MacArthur dis­ avowed Konoe's participation in the constitutional question this point of contact ended. Nevertheless, Atcheson was concerned that the work of the Matsumoto committee's approach was too conservative and that there was a large gap between the expectations of GHQ and Matsumoto's group. He suggested to the concerned parties at GHQ they apprise their Japanese counterparts of American policy, but neither side tried to estab­ lish real communication with the other.

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Amakawa Akira

Shidehara left domestic policy and public relations to the cabinet members concerned and directed his own efforts toward making the Jap­ anese people cognizant of the situation into which defeat had thrust them. Shidehara recalled the scene he chanced to encounter on a train after the emperor's address to the nation on August 15, 1945. There he saw a young man yelling through his tears that, because of the govern­ ment which had been claiming victory after victory only to announce the country's unconditional surrender, "we have all been blindfolded and met a fate like cows herded into a slaughter house." The other passengers on the car signaled their approbation. The scene made rather a deep impression on Shidehara and after he was inaugurated as prime minister, he resolved to realize the "wishes of our people screaming in the open." It was likely in response to that sort of scene that Shidehara established a cabinet committee to investigate the Greater East Asia War. He declared the committee "necessary in order to ensure that in the future we will never again repeat the enormous blunder committed" by the war. As prime minister, Shidehara poured the most energy into dealing with issues involving the emperor and the Imperial Household. This sub­ ject was at the core of what Shidehara thought of as his "final public duty." Both at home and abroad a debate about Emperor Hirohito's war responsibility began. In December, Konoe, Kido, and even Prince Nashimoto Morimasa were arrested on war crimes charges. The Communist Party openly raised the question of whether Hirohito was a war criminal. Moreover, GHQ started issuing directives to conduct a thorough audit of the assets of the Imperial Household. Shidehara began a set of personal meetings with MacArthur to discuss problems of the Imperial House­ hold. Beside those provided through the government, some members of the Imperial entourage had a separate, unofficial channel to GHQ. The dis­ cussions leading to the Imperial rescript that became known as the "Dec­ laration of Humanity," in which Hirohito denied the myths of divinity surrounding his person and expressed his devotion to peace, began in this channel. Shidehara wanted to prepare this rescript under cabinet responsibility, just as he had intended constitutional revision to be car­ ried out. He personally put a lot of effort into a draft rescript. However, perhaps owing to his exertions, he suddenly fell ill of acute pneumonia and spent the end of the year in his sickbed. Early in the new year of 1946 while Shidehara remained in his sick­ bed, he was hit with the order to carry out the purge of public officials. Just as with the Civil Liberties Directive, the Japanese government had no advance notice of the "Purge Directive." Anticipating that the "Purge Directive" would apply to even more ministers than had the "Civil Liber­ ties Directive," the cabinet fell into a crisis atmosphere. Shidehara's bed­ side was surrounded by ministers who were divided into two factions, those who advocated a resignation en masse and those who pushed for

Shidehara Kijurd

15

trying to make it through with a reorganization of the cabinet. News arrived that the emperor wished for Shidehara to remain in office and so the issue was decided in favor of a reshuffle of the cabinet and the five ministers to whom the purge directive applied resigned. The reshuffle changed the nature of the Shidehara cabinet. Laid up in bed and with time to think, Shidehara must have reflected on the fact that he had again received the confidence of the emperor and renewed his resolve to carry out his final public duty. On the one hand, in the reorganization of the cabinet, Tsugita re­ signed. His place as chief cabinet secretary was taken by Narahashi Wataru, the former director of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau. Narahashi pro­ actively sought contact with the relevant people at GHQ. As such, he soon came to play a pivotal role both in domestic affairs and as a negotia­ tor. On the other hand, State Minister Matsumoto remained in office and continued to head the committee preparing a draft revised constitution. After the reorganization of the cabinet, GHQ granted permission for the conduct of a general election anytime after March 15. Because of this, the cabinet began in earnest to prepare for the election. The purge direc­ tive was a great blow to conservative political parties. At just about that time, Communist leader Nosaka Sanzo returned to Japan after working in China with the CCP during the war. He then called for the creation of a united democratic front, and as a result criticism of the reorganized cabi­ net only grew more intense. At about this time, diplomat and historian Sir George Sansom came to Japan as the British representative of the Far Eastern Advisory Council. After talking with Japanese leaders, he recorded his impressions of them in his journal. "Shidehara . . . is old and tired. My talk with him was discouraging. He told me long and not very interesting stories, was inter­ ested more in the past than the future . . . and when I asked him about the present state of political parties his replies were, I thought, not very much to the point. He was, I felt, a melancholy figure, certainly unfit to lead his country in a desperate crisis." As for Yoshida, Sansom's impression was that he was "lazy and easy-going."1 Thus, to Sansom the two leaders who within Japan were regarded as the cream of the pro-British faction in­ spired little confidence. In contrast to this, the impression Shidehara left two days later when he met with MacArthur was dramatic, and had a big influence on the development of the issue of the constitution. MacArthur had arranged to provide Shidehara with penicillin during the latter's bout with pneumo­ nia. On January 24, Shidehara called on the supreme commander to thank him for his kindness. At the meeting Shidehara declared that there was no way to achieve world peace except to renounce war. This meeting had a profound influence on MacArthur. He tied the remark that Shide­ hara supposedly made that day to his explanation that the subsequent inclusion of the war-renouncing clause of the constitution had its origins

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Amakawa Akira

in the suggestion by Shidehara. However, most researchers agree that while Shidehara told MacArthur that he would make a declaration re­ nouncing war, the idea of incorporating it into the constitution is more properly attributed to MacArthur himself or to Brigadier General Court­ ney Whitney, his closest advisor and the chief of GHQ's Government Section. There is no official record of what was said at this meeting, but the point of Shidehara's visit was to make an appeal to MacArthur to pre­ serve the Emperor system. Very likely this remark was made in the con­ text of explaining that the emperor was a pacifist. It can well be imagined that Shidehara, aging and recently laid low with illness but still persever­ ing in his post, used every fiber of his being to make his case to MacAr­ thur. After MacArthur promised to cooperate in preserving the Emperor system, Shidehara likely expounded on his favorite idea about Japan regaining the trust of the international community, and proposed an­ nouncing to the world a vow not to go to war again. The question is why did the conversation between Shidehara and MacArthur then become the basis for the inclusion of a war-renouncing clause in the draft revised constitution? Why did the situation develop such that GHQ's Government Section included a war-renouncing clause in the draft constitution they presented to the Japanese side? To state the matter simply, the Government Section did not trust the Shidehara cabi­ net and its draft constitution was a product of this feeling. The Shidehara cabinet could not even inspire confidence in a Japanophile like Sansom. It enjoyed almost no trust whatsoever among the leaders of the Govern­ ment Section, which was demanding proactive reform to democratize the country. Moreover, since mid-December, when MacArthur tapped Whit­ ney, his right-hand man, to be head of the Government Section, power relationships at GHQ had changed. The Government Section, with its aggressive reform agenda, was gaining influence within GHQ at the ex­ pense of others with whom Yoshida had been carrying on negotiations. Whitney thought that constitutional revision should be an issue in the upcoming general election and so he began thinking about trying to make unofficial contacts with the cabinet. Whitney, who believed that Shidehara had not taken advantage of the opportunities presented by cabinet reorganization, met with him on January 28 and suggested that the emperor deliver a declaration renouncing war. It was at this point that the Mainichi Shimbun published its famous scoop on the Matsumoto draft for the revised constitution. The Mainichi's version of the Matsumo­ to draft was seen by those at GHQ as so conservative that Whitney thought the scoop to be a conspiracy of sorts on the part of conservative ministers such as Yoshida and Matsumoto, who had been reluctant to make meaningful revisions to the constitution. The final draft submitted by the Matsumoto committee was likewise a far cry from what the Americans had called for, falling well short of their principles of constitu-

Shidehara Kijurd

17

tional revision. In order to make the conservative ministers understand what was required for satisfactory constitutional revision, the Govern­ ment Section prepared its own model draft. On February 13, Whitney rejected the Matsumoto draft and presented the Japanese side with the Government Section's constitutional draft, which had been prepared over the course of nine days in utter secrecy. Matsumoto and Yoshida had not anticipated anything like this develop­ ment and were simply flabbergasted. The more Matsumoto urged a re­ consideration of his draft, the more this urging was regarded as nothing more than the stubborn resistance of the conservative faction. Whether it was ready or not, Whitney pushed the cabinet to make a decision about using the American model as the basis for a new constitution or face a public referendum. Up to that point, constitutional revision had not been adequately de­ bated. After Matsumoto reported to the cabinet, the opinions of the min­ isters about change in the situation were divided. But dissatisfaction was expressed toward Matsumoto and some of his colleagues. They felt that negotiations about such an important issue should not have been carried out before the matter had been discussed before the full cabinet. It was subsequently decided that Shidehara should meet with MacArthur to ascertain his true intentions before the cabinet decided its position. On February 21, Shidehara spoke with the supreme commander in a meeting that lasted three hours, and which had a profound effect in deciding Japan's future. MacArthur explained that the Government Sec­ tion draft was something that would secure the emperor's position. He made clear that the most important parts of the constitution were that it based the Emperor's position on popular sovereignty and renounced war. He argued that in the midst of such a harsh international situation, a revised constitution like the GHQ draft was necessary in order to main­ tain the Emperor system. Shidehara may not have been completely convinced by MacArthur's explanation, but he likely understood it nevertheless. Preservation of the Emperor system was Shidehara's greatest desire. The incorporation of a renunciation of war into the new constitution may not have really been Shidehara's intention, but he did think it was necessary for Japan to make some sort of declaration to the world that Japan had decided to embrace peace. Only thus could Japan regain trust on the international stage. Moreover, it reflected the popular will of those who had suffered war and were "screaming in the open." This meeting marked a dramatic turning point in Shidehara's attitude toward the issue of constitutional revision. Shidehara left no written record of it, but he may have promised MacArthur he would cooperate in establishing a constitution based on the Government Section draft. If one looks at this draft from a broad perspective, it ties together many of the things that Shidehara held dear: the preservation of the Emperor system,

18

Amakawa Akira

a demonstration of good faith on the international stage, and respect for the popular will. Seeing the establishment of the new constitution became the concrete issue Shidehara focused on after this point in fulfilling his "final public duty." He gave a report of his meeting with the supreme commander at the next day's cabinet meeting and there it was decided to begin prepara­ tion of a draft constitution based on the same principles as the Govern­ ment Section draft. The attitude of the entire cabinet toward the issue changed dramatically as Shidehara's resolve to promote the American draft hardened. Without seeing things in this light, it is difficult to make sense of Shidehara's subsequent actions. In early March, the government was sud­ denly compelled to publicly announce the draft constitution. Shidehara urged his ministers to take this course, concluding that in "looking at the big picture, there was no other way." Moreover, the general election of April 10, 1946, was a three-way contest between the Liberal Party, Pro­ gressive Party, and Socialist Party. The results made it difficult to form a government on its own, but Shidehara, in the face of public disapproval, persevered, making every possible effort to organize a new successor cabinet. As president of the Progressive Party, Shidehara himself entered the new cabinet led by Yoshida, becoming a minister of state. That Shide­ hara, who had initially declined appointment as prime minister because of his advanced age and lack of interest in domestic politics, was driven to such lengths was no doubt the result of his coming to regard seeing the establishment of the constitution he had personally introduced as his "final public duty." The Shidehara cabinet of 1945 was inaugurated in a time of transition as a placeholder government to administer the country until a general election could be held. When Shidehara stepped down after the April 1946 general election, his placeholder government had achieved a signifi­ cant transition from the Meiji Constitution to the present-day postwar constitution. The reason this cabinet was able to accomplish such a daunting task was, ironically, not because it had succeeded in the area, attending to foreign relations, where it had been expected to. Rather, it was because it had failed at that very task. However, Shidehara, who placed his priorities on regaining the trust of the world and governing with a great deal of respect paid to the popular will, made a critical decision. By choosing to support this dramatic change in the constitution, Shidehara insured the survival of the Emperor system. The postwar Em­ peror system could be maintained only due to the moral courage of a leader who took the Japanese people's commitment to peace and interna­ tional good faith seriously. This was what Shidehara Kijuro demonstrat­ ed.

Shidehara Kijuro

19

NOTE 1. These quotations are fro m his Jan u ary 22, 1946, d iary en try (p. 205), in the record s of the N ational A rch iv es in the U nited K ingdom . The su p ervisin g tran slato r w ou ld like to thank P rofessors A n to n y Best and M atsu m o to Saho for secu rin g a copy of the relevant section.

THREE Yoshida Shigeru A Master of Situational Thinking Akio Watanabe

Yoshida Shigeru was a great letter writer. We know, for example, that he left around 1,300 pieces of correspondence, of which 1,164 are found in the Yoshida Shokan (The Yoshida Letters).1 For those who never had the opportunity to meet Yoshida in person, the best way to get a sense of his true voice, or perhaps better said, a feel for him as a person, is probably through this correspondence. Almost all of his letters were composed in the classical Chinese style with a writing brush; his beautiful calligraphy and the sheer volume of correspondence leaves one overwhelmed. Be­ cause he did not study under a writing master, it would be no mistake to assume that he both enjoyed calligraphy and found himself to be good at it. At the same time, Yoshida did not seem to like long essays or scrupu­ lously kept records. For example, unlike one of the Meiji politicians for which Yoshida had great respect, Ffara "Kei" Takashi, Yoshida did not keep a diary. It is hard to know whether this was simply his preference or if it was the result of some deeper conviction. In any case, Yoshida is known to have held Ashida Flitoshi in contempt for often recording his conversations in memorandum, and thus it is certain that keeping such detailed records was not Yoshida's own personal preference. Unlike diaries or other types of records in which no specific audience is in mind, letters are a means of one-to-one communication of one's feelings to an actual person —the receiver of the letter. At the same time, Yoshida did not do well in conveying himself to an undetermined audi­ ence. He is famous for hating to give speeches and, in fact, he was not 21

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Akio Watanabe

really any good at them. In listening to his radio broadcasts or news films of his speeches at the Diet, Japan's National Parliament, he tended to speak in a high-pitched voice, perhaps out of nervousness. Yoshida's dislike, bordering on distrust, of newspapers was also well-known, but there is one episode with television that in particular stands out. The problem over granting permission for the opening of a television station arose as Yoshida's third cabinet (February 16,1949-October 30,1952) was coming to an end and the fourth one (October 3 0 ,1952-May 21,1953) was set to begin. In a letter to Chief Cabinet Secretary Hori Shigeru dated May 17,1952, Yoshida noted that "the stupid rumors going around saying that the problem of the television station was linked to the general elections" would "before long become the cause of the public's distrust in parlia­ mentary politics and party politics."2 In the same letter, Yoshida in­ structed Hori to warn the leadership of the Liberal Party and the chair­ man of the Japan Broadcasting Company (Nihon Hoso Kyokai, otherwise known as NHK), Japan's public broadcasting company, Furugaki Tetsuro. Later in the year in a letter to Minister of Posts and Telecommunica­ tions Takase Sotaro, Yoshida described a visit to his office by Shoriki Matsutaro, the chairman of Nihon Television (NTV), who came to inquire about the problem of granting permission to television stations and re­ quested that permission not be given to several companies.3 Yoshida explained that at first he even hesitated to grant permission to Shoriki but in the end decided to direct the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunica­ tions to grant NTV the first preliminary television broadcasting license (with the station opening the following year in August). This episode, while in a sense having the disturbing odor of concession-seeking, was more than one of simple preferences but can also be seen as an example of Yoshida's dislike of mass media in general. Preferring the most private of all forms of communication, the letter, Yoshida was a great conversationalist who at the same time was weak at public speaking, and was thus in many ways the complete opposite of someone like U.S. president Ronald W. Reagan, considered one of the great public communicators of all time. In Japan, Okuma Shigenobu, prime minister in the early 1900s, was perhaps the first politician who understood the impact of mass media. But Yoshida was not one who could get along with that type of "populist" politician. In his own era, Yoshida, in particular, disliked Kono Ichiro, probably for that very same reason. If a populist type of politician who appeals to an undetermined number of people could be described as a "broadcaster," Yoshida, if the expression is permitted, was a "narrowcaster." In other words, Yoshida was the type of communicator who excelled at speaking on a certain topic to a specific audience. It is necessary to remember this when trying to understand the problem of public opinion vis-a-vis Yoshida's style of politics, which were often very unpopular. Yoshida exhibited a type of shyness—to the point of being unsociable and cutting short his words

Yoshida Shigeru

23

when speaking to people he did not know. Yoshida's style of relation­ ships with people predated his politics and is at the heart of the person known as Yoshida Shigeru. This aspect of his personality is no doubt related to his background. Yoshida wrote and spoke only a little about his youth.4 Indeed, Yoshi­ da himself did not really seem to want to write about his childhood, saying that it would only be a form of "self-PR." But the real reason probably was not that simple. It was likely due to the fact that his up­ bringing was not a happy one by the standards of the time. Indeed, Yoshida did not experience being raised in a normal loving and warm home environment. In a rare article that was published in Kaizd (Recon­ struction) in January 1950, Yoshida wrote about how he was born in Yokohama on September 22 in the 11th Year of Meiji (1878), the fifth son of Takeuchi Tsuna from the Tosa region in Shikoku (present-day Kochi Prefecture).5 He then went on to explain that at the time he was born, the Ito Hirobumi administration had issued a peace preservation law (hoan jorei) evicting antigovernment elements, of which Yoshida's father was considered one, a distance of ten miles from Tokyo. As a result, according to Yoshida, Takeuchi had to leave Tokyo. Yoshida wondered in his article why the Ito cabinet went so far as overruling the opposition of Police Commissioner Mishima Tsuyasu in order to institute such measures. Per­ haps, he suggested, there was the fear that something big would occur, although in the end nothing important happened. The only major thing that happened, Yoshida recorded "was definitely not my birth." Yoshida also went out of his way to note that "in any case Mishima came to be hated by his mother and others said that they would hold a grudge against him for the rest of their lives."6 Yoshida's recollection of events at the time are in fact mistaken how­ ever. The peace preservation law was issued at the end of 1887, which means that Yoshida had already turned nine years old. In fact, when Yoshida was born, his father Tsuna, was already in prison in Niigata on the Sea of Japan side of the main island of Honshu. Tsuna, who was engaged in trading in Nagasaki, had purchased eight hundred Schneider rifles through the Jardine-Matheson trading house for antigovernment rebels from his home province of Tosa who were inspired by the Seinan War the previous year (1877). Accused of this traitorous crime, Tsuna was brought to Tokyo and after an investigation was sent to prison. All of this took place immediately before Yoshida's birth. With her husband in jail, Shigeru's mother found herself in a difficult situation. It was Tsuna's friend, Yoshida Kenzo, a successful trader with Jardine, who helped out. Childless himself, it was only natural perhaps that Kenzo later adopted Shigeru from Tsuna, who already had four other children and would go °n to father nine more. It is understandable then that Yoshida should have confused events in his recollection. It was true that at the time the problem peace preserva-

24

Akio Watanabe

tion law was issued, Tsuna was exiled from Tokyo along with other political dissidents. But by that time, Shigeru had already been adopted into and living with the Yoshidas. It seems that Yoshida later caught his mistake. In the beginning of an article entitled "Oiso no Shorai (The Winds among the Pines at Oiso)" in the leading intellectual monthly journal Child Koron (Central Debate), Yoshida corrects the confusion that existed between these two "incidents."7 However, what is really symbol­ ic was the fact that in both articles Yoshida wrote very vaguely about his childhood and home life, avoiding almost purposely, it seems, any de­ tails or coherent chronology. Memories of one's childhood is often formed by what one has heard from older relatives, particularly one's father and mother, and in the process these stories become yours. If this is true then we can take it to mean that Yoshida had no such person or people close to him. Yoshida's adoptive mother, Kotoko, was the granddaughter of a famous Confucian scholar from Edo (present-day Tokyo) named Sato Issai. It is not known for sure how she related to and interacted with young Shigeru. However, it seems as if she was more a rational and intelligent person than an emotional one. Not that she was particularly cold to Shigeru, but rather she was probably not the type to lavish love on people. In later years, Yoshida, expressing his appreciation for her love, wrote nostalgically of Kotoko, then ill, taking him in the summer to the hot springs of Ikaho (Gunma Prefecture) and Hakone (Kanagawa Prefecture) near Mt. Fuji to escape the heat. However, the image of his mother in this portrayal — beautiful and kind—is the type of image that often appears in the recol­ lections of politicians. The real figure that appeared to the young Shigeru was a very proud, serious woman. On the other hand, Yoshida's adoptive father, Kenzo, adored Shigeru in his own way, but nevertheless was a busy man. Perhaps Kenzo loved to be busy. In any case, he died when young Shigeru was only eleven, leaving a fortune behind (approximately 500,000 yen at the time, or more than $6 million today). Whatever the future diplomat Yoshida may have inherited on the inside from his adop­ tive father, who made his living from working abroad as a trader, what was more prominent was becoming the master of a wealthy household at such a young age. Given such a large fortune to do with as he pleased, Yoshida had to—even if he did not like the idea—come to terms with the fact that he was already an independent man, despite his being a child.8 It is often said that politicians come from good, healthy homes while artists and writers come from far less-stable environments. If that is true, then Yoshida must be considered a very unusual case.9 Despite his big, rugged face, Yoshida possessed a fine and delicate nature and had many friends in the art and literary world, perhaps due to his somewhat un­ stable childhood. In any case it would be no mistake to note that Yoshi­ da's upbringing helped him to learn to keep a certain distance from peo­ ple when interacting with them and not to be easily swept away by

Yoshida Shigeru

25

events and the atmosphere at the time. Yoshida himself observed that while his "ability to not give in, to not being overpowered by others to the point of openly resisting" was a trait that he inherited from his equal­ ly stubborn (an attribute famous for people from Tosa) biological father, his adoptive mother's influence was also quite big.10 Yoshida's personal­ ity, not following others blindly nor ingratiating himself others, was thus formed in this way. In education as well, Yoshida did not have a normal background, nor could he be considered as particularly brilliant, easily completing each course and moving on to the next. While it was not a very rigid society regarding one's academic background then like it is today, Yoshida's situation was in any case very unusual. At the age of eleven, Yoshida entered Koyo Gijuku in Fujisawa (near Kamakura), studying Kangaku, or "Chinese learning," for five years there. The basis for Yoshida's under­ standing of human relations can be found in Yoshida's mastery of Kanga­ ku during this time, as seen when Yoshida later observed that "regarding negotiations between two people, all that is needed to know can be found in Chinese classical learning."11 At the time, this type of education was not a terribly unusual experience. While basing its curriculum on Chinese learning, K5yo Gijuku was also a school that taught math, science, Eng­ lish, geography, and history. Looking at the curriculum at the time, this was probably standard. Because the importance of Chinese learning weakened in Japanese education over the years, we might look at the degree to which Chinese learning dominated the education of Yoshida and his contemporaries as distinctive. In any case, the insights that Yoshi­ da developed during this time into understanding human relations through the learning of Kangaku inarguably left a lasting influence on him.12 In March 1894, shortly before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the young Yoshida graduated from Seisoku Normal Middle School in the Shiba Koen area of Tokyo, having attended Nihon Middle School (an academy in nearby Azabu) as well as a commercial high school, Tokyo Higher Commercial School (the forerunner to present-day Hitotsubashi University). After this he briefly attended Tokyo Academy of Physics (presently Science University of Tokyo), finally settling down after entering the Peer's School in October 1897. At the Peers' School, Yoshida steadily finished the middle school and high school coursework and entered a new college for future diplomats established by headmas­ ter Prince Konoe Atsumaro. However, with Konoe's death in 1904, which corresponded to Yoshida's third year in the program, the attached college was closed and Yoshida moved to the Political Science Division of the Law Department of Tokyo Imperial University (present-day Tokyo Uni­ versity). He graduated the following July (1906) and passed the Foreign Ministry's diplomatic and consular examinations in September. On No­ vember 15, he was made a vice consul, taking his first step as a diplomat

26

Akio Watanabe

at the high point of Japan's Meiji Period, following Japan's defeat over Russia. Yoshida was twenty-eight years old at the time. Yoshida's seven years at the Peers' School would also have a decisive influence on forming his personality. Despite this, there seems to have been no particularly strong thought involved to his attending that elite school, although its heritage, pride, and disdain for common things did match Yoshida's own personality. "Faithful," "bright," and "mature" were words used to describe Yoshida in his report cards at the time. It was here that Yoshida naturally developed his affection and respect for the emperor and nobility. The then-mission of the Peers' School under Headmaster Konoe was to develop the elite of society who would pos­ sess a special dedication to serving the emperor and the nation. The program for training future diplomats, too, was created with such a pur­ pose in mind. Whether the Foreign Ministry was in fact the best place for Yoshida to truly develop his talents or not is beside the point. Compared to other government agencies, the Foreign Ministry was not so much a workplace in which the combined organizational power is important, but one where the strength of the individual and his or her ability to make decision counts. That was even more important in Yoshida's day when it was sometimes impossible to make contact with the home ministry. In this sense, someone with Yoshida's personality fit perfectly into this kind of work. However, the Foreign Ministry was also a large bureaucracy, and thus it was not so much the ability to make decisions but rather the necessity to work with others and follow the rules there that allowed one perhaps to succeed. This was especially true during one's early years. From the beginning, Yoshida, with his high pride and stubbornness, was seen by his superiors as someone difficult to deal with. This was symbol­ ized early on when he was assigned to Tientsin, China, but the order was immediately rescinded because it was felt that the mild consul general there, Kato Motoshiro, would not be able to handle such an arrogant underling. Instead, Yoshida was sent to Mukden where its consul gener­ al, Hagiwara Moriichi, was known for his stern discipline. Hagiwara was indeed the type of person that Yoshida came to emu­ late. Yoshida, after receiving his apprenticeship in "China Diplomacy" under Hagiwara, would in fact return years later as consul general to Mukden. Yoshida's "Active Policy," seeking to bring pressure on north­ ern warlord Chang Tso-lin, who had severed the Keiho line linking Muk­ den with Peking, even met the opposition of the Kwantung Army there, not to mention that of the government. It was not so much that Yoshida was more "hawkish" than the army, but rather the truth seems to lay in the fact that Yoshida's reluctance to do nemawashi, or the necessary prear­ rangements—i.e., speaking with all the people concerned in order to get their agreement, which he saw as bothersome, brought about the failure of his plan.13

Yoshida Shigeru

27

Yoshida was second to none in connections and networks. He had married in 1909 Yuki, the oldest daughter of Makino Nobuaki, a promi­ nent figure of the diplomatic world (later a close adviser to the emperor) and himself the second son of Meiji elder statesman Okubo Toshimichi. Despite these excellent connections however, Yoshida had to serve in China, which was considered the backwaters of the Diplomatic Service (as compared to working in the glamorous and exciting capitals of Eu­ rope)—a result likely due, as many have observed, to his poor personal­ ity and bad relations with colleagues. Yet Yoshida served as vice minister of Foreign Affairs in both the administrations of General Tanaka Giichi of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party and Hamaguchi Osachi of the Constitutional Demo­ cratic Party, from 1928-1930, and after that, in 1930, serving as ambassa­ dor to Italy and in 1936 as ambassador to England, although it would be hard to say that he really acted as a hidden force in the political or diplo­ matic worlds. Yet his presence was in fact known as shown by the fact that in early 1936 at the time his fellow diplomatic colleague, Hirota Koki, was set to form a cabinet (which Yoshida helped with in the planning and let it be known that he was to be nominated as foreign minister), the military rejected him as "a liberal." As a bridge between the two parties dividing prewar politics, Friends of Constitutional Government Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party, Yoshida was close to Mori Kaku, the administrative vice minister of the Tanaka cabinet, and Hatoyama Ichiro, the secretary general of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party who later became prime minister. Because of this closeness to this party, Yoshida always kept a certain distance from "Shidehara Diplomacy," as identified with Consti­ tutional Democratic Party.14 In any case, it is a fact that Yoshida's pres­ ence was weaker than his sempai (superior) Shidehara Kijuro and his colleague Hirota. As stated above, despite Yoshida serving four times in London for a total of seven years, including his time as ambassador, as well as despite his being well-versed in the politics, diplomacy, and cul­ ture of England, he was not well-received by his British counterparts, according to documents from the British Foreign Office. Around the time he was appointed ambassador to London, the British Foreign Ministry, describing the leaders of Japan, treated him as not being quite the equal of his compatriots.15 Compared to Yoshida's oldest son Kenichi, who later became a literary scholar, and his loving daughter Kazuko (who later married a wealthy businessman and future politician Aso Takakichi), Yoshida's command of foreign languages was poorer to be sure. However, Yoshida himself does not seem to have felt any particular handicap. Yoshida's style of not using established channels of communication in order to pursue a certain policy and instead using his contacts or net­ work—in this case, the Far Eastern Division of the Foreign Office was the

28

Akio Watanabe

proper channel but Yoshida often went through his old friend, Sir Robert L. Craigie, head of the American Division, or above the Foreign Office altogether to Chancellor of the Exchequer Arthur Neville Chamberlainangered Foreign Office officials and may have been behind their poor estimation of Yoshida.16 Bureaucrats dislike when established proce­ dures are ignored, a near universal fact. It could not be helped then if bureaucrats felt that Yoshida's disregard of rules and standard operating procedures in favor of personal contacts went against their moral code. In this sense, Yoshida was definitely not a "bureaucratic type" of person. In the words of Kase "Toshikaze" Shuichi, a fellow diplomat, the unique method of Yoshida's diplomacy was "not to spread out a large number of troops in a battle and have the advance one by one to close in on the enemy, but instead to penetrate the enemy's stronghold with a crack unit and take it immediately."17 It is interesting to note that Yoshida's style was most successful in dealing with Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Douglas A. MacArthur, and his headquarters (GPIQ). At the time of Yoshida's appointment to London, Japan's diplomacy, based on an anti-Soviet alliance with Adolf Hitler's Germany, found its relations worsening day by day with England and the United States. When the home office requested the opinions of its ambassadors at the main postings abroad regarding the conclusion of the Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan, it was only Yoshida who clearly stated his opposition and sought to convince the government to take a more flexible policy. Meanwhile, Yoshida also sought to reach a solution of the China problem through cooperation with England, working through his friend Chamberlain, who became prime minister in May 1937, and 10 Downing Street. In the end however, Yoshida's diplomacy failed as he and Chamberlain met heavy walls of resistance in each of their bureaucracies in both capitals. After leaving his post as ambassador, Yoshida returned to Japan at the end of November 1938 and retired from the Foreign Ministry the following March 20. He was sixty years old. For the next seven years until he returned to the stage of postwar politics, Yoshida was excluded from formal policy making. However, being the political animal that he was, Yoshida did not go into hiberna­ tion by any means. To Yoshida, who always preferred to work outside of rules and the organization in favor of using his network of contacts, being out of the power loop was not unusual; as long as he had a network to use he was able to operate. Going through his father-in-law, Makino, Yoshida was able to approach "moderates" close to the emperor, which included some very influential people such as Konoe Fumimaro, Kido Koichi, and Harada Kumao, the personal secretary to Saionji Kimmochi, former prime minister in the early 1900s and one of the elder statesmen. Moreover, his close friends Craigie and Joseph C. Grew, ambassadors from England and the United States, respectively, also were very impor­ tant contacts for him.

Yoshida Shigeru

29

Through these contacts, Yoshida continued to attempt to block the Axis alliance between Japan, Nazi Germany, and Italy as well as to pre­ vent war between Japan and the United States. This was shown by Yoshi­ da's adherence to plans on several occasions to have the "moderate," retired General Ugaki Kazushige, appointed prime minister. In order to accomplish these goals, Yoshida even went as far as to join hands with Masaki Jinzaburo and other anti-Tojo Hideki Army officers of the Kodoha, or Imperial Way Faction. Yoshida's efforts were in vain in the end to stop Japan from plunging into war with the United States. After the start of the war, Yoshida continued to plot the collapse of the Tdjo cabinet and an early end to the war. Yoshida's movements of course were made possible because he enjoyed an information network that normal people simply did not possess. Along with this, a strong belief in the correct path that Japanese diplomacy should follow (cooperation with Great Britain and the United States), a tenacious fighting spirit against adversity, and the ability to make bold decisions by employing, if neces­ sary, extraordinary means, all formed the source of Yoshida's strength and driving energy. When his friends, retired Admiral Nomura Kichisaburo and Kurusu Saburo, encountered difficulties in their negotiations in Washington weeks before the outbreak of war, Yoshida went to Ambassador Grew in a last attempt to prevent war, requesting him to get the U.S. government to break the impasse by compromising in some way. At that time, he even offered to "aid the enemy" by providing top secret information to Grew on the movements of top officials of the Japanese government, placing himself in a very dangerous position.18 In February 1945, Yoshida would again place himself in danger. Asked by Konoe Fumimaro, who had the opportunity to respond to a question from the emperor, to pre­ pare a draft of the written response (which became known as the "Konoe Memorial"), Yoshida argued for the need for an early peace. Shortly after this (in April) Yoshida was arrested by the military police for his political activities to stop the war (known as the "Yohansen" group) and as a result spent a few weeks in prison. It is interesting to imagine that Yoshi­ da very likely felt a close identity with his own father who sixty years before, around the time of Shigeru's birth, had found himself in a similar situation. At this point it would not have been unusual or unexpected if Yoshi­ da's public life ended at this point. However, the defeat in the war, which came shortly after his release from prison, would bring Yoshida to the stage where he was to do his most important work—a destiny not known by Yoshida but only to God at the time. Yoshida Shigeru took office on May 22, 1946. He was already an old man, soon to reach his sixty-eighth birthday. Yoshida's first cabinet would continue for approximately one year, followed by the cabinets of Katayama Tetsu and Ashida Hitoshi which lasted for about one year five

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months. During this time, Yoshida experienced so-called life in the wild­ erness, in other words, he and his liberals (which he had been asked to head by its leader Hatoyama Ichiro upon the latter's purge by GHQ in 1946 as a "reactionary") moved into the opposition.19 However, the re­ sponsibility to form a government came his way again on October 15, 1948. After that, until the Fifth Yoshida cabinet resigned en masse on December 7, 1954, Yoshida continued at the center of postwar Japanese politics for what would total almost seven years. These seven years of Yoshida politics represented not only a record for the longest administra­ tion in Japanese history (until broken by Yoshida's apprentice, Sato Eisaku, for the years 1964 to 1972), but in the sense that these years corre­ sponded to the years that the origins of Japan's postwar politics were formed, Yoshida's time in office holds a special significance in postwar political history that cannot be denied. Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Ger­ many, who is often compared to Yoshida, followed Yoshida by three years, entered office in 1949 (although Adenauer himself was slightly more senior at seventy-three when he became chancellor).20 Older by two years, Adenauer preceded Yoshida in death by only six months, with both elder statesmen dying in 1967. These two leaders, the postwar founders of these two defeated countries in the East and West, thus grew up in the same prewar period. Despite this, it is surprising that these two elderly politicians came to occupy the position of leading the rebirth of their countries. In Japan, the postwar reforms that came about as a result of defeat are often called the second "opening of the country."21 The first "opening" came at the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which was led by young men barely in their thirties. In fact, those older than their mid-thirties were labeled "over-the-hill" and seen as behind the times. The contrast with the postwar, which was led by older men, is striking indeed. This suggests, therefore, that the postwar reforms in Japan were less a kakumei, or "revolution," than a saiken, or "rebuilding." Turning sixtyseven on the eve of Japan's defeat, Yoshida was in that sense a "prewar" person, if not a person of the Meiji period. That this Yoshida would be the one who created the "postwar" for Japan was not just chance; other rea­ sons lie behind it. In order to more fully understand Yoshida and post­ war politics, one cannot be successful without knowing about the prewar Yoshida in full. It was for this reason that the author sought to discuss Yoshida's prewar background in as much detail as space allowed. What was the essence of the problems faced by Yoshida who was brought out into the forefront of postwar politics? Just as the arrest of Yoshida by the military police for his efforts to end the war suggests, the thing that both Yoshida and Konoe feared most was that the chaos fol­ lowing defeat would cause a revolution.22 Defeat, they feared, would, like Lenin's belief in "revolution through war," inevitably both raise the

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question of the responsibility of Japan's leaders and bring about the loss of existing political prestige of its rules, thus turning into the ultimate chance for revolutionists in Japan. The Russian Revolution, which fol­ lowed defeats in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and World War I, was a prime example. In that sense, Germany's Weimar revolution fol­ lowing World War I may also be seen as a similar example. The inherent weaknesses of a revolutionary state born out of an abrupt break in that country's history and traditions can be seen in the short life of the Wei­ mar Republic as well as perhaps the more recent example of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Konoe and Yoshida feared in particular the Communist followers and sympathizers in prison and in exile abroad. The latter group, specifically, recognized it was no longer the now discredited "militarists" but rather the so-called liberalists and moderates like Konoe and Ugaki and other politicians who stood in their way. Each of these two groups, the moder­ ates and the revolutionists, correctly understood who each other was and where the other stood. The symbol of the fight between these two groups would revolve around kokutai no hoji, or "the preservation of the national polity," a euphemism for the Emperor system. Representative of this, it was this last condition (the status of the em­ peror) on which the Japanese would not budge at the time of the decision to accept the Potsdam Declaration, with the argument that it was neces­ sary to receive a guarantee from the United States to protect the national polity being the most influential. Just as can be seen in the many tele­ grams sent from Moscow by Ambassador Sato Naotake to Foreign Minis­ ter Togo Shigenori during the summer of 1945, there were several people who already recognized that this problem would likely evolve into a debate on the Meiji Constitution (1889), with the attitude taken by the United States and other victorious powers exercising a decisive influence on the outcome. The acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration then was not only a type of bargaining between defeated Japan and the United States as representative of the Allies, but was also a type of hidden bargaining between domestic forces in Japan over the shape of postwar Japan.23 However, for Yoshida, the end of the war possessed not only aspects of danger, but hinted at numerous opportunities as well. After listening to the August 15 broadcast of Emperor Hirohito at his home southwest of Tokyo in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, Yoshida did not move for a few days, biding his time and receiving reports through the Foreign Ministry on the situation in the capital. Early in the following week, Yoshida made his move, first visiting with Harada, another member of the Yohansen group, at the latter's home in the village of Sakata village in Ashigarakami County, near Odawara. Yoshida visited Harada to ask that sake, rice, and pears from Ashigara be sent to his home in Oiso, as he had "been eaten out of house by all of the guests that have been coming one after the other to his house" and feared that he would not be able to buy food in

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the markets.24 It was not that they were partying all night. For Yoshida, his having visitors and guests was a way to get information. Still, Yoshi­ da was worried, hearing only rumors, and not being able to figure out what was truly happening, he decided on August 26 to visit Ikeda Shigeaki of the Mitsui zaibatsu and another member of the Yohansen antiwar group, to seek out his views. The result of their talk was that Ikeda told him that "everything was going well and that it was not necessary to worry about the future. The sky had finally cleared after the storm, re­ moving all of the bad practices and policies that had gathered up over the years. It was now possible to rebuild the country."25 Yoshida returned home strengthened by Ikeda's optimistic views. One wonders how it was that the sixty-seven-year-old Yoshida was encouraged by the seventyeight-year-old Ikeda. While it is not certain on what Ikeda based his optimism, if we look at a longer, four-page picture postcard that Yoshida sent to his friend Kurusu on the same day that he sent the above postcard to Harada describing his talk with Ikeda, we can relive the talk that these elder men had. According to Yoshida, W h a t h a d to en d fin ally d id . If th e D ev il h a s a so n , s u re ly h e is T ojo. I b e lie v e w e n o w fin d o u rs e lv e s in a situ a tio n th a t o ffers ch a n ce s like n e v e r b e fo re . T h e fu tu re o f re b u ild in g Im p erial Ja p a n is in o u r h a n d s. W e sh o u ld re m o v e th e c a n c e r o f p o litics b y th e m ilita ry , m a k e th e p o litica l w o r ld cle a n a g a in , a llo w th e n a tio n a l m o r a ls to liv e a g a in , an d e sta b lish a n e w o u r fo re ig n p o licy th r o u g h o u r o w n effo rts. N o t o n ly th is, b u t if w e c a n d e v e lo p th e scie n c e s, reb u ild o u r fin an cial w o rld th r o u g h th e in tro d u c tio n o f A m e r ic a n in v e stm e n t, a n d s h o w o u r tru e p o w e r a s a n Im p e ria l P o w e r a g a in , th e n w e d o n o t h a v e to th in k o f th is d e fe a t as so m e th in g b a d . R a th e r it is like th e e a rth a n d sk y a fte r a ra in s to rm . In a n y e v e n t, th in g s a re p ro g re s s in g b e tte r th a n e v e r e x p e c te d . T h e E m p e r o r 's w is e d e cisio n to b rin g a b o u t a n e n d to th e w a r w a s a b ra v e o n e a n d p a rtic u la rly in s p ir in g .26

Yoshida in essence came to view this time as the chance to take the fate of the nation out of the hands of Tojo and the military and return it to the proper political forces. The problem was who had the right to claims of legitimacy regarding the administration of the country. Progressive forces on the left argued that all of the vested groups from the prewar, including Yoshida, had lost all of their qualifications. From Yoshida's point of view, he and his supporters were the inheritors of the line of legitimacy from the Meiji State and that the military had usurped power against their will, creating a break in history. Just who then could claim themselves pure from war responsibility would occupy the minds of Japan's leaders at the time. For the moment, a "liberal" within the Imperi­ al family, Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko would head the government, with Konoe and Shigemitsu Mamoru joining it. However, their futures were unclear. The prospects for these "moderates," who had to confront occupation policies while protecting the traditions of the Meiji State, were

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very uncertain. In the middle of this uncertainty as MacArthur made his famous landing at Atsugi Naval Air Base not too far from where Yoshida was in Oiso, Yoshida wrote to Hatoyama in the resort of Karuizawa, advising him to go to Tokyo "for it was not really good to be relaxing in the mountains [at a time like this]."27 Both Yoshida and Hatoyama, as two of the few Friends of Constitutional Government Party associates to live through the battles with the military, found a place where it was necessary to cooperate and help each other at this point. It was an alliance that would bring Yoshida to the forefront of postwar politics. While Yoshida viewed defeat in the war as an opportunity to rebuild the country, he himself did not expect to play a central role. After visiting Konoe at his home in Tekigaiso on September 4, Yoshida was told by Konoe's associates that Higashikuni was not well-liked by GHQ (and thus Konoe's stock there was rising), as well as that foreign minister Shigemitsu Mamoru was also not popular, Yoshida wrote to Harada about what he heard on September 7.28 Little did Yoshida realize, as his letter suggests, that within days Shigemitsu would resign and he would become Foreign Minister. Yoshida's joining the Higashikuni cabinet on September 17 represented Yoshida's entrance on to the center stage. Having read MacArthur's September 2 speech at the surrender cere­ mony aboard the USS Missouri, Yoshida held the impression that the occupation army hoped to "go in and smoothly do their job and then leave."29 However, GHQ's later directives on such actions as the purge and the constitution were much more strict (and disruptive) than Yoshi­ da had initially expected. As he recorded in his memoirs regarding his own first cabinet, "Severe orders reflecting the policies to deal with Japan by the victorious allied countries came one after the other without any word of their intention. In order to prevent frictions, we had to deal with these orders quickly, almost as giving first aid, taking allowances that each day was different. My first cabinet felt as if we were sleepwalking." The situation was the same when he was foreign minister in the Higashi­ kuni and Shidehara cabinets.30 Yoshida's daughter, Kazuko, who acted as her father's hostess follow­ ing the death of her mother, Yuki, often watched Yoshida getting up early in the morning, pacing back and forth with a difficult expression on his face in the small garden in the courtyard of the Foreign Minister's Official Residence in Ichibeicho, Azabu, as well as his return from walks during sleepless nights in the burned out neighborhood.31 In a rare sign of despair, the usually optimistic Yoshida wrote to his predecessor Shigemitsu shortly after taking up his duties as foreign minister that "he was vory busy and felt just like a lone ship drifting amid the waves of a large ocean."32 At this time, even someone as confident as Yoshida had doubts in his head. In one well-known incident, Yoshida decided to speak directly 'vith MacArthur at his office in the Dai Ichi Seimei Building across from

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the emperor's residence in Tokyo regarding the intentions of GHQ to­ ward the emperor. Watching MacArthur recite his views while striding about and turning without knowing where to stop, Yoshida unconscious­ ly chuckled. When caught laughing, Yoshida explained that he thought MacArthur looked like a lion in a cage pacing around, to which the usual­ ly reserved MacArthur reportedly smiled, too, immediately breaking the tense, stiff air that existed between them. Perhaps Yoshida recalled that his own daughter had said the same thing about him. In any case, we should not be mistaken into thinking however that all of Yoshida's anxie­ ty toward the all-powerful occupation army disappeared with this one episode. Yoshida's biggest concern at this time was the question of the consti­ tution and the treatment of the emperor. Soon after becoming foreign minister, Yoshida implemented his suggestion that the emperor visit MacArthur's headquarters, at which time MacArthur took a personal liking to Hirohito. With this successful meeting, Yoshida was able to pause and breathe a sigh of relief. In fact, it turns out that MacArthur himself had already realized that preservation of Hirohito himself and the Emperor system as a whole was essential to the smooth running of the occupation (which in the end was an indirect rather than a direct military government). However, not only the Soviet Union, but many Allied countries harbored strong feelings against the emperor. Likewise, public opinion in the United States showed that Americans were not necessarily sympathetic by any means to the emperor or Emperor sys­ tem. As a result, the future status of the emperor remained far from decided. Despite the question of the revision of the Meiji Constitution thus logically being placed in the middle of this international political context, the work of the Shidehara cabinet on the revision of the constitu­ tion proceeded in self-imposed isolation and blindly, without regard to the international aspects of the problem. This false sense of security and isolation was dramatically broken when, on February 13, 1946, Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, chief of the Government Section, and deputy chief, Colonel Charles L. Kades, visited the Foreign Minister's Residence, bringing with them a draft con­ stitution written by the Government Section at MacArthur's direction. Not only Matsumoto Joji, the state minister in charge of revising the constitution, and Shirasu Jiro, second-in-charge of the Central Liaison Office (and a close personal confidante to Yoshida), but even Yoshida, despite his usual shrewd diplomatic sense, were able to hide their aston­ ishment, calling the draft "outrageous" (tondemonai).33 More so than the clause on the renunciation of war, the question of the "Protecting the National Polity" (Kokutai no goji), in other words, the emperor, was the biggest concern of the Japanese government, including Yoshida. In the middle of the flow of this international opinion, the only way to save the emperor was to make clear the rights of the people and the emperor a

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"symbol" of the people, as well as to renounce war. This was the logic to the background of the GHQ draft. The Japanese political beliefs and tra­ ditions since the Meiji Restoration in 1867 had rejected the idea of setting the Emperor and the people apart or against one another, placing sove­ reignty in the hands of one or the other in favor of the ideal of kunmin kyochi, or "majesty and people ruling together," and kunshin ikka, or "rul­ er and servants as one." To Yoshida then, accepting this constitutional draft was very difficult and bitter. Yet faced with the absolute authority of MacArthur there was no other choice in Yoshida's mind but to accept in order for defeated Japan to continue to live. In deciding this, Yoshida's resolution was impressive. In this sense, it cannot be denied then that the 1947 constitution was an international treaty-like document born out of the dynamics of international politics. Likewise, Yoshida later wrote in his memoirs, "In looking at the process of constitutional revision, as far as we were concerned, it was almost like negotiations with a foreign coun­ try over the signing of a treaty. More than that, at least in treaty negotia­ tions, you have more room to maneuver."34 If the Japanese constitution was in fact a treaty, what was the ratifica­ tion process then and what role did Yoshida play? As foreign minister in the Higashikuni and Shidehara cabinets, Yoshida was involved in "nego­ tiations" with GHQ to some extent, with Shidehara being ultimately in charge. In ratification of the new constitution in the Diet, it would be the destiny of Yoshida, as prime minister, to bear the responsibility of being the ultimate in charge. The biggest issue therefore of the first Yoshida cabinet, formed on May 22, 1946 (and resigning en masse on May 20, 1947), was, in addition to the food crisis, the problem of the constitution. In fact, the life of this cabinet more or less followed the timing of this ratification process: the draft constitution was submitted to the House of Representatives on June 20, 1946; it passed on October 7; it was promul­ gated on November 3, and went into effect on May 3,1947. The process of these "foreign negotiations" regarding the constitution progressed under a power relationship in which the Japanese govern­ ment was no match. There was no choice but to accept defeat with dig­ nity. However, no matter what the circumstances, once the constitution draft was decided upon, Yoshida became its number one defender in seeking its ratification. Nevertheless, in the "100 Days of Deliberation" in the Diet, Yoshida also found himself in tough situations in his explana­ tions. Concerning the question of the sovereignty of the people and the national polity, as well as that of the emperor as a symbol of the country, Yoshida argued at a session in the House of Representatives in response to a question by Kita Reikichi, "The National Polity will not change in the least under the new constitution."35 Likewise, regarding the question of the renunciation of war and the right of self-defense, Yoshida on June 26, 1946, expressed his view that Article 9 "denied the rights both to exercise self-defense and of war" and responding to a statement by Nosaka

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Sanzo, a leading Communist Party member, that it was natural for an independent country to exercise the right of self-defense and therefore "wars of aggression," and not all wars, should be renounced, Yoshida stated that he believed "the very recognizing of the right of legitimate self-defense leads to wars and is in itself harmful." Moreover, two months later on August 24 in the Upper House deliberations, in response to a question about Article Nine's preventing Japan from participating in collective security with the United Nations by Nambara Shigeru, who would become a leading member of the postwar peace movement, Yoshi­ da cut him off by saying that it wasn't necessary to think about the problem then. In this way, while Yoshida on the surface appeared to be high-handed in his explanations, he was also at the same time very aware of what had to be done at the time and well understood the role given to him. As proof of this, Yoshida wrote to his father-in-law toward the end of the "100 Days of Deliberation," stating that he believed "that while there were some problems in the new constitution, it would be wellreceived both domestically and abroad."36 If the constitution was the most important agenda for the first Yoshida cabinet, then the peace and security treaties were the biggest issues for his other cabinets. While it could be called coincidence that Yoshida was deeply involved in the three essential documents defining postwar Ja­ pan—the constitution, the peace treaty, and the security treaty—this fact alone of his involvement gives Yoshida a special meaning to postwar Japan. However, the political environment surrounding Yoshida during the first round (the constitution) as compared to the second round (the peace and security treaties) was completely different. In the first general election following the promulgation of the new constitution (where Yoshida was a candidate for the first time) held on April 25,1947, Yoshida's Liberal Party lost by a small margin (131 to 143) to the Socialist Party. Claiming that it was important to accept the loss gracefully, Yoshida handed power over to the Socialist Party, entered the opposition, and refused calls to join a coalition government. Yoshida was not necessarily against coalition governments, nor did he hate the Social­ ist Party; toward the end of his first cabinet, he had seriously considered asking the Socialist Party to join his government in order to strengthen it. Rather, showing himself as faithful to the style of prewar politicians who felt that the normal functioning of constitutional politics required the losing party to gracefully step aside, Yoshida in all likelihood did not want to join the coalition government because he judged it would not last long with a Socialist leader at its head. This belief can be seen in corre­ spondence with his father-in-law, Makino, in which he wrote, "I want to leave the transition of the administration to nature," as well as in a letter to another person immediately after the formation of the Katayama cabi­ net, "The present cabinet can only end in agony . . . it will commit suicide if it doesn't take strong action."37 It can be said that the political situation

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37

at this time, when Yoshida made this important decision, exposed, in a sense, the dynamics of postwar Japanese politics in its simplest form. In other words, three groups, the two "conservative" groups descended from the prewar Friends of Constitutional Government Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party, and the "progressives" (Socialist Party) symbolizing the postwar, contended for power and divided the political world into three. Deciding who would take the reins of power and who to form alliances with became the basis of movements for power. This meant that Yoshida, by choosing to go into the opposition, was simply waiting until another opportunity arose to take control of the govern­ ment again. However, this opportunity did not come as quickly or as easily as Yoshida had anticipated. That was because for one reason, the progres­ sive Government Section of GHQ opposed conservative Yoshida's com­ ing into power again and did everything in their power to prevent this, boldly intervening at times. After Katayama, power was passed to Ashida Hitoshi and after the Ashida government fell, the Liberal Party could come to power but not with its president, Yoshida, leading the govern­ ment. Instead the Government Section sought out Yamazaki Takeshi, secretary general of Yoshida's party, and attempted to make a cabinet with him at the head. After a difficult period, the second Yoshida cabinet finally came into being on October 19,1948. It had, however, a weak base, being made up of a minority party and facing the continued countering efforts of the Government Section. Yoshida bet everything on the next election. Overruling the objections of the opposition and the Government Section, he employed Article 7 of the constitution and dissolved the Diet on December 23. The 24th General Election, held on January 23,1949, saw the newly named Democratic Liberal Party (following the absorption of Shidehara's followers from the Democratic Party which had been divided in its support for the Socialist-Democrat coalition) win an overwhelming victory and absolute majority (264 seats), allowing him to firmly take control of the government again. While it is true that Yoshida skillfully used divisions and rivalries within GHQ and chose to make direct con­ tact with MacArthur in order to evade efforts by the Government Section dominated by the New Dealers to oppose him, without the clear victory in the election Yoshida would not have been able to win out over his enemies in GHQ. It was the third Yoshida cabinet formed at the end of this ordeal on February 16, 1949 (and lasting until October 30, 1952), where one can see the complete view of Yoshida's politics. At almost the same time that the Ashida cabinet fell and the second Yoshida cabinet was formed, the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington adopted on October 7, 1948, NSC 13/2 ("Report by the Na­ tional Security Council on Recommendations with Respect to United States Policy Toward Japan") which suggested a new policy direction for the occupation being based on the advice of veteran diplomat George F.

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Kennan who was heading the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. This paper called for a complete review of U.S. policy toward the peace treaty based on a rejection of the premises of cooperation between the Allied powers. Japan would be completely defenseless if it was cast off in the middle of the harsh winds of the Cold War. What Kennan feared was not only defenseless in the military sense, but Japan's political, economic, and social weakness as well. On this point, the old occupation policy was to a large extent to blame. A lot of time would be required to make Japan strong enough to resist international Communism and to make Japan a reliable ally for the Unit­ ed States and the West. Signing a peace treaty and restoring Japan's inde­ pendence would come later. From this point on, the United States would forever look at and treat Japan as a "Junior Partner." The policies called Jijitsujd no kowa, or a peace treaty in all but name, and nashikuzushi no kowa, or a peace treaty little by little, had its origins here. After a training course is over, a graduation ceremony is held. The future treaty was likely viewed in the same way. Because of this, when one talks of Yoshida and the peace treaty, it is necessary to view the entire process, beginning at least with the policies during the middle of the occupation of having a peace treaty in all but name. Stated another way, all the achievements of the third Yoshida cabinet were in fact part of this road to the peace treaty. One after the other, stringent and drastic policies were introduced. The Dodge Line, put into effect in 1949, compromised nine principles to stabilize the economy, sought personnel cuts of more than 410,000 public employees (out of about 1.6 million in total), reductions in government spending, and control of inflation. The Schwab Report developed a new tax system placing emphasis on direct taxes, particularly on individual income taxes. The yen-dollar exchange rate was set at 360 \to the dollar in order to expose the Japanese economy to the competition of the interna­ tional markets. In implementing these strict policies, naturally those groups who feared that their lifestyles would be endangered rose up in protest. Three notorious incidents occurred one after the other during the summer of 1949 amid the laying off of approximately one hundred thou­ sand National Railways workers, the so-called Shimoyama Incident, the Matsukawa Incident, and the Mitaka Incident, all of which saw several deaths and injuries. The labor movement began to get more and more radically politicized. Yoshida was not afraid nor did he lose his fight in the middle of this social situation, calling the leaders of the radical labor movements "lawless elements." For Yoshida his most pressing threat was not from abroad, but rather was a fear of law and order breaking down from inside. That was the reason why he was concerned about the weak­ ening of police strength. Moreover, Yoshida placed great hopes on soci­ ety's moral and intellectual leaders, particularly university faculty who exercised an influence on the younger generation. When Tokyo Univer­ sity president Nambara called for a "Full Peace" with all of the Allies

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including China and the Soviet Union, Yoshida branded him a "literary sycophant," symbolizing perhaps his frustration with the peace move­ ment and feeling that his hopes had been betrayed. Around the time when the author was a student, there was a little bar c a l l e d the "Full Peace" in Shibuya, Tokyo, where young people gathered a n d fortified themselves on cheap sake. The peace treaty was an appropri­ ate and popular topic for these "progressive" forces who called for the downfall of the "reactionary" Yoshida government. In fact, the peace treaty itself, as its architect, John Foster Dulles proudly stated, was not a "treaty of retribution" but one of "reconciliation and trust." With the exception of the territorial problems of Okinawa, the Bonins, and the Kuriles, defeated Japan had very little to call unfair. If one views the San Francisco Peace Treaty Conference as the price the United States had to pay to make Japan an alliance partner, then it might be considered natu­ ral then that Japan should be given a generous peace. However, what divided public opinion was not the peace treaty, but rather the insepara­ bly related U.S.-Japan security treaty. This was symbolized by the divi­ sion that existed within the Socialist Party—the right wing of it voted for the peace treaty and against the security treaty while the left wing voted against both. Dulles said that Japan was not in a position to "negotiate" with regard to the treaty, but that was only on the surface. In reality, the exchanges that took place between him and Yoshida could only be called "negotia­ tions." In this sense, the second round (the peace treaty) was fundamen­ tally different than the first round relating to the constitution. Here MacArthur even acted to lend a hand to Yoshida, particularly on the question of rearmament. The desire of the U.S. side to be able to maintain bases in posttreaty Japan in a form that did not differ much from the occupation period (in other words, without any restraints) gave Yoshida an important lever in the negotiations. As long as the United States sta­ tioned its forces there, Japan would be protected from a military attack by the Soviet Union. Just how much Yoshida viewed the Soviet military threat is unknown, but the presence of U.S. forces acted to fortify Japan from outside attack. During an April-May 1950 trip to Washington, D.C., by Finance Minister Ikeda Hayato, Yoshida had Ikeda relay his message that if the United States found it difficult to request, the Japanese side would ask the United States to continue its military presence. Needless to say this was an important stepping-stone on the road to the peace trea­ ty.38 Yoshida was probably not anticipating the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, but more than anything else, it became the reason that the United States sought to station its forces in Japan. Yoshida had not been sure to what extent the United States was prepared to commit itself to the defense of the Korea peninsula, but America's quick response to the war removed any lingering doubts. Regarding Japan, to Yoshida,

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who felt more concern about domestic order than foreign attack, MacArthur's ordering the creation of a seventy-five-thousand-man police re­ serve force following the departure of American troops to Korea was welcome indeed. Although Yoshida's view that the right of self-defense was renounced in the constitution was pushed aside, Yoshida at the same time did not easily consent to Dulles' demands that Japan had to begin full-scale rearmament. Dulles was surprised at Yoshida's stubborn resis­ tance. In the end, in an effort to paint over their differences, an agreement falling far short of the mark was agreed to, with the Japanese promising to create at some future point a fifty-thousand-man National Safety Force. While the phrase "Article 9" was not spoken by either man, its presence was understood by both negotiators. In an unexpected outcome, the product of the first round of negotiations regarding the constitution exercised influence on Yoshida's victory in the second round with the treaties. History's Clio was smiling here at Yoshida.39 However, Yoshida at the time was very much aware of the weight of history. On the eve of his departure for San Francisco, where the peace conference was to be held, Yoshida wrote to Tatsumi Eiichi, a former lieutenant general in the Imperial Army and Yoshida's trusted advisor on posttreaty security affairs, that he "without expecting it, finds himself about to depart for the United States with a heavy task to bear."40 Some­ thing more than just a conventional phrase or parting words seems to exist in this message. Yoshida's daughter, Kazuko, records that her father "had a solemn look on his face" as he was preparing to leave for San Francisco and that this differed than his usual optimistic nature: "he must have been very anxious faced with the truly difficult task in front of him of having to make such an important decision on behalf of the entire country."41 What was it that weighed so heavily on Yoshida's mind at this time? According to Masuda Kaneshichi, who had been directed by Yoshida to form a bipartisan plenipotentiary peace delegation, recorded his estimate that Yoshida approached the peace treaty with a spirit of being ready to die and was prepared to be the only signatory of the peace treaty, taking full responsibility for it.42 Being "ready to die" sounds out of place with regard to Yoshida, but it is no doubt that the San Francisco Peace Confer­ ence was the tensest time of his long life. The fate or destiny of diplomats is that the choices they may feel best in diplomatic negotiations may not always be accepted by public opinion. When Yoshida began the path to his diplomatic career in the early 1900s, he witnessed the unpopular reac­ tions to the handling of the negotiations of the Portsmouth Treaty with the Russians at the end of the Russo-Japanese War by Foreign Minister Komura Jutaro. While in the end the full delegation signed the peace treaty, Yoshida himself alone on behalf of Japan put his name to the Security Treaty, prepared to meet his fate.

Yoshida Shigeru

41

Fortunately, what awaited Yoshida on his return from San Francisco was not the Shibuya riots seen upon Komura's return forty-six years before, but rather a wave of well-wishers at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. According to a public opinion survey in the September 25 edition of the Asahi Shimbun, 58 percent supported the Yoshida cabinet. Likely after receiving words of appreciation from the novelist Shiga Naoya, Yoshida responded in writing that "he first of all desperately craved sleep and rest."43 However, immediately after the near seven-year occupation period ended on April 28, 1952, the bloody May Day Incident awaited the government, in which two protestors died and hundreds of police were injured, including several U.S. soldiers some of whom were thrown into the moat of the Imperial Palace.44 Yoshida, who saw the universities as the base of leftist demonstrations, sternly ordered school authorities to crack down. Yoshida's personality, as seen in the words of his daughter, "putting up a fight when opposed but not when praised," came out once again, and his unwillingness to give up power out of pride or obstinacy became more blatant as time went on.45 Following this, Yoshida's more arrogant and "one-man" style of poli­ tics, as seen in the fourth Yoshida cabinet, formed on October 30, 1952, and the fifth Yoshida cabinet, formed on May 21,1953, was fraught with in-fighting and confrontation with the opposition, and charges of bribery. Just as British prime minister Winston S. Churchill, who led Britain to victory in World War II, was not supported by his people in the postwar, so Yoshida clearly lost favor among the Japanese people following the peace treaty. Yoshida himself probably felt that there were many jobs left to be done and endless concerns to be addressed, yet the age called for a transfer of leadership. In fact, there was no one that Yoshida could in fact pass leadership to at this point, and as a result the transfer of power dragged on and on vainly. Yoshida showed himself at his best in large politics (foreign policy) when he represented a unified Japan abroad. However, he disliked and was poor at small politics, such as domestic politics and intraparty politics. The "freeze" on domestic politics under the authority of GHQ was thus an advantageous situation to Yoshida. Following the peace treaty, domestic politics were unfrozen and started to boil, Yoshida's performance—even if looked at in the best possible light—was far from brilliant. On December 7, 1954, the fifth Yoshida cabinet resigned en masse.46 Although Yoshida confined himself to his home in Oiso he did not lose his passion for politics. Calling for his student" Ikeda Hayato to "gather his forces and prepare for the future," Yoshida continued with his passion until his passing on October 20,1967, at the age of eighty-nine.47 If one thinks about it, that Yoshida, one of the few Meiji people left, casually came on the seen and launched a new era can only be called a mystery.48 Konoe Fumimaro once asked whether Yoshida, who lived in

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the era of "Imperial Japan," had the ability to lead Japan in the postwar, himself fearing that he did not. It is true that Yoshida's thinking re­ mained constant in the prewar and postwar periods. As historian Kon Hidemi writes, "there was in fact no difference between the new and the old in his judgements."49 Some might call this "conservative." Conserva­ tive, in the first place, is "not a creed, but a disposition. To be conserva­ tive is to be disposed to think and behave in certain manners; it is to prefer certain kinds of conduct and certain conditions of human circum­ stances to others; it is to be disposed to make certain kinds of choices."50 At the center of this disposition is, according to Michael Oakeshott, the propensity to use and to enjoy what is available rather than to wish for or to look for something else; to delight in what is present rather than what was or what may be. Reflection may bring to light an appropriate grate­ fulness for what is available, and consequently the acknowledgment of a gift or an inheritance from the past; but there is no mere idolizing of what is past and gone. What is esteemed is the present, and it is esteemed not on account of its connections with a remote antiquity, nor because it is recognized to be more admirable than any possible alternative, but on account of its familiarity. In Oakeshott's definition then, Yoshida would be the classic "conser­ vative." If this is so, then there is no one farther from a "doctrine" than Yoshida. Yoshida no doubt would have denied any connection to the socalled Yoshida Doctrine.51 The secret to Yoshida's flexibility lied in fact in his conservatism. Yoshida left himself exposed to attack by nationalists in favor of self-defense and patriots for flexibly accepting the "symbolic Emperor system" and collective self-defense who probably considered him unprincipled and inconsistent. Yoshida found vague and dogmatic arguments useless. In that sense, he was not "theoretical thinker." Like­ wise, it is often said that Yoshida liked bureaucrats. While that may be true, he despised at the same time needless bureaucratic rules. Yoshida's yelling at lower bureaucrats who were set in a "grooved thinking" mind­ set, and telling them that they lacked "statesmanship" is legendary. In this way, because Yoshida was not a prisoner of stiff rules and precedents or to a fixed logic, perhaps it is possible to call his type "non-committal." Yet, as pointed out earlier, Yoshida was not unprincipled. Because Yoshi­ da placed special importance on "the present," he could be called a mas­ ter of situational thinking. Temporarily giving up restoring relations with mainland China and choosing Taiwan instead, as well as devising a se­ curity treaty formula which allowed the United States to continue to use bases in the post-treaty era (and not concerning himself with slogans such as "sovereignty" and "independence") and thus permitted Japan to spend little on defense, are good examples of Yoshida's flexible thinking. However, Yoshida was unhappy however when the results of these choices became hardened and turned into near articles of faith.

Yoshida Shigeru

43

In this way, like bamboo, pliant yet tough, Yoshida brought about japan's delicate transformation from the Meiji state to the postwar state. In the middle of a new age that we face on the eve of the twenty-first century and the tasks before us, while being grateful for the gifts and inheritances from the past, we should not merely "idolizfe] what is past and gone" but seek to hand these gifts on to the next generation. NOTES 1. Y o sh id a Shigeru Kinen Jigyo Z aidanhen, ed., Yoshida Shigeru Shokan (The Y o sh i­ da Shigeru L etters), (Tokyo: C h uo K oronsha, 1994). 2. "Y o sh id a to H ori S higeru ," M ay 1 7 ,1 9 5 2 , in Ibid., 587. 3. "Y o sh id a to T akase S otaro ," N ov em b er 5 ,1 9 5 2 , Ibid., 368. 4. See for exam p le, J. W . D ow er, Empire and Aftermath, Yoshida Shigeru and the Japan Experience, 1878-1954 (C am b ridge, M assach usetts: C oun cil on East A sia Studies, H a r­ vard U niversity, 1988), 1 3 -2 9 . 5. Y o sh id a Shigeru, "C h ich i to H a h a —O itachi n o K oto N ad o (M y F ath er and M other: M y P erso n al H isto ry an d O th er T h ings)," Kaizo, V ol. 31, N o. 1 (Jan u ary 1950), 13-2 4 . 6. Ibid., 18. 7. "O iso n o Shorai (The W ind s A m o n g the Pines at O iso)," Chuo Koron, Vol. 80, N o. 12 (D ecem ber 1965), 2 0 3 -1 0 . 8. A s a side n ote, Y osh id a ap p aren tly u sed alm ost all of his inheritance d uring his time as a d ip lom at abroad. 9. M atsu m o to K enichi, Sengo Seijika no Bunsho (C h ap ters on P ostw ar Politicians), (Tokyo: D aisan B unm eisha, 1988). 10. Y osh id a Shigeru, Sekai to Nihon (The W orld and Jap an ), (Tokyo: B an ch o Shobo, 1963), 259; n ew edition, (Tokyo: C huko Bunko, 1992), 248. 11. Ibid., 255. 12. K urihara Ken, "Y o sh id a Shigeru n o K angak u (Y osh id a Shigeru 's C hinese L earn ­ ing)," in Y osh id a Shigeru Kinen Jigyo Z aid anh en, ed ., Ningen Yoshida Shigeru (The Person Y osh id a Shigeru), (Tokyo: C h uo K oronsha, 1991), 1 7 -3 5 . 13. Eto Shinkichi, "K eih osen Shadan M ondai n o Gaiko K atei (The D iplom atic P ro ­ cess of the P roblem of the S everance of the K eiho L in e)," in S asahara H ajim e and M itani Taiichiro, ed s., Kindai Nihon no Seiji Shido (Political L eadership in M o d e m Ja­ pan), (Tokyo: Tokyo D aigaku Shuppankai, 1965), 74. 14. On S hideh ara's attem p ts at cooperative d ip lom acy tow ard China in the 1920s, see ch apter 2. A lso see B am ba N ob u ya, Japanese Diplomacy in a Dilemma: New Light on Japan's China Policy, (K yoto: M inerva Press, 1972). 15. F.O . 3 7 1 /2 0 2 8 8 /8 9 9 L ead in g Personalities, Foreign Office R eco rd s, N ational A rchives, U nited K ingdom . 16. On Y o sh id a 's tim e as am b assad o r to E ngland , see H osoy a C hihiro, "G aikokan Yoshida Shigeru (The D iplom at Y o sh id a Shigeru )," Chuo Koron, Vol. 92, N o. 8 (A ugust 1977), 244r-63. 17. K ase Shuichi, Yoshida Shigeru no Yuigon (Y osh id a Shigeru 's T estam ent) (new edition), (Tokyo: N ihon B ungeisha, 1993), 3 2 -3 3 . 18. Iokibe M ak oto, "Y o sh id a Shigeru to Josefu G u m (Y osh id a Shigeru and Joseph G rew )," in Ningen Yoshida Shigeru, op. cit., 1 8 4 -2 0 3 . 19. O n H a to y a m a 's p u rge, see ch ap ter 6. O n the p u rge and Y o sh id a's selection as ®ad er of the L iberals, see M asu m i Junnosuke (translated by L on n y E. Carlile), Postwar Politics in Japan, 1945-1955 (Berkeley, C A : Institute of E ast A sian Studies, U niversity of California, 1985), 9 8 -1 0 8 .

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20. On these tw o leaders see O take H id eo, Adenaua to Yoshida Shigeru (A d en aeu r and Y o sh id a Shigeru), (Tokyo: C h uo K oron sha, 1986). 21. F o r an essay on this, see M ak oto Iokibe, “Japan M eets the U nited States for the Second T im e," in C arol G luck an d Stephen R. G rau bard, ed s., Showa: The Japan of Hirohito (N ew Y ork: W . W . N orton and C o., 1992), 9 1 -1 0 4 . 22. On the Y oh an sen g ro u p see J. W . D ow er, Empire and Aftermath, Yoshida Shigeru and the Japan Experience, 1878-1954 (C am b ridge, M assach usetts: Council on E ast A sia Studies, H a rv a rd U n iversity, 1988), p articu larly 2 3 1 -5 2 . 23. W atan ab e A kio, "S en g o N ih on n o Shu pp atsu ten (P o stw ar Jap an 's Starting P o in t)," in W atan ab e A kio, ed ., Sengo Nihon no Taigai Seisaku (The Foreign Policy of P o stw a r Jap an ), (Tokyo: Y u hikaku, 1985), 4 -1 0 . 24. "Y o sh id a to H arad a K um ao, A u g u st 2 7 ,1 9 4 5 ," in Yoshida Shigeru Shokan, 552. 25. Ibid. 26. "Y o sh id a to K urusu Saburo, A u g u st 2 7, 1 9 4 5 ," Ibid., 5 5 3 -5 4 . Y o sh id a also sent H a ra d a a co p y of this co rresp on d en ce to K urusu. In the sam e letter to K urusu, Y osh i­ d a w en t on to w rite th at "K u ru su sh ould n ot be w orried about h avin g been called a liar and b ecom ing infam ous w orld w id e (o v er the failure to d eliver the declaration of w a r b efore the attack on P earl H arb or) and th at w hen the tru th w as d iscovered his n am e w ou ld be cleared ." Y o sh id a w as tryin g to ch eer u p his friend, just as h e stuck by h is friend C h am b erlain after his accep tan ce of the M unich ag reem en t created d om estic an d w orld w id e criticism . This so rt of loyalty to friends w a s an oth er asp ect of his personality. 27. "Y o sh id a to H a to y am a Ichiro, A u g u st 3 1 ,1 9 4 5 ," Ibid., 504. 28. "Y o sh id a to H a ra d a K um ao, Septem ber 7 ,1 9 4 5 ," Ibid., 556. 29. Ibid. 30. Y osh id a Shigeru, Kaiso Jiinen (R ecollections on Ten Y ears), (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 195 7 ), Vol. 1 ,1 4 2 . 31. A so K azuk o, "M u su m e n o Tachiba K ara ([Y osh id a as] V iew ed fro m his D au g h ­ te r's P ersp ectiv e)," in Ibid., Vol. 4, 266. The Jap an ese v ersion contains sh ort essay s by friends and fam ily of Y o sh id a w hich u nfortu n ately w ere n ot includ ed in the English v ersio n of his m em oirs. K azu k o 's essay co v ers p ages 2 6 6 -7 3 . 32. "Y o sh id a to Shigem itsu M am o ru , O ctob er 2, 1 945," in Yoshida Shigeru Shokan, 347. 33. Y o sh id a, Kaiso Junen, Vol. 2 ,2 5 . 34. Ibid., 30. A lso see O tsuka T ak am asa, Gaiko to Nihonkoku Kenpo (Foreign Policy an d The Jap an ese C onstitu tion ), (Tokyo: B u nshindo, 1992). 35. K ita Reikichi, the y o u n g er b ro th er of N ational Socialist lead er K ita Ikki, elected to office nine tim es an d later served as the C h airm an of the Policy R esearch C oun cil of the Liberal D em o cratic P arty. 36. "Y o sh id a to M akino N obuaki, O ctob er 2 ,1 9 4 6 ," in Yoshida Shigeru Shokan, 673. 37. "Y o sh id a to M akino N obuaki, M ay 3 ,1 9 4 7 ," Ibid., 675. 38. M iyazaw a Kiichi, Tokyo-Washinton no Mitsudan (Secret Talks b etw een W ash in g ­ ton and Tokyo), (Tokyo: Jitsu gyo n o N ih onsh a, 1956). This b ook w as later tran slated by R obert D. E ld rid g e and published b y L exin g to n Books in 2007. 39. W atan ab e A kio and M iyazato Seigen, eds., San Furanshisuko Kowa (The San F ran cisco P eace), (Tokyo: Tokyd D aigaku Shuppankai, 1986). 40. "Y o sh id a to Tatsu m i Eiichi, A u g u st 3 0 ,1 9 5 1 ," in Yoshida Shigeru Shokan, 386. 41. A so K azuko, Chichi Yoshida Shigeru (M y F ath er Y o sh id a Shigeru), (Tokyo: K dbunsha, 1993), 181. 4 2 . M asu d a K aneshichi, Masuda Kaneshichi Kaisoroku: Yoshida Shigeru to Watashi (The M asu d a K aneshichi M em oirs: Y o sh id a Shigeru and M e), (Tokyo: M ainichi Shim bunsh a, 198 4 ), 2 2 5 -2 2 9 . 43. "Y o sh id a to Shiga N ao y a, Septem ber 1 7 ,1 9 5 1 ," in Yoshida Shigeru Shokan, 544. 44. For a d escription of the incident, see John W . D ow er, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (N ew York: W . W . N orton and C o m p an y , 1999), 5 5 4 -5 5 . 4 5 . A so, Chichi Yoshida Shigeru, 5.

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Yoshida Shigeru

46. O n the end of the Y o sh id a g o v ern m en t and Y o sh id a's eventu al o u ster from the

Liberal D em o crats, see M asu m i, Postwar Politics in Japan, 2 9 9 -3 0 4 . 47. A s discu ssed in ch ap ter 9, Ikeda stepped d ow n in the fall of 1964 d u e to can cer,

and died the follow ing A ugu st. Y o sh id a, in o th er w ord s, outlasted his p rized pupil. 48. Kon H idem i, Yoshida Shigeru (Tokyo: K odan sha, 1967), 261. 49. Ibid., 261. 50. M ichael O akeshott, "O n Being C o n s e rv a tiv e /' in Rationalism in Politics and Essays (Lon don: M ethu en, 1981), 168. 51. K enneth Pyle in trod u ces this point in a footnote to his b ook The Japanese tion: Power and Purpose in a New Era (W ashington, D .C.: A E I Press, 1992), 2 5 -2 6 .

Other Ques­

FOUR Katayama Tetsu The First Batter under the New Constitution Fumio Fukunaga

When Prime Minister Katayama Tetsu visited Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur to deliver his resignation, the latter reportedly stated, not without sincerity, "It is regrettable you have decided to resign. It is too late to turn back, but how about seeking your nomination once again as prime minister and forming a new cabi­ net?" On the other hand, the "Tensei Jingo" column of February 10 (1947) in the Asahi Shimbun pointed out that the Katayama cabinet had been called the Nishio Suehiro cabinet, the Wada Hiro cabinet, or the Demo­ cratic Party cabinet.1 The paper commented correctly that "the public was disappointed in" the Katayama cabinet and that "Katayama's pres­ ence was weak within the cabinet." This latter view of Katayama has since become firmly established. Moreover, historically speaking, it was a short-lived administration of only slightly more than eight months and it failed to leave any significant results. However, looking back on Katayama Tetsu as premier and the accomplishments of his cabinet, there are some interesting things that appear. Namely, they imply the two problems that the Katayama cabinet faced: democratization reforms and the rebuilding of the Japanese econo­ my. Before discussing the Katayama cabinet, this chapter first examines the expectations of the people toward the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and the political background at the time. There were primarily two kinds of expectations. The first one was the bottom-up trials shared by the public: 47

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Fumio Fukunaga

the severe food situation, major inflation, and stagnation of productivity had a significant and direct impact on the lives of the people. That the people wanted to see the economic crisis overcome was apparent in the spontaneous food riot, but also in the demonstrations by the radical labor movement, mainly supported by the Congress of Industrial Unions of Japan, starting in October 1946 to the planned February 1 strike (the socalled 2.1 Strike). Increasingly, they took on an anti-Yoshida (Shigeru) government image, suggesting a lack of confidence in the administration. A public opinion poll conducted by the Asahi Shimbun in January 1947 likely reflected the way the nation was thinking at the time: 28.4 percent approved of the Yoshida cabinet with those that disapproved numbered at 48.7 percent. As for support of political parties, the Socialist Party enjoyed 45.3 percent, the Japan Liberal Party 26 percent, the Democratic Party 12.9 percent, and the Cooperative Democratic Party 4.5 percent. Even if the conservative parties were put together, their approval rating of 43.4 percent was not equal to that of the JSP at the time. Of course, it is not clear just how much the public actually supported the claims of the JSP. However, it is likely that the JSP at the time was seen as a fresh and attractive political party. This was the situation facing the country at the time. One more thing that cannot be forgotten is the fact that under the Allied occupation, the intention of the Government Section of General Headquarters (GHQ) was critically important. Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, a close confidante of MacArthur, was the chief of the section. The Government Section monopolized the drafting of a new constitution by excluding the other sections, with Whitney establishing he and his office as the "politi­ cal staff officer" for MacArthur. Whitney was the only person who could meet MacArthur alone, freely, within GHQ, and his deputy, Colonel Charles L. Kades, played a special role in policy making with his wis­ dom. The Government Section desired a political leader and a political party which was appropriate for the new political order they wished to establish through their political reforms before the Constitution of Japan went into force. Because the Liberal Party and the Progressive Party and other conservative parties descended from the prewar, they were unsatis­ factory to Whitney's section. In addition, the passive resistance to occu­ pation policies by the Yoshida cabinet irritated them. Instead, it was the Socialist Party in which the hopes of the Government Section were placed. It viewed the Socialist Party as not being sullied from the prewar, and suitable in the postwar as a political party worthy of its support, and liked its "moderate, middle-of-the-road approach," which was "indepen­ dent from the right wing pollution of the Liberal and Progressive parties and the leftist domination by the aggressive Community Party." More­ over, the Government Section highly praised Katayama, "it appears that it is in his faithfulness, rather than being a strategist, by which he leads the party as a spirited person."

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49

It goes without saying that the Government Section's expectations toward the Socialist Party grew in the turbulent period from the end of 1946 to the "2.1 Strike" in February the following year. The Government Section did not think that the Shidehara Kijuro nor Yoshida administra­ tions had been able to deal with the economic crisis, and came to believe that the political crisis could not be overcome without the support of the Socialists because "the political hopes of the workers are clearly centered on the Socialist Party." Specifically, the Government Section desired that a coalition government would form that included the Socialist Party. In this sense, it was an unexpected joy for MacArthur and the Government Section that the Socialists came out on top in the general elections of April 1947. Believing that the extreme Right and Left should be kept out and a "middle-of-the-road administration" created, the Government Section helped out with the formation of the Katayama cabinet. It was the estab­ lishment of a reformist coalition, from which Yoshida's "conservative reactionary" Liberal Party was prevented from joining. Katayama was elected almost unanimously on May 23 in both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors as the first prime minister under the new constitution. He received 420 among 426 votes in the Lower House of Representatives and 205 among 207 votes in the Upper. As Katayama headed to the Prime Minister's Residence to form his cabinet, journalists waiting for him in a tent along the way stood up and applauded, a first in history. In addition, MacArthur made a special statement the following day, stating that he considered the birth of the Katayama cabinet as suggesting that "Japan's domestic politics had em­ phasized it was going to walk the 'middle path.'" He noted, too, his pleasure that Katayama was a Christian. After these unusual events, the Katayama cabinet, a three-party coali­ tion government comprised of the Socialist Party, Democratic Party, and People's Cooperative Party, began in a rush on June 1. Seven cabinet ministers were apportioned from the JSP, seven from the Democratic Party, and two from the People's Cooperative Party. Those from the So­ cialist Party other than Prime Minister Katayama were: Minister of Com­ merce and Industry Mizutani Chozaburo, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Hirano Rikizo, Minister of Justice Suzuki Yoshio, Minister of Education Morito Tatsuo, Minister of State Yonekubo Mitsusuke, and Suehiro Nishio as the chief cabinet secretary. Wada Hiro from the Green Wind Society in the House of Councilors was appointed as the director of the Economic Stabilization Board because of a strong request from Katay­ ama. The popularity of the Katayama cabinet was high. For example, according to the questionnaire survey that the Mainichi Shimbun carried °ut in July, around 70 percent of the nation supported the new govern­ ment. However, because the Katayama cabinet was a three-party coalihon government, which made coordination and agreement difficult, it started off with challenges. It lacked the participation of the Left wing of

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the party, so it was like trying to breathe with only one lung. Moreover, the Democratic Party had elements that were not cooperative, led by Shidehara, that were like a ticking bomb waiting to go off. Katayama was born as the eldest son of Shozo and Yukie in Tanabe Town (now, Tanabe City), Wakayama Prefecture in 1887. His father was a lawyer, and after serving as the mayor of Tanabe, became a member of the Wakayama Prefectural assembly. He served in each position only one term each; it was said the jobs did not match his personality. Shoz5 had a deep knowledge of Chinese classics and Confucianism, and his motto throughout his life was integrity and selflessness. Yukie was an earnest Christian. Katayama later recollected that he had learned integrity from Shozo and the Christian faith from Yukie. Katayama entered the German Law Department of Tokyo Imperial University after attending the local Tanabe junior high school and the senior high school known as Sanko. In university, he was exposed to the breeze of the Taisho Democracy era. He said, "It was Dr. Yoshino Sakuzo who taught me democracy and Abe Is5 who taught me Socialism." He chose to become a lawyer, himself, in order to protect human rights and social justice of underprivileged peo­ ple. As a politician later, he helped Abe to organize the Social Democratic Party in 1926 and was elected as a member of the House of Representa­ tives for the first time in 1930. He served four terms until he lost as an independent of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, which had sought to merge politicians and political parties into one body, in 1942. After the war, he participated in organizing the Socialist Party and be­ came the secretary general. At the second Socialist Party convention in September 1946, he became the chairman. Katayama was known as a man of great integrity, and thus was some­ one who could be supported by everyone. Even though the Socialist Par­ ty was deeply divided between Left and Right wings, the reason there were no objections to Katayama becoming its leader was because of his humanity. However, there were those who questioned his ability to com­ mand and lead as seen in the name he was given by some slanderous journalists, "Laggard Tetsu." Hara Hyo, an ally of Katayama who was a Socialist Party member of the House of Representatives, likened Kataya­ ma to being a "junior Abe Iso." Yet Hara complained, "He is particularly brave about what he has decided. But, it takes him very long time to make his decision." What's more, it is said that he had only a few close confidantes because of his lack of openness. Without these confidantes in the party, his political ability was neces­ sarily limited. Katayama could not help but depend on the Chief Cabinet Secretary Nishio, who was politically sharp and strong enough to even put fear into the conservative camp, to help run the cabinet. Nishio spoke about the relations between Katayama and him in this way. "Katayama's duty is to carry a cross on his shoulder. My duty is to carry the ax, from behind." Moreover, the Katayama cabinet, which was poor at policy

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51

making, had to depend on Wada's Economic Stabilization Board, abbre­ viated as Anpon, for economic policy making. The board received support from GHQ and seemed to take its orders from GHQ, but most of the measures were decided in the cabinet. This was one of the reasons why the Katayama cabinet was called the Nishio cabinet or the Wada cabinet. In any case, the administration operated like a troika system, by which Katayama led at the wheel with Nishio and Wada performing the role of right and left wheels. As already stated, one of the challenges of the Katayama cabinet was promoting democratization, in other words, constructing the laws and systems of jurisprudence based on the constitution of Japan. Katayama viewed the constitution in the following way when he said, "I was great­ ly delighted that the new constitution was established." On August 24, 1946, he made an agreeable speech for the new constitution representing the Socialist Party in the House of Representatives plenary session. The summary is as follows. It is m o r e im p o rta n t to d a y to g iv e th e n a tio n a tru e cu ltu re d life b a se d o n re a l fre e d o m s th a n o n su p erficial o n es. A c o n stitu tio n m u st p u rs u e id e a ls a h e a d o f th e tim e s. T h e n e w co n stitu tio n , w h ic h is m e a n t to be th e id eal, m u s t a lso b e th e la w of so cie ty . T h e la w o f s o c ie ty is m a d e in to a n e w s tru c tu re , w ith th e c o n stitu tio n like th e S u n in th e m id d le o f th e u n iv e rse , w ith civ il la w , h u m a n rig h ts law , liv elih o o d la w s, e c o ­ n o m ic la w s, in d u stria l la w s, a n d o th e r la w s. It is n e c e s s a ry to e stab lish v a rio u s la w s to b re a th e life in to th e co n stitu tio n a n d to re a liz e tru e d e m o c ra c y . T h is is o u r resp o n sib ility .

Katayama and the Socialists regarded the new constitution as a means to realize their long-held views. They believed establishing a system of social law under the new constitution was essential and declared that they would be a leader of these reforms. In fact, the Katayama cabinet actively promoted democratization as compared to previous administra­ tions and removed problems quickly by dismantling the Home Ministry, enacting the Civil Service Act (Kokka Komuinho), reforming the police system, establishing the Ministry of Labor, founding an unemployment insurance system, and revising civil and criminal laws. Of course, any cabinet would have to undertake some form of democ­ ratization under the occupation. The Yoshida Shigeru cabinet had also enacted the framing laws regarding politics, economy, and society in line with the new constitution. However, there were also examples of the democratization being sabotaged as well during the Yoshida administra­ tion, and it was true that GHQ was irritated at their slow progress. There­ fore Kades, who played an active role in the early stages of developing democratization policies, later stated that "under Katayama's leadership, the implementation of the occupation goals were sped up." Not only was democratization promoted from above by GHQ, it is also true that the

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Katayama cabinet promoted democratization on its own as well. In this sense, it was quite fitting that Katayama was the first prime minister under the new constitution, and MacArthur's praise, described in the beginning, was equally deserving. If Yoshida was basically a believer in a liberal economy, Katayama was simply a follower of a controlled and planned economy, which was the basis of socialist economy policy. And like Yoshida, Katayama was not good in economic matters, and thus depended upon Wada's Econom­ ic Stabilization Board. The Katayama administration—especially Wada's team—focused on recovery in production of important industries such as coal. The cabinet adopted an urgent economic policy and set new prices to rebuild the economy. Compared with prewar, it sought prices that were sixty-five times higher, and wages which were twenty-eight times more. This planned economy was a demand of the times under the eco­ nomic difficulties of the lack of productivity. GHQ saw this as the first general plan created by the Japanese government aimed at economic stability, and one that did not cater to the workers. As a result, opinions varied on the plan, but it did contribute to the restoration of production and the control over inflation. By adopting a priority production method and state control of the coal mines, industrial production began to show signs of recovery from the second half of 1947 and achieved 70 percent of prewar standards by October 1948. Inflation had begun to slowdown from the middle of 1947, too. However, economic policy is not medicine that has an immediate ef­ fect like penicillin. Without waiting to see the impact of the economic policies, the public's support toward the cabinet began to decline after just two months. This decline was a reflection of the difficult economic conditions at that time. The problems of restarting production and infla­ tion control could not be separated from the need to restrain wages. Workers became dissatisfied, and the labor movement became active again. The Katayama cabinet was caught between the desire to raise wages and the need to restrain them, a dilemma that continued until the end. In addition, the problem of Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Hirano and the political confusion over the state control of coal mines challenged the cabinet, too. It goes without saying that these issues fur­ ther divided the JSP and highlighted problems within the coalition. The breakaway of the Left wing of the Socialist Party following the Hirano group's departure, and the exodus of the Shidehara group from the Dem­ ocratic Party, greatly weakened the government. In addition, the Wada board, which had been one of the two wheels of the cabinet, came to bear the brunt of political confrontations during this process. The Hirano issue began out of a conflict over prices of farm products between Hirano and Wada, and it became a more complicated conflict between Hirano and Nishio. In addition, Ashida Hitoshi and others in the Democratic Party were increasingly wary of Wada's proposal, which had been highly val-

Katayama Tetsu u e d in

53

the cabinet, and cast a shadow on relations between Wada and

N is h i o .

In any case, the public's expectations for the Katayama cabinet faded away rapidly because of the inability of Katayama to control these prob­ lems. In a public opinion poll that the Asahi Shimbun conducted on No­ vember 15 and 16, 54.3 percent of those interviewed disapproved of the cabinet, which was more than double of the approval rate of 25 percent. Change also came from the outside. Washington began to shift from a "reform" of Japan policy to a "recovery" approach in line with the overt appearance of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The visit by Undersecretary of the Army William H. Draper Jr., in September 1947 was an omen of sorts for changes in Washington as well as within GHQ as power shifted away from the Government Section which had carried the flag of the reformists. As a result, it was the issue of the "0.8 month supplementary budget" that controlled the destiny of the Katayama administration. The issue was an economic one concerning the question of a pay increase to public workers, which became a political problem due to differences within the coalition and opposition by other parties. The Democratic Party and the Ministry of Finance believed the funds should come from an increase in railway fares and communication fees, while the Left wing of the Socialist Party strongly criticized it as a general mass tax. In response, Wada's board proposed to get it under control with a third source of increased revenue through an income tax. Nishio kept quiet and watched Wada in the three-way fight from beginning to end. He believed Wada was con­ spiring with the Left. In the House of Representatives Budget Committee on February 5, 1948, the government's budget proposal was rejected, as the ruling party's members, under the direction of the Left wing of the Socialist Party, absented themselves from the deliberations. The Kataya­ ma cabinet was in a crisis, possible splitting up. Needless to say, the breakup of the Katayama cabinet was triggered by the conflict between the Right and Left wings of the Socialist Party. However, it was not commonly known that there was another dynamic at work—Nishio's politically expedient actions. Nishio visited Kades at the Government Section in the afternoon of February 5, which was before the Left wing rejected the government bill in the Budget Committee, to talk about a remedial measure. Nishio explained that the conflict between the Right and the Left in JSP surfaced after a series of problems, including the question of who would succeed Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Hirano and how to handle the issue of state control over mines, and eternal conflict reached a climax at the time of the supplementary bud­ get. He then told Kades that he believed the only options left for the cabinet were to dissolve the parliament and hold elections, or resign en naasse. He asked the colonel for his opinion. Kades suggested the creation °f a "middle party" combining the Right wing of the Socialist Party, the

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Ashida faction of the Democratic Party, and the Miki Takeo faction of the People's Cooperative Party. This was a reflection of the support GHQ had shown toward the Katayama cabinet and the idea of the "middle-ofthe-road" administration. Nishio responded that he thought it premature to make a new centralist party, but thought, as a way to prevent a new Yoshida cabinet from forming, it would be possible to resign en masse while maintaining the cooperative framework of the three parties in or­ der to name Ashida the next premier. There was no choice for Katayama, since one of two wheels, Nishio in other words, of his cabinet was begin­ ning to move in a different direction. Katayama looked really unhappy when Nishio suggested he resign that evening. The administration was already weakened and could not continue. On February 10, 1948, the Katayama cabinet resigned, and a three-party coalition government was formed a month later between the Democratic Party, Socialist Party, and People's Cooperative Party with Ashida as prime minister. On a final note, some comments about the changes in GHQ's Far East policies—namely the demand for rearmament by MacArthur—which Ka­ tayama described as the reason for his cabinet's resignation en masse, are necessary. As is generally known, Nishio, Sone Eki, and others involved at the time, said they were surprised to hear Katayama's comments and said it was not the case. However, it is true that rearmament for Japan was being considered in Washington. George F. Kennan who visited Ja­ pan in March 1948, emphasized the rearmament of Japan along with economic revitalization to MacArthur. Though Kennan's recommenda­ tion for rearmament was not accepted, it is possible that MacArthur in­ formed Katayama about the atmosphere in Washington, although no documents have been found to prove it. NOTE 1. The colum n, "T ensei Jin go ," w h ich literally m ean s, "T h e voice of h eaven is the v o ice of the p eo p le," h as its origins in the 1904 colum n of the sam e n am e published by the Osaka Asahi Shimbun. The D em o cratic P arty , w h ich is different fro m subsequent p arties of a sim ilar n am e in Jap an , w as form ed in the sp ring of 1947 by the m erg er of the P ro g ressiv e P arty of Inukai T ak eru w ith a faction of the Liberal P arty led by A sh id a H itoshi. It gained 124 seats in the 1947 gen eral elections, b u t in M arch 1948, fo rm e r P rim e M inister S hidehara K ijuro led so m e m em b ers of the D em o cratic P arty to join the Liberal P arty.

FIVE Ashida Hitoshi The Intellectual and Cultured Man as Politician Masuda Hiroshi

Following Shidehara Kijuro and Yoshida Shigeru, Ashida Hitoshi was the third former diplomat to become premier in the postwar era. Since then, no other Foreign Ministry official has become prime minister, so at present, Ashida is Japan's last diplomat-premier. Almost naturally, this type of prime minister appeared one after another, concentrated during the occupation period (1945-1952) because of the demands of the unusual time of near-unilateral control by the United States. However, as is de­ scribed later, in the domestic political struggles that followed, Ashida parted company with both Shidehara, his revered elder and senior of fifteen years, and Yoshida, who was his senior by five years in the minis­ try (though their difference in age was seven years). It is fair to say that they separated on hostile terms. Though they all hailed from the Foreign Ministry, Ashida was more progressive and reformist than the other two in his political outlook. More than anything, the character of Ashida was, in comparison with both of them, too much the idealist. So much was evident in the fact that the Ashida cabinet was a coalition of conservative and reformist elements (consisting of the Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, and the People's Cooperative Party). It goes without saying that his cabinet along with the Katayama cabinet were the only middle-of-theroad cabinets in the postwar (covered in this book). Until the birth of the Murayama Tomiichi cabinet in 1994, it held a place as an exception in postwar political history.

55

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Masuda Hiroshi

Be that as it may, the general opinion of the Ashida cabinet is exceed­ ingly low. From the time of its inauguration on March 10, 1948, it was dogged by a bad reputation as nothing more than a reshuffling of the Katayama cabinet. After its establishment, it was said that the fracas about its policy of trying to introduce foreign capital into the country did nothing but exacerbate inflation. Moreover, because it promulgated things like Cabinet Decision No. 201, depriving public employees of the right to strike, it was criticized as nothing more than a "yes-man cabinet" that blindly followed the policies of GHQ, the nickname for the head­ quarters of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur. To make matters worse, the Ashida cabinet soon became entangled in the Showa Denko scandal and was left with no choice but to resign en masse on October 7. The cabinet had a short life of only seven months. In December, after he resigned, Ashida himself was arrested and detained by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's office. After his indict­ ment, he was forced to fight a court battle that dragged on for ten years. Though he was eventually acquitted, his brilliant record of public service was besmirched by the disgrace of being a defendant. Then, more than anything, due to this incident, middle-of-the-road governments got a negative image and popular sentiment turned decisively against it. In this manner, the reins of government were once again handed over to Yoshida's conservative party (Democratic Liberal Party). However, the belief that the Showa Denko scandal had its roots in a behind-the-scenes battle between the Government Section and G2 (Intel­ ligence) within GHQ remains deeply as rooted as ever. Because of this and the fact of Yoshida's machinations to seize power again, the view that Ashida was a victim has become common. This is the reason that Ashida is called a "tragic politician." In order to better understand what kind of politician Ashida was, this chapter will first look at a brief sketch of his life from childhood to the end of the war. Ashida was born on November 15,1887, as the second son to Shikanosuke and Shige in the mountain village of Mutobenosho at the upper reaches of the Yuragawa River in Kyoto Prefecture in the old province of Tamba. Hitoshi had an older brother, a younger brother, and three older sisters, but two of his sisters and his younger brother died of illness in childhood and his elder brother also died young, at the age of twentyeight. Moreover, his mother passed away at the young age of thirty-one at about the time that Hitoshi turned five. It is said that his mother and two elder sisters died of diphtheria they had contracted from Hitoshi. Afterward his father married again and to him and Sumi, his new wife, were born three sons and four daughters, but they lost three of these children. One could probably say that Ashida's uncommon attachment to his blood relations stems from these experiences of his early years.1 The ancestors of the house of Ashida were a powerful clan hailing from the village of Ashida in Saku County of Shinshu province (present-

Ashida Hitoshi

57

day Nagano Prefecture), but they were driven out by the Takeda clan and moved to Azuchi in Koshu province (present-day Yamanashi Prefecture). When the Oda clan was destroyed, they fled to Tamba and came to live in the village of Mutobenosho. Afterward they served as (regional) head­ men for a collection of sixty hamlets up to the time of the Meiji Restora­ tion. Ashida's father assisted Itagaki Taisuke during the Liberty and peo­ ple's rights movement and became a regional politician, serving as vil­ lage chief and a representative to the prefectural assembly. Then in 1890, he stood as a candidate in the first general election for the newly formed Imperial Diet. Though he was unsuccessful, he ran again in 1905 and won, joining the Friends of Constitutional Government Party. In addi­ tion, Shikanosuke established the Tamba Bank and became its president. Also, his brother participated in the management of Gunze Industries, the largest company in the prefecture, and the house of Ashida became renowned in the region. The lineage of this house of Ashida flowed in Hitoshi.2 After graduating from his local middle school, he entered the Number One Higher School in the year that the Russo-Japanese war broke out. Subsequently, he advanced to Tokyo Imperial University. He was a bril­ liant student who graduated first in his class from middle school, higher school, and university. In 1911, as the Meiji era (1868-1912) was about to end, he passed the exam to become a diplomat and entered the Foreign Ministry the following year. Shigemitsu Mamoru, later a well-known diplomat who signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Mis­ souri in Tokyo Bay on September 2,1945, was a also member of the same entering class. Soon Ashida was attached to the Japanese embassy in Russia and after he had served there just less than four years, he had the opportunity to observe the revolution in detail on the spot. Returning home for a time he married someone coincidentally who had the same name as his stepmother, Sumi. She was a great beauty, to the extent that she even had a reputation for beauty in foreign countries. Ashida partici­ pated in the Paris Peace Conference that began in 1919 as an attendant to plenipotentiaries Saionji Kinmochi and Makino Nobuaki. Though he had the opportunity to make an appearance on the stage of international di­ plomacy, it was Sumi who was the toast of the diplomatic community. She was so admired that it may actually have worked against Ashida and there is even a belief that the jealousy she inspired became an obstacle to his further advancement.3 However, it was about this time that his ability in French became known in the ministry. After a stint as the number two section chief of the information de­ partment in the home office of the Ministry, Ashida was assigned to Turkey from the end of the Taishd period (1912-1926) through the early Part of the Showa period (1926-1989). After finishing his duties there, Ashida was awarded a doctorate of law in 1929.4 It can probably be said that one of the principal duties of a diplomat is to have contact night and

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day with the people of the country where one is posted, but Ashida was of a scholarly nature and was more comfortable in his study. As such, his extensive learning may have been regarded with suspicion by those around him. From Pari Kaigigo no Oshu Gaiko (Diplomacy in Europe after the Paris Conference), published in 1923, to Dainiji Sekai Taisen Gaikoshi (A History of Diplomacy during the Second World War), published in 1959, Ashida wrote more than ten books during his life. In all of Japan's modern history the only such men of culture to become prime minister were Ashida and the journalist Ishibashi Tanzan. In 1930, Ashida was ordered to serve at the Japanese Embassy in Belgium. Two years later, he returned to Japan and retired as a diplomat, in order to become a politician. This was a decision taken when the winds of the Great Depression were blowing through the world and when the Kwantung Army had precipitated the Manchurian Incident and the mood of militarism and totalitarianism was rising in the country. Ashida could not bear the militarists' abusing the traditional pro-Western coop­ erative diplomacy of Kasumigaseki (Foreign Ministry). At this point he resolved to become a politician in order to restrain the reckless militarists. Such actions provide a glimpse into Ashida's earnest and straightforward character. With minimal preparation, Ashida succeeded brilliantly, win­ ning election to the House of Representatives as a candidate of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party. He was forty-five. After­ ward, he would go on to win a total of eleven terms. However, as a liberal politician, Ashida suffered at the hands of the militarists. Even so, by working with like-minded colleagues and openly criticizing things like the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy and the war with the United States, Ashida, together with a group around Hatoyama Ichiro that found itself in a similar situation, insured that the antimilitarist position did not collapse even during the war. On the eve of the war's end, Ashida, who had participated in efforts to end the war, visited Hatoyama, who was holed up in the resort area outside of Tokyo known as Karuizawa, to give him the news that the Potsdam Proclamation had been accepted. Then, on August 15, after con­ sulting with like-minded men about the resuscitation of party govern­ ment, he soon returned to the capital and set about building a new liberal party centered on Hatoyama. Flowever, there was already discord be­ tween Hatoyama and Ashida. Ashida was groping for a way to establish a new liberal party out of elements from the old Friends of Constitutional Government Party. However, contrary to his expectations, Hatoyama was planning to establish a broad-based cross-sectional party that would include elements from the old prewar proletarian parties. Ashida re­ corded in his journal that "there is nothing to do but press forward reso­ lutely" though "he could not help feeling fretful."5 Moreover, he was concerned about Hatoyama's interest in Kono Ichiro, a rising politician.6 On October 8, Ashida accepted Shidehara's request to serve as minister of

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and welfare in the new cabinet.7 From this point on, the alliance between Ashida and Hatoyama was as good as severed. This was also one reason that Ashida was isolated within the Japan Liberal Party after its formation the following month. As the health and welfare minister in the Shidehara cabinet, Ashida assumed an active role in government. While investing his energy in the establishment of a new labor union law, he was also deeply engaged in the process of creating a new constitution. At a cabinet meeting on Octo­ ber 11, Ashida, together with State Minister Matsumoto Joji, argued that a thorough investigation of the constitution was the most important affair facing the state and that it was thus something that should be undertaken by the cabinet. In spite of Prime Minister Shidehara's initial reluctance, the view of Ashida and Matsumoto prevailed.8 Afterward, working from the standpoint of preserving the Meiji Constitution as much as possible, the cabinet created a draft constitution (Matsumoto Draft). However, as is now well known, GHQ did not accept the Matsumoto Draft and in­ stead created its own version, which it then pressed the cabinet to accept. From the time this was accepted in February 1946 to the following month, cabinet meetings became heated. While Prime Minister Shidehara advo­ cated bowing to the inevitable and accepting the GHQ draft, Matsumoto continued to oppose it, declaring that there was no way that they could faithfully observe a constitution that had been imposed on them. Ashida recommended acceptance of the GHQ draft. He implicitly criticized Matsumoto's position by saying, "Even though the present constitution was established by Imperial command, it has been continually violated since the Manchurian Incident. It is a mistake to believe that a constitution will be faithfully observed just because it has received the Imperial sanction.9 This incident illustrates Ashida's reformist position. However, on April 22, the Shidehara cabinet collapsed before attacks by the opposition parties led by the Liberal Party. As the end drew near, Ashida, who was a member of the Liberal Party, was put in an awkward position, though his attitude toward the party had already cooled consid­ erably, "The public attitude toward the Liberals is decidedly unfavorable. First, some of Hatoyama's actions during his previous tenure as leader of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party are causing harm. Sec­ ond, the bossy-ness of Chairman of the General Council Matsuno Tsuruhei and Secretary General Kono is being criticized." As such he was ad­ vised by many associates to break with Hatoyama, but his conflicted state of mind was revealed when he wrote, "I still believe I lack the makings of a party chief and maintain warm feelings toward Hatoyama so I am not keen to take actions akin to waving the flag of rebellion."10 In February that year, when a movement to link the Liberal Party and the Progressive Party in a conservative coalition came to the fore, Ashida Wrote, "I think a united front of the Liberals and Progressives should be avoided. I do not want to go forward with the Progressives. They are too

h e a lt h

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Masuda Hiroshi

conservative." In the event that the closeness of the two parties was to cause problems in the general election, "we will have to consider tying up with the right-wing Socialists to establish a Social Democratic Par­ ty."11 Here his plan to establish a coalition between moderate conserva­ tives and reformists came to the surface. In addition, he was not indiffer­ ent to the idea of achieving the top seat, noting the new trend in the political world in April and May of "rumors of an Ashida cabinet" or "making Ashida the prime minister."12 Rather, contrary to what he wrote in his diary, he seems to have had a strong interest in the idea. However, on May 22, after the GHQ purge of Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Yoshida Shigeru assumed the leadership of a government formed with the backing of a conservative coalition of the Liberal and Progressive parties. While Yoshida may have been his senior at the Foreign Ministry, Ashida prided himself on his seniority to Yoshida in the political world. In his diary, he refers to Yoshida with the somewhat condescending prefix "kun," usually meaning "lad" or "boy." In June, after the inauguration of the Yoshida cabinet, Ashida had an opportunity to bathe in the limelight when he was appointed as chairman of the Lower House special committee on the revision of the Meiji Constitution. From before the war Ashida had enjoyed high regard from the intelli­ gentsia as a speaker who cut a lean figure and presented his arguments before the Diet with reasoned, measured words, but before a plenary session of the Diet on August 24, his report of the special committee, in which he bade farewell to the Meiji Constitution and expounded on the significance of the new constitution left a profound impression on the people of Japan. In his journal, Ashida recorded the reaction to his speech with deep emotion. "Mr. Kita (Reikichi) said, 'Mr. Ashida, your speech was endowed with a splendid combination of reason and sentiment. I had thought you were a hardheaded person, but when I saw you speak­ ing with tears in your eyes, I couldn't help but cry myself. I've come to see you in a new light as a man whose heart is as passionate as his head is cool.'"13 Moreover, during this time he was responsible for the so-called Ashi­ da Amendment, which played a role of outsized importance in Japan's postwar security policy. In this revision, after the renouncing the use or threat of force "as means of settling international disputes" in the first paragraph, Ashida inserted the words "In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph" at the beginning of the second paragraph. As a result, the interpretation that "military potential could be maintained for purposes of self-defense" became possible. Later, before a board of inves­ tigation on the constitution, Ashida gave the following testimony: "I was concerned that the original wording of the government draft would re­ sult in the country being stripped of its capacity to defend itself. Howev­ er, I judged that GHQ had no intention of permitting the maintenance of war potential of any kind. . . . The wording of the revision is indeed

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lacking in clarity, but it was with a specific implication in mind that I proposed this revision."14 In effect, Ashida, considering the situation at the time, didn't venture to explain the intention of his revision and so the revision was approved by both GHQ and the Diet. It can be said that Ashida had already laid the groundwork for his later advocacy of rear­ mament with this revision. With the coming of the new year in 1947 the confusion in Japan's political situation grew considerably deeper. Yoshida was driven into a corner by the organized labor, and there was nothing left to do but form a coalition government with the Socialist Party. Behind the scenes a flurry of maneuvering began in every party. In the midst of this activity, the possibility of an Ashida premiership surfaced once again. For the first time, Ashida was summoned by Tsuji Karoku, a fixer in the political world and a sponsor of the Liberal Party, who informed him, "I am going to make you the chairman [president of the Liberal Party]." At this totally unexpected pronouncement from Tsuji, who had a strong antipathy to­ ward Ashida, "told him that if I am ordered to do it I am prepared to steel myself for the job and shook his hand," and suddenly wanted to do just as he had said.15 Afterward, Ashida became bullish about his prospects, stating, "Yoshida is hopeless. . . . If you look at the lineup of his new cabinet it is nothing more than a government of bureaucrats.. . . I am fed up with Yoshida."16 A couple of days later, he wrote, This e v e n in g H o ri S h ig e ru o f th e P ro g re s s iv e P a rty c a m e b y a n d w e ta lk e d a b o u t th e s itu a tio n o f th e P ro g re s s iv e s . T h e y s u p p o rt th e id e a of a co a litio n g o v e rn m e n t a n d a re v e ry u n h a p p y w ith M r. Y o s h id a . T h e re a re e v e n th o s e w h o a re w illin g to g o so fa r as to o u s t M r. S h id e h a ra as p re sid e n t o f th e P ro g re s s iv e P a rty if it co m e s rig h t d o w n to it. A c c o r d ­ in g ly, if th e L ib eral P a rty is n o t e a g e r to fo rm a co a litio n , th e y h a v e m a d e u p th e ir m in d s to e v e n a b a n d o n th e L ib e ra ls a n d join h a n d s w ith th e th re e o p p o sitio n g ro u p s . T h ey to ld m e th a t I sh o u ld d e te rm in e to rise u p , c u t tie s w ith m y b o s s (H a to y a m a ) a n d join th e m . T h e y m o v e d m e a g re a t d e a l. If, fr o m th e g e t-g o , I'v e n e v e r re a lly h a d m y h e a rt in th e so -ca lle d H a to y a m a factio n , th en isn 't it n o w th e tim e to m a k e a cle a n b re a k w ith th e m a n d m o v e a w a y ? W h a t u s e is it to co n tin u e p a y in g lip s e rv ic e to th e Y o s h id a ca b in e t w h e n it is s u rr o u n d e d b y e n e m ie s ? 17

In response to this, Shidehara officially proposed a merger with the Liberals on February 19. This was evidently done to suppress the mem­ bers backing Ashida. After sundry twists and turns, Ashida left the Liber­ al Party on March 23 and announced the formation of a new party. On March 31, the Democratic Party was inaugurated. The new party took 114 members from the Progressive Party, 9 liberals associated with Ashida, 15 members from the People's Cooperative Party, and 7 more who were ehher unaffiliated or belonged to other smaller groups. Commanding the aHegiance of 145 representatives, the Democrats became the leading par-

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ty in the Diet at a single stroke. However, the new party was divided internally between pro-Ashida and pro-Shidehara factions and swiftly fell into internecine struggle. Narahashi Wataru and Inukai Takeru of the pro-Ashida faction were then purged. (It was rumored that the fell prey to the so-called Y purge, that is, that they were ousted by Yoshida.) Nevertheless, the Ashida faction was able to secure leadership of the party. Ashida and six of his associates became members of the executive council. Shidehara was forced into the sinecure position of supreme ad­ visor. At this point, under the rubric of "revised capitalism," Ashida's Democratic Party took up a position to the left of the Liberal Party and the right of the Socialists. At the same time they adopted a posture indi­ cating a total severance of ties with the Liberal Party.18 GHQ'S Government Section paid close attention to the new develop­ ments. Ashida had already come to their attention as a possible leader of a new government after the general election. Hitomatsu Sadakichi, minis­ ter of posts and telecommunications in the Yoshida cabinet (later minister of health and welfare in the Katayama cabinet and minister of construc­ tion in the Ashida cabinet), recalled: "Ashida struggled to the utmost for his own ideas and wouldn't bend in the slightest so he could not get anything done. We asked Ashida why he persisted like that. He said 'GHQ has told me that I am the best person for the job of getting Japan back on her feet again so I should become the president of the Democratic Party. "Do it," they said, so I made up my mind to work my hardest for the state.'"19 However, in the historic general election of April 25, the first to be held under the new constitution, the Democratic Party secured only 124 seats and they were left in the dust by both the Socialists, who made huge advances, netting 143 seats, and the Liberals who won 131 seats. Owing to this result, the possibility of Ashida becoming the head of government receded far into the background. Instead, the political world focused on the formation of a coalition government centered on the So­ cialists. This issue triggered a new round of conflict within the Democrat­ ic Party as the Ashida faction advocated joining a Socialist-led coalition and the Shidehara faction opposed such a move. After an intense strug­ gle, the Ashida faction prevailed.20 On the strength of this victory, Ashi­ da was at last installed as the party president. In this case also, the desires of Colonel Charles Kades and others in the Government Section, known to be hostile to the conservatives, had a profound effect on the outcome.21 On the other hand, Nishio Suehiro, a powerful player in the Socialist Party, persisted in machinations to bring about a four-party coalition that would include the Liberals. However, Yoshida demanded the removal of the leftwing of the Socialists and, learning that was impossible, declared a policy of moving into the opposition camp. Yoshida made this demand in the full knowledge that it would not be accepted, knowing that Ashida, who had since left the Liberal Party and then teamed up with Nishio, would reject it outright. If there had been no rivalry between the two of

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them at this time, then it is possible that the Katayama cabinet would never have been formed. A coalition of Liberals and Democrats, exclud­ ing the Socialists, and continuing conservative governance was certainly possible.22 If that is the case then it can be said that the rivalries between those who hailed from the Foreign Ministry (including Shidehara) were responsible for this possibility disappearing like the morning mist. Thus, on June 1, the Katayama coalition government (Socialist Party, Democratic Party, and the People's Cooperative Party) was inaugurated with Ashida serving as the foreign minister with the rank of deputy prime minister (fukusdri). His feelings upon returning to the Foreign Min­ istry, this time as minister, which he had left almost fifteen years before, must have indeed run deep. However, though the impediment of the militarists no longer existed, this time he had to contend with another absolute authority in the form of the occupation forces. With this foreign army reigning over the political situation, he was in a tight spot trying to manage the country's foreign policy. Naturally, the Japanese government did not have the capacity to even hope to negotiate with the American side on anything like an equal footing. Even so, with his eyes firmly fixed on a future in which Japan regained its independence, he set out two opening moves. First, he compiled a list of Japanese desiderata with re­ gard to the eventual peace settlement and in July he presented them to both Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, chief of the Government Sec­ tion, and to George Atcheson, chief of the Diplomatic Section. Second, in September he gave Lieutenant General Robert D. Eichelberger, com­ mander of the Eighth Army, a document entitled "An Opinion Concern­ ing Japan's Security," just before the latter departed for a trip back to the United States. Above all, this was significant in that it contained the origins of the later U.S.-Japan security framework in its provisions for the emergency stationing of American forces.23 Ultimately, Ashida's efforts bore no fruit due to the miscarriage of the early peace initiative, but they should be remembered as the first autonomous actions taken by anyone on the Japanese side in pursuit of a peace settlement. Incidentally, though the Katayama cabinet received the whole-hearted backing of GHQ, and especially of the Government Section, it was un­ stable. In addition to Prime Minister Katayama's inadequate capacity for leadership and the fatal factional antagonism between the left and right wings of the Socialist Party, a confrontation between Nishio Suehiro, power broker of the party's right, and Agricultural Minister Hirano Rikizo emerged between the summer and fall of 1947. The undercurrents °f this struggle involved a tug-of-war between Nishio, who wanted to strengthen cooperation between the Democrats and the Socialists by turning the helm over to Ashida, and Hirano, who wanted to prevent this and form a new party with Yoshida.24 In the end, Hirano was dismissed from his cabinet post in November, but the split in the right wing of the Party naturally brought the left to the fore. In the same month fissures,

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brought about by the government's socialistic bill to nationalize control of the coal industry, appeared in the Democratic Party. Shidehara and about twenty others who were opposed to the passage of the bill left the party. Thus, the foundations of the coalition government were weakened, and on February 10, 1948, the Katayama cabinet resigned en masse. Kades' scheme, which called for this coalition to maintain its position for four years, had gone awry.25 After that, for a period of about a month, there was no administration. During this interval there developed an intense competition to gain con­ trol of the government. Practically speaking, it was a one-on-one duel between Ashida and Yoshida. The latter, with the support of the Shideha­ ra faction, touted the "normal path of constitutional government" and asserted that after the fall of the ruling coalition, the largest opposition party should organize the next cabinet. Opposing this, Ashida, with the support of the Socialists and the People's Cooperative Party, exhibited his plan to maintain a centrist administration. This was Ashida's third shot at taking control of the government. In his journal he wrote, "I am serene. It does not matter to me whether I win or lose the election for prime minis­ ter. However, even if I know that I will lose, that does not mean that I will not fight."26 Ashida had already received a document from the Govern­ ment Section purporting to support the continuation of a centrist govern­ ment.27 On February 21, an election to choose the next prime minister was held. In the House of Representatives, Ashida garnered 216 votes to Yoshida's 180, while in the House of Councillors, the upper house, Yoshi­ da outpolled Ashida 104 to 102 votes. Because priority is given to the choice of the lower house, Ashida was selected as the new head of government. If by only a narrow margin, Ashida had bested Yoshida. The third time was the charm for the sixty-two-year-old Ashida. Howev­ er, the newspapers severely criticized Ashida's appointment as nothing more than a meaningless shuffling of positions. The Government Section, nevertheless, regarded Ashida highly and in response to the press attacks on the new cabinet, Guy J. Swope, who served as a civilian chief within the Government Section, countered that the situation was "thoroughly democratic" and fully in complete harmony with Article 67 of the new constitution.28 Ashida welcomed these "reinforcements for the new cabi­ net."29 Nevertheless, it was said that two hundred million yen changed hands when Ashida was designated prime minister and he was dogged by rumors of corruption from the very beginning of his administration.30 This provided fertile ground for the Showa Denko scandal. Moreover, Ashida had a difficult time forming his cabinet. Ashida wanted to ap­ point Katayama as his foreign minister, but the Socialist Party (or rather, Nishio) would not permit his inclusion in the cabinet. Ashida considered walking away from the whole thing but eventually agreed to compro­ mise.31

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Finally, the Ashida cabinet was formed on March 10. The distribution of posts gave priority to the Socialists with eight, while the Democrats got six and the People's Cooperative Party two. Nishio was made minister of state with the rank of deputy prime minister. It was an awkward begin­ ning for Ashida. According to an analysis of the Asahi Shimbun, the char­ acter of the new cabinet was such that, with the Democrats holding only about ninety seats in the Diet, it was a weak government that could not maintain itself for long. It would probably be little more than a caretaker administration that could, at most, try to bring in foreign capital and suppress inflation until the next election or major change in the political situation.32 According to a public opinion poll also conducted by the same paper that month, the new cabinet was unpopular from the time of its inauguration enjoying an approval rating of only 30 percent and a disapproval rating of 31 percent.33 The first order of business facing the Ashida cabinet was the dispute over the wages of the public employees unions. On labor's side, those such as the Japan Postal Worker's Union were unsatisfied with the government's new wage offer and at the end of March began prepara­ tions for a general strike. However, just before it was set to begin, GHQ intervened. The strike was called off and the government breathed a sigh of relief. After that, a problem arose about the payment of interest on government war loans. The Socialist Party, which advocated a stop in interest payments clashed with the Democratic Party, which was op­ posed to a stoppage. In the end it was decided to defer payment for a year, but Ashida, who had been expecting MacArthur's intervention, "more or less despaired."34 Then on the basis of a letter from MacArthur, the government enacted Potsdam Directive 201, which denied public em­ ployees the right to strike or to engage in collective bargaining.35 In addi­ tion, in June the question of the emperor's abdication came to the fore. Ashida thought that the emperor's stepping down would have been the "correct decision."36 A great difference can be seen between Ashida and Yoshida, who did not hesitate to declare publicly that he was "Shigeru, the Emperor's servant." The biggest problem for the Ashida government was how to intro­ duce foreign capital. Just after the new cabinet was inaugurated, both George F. Kennan of the State Department and Undersecretary of the Army William H. Draper Jr., came to Japan and met with MacArthur in succession. Both officials attempted to gain MacArthur's acceptance of a change in American policy toward Japan. They also presented a plan for large-scale aid to Japan. This plan served as an impetus for the govern­ ment to become more proactive in trying to promote the introduction of foreign capital. In a March 20 speech outlining the policies of his new government, Prime Minister Ashida called for provisions for introduchon of private foreign capital. With the introduction of such capital, es­ sential materials could then be imported thus alleviating bottlenecks to

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economic recovery. In this manner, the government would hold inflation in check and accelerate the rebuilding of the economy. In opposition to this plan, some voices were raised fearing domination by foreign capital, but between March and the summer, the leaders of the financial world adopted a positive stance toward the introduction of foreign capital. However, during debate in the United States, the U.S. Congress drastical­ ly cut back the plan for Japanese aid and it was never realized. In the end, the United States provided only $150 million for a fund to aid Japan in rebuilding its cotton industry. To further complicate matters the Showa Denko scandal erupted and the financial world began to retreat from its earlier position. Finally, government, bureaucratic, and financial circles all reverted to an attitude of circumspection with regard to the introduc­ tion of foreign capital.37 So, how then did the Showa Denko scandal occur? First, in June when State Minister Nishio was summoned to appear as a witness about politi­ cal contributions from construction firms, he admitted to having accepted 500,000 yen in donations, setting the political world in turmoil. The oppo­ sition Democratic Liberal Party denounced Nishio and introduced a noconfidence motion against him in the Diet. The ruling coalition per­ suaded the left wing Socialists to oppose the motion and it was defeated, but on July 6, just after completing the budget, Nishio resigned. Then, on June 23, Hinohara Setsuzo, president of the chemical fertilizer giant Showa Denko, was summoned to appear in court on suspicion of bribery. Showa Denko had obtained loans amounting to 30 billion yen, but Hinoha­ ra had attempted to obtain more loans by distributing 30 million yen in money and valuables to figures in government, bureaucratic, and finan­ cial circles.38 The scandal grew until in September it resulted in the ar­ rests, first of Fukuda Takeo, chief of the Finance Ministry's Budget Bu­ reau, and later Kurusu Takeo, director of the Economic Stabilization Board. Ashida was shocked by the arrest of Kurusu, in whom he had placed his trust. Newspapers began to report that Ashida was involved as well but he declared his innocence in his diary, writing "I have abso­ lutely no connection with this."39 Ashida, who had already been sick of politics since June, began to consider retirement. Whitney exhorted him that "you cannot lose heart now," but on October 7, the day after Nishio's arrest, Ashida announced that he felt "an acute sense of moral respon­ sibility" and decided that the cabinet would resign en masse.40 Thus, the Ashida cabinet was short-lived lasting only seven months. There can be no doubt that this scandal was the result of a complicat­ ed political conspiracy. It is said that within GHQ, as the rivalry between the Government Section and the Intelligence Section intensified, G2, which had control over information and matters relating to public safety, began to move behind the scenes in order to deliver a blow to the Government Section, which supported the centrist governments of Katayama and Ashida. Moreover, the Democratic Liberal Party, aiming to

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topple the cabinet and take control of the government, was maneuvering to undermine the Democratic Party. However, Justin Williams of the Government Section was trying to convince Ashida that he should split u p t h e Democratic Liberal Party, which had ties to G2, by peeling away t h e faction led by Yamazaki Takeshi and incorporating it into a fourp a r t y reformist coalition.41 In the end, G2 and Yoshida won out over the Government Section and Ashida, but the "Yamazaki Takeshi Incident" (in which the Government Section, which had no use for Yoshida, at­ t e m p t e d to push Yoshida aside and install Yamazaki, the Democratic L ib e r a l Party's secretary general, as prime minister) can be seen as a counterattack of the latter against the former. However, once again the Government Section was defeated and not only was Yoshida able to form h is second cabinet, but in general elections held in January 1949, the D e m o c r a t s and the other parties of the old coalition were roundly defeat­ ed. From that point forward centrism disappeared as a force in politics. Ashida's ordeal continued after he quit the premiership. He himself was arrested on charges of accepting bribes and until he was finally acquitted in 1958, he was made to sit in the place of a defendant. Only in playing the Japanese game shogi could he get any peace of mind. The only thing that thrust him once again to center stage was his advocacy of rearmament. During the height of the controversy about the conclusion of a final peace treaty, Ashida converted the Democrats from a policy advocating a comprehensive peace treaty (in other words, a peace treaty with all the nations of the world) to one in support of a treaty with only some of the belligerent powers (i.e., those in the American camp) and led the party to support a system in which Japan was secured by the American forces stationed in the country (which went beyond his origi­ nal idea of "emergency stationing"). Moreover, after the outbreak of the Korean War, Ashida, from a sense of crisis about an impending third world war, conceived of a strengthened police reserve as well as a volun­ teer army to join the forces of the United Nations in Korea. In addition, he tried to persuade Prime Minister Yoshida to include the Socialist Party in a bipartisan approach to diplomacy in order to bring about the realiza­ tion of a peace treaty. After being rebuffed by Yoshida, Ashida, at GHQ's request, penned an opinion piece that he had published in a newspaper. In the article, he pointed out the menace of communism and preached the need for Japanese to be prepared to defend their country with their own hands and that it was an urgent necessity for the government to take the lead in this matter. This was a fierce nationalist criticism of the Yoshida government, which, absorbed in economic recovery as it was, preferred to leave the question of the country's defense to others.42 Later, during Diet interpellations when Yoshida asserted such sophistries as "the SelfDefense Forces are and army without war potential" or "we are not en­ gaged in rearmament," Ashida responded with withering sarcasm saying

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that the prime minister "is trying to convince us that a heron is actually a crow" and an intense debate followed thereafter. Incidentally, Hoshijima Niro, who was close to Ashida as a politician, evaluated him in 1948 as follows: O n th e s u rfa c e h e is a n e x c e p tio n a lly q u iet g e n tle m a n b u t w h e n it c o m e s to a p in ch h e exh ib its a n in tre p id c o u ra g e th a t su rp ris e s e v e n h is f r i e n d s .. . . I th in k h is h ig h w a te r m a r k as a p o liticia n w a s w h e n h e w a s in c h a rg e o f th e C o n s titu tio n a l C o m m itte e . H e w a s a lre a d y o v e r r e a c h ­ in g h im se lf c o n s id e ra b ly w h e n h e w e n t to th e D e m o c r a tic P a rty a n d s u rp a s s e d h is se n io r S h id e h a ra , to b e c o m e p a rty p re sid e n t. O n c e y o u o v e r r e a c h y o u g e t in to a to u g h p o s itio n fr o m w h ic h y o u m u s t co n tin u e o v e rr e a c h in g tim e a fte r tim e. H o w e v e r ch a rita b ly y o u m a y lo o k a t it, A s h id a 's r e c e n t a ttitu d e is d ifficu lt to a g re e w ith . I'd re a lly lik e h im to q u it o v e rr e a c h in g an d p r o v id e u s w ith g o o d g o v e r n m e n t.43

Or this prime minister, who was an intellectual and man of culture, the political world was too harsh an environment and it can be said that he took on too much. Ashida died in June 1959 at the age of seventy-one. NOTES 1. T om ita N ob u o, Ashida Seiken 223 Nichi (The 223 D ays o f the A sh id a A d m in istra­ tion), (Tokyo: G yosei, 1992), 5 4 -5 5 . 2. Shindo Eiichi, "K aid ai (In tro d u ctio n )," in A sh id a H itoshi, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki (The D iary of A sh id a H itoshi), V ol. 1, (Tokyo: Iw an am i Shoten, 1986), 19. 3. Im ai H isao , "A sh id a to Sono K oinyobo (A shida an d H is B eloved W ife)," in Seiji Kisha OB Kaiho (Bulletins of F o rm e r Political R ep orters), N o. 48 (Feb. 2 0 ,1 9 9 3 ). 4. H e w as aw ard ed this acad em ic d egree for h is dip lom atic h istory of the D ard a­ nelles and the B o sp o ru s straits entitled Kurvpu Kaikyo Tsiiko Seidoshi Ron (O n the H isto­ ry of the System of N avig atio n th rou g h the C onstan tin op le Straits). 5. A u g u st 2 0 ,1 9 4 6 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 1, 4 8 -4 9 . 6. A cco rd in g to a later accou n t, H ato y am a w as con sid ering A sh id a as the first chief secretary of the Liberal P arty. See H ato y am a Ichiro, Hatoyama Ichiro Kaikoroku (The M em oirs of H a to y am a Ichiro), (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1951), 32. 7. O ctob er 8 ,1 9 4 6 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, V ol. 1, 50. 8. M asu m i Ju n nosu ke (tran slated b y L o n n y E. Carlile), Postwar Politics in Japan, 1945-1955 (Berkeley: U niversity of California, 1985), 5 1 -5 4 . 9. See Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 1 , 7 5 -7 8 . 10. See Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 1, 57. 11. Feb ru ary 1 4 ,1 9 4 6 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 1, 73. 12. See Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 1 , 1 0 4 ,1 0 8 - 9 . 13. A u g u st 2 4 ,1 9 4 6 en try, Ashida Nikki, Vol. 1 , 1 2 8 -1 2 9 . 14. Sato Isao, "N ih o n K oku K em p o (The C onstitu tion of Ja p an )," in Sogo Koza: Ni­ hon no Shakai Bunkashi (C ollected L ectu res: A Social and C u ltu ral H isto ry of Jap an ), V ol. 6 (Tokyo: K odan sha, 1974), 4 4 2 -4 4 . 15. Jan u ary 2 6 ,1 9 4 7 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 7 ,1 4 5 . 16. Jan u ary 2 9 ,1 9 4 7 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 7 , 146. 17. Feb ru ary 2 ,1 9 4 7 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 7 , 148. 18. Shinobu K iyosab uro, Sengo Nihon Seijishi (A H isto ry of P o stw ar Politics), Vol. 2, (Tokyo: K eiso Shobo, 1966), 5 3 5 -3 7 .

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Ashida Hitoshi 1 9 . Shidehara H eiw a Z aid an , ed.,

Shidehara Kijuro (Shidehara K ijuro), (Tokyo: Shid-

ehara Kijuro Z aid an , 1951), 73. 20. R ecen tly M atsu n o R aizo revealed the follow ing episode: " A t the tim e of the

formation of the K atayam a cabinet, the D em ocratic p arty w as in a g reat turm oil. But then, I think it w as Shlkum a Saburo w h o stood u p and said, 'T h ere is really n o reason to worry. This is n oth in g m o re than a case of the Socialists sacrificing their p olicies in order to attain con trol of the g o v ern m en t.' That quieted things d o w n ." (See Yomiuri

Shimbun, D ecem b er 5 ,1 9 9 4 .) 21. M asu m i, Postwar Politics in Japan, 1 5 5 -5 7 . 22. K oyasu A kira, "T o n ai K oso de Jikai Shita K atayam a N aikaku (The K atayam a

Cabinet T h at C ollap sed on its O w n D u e to In trap arty R ivalries), Seiji Kisha OB Kaiho (Bulletins of F o rm e r Political R ep orters), N o. 51 (N o v em b er 2 1 ,1 9 9 3 ), 2. 23. N ish im u ra

K u m ao ,

"K 6 w a

Joyak u

(The

P eace

T re a ty ),"

in

K ataritsu gu

Showashi: G ekido n o H anseiki (D iscussing the H isto ry of Show a: A H alf-C en tu ry of Great C h ange), Vol. 6 (Tokyo: A sah i Shim bunsha, 1977), 182. 24. M asu d a H iroshi, "H ira n o Rikizo no koshoku tsuiho (The P u rge of H iran o Rikizo)," Hogaku Kenkyu, V ol. 6 7, N o. 11 (N ov. 2 1 ,1 9 9 3 ), 6 6 -6 7 . 25. Justin W illiam s, Japan's Political Revolution under MacArthur: A Participant's Ac­ count (A thens: U n iv ersity of G eorgia Press, 1982), 49. 26. Feb ru ary 1 0 ,1 9 4 8 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2 ,4 4 . 27. See M asu m i, Postwar Politics in Japan, 157. 28. W illiam s, Japan's Political Revolution, 50. 29. F eb ru ary 2 4 ,1 9 4 8 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2 ,5 7 . 30. M asu m i, Postwar Politics in Japan, 158. 31. See Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2 ,5 7 - 6 4 , and Asahi Shimbun, M arch 7 ,1 9 4 8 . 32. Asahi Shimbun, M arch 1 0 ,1 9 4 8 . 33. M asu m i, Postwar Politics in Japan, 161. 34. M ay 1 4 ,1 9 4 8 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2 ,1 1 0 . 35. A m ak aw a A kira, "S en ry o Shihaika n o K okkai (The D iet u n d er the C ontrol of the O ccu p atio n )," in Nihon Gikai Shiroku (A R eco rd of the Jap an ese P arliam ent), Vol. 4, (Tokyo: Daiichi H oki S hu pp an, 1990), 1 6 6 -6 7 . 36. June 10 and Ju n e 1 1 ,1 9 4 8 entries, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2 , 1 2 6 -2 7 . 37. M iyazaki M asay asu , "G aish i D on yu Ronso K aishi (The D ebate on Foreign C ap i­ tal B egins)," in Nihon Rekishi, N o. 5 0 4 (M ay 1990), 88—92; N ak am u ra Takahide, Showashi (A H isto ry of Show a), Vol. 2, 1945-1989 (Tokyo: T oyo K eizai S him posha, 1993), 427. 38. M asu m i, Postwar Politics in Japan, 159. 39. Septem ber 1 5 ,1 9 4 8 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2 ,1 9 1 . 40. June 5, 1948 en try Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2, 122, June 8, 1948 en try, 124, and October 1 ,1 9 4 8 en try, 205. 41. Septem ber 2 8 ,1 9 4 8 en try, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, Vol. 2, 201. 42. See O take H id eo, Saigunbi to Nashonarizumu, (Tokyo: C h u ok oron sh a, 1988), 130—36. 43. Asahi Shimbun, Feb ru ary 2 2 ,1 9 4 8 .

SIX Hatoyama Ichiro A Tenacious Attachment to the Restoration of Relations with the Soviet Union and Constitutional Revision Yamamuro Kentoku

In December 1954, the opposition parties in the Diet submitted a motion of no confidence against then prime minister, Yoshida Shigeru, which resulted in the resignation of his cabinet. The near-seven-year-old Yoshi­ da administration had finally come to an end. Hatoyama Ichiro became prime minister. The media at the time heralded the change of government in a posi­ tive light. The editor of the Asahi Shimbun, Aragaki Hideo, wrote that prior to the Hatoyama administration coming to power, it was common government practice that all cabinet ministers had a security detail, that political and bureaucratic wheeling and dealing were initiated by politi­ cians over games of mahjong, and the prime minister kept an official residence in Tokyo's Meguro district. On attaining power, Hatoyama abolished these practices winning much public approval. In addition, Hatoyama stopped the use of sirens by the prime minister's official mo­ torcade and also prohibited the cabinet ministers from holding positions on the boards of private companies. Hatoyama also spoke on public radio directly addressing the concerns and issues raised by the public at large. Hatoyama did not propose any new innovative policies but overall, politlcal stability and economic wealth ensued in line with domestic develop­ ments. This was a distinctively missing characteristic of the Yoshida government. In this situation, it was seen as a boon that Yoshida and his cabinet resigned. Aragaki further stated, "Prime Minister Yoshida and 71

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his cabinet ignored the voice of the people, looking down on public senti­ ment and opinion and ran the country as they pleased." On the other hand, Aragaki continues, "Hatoyama's government has attempted to be actively and personally involved with the public and as such, it cannot be criticized. Trying to be popular amongst the people cannot be criticized because it is not anti-democratic. To appeal to the nation's sentiments and simple feelings can have more influence over public opinion then the discussion of complicated policies and legislation." Aragaki continued by saying that of course, "once the conservative government is established, the people would have an alternative choice to Yoshida and his cabinet. And that is why the public must be more vigilant." It was in such a situation that in those days, the mass media welcomed the resignation of the autocratic-styled former prime minister in favor of the more open and broad-minded Hatoyama who was more sensitive to public demands and opinions. The monthly magazine Bungei Shunju published an extra edition in January 1955 which featured an article entitled, "The Biggest Political Change after the War." The article analyzed events of note, which had caused major shifts and changes in the Japanese political landscape, dur­ ing the period between the final days of the Second World War to the end of the previous year. In its opinion, the end of the longtime rule of the Yoshida government, which happened so openly in the public's purview, was the biggest political change to date. In essence, the rise of Prime Minister Hatoyama did not simply mean that there was a new and differ­ ent leader in thought and persona to Yoshida but it also meant the heralding of a new era in the history of Japan's postwar politics. Prime Minister Yoshida's behavior displayed a pattern of coercive, demanding, and secretive style leadership. However, this was seen as necessary and optimal in the light of the need for political reform under the U.S.-led occupation. On the other hand, once Japan regained its full independence and statehood, the public grew more and more tired of Yoshida's long term in office and became antipathetic toward him as they saw his political leadership style as non-democratic. "If Yoshida had retired immediately after the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty talks, he would have without a doubt, been seen and revered as a god," wrote a contemporary.1 However, Yoshida, ac­ cording to the same man, was "excessively attracted to political power and regime maintenance and to put it bluntly, he was also vain in charac­ ter."2 Yoshida was a "rare and incomparable politician" but "was not a politician popular with the public," he concluded.3 Such was the "stig­ ma" that was attached to him. Hatoyama Ichiro's appearance was definitely seen as the new face of the prime minister for the now independent and democratic Japan. In addition to his cheerful and open-minded personality, his political career also strengthened this image. Hatoyama, a practicing lawyer and a local

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government politician at the time, began his career in national politics at the age of thirty-two when he was first elected to the Diet's House of Representatives in 1915. He succeeded in winning the support from the p e o p l e that supported his father Kazuo, who was previously speaker of the House of Representatives. Hatoyama continued his legal practice at the same time. Since his first win, Hatoyama was continuously returned to the House of Representatives over the next forty years. During that time, he was selected as education minister as well as party secretary general of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party. It can be said that Hatoyama was thoroughly committed to parliamentary politics. This impressive resume strongly enhanced Hatoyama's value as a politician. For example, in an early January 1955 meeting of the leaders of the four main political parties, that is, Hatoyama as president of the Japan Demo­ cratic Party, President Ogata Taketora of the Liberal Party, Suzuki Shigesaburo as chairman of the Left Wing of the Socialist Party, and Kawakami Taketaro as chairman of the Right Wing Socialist Party, Suzu­ ki had said that "the four party leaders who are gathered here are of real democracy. We are not of the military and we are not of the bureaucra­ cy."4 Kawakami who was somewhat leery of a Hatoyama administration stating, "I am surprised as to why people who seemingly are fascist in outlook support Hatoyama. Because of this, Hatoyama's policies which are otherwise fundamentally bright and clear seem to be gradually be­ coming reactive."5 Conversely though, Kawakami expressed his affinity with Hatoyama by saying that "the main reason why I feel confident about Hatoyama is because he is a career party politician. Japan's cabi­ nets and government ministries have a long history and if one looks at the pre- and post-war history of these institutions, only two career politi­ cians without experience in the bureaucracy became prime minister. One is Katayama Tetsu from the Socialist Party and the other is Hatoyama."6 Here, the idea of entrusting national politics to an efficient politician regardless of his previous career was not evident. People had come to believe in a certain ideological standpoint. They had come to accept that in prewar Japan, the military and the bureaucrats had colluded and led Japan into disaster. It was therefore necessary to eliminate the tradition of "bureaucratism" or politics controlled by the bureaucracy, in the postwar period. In doing so, it was believed that a politician's initiatives should be based on ideas emanating from his career as a political party member and not as a representative of the bureaucracy. This two-pronged definition °f a politician was also evident within conservative party mechanics. It was quite common to categorize politicians either with their career as Party politicians or as bureaucrats. From this purview, Yoshida, a diplo­ mat during prewar times and who became a political representative only when he became prime minister, and this at the request of Hatoyama who was about to be purged, was a typical politician, representative of the bureaucracy. It became an important criterion in evaluating a politi-

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cian, that his career prior to the war should be considered. Such thinking gained importance only ten years after the end of the war. Because of this, people started to regard Yoshida as a career bureaucrat and Hatoyama as a "public politician." However, having written the above, this is not to say Hatoyama had a smooth road toward attaining the post of prime minister. As a liberal politician, Hatoyama was politically ostracized during World War II. Im- : mediately following the war, he established the High-Spirited Liberal Party and became its president. In the general elections held in April 1946, the renamed Liberal Party became the dominant party. Before he was to be named prime minister then, Hatoyama was suddenly purged from the position by the occupation forces. Because of this, Hatoyama nominated Yoshida as his successor to the party presidency. Thereafter, Hatoyama moved to the rural town of Karuizawa where his life then mainly revolved around agriculture and reading books. This was a disap­ pointment in life. In addition, just before he was released from his purge in 1951, he suffered a brain blood extraversion resulting in half of his body becoming paralyzed. Hatoyama had become paraplegic. Neverthe­ less, Hatoyama assumed that his release from the purge meant he was to inherit back the party presidency and hence the post of prime minister but Yoshida refused. It took another few years. Born on January 1, 1883, he would be almost seventy-one years old when he became prime minis­ ter. Because of this, people referred to him as a "tragic politician (higeki no seijika)" and Hatoyama in that regard received a lot of sympathy. The occupation period saw the contrast between the political careers of Yoshi­ da and Hatoyama. During this time, Yoshida reached the peak of his political career whilst Hatoyama was ostracized from all political activity. Now, Hatoyama sought to bring the issues of revision and reform to the fore. For example, in a speech delivered in the beginning of 1955, he said, "The long-period of Occupation politics have made our fellow countrymen believe that 'if you can't fight them, join them' as well as 'steadfast obedience to the power.' It seems that our own ethnic subjectiv­ ity has been lost."7 Therefore, as his primary political goal, he set out "to change this and to take back the confidence of, and what it means to be, a real citizen."8 In doing so, his approach was to amend the provision of the Constitution which made war unlawful, and to normalize relations with the other pole of the Cold War, the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub­ lics. Hatoyama's attitude won him appeal and it could be said that it also won him more sympathy. There were people who saw the occupation period not as a free and bright period but rather an unfortunate time of suffering. These people could identify themselves with Hatoyama who had also been subjected to a difficult path during this same period. For conservative politicians purged during the time of the occupation, Hatoy­ ama was always seen as the "rising star" especially because of his politi­ cal works before the outset of war. Influential and effective politicians

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like Miki Bukichi and Kishi Nobusuke gave him support as a means to create a power base which could counter and challenge Yoshida and his politics. Hatoyama's ill-feelings toward Yoshida were strong and he was not hesitant to express such sentiments as he once said: "I usually do not call people's names without using the honorific suffix sama (Mr. or Mrs.). I have never called anyone using the derogatory suffix kisama (bastard). However, when it comes to Yoshida, if I do not use this suffix when calling his name, I cannot raise him up high enough to be my equal and therefore I will feel I have lost something. I call him as such because of his very arrogant attitude."9 Yoshida retorted, "Honestly speaking, I feel sorry for Hatoyama's health. And his henchmen are not any better either. My motto is to speak only a little. But Hatoyama speaks so much that it really gets annoying."10 The conflict between them became deeply rooted. Given this conflicting relationship, it became understandable and indeed expected that Hatoyama sought to revise Yoshida's policies to­ ward his own political agenda. However, a careful look at their political beliefs would show that the source of their loathing and animosity toward each other was due to the fact that there were no actual significant differences between them. This fact becomes clear when you consider Hatoyama appointing Yoshida as his successor to the Liberal Party presidency and after his release from his purge, Hatoyama repeatedly joined and resigned from the Liberal Party until he was given the presidency of the Japan Democratic Party. There­ fore, it could be argued that their confrontation and competition for pow­ er was based on no actual significant differences in their political views. As mentioned above, their relationship was not so easy. A similar thought could be argued regarding the relationship between the Demo­ cratic Party, with its leader being Hatoyama, and the Liberal Party, its leader being Ogata, Yoshida's successor. Furthermore, outside the intra­ conservative competitive circle, there was competition between the con­ servatives in general and the progressives, the dynamics of which will be discussed next. December 10, 1954, saw Hatoyama form his first government. Al­ though his Democratic Party comprised only one-quarter of the total seats of the House of Representatives, Hatoyama was still elected prime minister because Socialist Party (both Left and Right wings) supported Hatoyama on the condition that he was to call for a general election the following year in March. As such, the Socialists, in order to oust Yoshida from power, agreed to elect Hatoyama as prime minister in order to s>mply manage cabinet affairs for the time being until general elections were called. It was understood by all concerned that at the end of the three months in the lead up to the general election, political reorganiza­ tion was to be undertaken.

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However, as it were, Hatoyama's "temporary cabinet management" won great public appeal and support. Public opinion polls seen in the national newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, released on January 20, 1955, for ex­ ample, revealed a 40 percent support rating for the formation of the Hatoyama cabinet as opposed to the 8 percent that was against it. Earlier, a survey conducted in May 1954 had asked whether respondents sup­ ported a conservative or progressive government. Initial results indicated then a 33 percent support for a conservative government whilst support for a progressive government stood at 26 percent, but by 1955, these figures later changed with further results indicating a 48 percent support for a conservative government whilst support for a progressive govern­ ment fell to 23 percent. The conservatives thus became dominant. Fur­ thermore, the Democratic Party had a 30 percent public approval rating which was greater than that of the Liberal Party (23 percent) and the Left and Right Wing Socialists (25 percent). This is particularly interesting in that six months before, the Democrats did not exist—the Liberals had 34 percent public support, the Reform Party 8 percent, and the Socialist Party enjoyed 30 percent public support—but the Democrats eventually succeeded in winning greater public approval. It can be said that the amalgamation of Japan Democratic Party and Reform Party to form the Democratic Party in November 1954 was one of the main factors as to why the overall approval rating for the conservatives increased. However, the primary impetus for the increasing trend in public sup­ port was attributed to Hatoyama's character and charisma as a politician. During the campaign for the general elections, Hatoyama had written that, "people had explained to me that my support was due to a 'Hatoya­ ma boom' of sorts. Everywhere I went, thousands of people would gather in the parking lot, pushing and shoving with excitement crying out 'Ban­ zai banzai.’ When I was in my car, it was near impossible to drive. The crowd surrounded my car in masses as people indiscriminately tried to shake my hand. As I stood on the stump and saw the many supporters gathering in the halls to hear me speak, that support shown really moti­ vated me. I had never delivered a speech in such a highly emotional and excited state in all my forty years of political life. I often recall such feelings and experience and would enjoy such reminiscing alone."11 Pub­ lic attraction to Hatoyama was due to the positive image they had of him compared to that of Yoshida. Hatoyama was seen as accessible with which people could identify. Yoshida was seen as too intimidating to communicate with. As such, it was expected that Hatoyama's Democratic Party was to lead the country after Yoshida. Voter support was fluid, shifting only among the conservative parties. Support for the more liberal-minded par­ ties was not evident in any large scale. This situation had made the Socialist Party worried. They believed that the collapse of the Yoshida administration was symbolic of the prob-

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lem of conservative politics itself, but came to realize that the Democrats, whom they initially supported, were the ones they needed to fight in the election. During the latter part of the campaign for the general election, the Socialists went from attacking the Liberals to going after Hatoyama and his Democratic Party. On February 15, the chairmen of both of the left and right wings of the Socialist Party held a press conference and made the following statement: "The Liberal Party is no longer a contend­ er for the premiership, and so the election is about whether it will be an administration led by the Democratic Party or the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party will seek to prevent the Hatoyama government's intention to revise the Constitution and introduce conscription. After the elections, both Left and Right wings of the Socialist Party will join together to elect its own prime minister and establish a Socialist Party government." When it became clear the Democratic Party intended to pursue the issue of constitutional revision particularly with regards to Article 9, this be­ came a cause for a closer affiliation between the two wings. Voting in the general election was held on February 27. The Demo­ cratic Party found success and increased its seats from 124 to 185. The Liberal Party, however, dramatically lost seeing a massive reduction in its seats from 180 to 112. These results saw a significant reversal in power between the conservative parties. The left and right wings of the Socialist party collectively showed a combined winning of 156 seats, that is, onethird of the total number of seats. In comparison to the number of seats the Socialist Party had at the time of the dissolution of the Diet, it had increased its numbers by twenty-one. The Socialist Party's left wing had faired especially well, winning fifteen seats of that total. On March 18, the Diet held a special session to select a new prime minister. The election became a two-way fight between Hatoyama and Suzuki Mosaburo of the Socialist Party's left wing. With the support of the Liberal Party, Hatoyama was chosen prime minister by the Diet and was mandated to form his second cabinet (although around half of the Liberal Party membership abstained on the vote). Unlike the previous cabinet, this time around Hatoyama's second cabinet had the support of the conservative parties or they were actually members of the govern­ ment itself, while the progressive parties became part of the opposition. However, the demarcation between the ruling parties and opposition was far from clear. For example, the election by the Diet to determine the speaker of the House of Representatives found cooperation between the Liberal Party and both wings of the Socialist Party to choose Masutani Shuji of the former party at the expense of the Democrats' Miki. Further­ more, the deputy speaker chosen was Sugimoto Motojiro of the right wmg of the Socialist Party. In reality, however, it was the Liberal Party that was the real opposition and it behaved as such in the public arena. As such, it was expected to be difficult for the Democratic Party, as a minority ruling party, to implement its policies.

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However, the election results saw Hatoyama's position within the Democratic Party getting stronger. "All factions knew that one of the biggest reasons for the party's success in the elections in gaining 185 seats, was due to the popularity of the prime minister himself leading to the so called 'Hatoyama boom.' The Hatoyama administration had now gained greater importance and was no longer a puppet government but a key mover for unification within the party ranks."12 However, party soli­ darity was secondary to the need for attaining majority support in the Diet. As a result, a growing momentum for an association of conservative parties grew after April. Democratic Party's Executive Council Chairman Miki and Secretary General Kishi were promoters of this new idea. Al­ though Prime Minister Hatoyama's position was strengthened through his party's victory in the general election, this did not mean that their policy plans could all be decided by his leadership alone. On April 29, the Asahi Shimbun noted, "Former Prime Minister Yoshida's leadership style was to act alone and have the government and the party follow his will. The position of Prime Minister Hatoyama is to lead through a collegial body consisting of leading members of the party. Therefore, where the leadership of the party found consensus on issues, Hatoyama would fol­ low suit. In actuality, he had no choice by to follow."13 This explains why Hatoyama never began any new initiatives in negotiation as his approach was always done in association with the conservative parties. At the end of a six-month long negotiation, the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party were united on November 15,1955, as the Liberal Dem­ ocratic Party. This amalgamation was seen as a move to stabilize the government and counter any mounting challenge from the more progres­ sive parties. Many reasons exist to explain why the two conservative parties decided to come together. Of these, for example, one was due to strong lobbying stemming from the business sector's different rationales regarding the decision of the right and left wings of the Socialist Party the month before to reunite. Importantly also, the feud between Hatoyama and Yoshida had subsided with Hatoyama assuming power as prime minister. Yoshida's support base in the Liberal Party was still effective and influential. Liberal Party President Ogata and three other ranking party officials initially stifled unification attempts. Likewise, opponents to the idea of amalgamation within the Democrats were found among those in the old school who were against mergers with other conservative parties. However, the move to merge was too strong and was based upon the fact that the political contest now was no longer against Yoshida and his Liberal Party. They both had a common enemy. The sought after merger between the Democrats and the Liberals now came to the issue of who was to become the LDP's first president. The growing momentum in support of the merger came from the April 12 (1955) press conference given by Executive Council chairman Miki of the Democratic Party who in no uncertain and strong terms said: "It is neces-

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sary then that the Hatoyama government should resign to allow for the public to express what it wants if it deems the Hatoyama leadership of the party and country to be inadequate." As the press conference was started in this manner, the Liberal Party also saw resignation as a natural assumption. On May 23, the front page feature of the Asahi Shimbun read: "the time for Hatoyama's resignation is now the focal point of talks be­ tween the four top party officials if both parties were to talk. These top officials include the secretaries general and chairmen of both parties' General Affairs."14 The Liberal Party pushed for the new party president to be selected by the members of the Diet. Its plan was that Ogata could probably be elected as the new president by members of the Diet as the numbers for both parties were comparable if the Upper House were in­ cluded. Verbally, on the other hand, the Democrats still insisted on electing Hatoyama as the first unified president but there was a common belief in political circles though that his resignation was still a prerequisite for the amalgamation of the conservative parties. Hatoyama's reluctance to sup­ port a party merger was probably due to this sentiment and he repeated­ ly argued that a merger of conservative parties would be difficult. Hatoy­ ama had reportedly said: "I want to be in office for about one and a half years more and I want to complete the Soviet-Japanese negotiations per­ sonally."15 Hatoyama further stated, "Maybe I am too self-confident but there is nobody else other than me who really wants to revise the consti­ tution." 16 As such, Hatoyama was eager to address two issues of note, namely: (1) to achieve a Soviet-Japanese rapprochement, and (2) to revise the constitution. Hatoyama, therefore, did not want to resign until those issues were addressed. It was clear, however, that his wishes would be difficult to come by given that his ruling party did not enjoy a majority. To solve the situation, Hatoyama thought that with another general elec­ tion, the Democrats could win alone without the need for mobilizing the conservatives.17 However as aggressive an attitude Hatoyama may have had in pursuit of this approach, if the Democrats could not win a major­ ity, his resignation would then become inevitable. However, opinion polls indicated that Hatoyama still enjoyed popular support. As a compromise, the two conservative parties decided that Hatoyama was to continue as prime minister on the condition that an election for the president for the new party was to be carried out six months later following the merger. This agreement allowed for the mer­ ger to happen and the creation of the LDP. Hatoyama became prime minister again, forming his third cabinet on November 22. With the num­ bers that the former Liberal Party brought with them, his government bad an absolute majority, with the Socialist Party in opposition. Although Hatoyama could now find the wherewithal to establish a stable and solid basis for his powers and office, this still did not mean his position was

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secure within the party as the compromise called for elections for party president to be held the following year. In January however, the man seen as Hatoyama's biggest rival, Ogata, passed away. The situation had now changed suddenly. In an extraordi­ nary meeting of the LDP in April, Hatoyama became the first president of the LDP, creating a de facto vote of confidence in him. Finally, he had reached the position of a prime minister who enjoyed an absolute major­ ity in the Diet as well as enjoying a strong and secure position within the party. Unfortunately, however, Hatoyama's security did not last long. Noting his deteriorating health and that he might have to resign at any point, members of the new LDP began scheming for the future. As will be seen later, in this situation, it became impossible to plan effectively to­ ward the issue of constitutional reform. Instead, the Hatoyama cabinet focused and succeeded with restoring relations with the Soviet Union in October. With the confirmation that Ishibashi Tanzan was to succeed him as the second LDP president, the Hatoyama cabinet resigned on Decem­ ber 20. From the point of view of Hatoyama's support base, one could see the gradual strengthening of the Hatoyama cabinet as well as Hatoyama's resignation at the same time in the not-so-distant future. Observers had stated that Hatoyama's term was a mere caretaker cabinet and that he would not have been able to become president of the party in a merger of the conservative parties. The end of the Hatoyama cabinet was seen in such terms. As such, the common thought amongst Hatoyama's closest aides was always in what form or way was Prime Minister Hatoyama going to resign. It is common in the political world that those who are in the center of power cannot predict how they will have to give up that power. And a case on point is Prime Minister Yoshida which can be contrasted to that of Prime Minister Hatoyama. It is probably true that the Hatoyama cabinets had always bore in mind the way and form of how they were going to later resign or give up such power and as it became an inevitable fact that they themselves were to spontaneously implement it on their own. As mentioned earlier, the Democratic Party's victory in the general election held in February 1955 caused the Socialist Party to rethink its political approach. In the media, the Socialist Party reflected on its elec­ tion loss. It declared that "the Democratic Party had won the election because it usurped the political platform of the Socialist Party. Such poli­ cy issues included our ideas on social security, full employment, housing, Soviet-Japanese rapprochement, and Sino-Japanese trade relations."18 The Socialists even equated Hatoyama with thievery, using an analogy of a pigeon Qiato) stealing some food.19 The Socialist Party had difficulty responding to the Hatoyama cabinet's different approach to that of the Yoshida cabinet in addressing issues regarding Japan's fiscal austerity measures as well as its predecessor's hostility toward the communists in

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China and the Soviet Union. It became clear to them that these policies vvere not the sole ideological property of the Socialist Party and the pro­ gressive forces. There was room for such ideas in conservative thought. The Socialist Party now was faced with a dilemma. With the policies of the Yoshida cabinet, it was easy for the Socialist Party to oppose govern­ ment policy ideologically. However, with Hatoyama's government poli­ cies, because some of it mirrored the Socialist Party's own political agen­ da, it was more difficult for the Socialist Party to challenge Hatoyama and the Socialist Party "lost its will to fight."20 A funny scene would often play out in the Diet when the Liberal Party, attacking the govern­ ment's position, would find itself under attack by the Socialist Party.21 What was created then in this situation was the fear held by members of the Socialist Party that if they criticized the Hatoyama cabinet too much and was pushed into a corner, it might lead to a more reactionary cabi­ net.22 This situation showed that there was not a clear and united front in opposition to the government and the ruling party. However, when the Socialist Party's left and right wings united to form a common front as well as when there was a like amalgamation of the conservatives, the politics in the Diet became polarized allowing for greater conflict and challenge between the Socialist Party and Hatoya­ ma's administration. On January 30,1956, Kawakami Taketaro, a Socialist Party member, was first to introduce questions on the issue of constitu­ tional revision. He warned the government that if it were to pursue its plans with revision, opposition will mount and it may cause political instability and intensify conflict. Kawakami argued that the real reason for pursuing constitutional revision was in pursuit of America's global policies. He further submitted that Japan should discontinue its blatant U.S.-oriented diplomacy and pursue a more independent and autono­ mous position. From the Socialist Party's standpoint, achieving indepen­ dence meant a change of Japan's position from being under Western liberal powers led by the United States, to being more neutral. Further­ more, the results of the domestic reform undertaken during the Occupa­ tion should be zealously kept and protected. From Hatoyama and his cabinet's standpoint, achieving independence meant certain constitution­ al amendments had to be made in addition to reforming the domestic political system. With regards to foreign policy, it was important for Hatoyama's cabinet to normalize relations with the Soviet Union. How this was to be done was the question, as a drastic change in the status quo °f relations may prove to be unpopular. It then was the case that both the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party were in common opposition to the conventional Yoshida political approach by way of pursuing greater independence for Japan. However, where they differed was in relation to their diverging emphases on external relations and domestic politics. In February 1956, Hatoyama initiated moves toward constitutional revision through the submission of the Constitutional Revision Commit-

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tee's bill. The following month, Hatoyama also introduced a bill to pro- ■ mote single-seat electoral districts. Politically, these bills were of great importance. Despite the fact that a two-party system was emerging, the LDP worked to ensure its support of more than two-thirds of the total members in the Diet as it was clear that they were also seeking to amend the constitution. The Socialist Party opposed this move which led to the failure of the bill to pass the Diet. This setback of course did not mean that Hatoyama abandoned the idea of constitutional revision. Hatoyama had intended for the LDP to win more than two-thirds of the seats in the House of Councilors so as to help attain that which he first campaigned on, which was the intention to revise the provisions of the constitution regarding the country's self-defense. The outcome of the elections though proved otherwise. The LDP's number of seats in the Diet did not change whilst the Socialist Party fought hard to win an additional twelve. The progressive parties won two seats more than the one-third necessary to block constitutional revision. Because the standing rules for the House of Councilors differed from the House of Representatives, it could not be dissolved in order to hold fresh elections. As a result, the proposed con­ stitutional amendment exercise could not be revisited until the next elec­ tions in three years' time. This also in effect meant that it was almost impossible for Hatoyama's cabinet to likewise follow through on its revi­ sion plans for the constitution. This political situation became fixed and was later called the "1955 System (Gojugonen Taisei)." Hitherto, no one could predict such a system I was coming into being. It was seen that the establishment of the LDP and the unification of the Socialist Party was a milestone for Japanese politics. It was hoped that it might enable changes in Japan to occur through a bi­ partisan system. For many Socialist Party politicians for example, it was thought that their victory in the 1956 Upper House elections cornered Hatoyama and his cabinet7s power and facilitated their own rise to power to defeat Hatoyama and his proposed amendments to the constitution.23 Following the general elections in February 1955, Hatoyama announced the following: "If the Socialist Party does not err in its diplomatic propo­ sal initiatives, it is possible that rule by the Socialist Party will arrive."24 As can be seen in the foregoing, it was highly likely that the Socialist Party could have become the ruling party instead of the LDP but why was this not the case? It is the view today that there was such a disparity in the approaches of the two parties that uncommitted votes could not choose between them. If it were a choice between Yoshida and Hatoyama or between the Socialist Party and the Hatoyama cabinet which had mim­ icked the policies of the Socialist Party, then the voter could more easily choose according to how they felt. However, the conflict between the LDP and Socialist Party was more complex as it related to issues embed­ ded in the political system itself and therefore the support of the voters tended to be fixed on those points of issue.

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These conflicts in ideologies stemmed from party values of postwar reconstruction and different interpretations of historical points. For this reason, the disparities in ideology polarized the voting public as it be­ came difficult to separate the perceptions of the parties from what might be their actual policies. Hatoyama was prime minister when the tenth anniversary of the end of World War II came on August 15. At the end of this period, Hatoyama refers to the following points as to Japan's mistakes in the past. "It was a mistake that the people as a nation were fixed in the belief that all government announcements during the war were lies." People were made to follow government orders and directives without being con­ vinced of any truth within it. The lessons learned from this experience is that the nation should not obey the directives and initiatives taken by the governing body unless they are convinced of it and act in accordance to that.25 This process, as Hatoyama saw it, was democracy at work and that such a phenomenon could be made use of through the traditions of pre­ war parliamentary politics to which he himself was actively involved in. As such, it was thought that the reforms initiated by the occupation forces created too many domestic problems and a re-examination of such reforms had to be undertaken. As an ardent anticommunist, Hatoyama accepted that Japan aligned itself with the United States and the anticom­ munist bloc as a result of Japan's defeat in the war. However, it was unacceptable for Hatoyama that the United States further acted to define Japan's domestic system. The justifications for the push toward a re­ examination of the occupation presence in Japan were grounded in these historical issues. Hatoyama then proclaimed to be protecting democracy in Japan by demonstrating his long experience as a parliamentary politician even though he also was opposed to the demilitarization of Japan. And al­ though this was not achieved, Hatoyama eagerly worked to transform the Self-Defense Forces into a standing army by attempting (unsuccess­ fully) to appoint Admiral Nomura Kichisaburo, a member of the House of Councilors, to his second cabinet as director general of the Defense Agency. For Hatoyama, the appropriate political system for Japan at that time was one that was based on the system that existed in prewar times. He could not accept the idea of Japan completely doing away with its political foundations just because of a defeat in war. Conversely, the Socialist Party believed that defeat in the war not only brought freedom and the establishment of democracy to Japan but also established absolute pacifism. In essence, the progressive forces believed fhat the ideology and principle whereby to rebuild the nation was re­ leased as a result of Japan's defeat in the war. Furthermore, on April 9,1956, Hatoyama initiated compensation pay­ ments through a signed agreement with the Philippines. The Socialist Party criticized the amount paid ($40 million per year) as being too bur-

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densome on Japan's external and fiscal payment capabilities.26 In the meantime, following Japan's becoming an economic giant, its efforts to deal with the issues of the war vis-a-vis the countries of Asia have been viewed as insufficient. In the immediate postwar period, three prime ministers, namely Hatoyama, Ishibashi, and Kishi, were all purged. Hatoyama was the first of these three to become prime minister and he sought to utilize the empha­ sis he placed on prewar parliamentary traditions of Japanese politics while committing himself to fixing postwar reforms based upon Japanese values of that time. It was this approach that brought the conservatives and progressives into clear and present loggerheads. As it became evi­ dent that the Socialist Party was going to gain one-third of the seats in the Diet, Hatoyama's hand was forced to abandon his planned constitutional revision as it was opposed by the progressives. The Democratic Party though was able to push through other policies such as enhancing social welfare and promoting housing and construction as these were in line with the Socialist Party's values. The biggest achievement by the Hatoya­ ma cabinet was its success in normalizing relations with the Soviet Union although this policy was also in line with Socialist Party values. True independence from the "Occupation System" (or structure, or mentality) years as sought by both conservatives and progressives was not achieved because although the progressives held more than one-third of the seats in the Diet, it was still less than half it needed to promote its agenda fully. Specifically, Hatoyama's pursuit of constitutional change for domestic political reform was thwarted by the progressives and their one-third hold of the total seats. Similarly, the progressive's goal of sever­ ing the diplomatic alliance with the United States so as to achieve their version of independence also failed since they did not attain half the support of the total members in the Diet. The end result was that the numbers game played by both the conservatives and progressives led to both of them not realizing their pursuit of the ideas of independence. NOTES 1. O no B am boku, "C h u sh in : Bam boku n o Ben (The O pinion of a L oy alist),"

Bungei

Shunju, Vol. 33, N o. 2 (Jan uary 1955), 5 6 -5 9 . 2. O no, "C h u sh in ." 3. O no, "C h ushin."' 4. Asahi Shimbun, Jan u ary 3 ,1 9 5 5 . 5. Asahi Shimbun, Jan u ary 3 ,1 9 5 5 . 6. Asahi Shimbun, M arch 2 0 ,1 9 5 5 . 7. Asahi Shimbun, Jan u ary 1 ,1 9 5 5 . 8. Asahi Shimbun, Jan u ary 1 ,1 9 5 5 . 9. Asahi Shimbun, Septem b er 1 1 ,1 9 5 2 . 10. Asahi Shimbun, Septem ber 1 1 ,1 9 5 2 , evenin g edition. 11. H a to y am a Ichiro, Hatoyama Ichiro Kaikoroku (The M em oirs of H ato y am a Ichiro), (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1951), 32.

Hatoyama Ichiro 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

85

Asahi Shimbun, M arch 5 ,1 9 5 5 . Asahi Shimbun, A pril 2 9 ,1 9 5 5 . Asahi Shimbun, M ay 2 3 ,1 9 5 5 . Asahi Shimbun, M ay 2 7 ,1 9 5 5 . Asahi Shimbun, M ay 2 7 ,1 9 5 5 evenin g edition. Mainichi Shimbun, A u g u st 1 4 ,1 9 5 5 evenin g edition. Asahi Shimbun, M arch 7 ,1 9 5 5 evenin g edition. Asahi Shimbun, M arch 7 ,1 9 5 5 evenin g edition. Asahi Shimbun, M arch 7 ,1 9 5 5 evenin g edition O R Asahi Shimbun, June 2 1 ,1 9 5 5 . Asahi Shimbun, June 2 1 ,1 9 5 5 . Asahi Shimbun, June 2 4 ,1 9 5 5 . Asahi Shimbun, Septem ber 2 6 ,1 9 5 6 . Bungei Shunju, V ol. 33, N o. 5 (A pril 1955), 1 9 -2 1 . Asahi Shimbun, A u g u st 1 4 ,1 9 5 5 evenin g edition. Asahi Shimbun, M ay 1 0 ,1 9 5 6 .

SEVEN Ishibashi Tanzan A Coherent Liberal Thinker Inoki Takenori

On December 14,1956, at the convention of the Liberal Democratic Party, three candidates stood for the post of party president. The three were: Kishi Nobusuke, LDP secretary general, formerly of the Democratic Par­ ty; Ishii Kojiro, chairman of the LDP's General Council, formerly of the Liberal Party; and Minister of Trade and Industry Ishibashi Tanzan, for­ merly of the Democratic Party. Earlier in the year on August 10, Prime Minister Hatoyama Ichiro had already declared to party leaders, "I want to have my successor decided as soon as possible so that I may retire." Despite his wishes, no successor was designated and so for the first time the ruling party chose a new leader in an open election. As a result of this election, the jockeying of intraparty factions and the open election of the party's leader by all members of its parliamentary caucus were estab­ lished as fundamental characteristics of the Liberal Democratic Party. On the first ballot, out of a total of 511 votes cast, Kishi polled 223 to Ishibashi's 151 and Ishii's 137. As no one attained a majority in the 1956 elec­ tion, a runoff was held in which those backing the second and third place candidates formed a coalition so that out of 510 votes cast Ishibashi fin­ ished with 258 to Kishi's 251 with one vote disqualified. Thus, Ishibashi Was chosen as the LDP's second president by a very slim margin. Six days later, on December 20, the third Hatoyama cabinet resigned en ttasse. On December 23, still struggling to strike the proper balance be­ tween the party's factions in the formation of his cabinet, Ishibashi, seventy-two years old, was inaugurated as prime minister in unprece87

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dented fashion: as the sole member of his government in the possession of all portfolios. Two months later, on February 22, after suffering for a month with acute senile pneumonia, Ishibashi declared, "my inability to attend the Diet is a betrayal of the trust placed in me as a statesman," and expressed his intention to resign. The following day, the Ishibashi cabinet resigned en masse. It was a short-lived administration of only two months. When Ishibashi had taken ill at the end of January, he appointed Kishi Nobusuke as his proxy (shusho rinji dairi) in the Diet. On February 25, Kishi became the head of a new government with all of Ishibashi's ministers retaining their posts and Ishii entering the cabinet as minister without portfolio. Ishibashi's "manly resignation" not only became a turning point in postwar political history, it also presents an interesting example of the relationship between thought and action in politics. In a number of ways, the rivals Kishi and Ishibashi provide an excellent study in contrasts. It is worth noting that Ishibashi, a liberal democratic thinker, was unable to wield effective power in the Japanese political world where realpolitik was dominant. He was, in Kishi's words, "bland and lacking tenacity." When Ishibashi formed his cabinet, Kishi was able to stop him from appointing Ishii, whose support had been essential to Ishibashi's election, as his dep­ uty prime minister. Moreover, when Ishibashi fell ill, he selected Kishi to serve as his proxy in the Diet. Kishi, in contrast, took to power easily and the Kishi era began almost as soon as Ishibashi had resigned. Ishibashi was a journalist and an economist, but when it came to politics he was a philosopher. He read extensively and was particularly fond of the works of such thinkers as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Henri Berg­ son, Alfred Marshall, George Bernard Shaw, and John Maynard Keynes. Ishibashi was absolutely consistent as a liberal thinker and if one were to name champions of liberal democracy for the entire period preceding the war and following it, Ishibashi would be first on the list. Before the war, Ishibashi stood out as a pundit and public intellectual and as a politician after it. There are a number of keys that help to under­ stand his liberal philosophy. Ishibashi was influenced by numerous peo­ ple including: Shidehara Taira, who was principal of the Yamanashi Prefectural Normal Middle School where Ishibashi attended; Oshima Masatake, who had studied at the Sapporo Agricultural College under William S. Clark; Tanaka Odo, professor of philosophy in Waseda University's Faculty of Literature; Uematsu Takaaki and Miura Tetsutaro, among oth­ ers, of the Toyo Keizai Shimpo (Oriental Economist). His influences came from his schooling, his work, and the world of intellectuals. However, it is likely that an unexpectedly large stimulus on him stemmed from the following unique experience he had while he was still in his teens. Ishibashi was born on September 25, 1884, in the Shibanihonenoki district of Azabu Ward (now the Nihonenoki district of Minato Ward) in

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Tokyo. He was the first son of Ishibashi Kin, his mother, and Sugita Tansei, a Nichiren Buddhist priest. Ishibashi finished the then four years of compulsory elementary education and advanced to special higher ele­ mentary school. In September of the following year, 1894, his father was transferred from Minamikomagun in Yamanashi Prefecture to Hongakuji Temple in Ikeda Honzan in Shizuoka Prefecture. At this point, he was put under the care of the Mochizuki Nikken, master priest of the Choonji Temple in Nakakomagun. In April of the following year, Tanzan entered the priesthood, becoming Mochizuki's acolyte. After that he had almost no contact with his parents in Shizuoka until he graduated from Yamana­ shi Normal Middle School about eight years later. When his father Tansei was in his twilight years, Ishibashi asked him why he entrusted him to the care of Mochizuki. His father replied, "Did not Mencius say, 'The ancients exchanged sons and one taught the son of another?"'1 He said nothing more on the subject. When Ishibashi himself had reached his twilight years, he reminisced that his early separation from his parents and subsequent education by Master Mochizuki was his own good fortune, and that the master priest was as pleasant to him "as the pleasant aromas wafting on gentle spring breeze." Ishibashi had to seek personal autonomy from an early age. From the time he was young, he experienced the meaning of Fukuzawa Yukichi's assertions that "there is oneself and then there are strangers" and that society is "the relationships of strangers." He internalized the fundamental liberal principle that one can only truly help others after one has learned an appropriate regard for oneself. With this sort of unyielding liberalism running through both his social and political criticism and in his writings on economic policy, Tanzan left lasting marks on both prewar and postwar Japan. The misfortune and tragedy of this philosopher-prime minister was the timing of his eleva­ tion to the top post. It came at the end of 1956, just as the public was describing the "postwar period" as over and a new era was beginning for Japan, now more than ten years after the war. Ishibashi was selected as the president of the LDP in a close-run contest. However, he retired after just over two months before he could form a faction of his own. When one looks at Ishibashi's record in the years before he became prime minis­ ter one can glimpse the inherent conflict between thought and deed in politics. Examining Ishibashi's work in the prewar period, two themes deserve special attention. The first, evident from 1914 to the time of the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, was his advocacy that Japan abandon its impe­ rialist foreign policy and relinquish its colonies. Representative of his thought was his editorial of November 15,1914, in the Toyo Keizai Shimpo entitled, "Japan should absolutely not take possession of Qingdao." In response to the Japanese army's capture of Qingdao the week before on November 7, he wrote, "Not only should we not expand our territorial

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possessions in continental Asia, we should also with all deliberate speed withdraw from our possessions in Manchuria. This is my steadfast opin­ ion." To Tanzan, Japan's unabashed policy of territorial aggression and the frivolous opinions preaching totalitarian rule that were then running rampant through the entire country appeared to be creating a situation that would give Imperial Japan cause for regret for a century to come. This shows the depth of Tanzan's insight. Moreover, beginning on July 30, 1921, Tanzan ran a three-part series of editorials in the Toyo Keizai Shimpo called "The Illusion of Greater Japan (Dainihon Shugi no Genso)." These works captured the essence of his prewar diplomatic outlook. The second area where one can glimpse Tanzan's extraordinary per­ spicacity is in his commentary concerning the debate in the latter half of the 1920s about Japan's prospective return to the gold standard. Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi and Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke reso­ lutely backed a return to the gold standard at the yen's old value. Ishibashi's reputation as an economic theorist soared due to his arguments that such a policy would inevitably bring about a deflationary shock to the economy (especially in March 1929 when the exchange rate against the U.S. dollar had fallen to the level of forty-four to the yen). As a result of his contributions to this debate over lifting the gold embargo, it became commonly accepted among Japan's commentators that it was necessary to economics better in order to truly understand the world. As a result, the readership of economic journals, such as the Toyd Keizai Shimpo for which Ishibashi wrote, as well as for its competitors such as Daiamondo and Ekonomisto spread throughout the country. This trend held as well for more general interest magazines such as Child Koron and Kaizo. After the outbreak of the Manchurian Incident, Ishibashi stubbornly main­ tained a stance against expansion of the fighting. However, the author­ ities increased pressure on Toyd Keizai Shimpo, and Japan rushed head­ long into ruinous war. Ishibashi's work in the political world began after the end of the Sec­ ond World War in the autumn of 1945. On November 9, Hatoyoma invit­ ed him to join the newly formed Liberal Party as an advisor. Hatoyama would himself serve as president. In April 1946, Ishibashi himself ran unsuccessfully as a candidate of the Liberal Party for the House of Repre­ sentatives in the twenty-second general elections. However, after Hatoy­ ama was ousted in the purge led by GHQ, the headquarters of the Su­ preme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur, Ishibashi was appointed as finance minister in the first Yoshida cabinet, inaugurated on May 22, 1946. Ishibashi's forte was Keynesian economics and accordingly he advocated a proactive fiscal policy. The rapid growth in inflation that occasioned the end of the war h a s n o t o n ly th r o w n p rice s a n d w a g e s in to co n fu sio n , re n d e re d it im ­ p o ssib le fo r in d u stria l m a n a g e m e n t to m a k e a c c u ra te fo re ca sts, b e c o m e

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a source of labor unrest, and become a hindrance to the return of nor­ mal industrial activity, it has also stimulated the flight of the labor, wages, and assets that form the indispensible foundation upon which the production side of the economy is based. Furthermore, on the com­ mercial side it has encouraged a high turnover rate in consumable materials which has stimulated the production of luxury items and thus caused the squandering of precious resources.2 Inflation, it turns out, was creating conspicuous difficulty in the resto­ ration of production in the most vital aspects of the economy. On July 25, 1946, Finance Minister Ishibashi addressed the 90th Diet session on matters of fiscal policy. He prepared the original draft of the speech himself. "In order to restore production," he stated, "both deficit spending and inflation are inevitable. In the case that the means of pro­ duction are idle and there are vast numbers of unemployed, then in order to revitalize production and restore full employment, then even though it may be deficit spending, it is sound spending. Even if it will bring about a certain amount of inflation due to an increase in the money supply, this is not what Keynes would call 'true inflation.'"3 At the time, public opin­ ion, beginning with scholars and critics, was almost universally con­ cerned about postwar inflation and saw as their only tool a policy of austerity. In order to try to move against the tide of the times, Ishibashi prepared himself to be figuratively tarred and feathered for his position and made up his mind to enter the rough and tumble of politics. Ishibashi was well aware that it took a great time from when an economic policy was pronounced to when it was put into action. He felt deeply that in the desperate circumstances after the war, the power of the pen would be insufficient to meet the urgency. Actually, in March of the same year, as he was announcing his decision to retire from the Toyd Keizai Shimpo after thirty-five years as a commentator and economic journalist, he addressed his colleagues. He was leaving to stand as candidate for the House of Representatives and during the farewell ceremony he said, "The power of ideas to influence the world is surprisingly large, but it takes time for those ideas to be put into action. In normal times it takes about ten years. At present we cannot wait ten years. . . . In Japan's current situation it is necessary for us to take effective steps immediately. This is the reason I have decided to stand for election." However, in the political and economic spheres of the time, most were deeply steeped in classical economics which called for the maintenance of balanced finances. They were not prepared to hear Ishibashi's Keynesian ■Message of job creation through fiscal policy. Its content was beyond their ability to understand. The 1946 budget was achieved only through the addition of seven supplementary budgets. "On the income side there Were public bonds, and an increase in loans, while on the expenditure S1de, expenses associated with a loss of production stood out."4 Incidentally, the largest single item of expenditure in the general budget was war

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termination costs costing some 39.6 billion yen, one-third of the total. Bonds raised 34.5 billion yen, of which some 25.7 billion yen was pur­ chased by the Bank of Japan so that more than half of the annual income was raised through the issuance of debt. Indeed, from November 1946 inflation flared up once again. It was not just inflation. In 1947 the production index began to fall. On March 3, Ishibashi touched on the problem of inflation in his address to the Diet on fiscal matters: T h e d eficit w ill b e e n tire ly c o n q u e re d in 1 9 4 7 . T h e so u rc e s o f in flatio n w ill b e e x tir p a te d . M o re o v e r th e co lle ctio n o f p r o p e r ty ta x e s fro m 1 9 4 6 a n d th e co n clu sio n o f w a r re p a ra tio n s w e re d e la y e d d u e to v a rio u s u n a v o id a b le circ u m s ta n c e s , b u t re c e n tly th e se h a v e a t la st b e e n ca rrie d o u t. I th in k th a t th e s e th in g s w ill h a v e a p o w e rfu l effect o n p re v e n tin g in flatio n . F u r th e rm o re th e g o v e rn m e n t h a s re c e n tly g a in e d th e c o o p e r­ a tio n o f th e B an k o f Ja p a n a n d in d e e d o f th e e n tire c o u n tr y 's fin an cial in stitu tio n s in re g u la tin g th e s u p p ly o f c a p ita l to in d u s try . C o n s id e rin g th in g s fr o m th is a sp e ct, fears o f th e o u tb re a k o f in flatio n ca n b e en tirely s w e p t a sid e . F r o m th e fiscal an d fin a n cia l a sp e cts , it ca n b e s a id th a t o u r a n ti-in fla tio n a ry p o licie s h a v e re a c h e d a lev el o f p e rfe ctio n . T h e p ro b le m th a t re m a in s to u s is th e p ro d u c tio n a n d d istrib u tio n o f c o m ­ m o d itie s .5

Shibashi's fiscal policy was to gradually strengthen the control of in­ flation through such means as the composition of a sound budget. Deflation is something that has not been observed often in history. Accordingly, it is something we do not adequately dread. The deflation in the beginning of the 1930s in both Japan and Germany was the result of a mistaken tightening of fiscal and financial policy. Ishibashi's eco­ nomic policy was always aimed at avoiding a deflationary shock. Be­ cause of his policy's emphasis on short term expansion he was sometimes derided as "the high priest of inflation." However, whether it was his opposition to the return to the gold standard in 1929 or the development of his expansionary policy during the first Yoshida cabinet, his policies were always backed with an extremely correct macroeconomic theory. This is especially evident if one looks at the situation a little more than two years after the end of the war. If one supposes that instead of the policy that Ishibashi chose, the opposite path of austerity had been adopted, it is clear that Japan would have been not only been forced into an even slower recovery from its painful condition but would have suf­ fered even deeper wounds before the recovery could have begun. In the general election of April 25, 1947, Finance Minister Ishibashi was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time. He finished first in the second electoral district of Shizuoka Prefecture. However, on May 7 the Yoshida cabinet received a completely unexpected directive from GHQ. The directive came as a surprise both to Ishibashi and to the nation at large when the government announced it on May 17. According

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to it, because the editorial stance of the Toyo Keizai Shimpo had been "supportive of military and economic imperialism in Asia, advocated cooperation with the Axis powers, promoted the inevitability of war with the Western powers, justified the suppression of labor unions, and more­ over encouraged the totalitarian government of the Japanese people," Ishibashi, as one of those responsible, would be purged under category G of the public purge directive. To Ishibashi himself, this came as a bolt out of the blue. On the Japanese side the members of the Committee for the Determination of Suitability for Employment in Public Positions had been unanimous in their judgment that none of the criteria of the purge directive applied to Ishibashi. Prime Minister Yoshida had been of the same opinion. Nevertheless, GHQ's purge directive was enforced. As minister of finance, Ishibashi had been at odds with GHQ on a number of issues, such as settlement of the war reparations question, the issue of stopping interest payment on public bonds, and dissolution of the zaibatsu financial combines. There was a good deal of conjecture that he was in fact purged for showing insufficient fealty to GHQ. In any event, to this day there has never been a persuasive explanation for the purge order. On May 12, Ishibashi tried lodging an appeal with the above commit­ tee, entitled simply "views regarding my purge from public employ­ ment." In it, he wrote that Toyo Keizai Shimpo and Ishibashi himself had been "the subjects of oppression during the war because of pro-liberal, pacifist, and anti-militarist views" which were very nearly the polar op­ posite alleged by GHQ in its adjudication. He pleaded that his life as a public figure was in danger and he demanded a fair judgment. (He was given a chance to send the same letter to General MacArthur but declined to do so.) In October of the same year, he sent a long, systematic letter to acquaintances and friends which was intended for distribution, "A Refu­ tation of My Purge from the Public Sphere." The letter reveals the deep umbrage he felt toward his treatment. It seems he acquired a copy of his own purge directive and replied to it as follows: "There is no way to look at this except to conclude that the premise that I would be purged was adopted from the outset. They then took the writings of the Toyo Keizai Shinpo and distorted and shoe-horned those in order to achieve their purpose, and having done so, they handed down their judgment. It is a shockingly unfair document. I am utterly at a loss to understand what I did or said to make them want to purge me and manufacture such a document." According to Ishibashi, the "shockingly unfair document" manufac­ tured by the Americans is dated April 30, 1947, extends to twenty type­ written pages and was signed by such people as "Nefia" (most likely Lt. Col. Jack P. Napier) and "Hoittonee" (Government Section Chief Briga­ dier General Courtney Whitney).6 That this episode with the purge cast a shadow on Ishibashi's subsequent views of the United States cannot be denied. He felt resentment toward the self-righteous American conceit

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that its presence in Japan was "the softest occupation in history." More­ over, he was suspicious toward the democracy in his own country, which was a source of pride for Americans even while they had been less thorough in their own dedication to democracy. While he recognized that the United States was Japan's most important ally, he wrote of his fears for the future of U.S.-Japanese relations: "While the majority of Japanese are pro-American, whether the Americans give a pretext for antiAmerican sentiment to those who want Americans out of Japan or to Communists will be the key to determine our future course of action." Ishibashi was depurged on June 20,1951. Ishibashi touched on his feelings about America in his inaugural press conference after he had been elected prime minister on December 14, 1956. One reporter suggested, "There are some who suggest that an Ishi­ bashi cabinet will leave the confines of the group of liberal nations and establish relations with Communist China." To this, Ishibashi responded: "My current thoughts are that we absolutely will do no such thing. I want to follow America's leadership and solve the problem of Communist China together. However, it may be my misunderstanding, but it appears that America's attitude is such that it will gradually apply pressure until it can force its opponents to submit to the ideals of the liberal nations. This would be worrisome." Again at a press conference ten days later, he repeated similar comments: "I had a run-in with the Occupation army and so it is said that I am anti-American. This is mistaken. . . . We will exchange our ideas and, depending on the situation, there may be in­ stances where we quarrel, but this does not mean that we intend to part ways with America. America is the world's leader and I want that point to be understood." However, Ishibashi made clear his conviction that "Within the limits established by the free world and the United Nations" he intended to promote trade with Communist China. At another press conference, he said that "Foreign Minister Kishi is looking into it," but he declared, "I do not anticipate that there will be any large changes in the security treaty [with the United States]." He also announced that Japan would investi­ gate how it could best fulfill its responsibilities as a member of the United Nations. More concretely, Japan was looking into whether it could coop­ erate with United Nations police actions and this would have to be inves­ tigated with reference to Japan's constitution and its internal situation.7 He discussed this problem of rearmament in a special New Year's edition of Toyo Keizai Shimpd. He prefaced his remarks by saying, "I am not a constitutional specialist."8 liowever, after demurring so, he went on to express his opinion, developing a unified theory of rights and du­ ties: "In the present constitution there is too much emphasis on rights and not enough on duties. . . . It is the same with the military question. Armament, that is to say the draft, everyone shakes with disgust, but to participate in the United Nations means that certain duties must be

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We cannot demand the protection of the United Nations and then balk when it comes time for our cooperation. In international relations, we cannot simply put ourselves before all others. It can be thought that d o i n g our duty toward the United Nations means armament. Also that is o n e type of the overseas contributions I spoke of earlier. Anyway, having jo in e d the United Nations, that is one type of responsibility that we must b orn e.

c o n s i d e r ."

Before he was felled by illness, he spoke at a convention of the Liberal Democratic Party kicking off his national campaign on January 8, 1957. T h e r e , harking back to the Imperial Charter Oath that launched Japan's m o d e r n era, he spoke of five promises, vows that the party should make to t h e Japanese people. These were to bring normality and propriety to th e proceedings of the Diet, to bring discipline and order to the political a n d bureaucratic spheres, to increase employment and production, to b u ild a welfare state, and to establish world peace. However, before he c o u ld produce any concrete plan to move toward these goals, he fell ill. It s o o n became clear that he would not even be able to attend a single day o f deliberations about the budget, the single most important thing for a n e w cabinet. The time had come for him to step down as prime minister. Years earlier, when Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi was laid low by a n assassin's bullet, but still clung to life, he did not resign and the politi­ cal world "fell into a condition in which it had no direction and no Diet," in t h e words of Ishibashi. Recalling that, resignation was a natural choice fo r h i m . Moreover, having promised to bring normality and propriety to th e Diet, his "clean" resignation makes all the more sense. Nevertheless, many Japanese lamented his courageous decision. As soon as Ishibashi was elevated to the presidency of the LDP he an­ nounced in a press conference, "I am prepared to step down at any time." He meant that he wanted to accomplish one or two things that previous prime ministers had been unable to accomplish and then pass the baton onto his successor. Still, one cannot help but wonder why it was so soon after his inauguration that he spoke of stepping down or of letting some­ one else take his place. It can be interpreted to be a sign of his extraordi­ nary resolution. But it could also have been a manifestation of Ishibashi's Buddhist view of existence in which birth is but the first step toward death. To his unabashedly ambitious rival, Kishi, Ishibashi was "lacking ln tenacity." This may also have been on the mark. It is possible that even had he not fallen ill his administration would have been short-lived. Ishi­ bashi lacked an attachment to power for its own sake and was ethically opposed to the negative consequences of clinging to power. Perhaps he Was just too much of a philosopher to bear the burdens of real power.

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NOTES 1. Ishibashi T an zan, Tanzan Kaiso (T an zan M em oirs), (Tokyo: Iw an am i Shoten, 1985). 2. Daiichiji Keizai Hakusho (First E co n o m ic W h ite P ap er of 1947). 3. N a k am u ra Takafusa, Nihon Keizai no Shinro (The D irection of the Jap an ese E con ­ o m y ), (Tokyo: Tokyo U n iv ersity P ress, 1975). 4. K eizai K ikakucho, ed ., Sengo Keizaishi: Keizai Seisakuhen (P o stw ar E co n o m ic H is­ tory: E co n o m ic P olicy E dition), V ol. 4. (Tokyo: T o y o Shorin, 1992). 5. "S h o w a 22 N en d o Shugiin Zaisei E n zetsu ." 6. Ishibashi Tan zan, "O n A n ti-A m erican ism in Jap an ," Oriental Economist, N o. 20 (1953), 6 1 3 -6 1 6 . 7. "G aijin H atsu K isha K aiken (First P ress C onferen ce w ith Fo reig n C o rresp on ­ dents), D ecem b er 2 6 ,1 9 5 6 ," in Ishibashi T an zan, Tanzan Zenshu (The C ollected W orks of Tan zan), V ol. 14, T ok yo: T o y o K eizai Shim bunsha, 1 9 7 2 ,3 3 8 . 8. "Ishib ashi T an zan Oi n i K ataru (A C o n v ersatio n w ith Ishibashi T an zan )," Toyo Keizai Shimpo, Jan u ary 5 ,1 9 5 7 .

EIGHT Kishi Nobusuke Frustrated Ambition Kitaoka Shinichi

When discussing the prime ministers of postwar Japan, one cannot leave out Kishi Nobusuke. Beginning with the eventual merger of the conser­ vatives in 1955 and the revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960, the imprints Kishi left on postwar politics are unmistakably quite large. Moreover, of all the prime ministers, Kishi by far possessed the most interesting background. In the prewar, for example, Kishi made his ap­ pearance as a progressive bureaucrat, promoting a controlled economy, being active in the Japanese-supported Manchukuo, and a member of the Tojo Hideki wartime cabinet. Because of this latter involvement, Kishi was imprisoned as an "A Class" war criminal. However, upon indepen­ dence in 1952, Kishi made his return to the political world, soon becom­ ing a leading figure, and in just five years attained the position of prime minister. Moreover, enjoying the support of the United States, his former enemy, Kishi strongly pursued a pro-American path for Japan in the late 1950s after several years of seeing the relationship drift during the mid­ dle of the decade. It is hard for an ordinary person to possess such a record. At the same time, Kishi's fall was equally fast. Because the opposition to the revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty was stronger than anticiPated, Kishi was forced to resign his position as prime minister and, after that, never would again appear on the center stage of politics. His three and a half years as prime minister, nevertheless, was the second longest administration in the first fifteen years of the postwar, made all the more 97

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remarkable because his administration took place (and ended) within eight years of his returning to the political world. There are quite a number of excellent studies on Kishi. An early one by the late Kosaka Masataka is full of insightful observations of Kishi.1 Hara Yoshihisa treats Kishi in his series of studies of the security treaty revision, as well as in more detail in his most recent book.2 Finally, there are Sakamoto Kazuya's series of studies on the security treaty revision done in a diplomatic history context that are sharp and penetrating.3 However, a definitive volume on Kishi remains to be written. One of the biggest problems relates to documentation. At present, many of the studies rely on interviews and declassified U.S. diplomatic documents. With interviews, problems of authenticity and subjectivity emerge, and with foreign policy documents (including especially those of the Japanese Foreign Ministry), many still remain classified, particularly in Japan-re­ lated affairs, which make a balanced study difficult.4 In light of these obstacles and the fact that excellent studies already exist, the author does not intend, nor is prepared, to embark on a new evaluation per se of Kishi. Instead, the author thinks that, rather than over-interpret each in­ tention and action, it is necessary to organize and clarify once again the decisions that Kishi did in fact make and to interpret as a whole these events. Moreover, the author suggests that it is necessary to put both these events in a domestic and international political context at the time as well as to compare them to the actions of other politicians. Doing so will allow, the author believes, for the characteristics of Kishi the politi­ cian to emerge more clearly. Nobusuke was born as the second son to Sato Hidesuke and his wife Moyo on November 13,1896, in Tabuse Village, Yamaguchi Prefecture in southwestern Japan. This was an area also known in feudal days as Choshu and one that a Kishi biographer described as "bristling with the chauvinistic samurai tradition."5 When Nobusuke was a third-year stu­ dent in middle school, he was adopted into the family of his father's elder brother, Kishi Nobumasa, becoming Kishi Nobusuke.6 That the family of Moyo and Hidesuke raised not only future Prime Minister Kishi Nobu­ suke, but also Vice Admiral Sato Ichiro, Kishi's older brother, and Sato Eisaku, his younger brother and another future prime minister, is need­ less to say very unusual and thus very famous. The year of Nobusuke's birth, 1896, was the year following Japan's victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. The signing of the treaty of peace by Choshu-born Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi with Chinese Viceroy Li Hung-chang took place close by to the west at Shimonoseki, within the same prefecture. The three brothers, Ichiro, Nobusuke, and Eisaku, were all born therefore at the time when their feudal clan was preeminent in Japan. Nobusuke was eight years old when the next great conflict ended — the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. During the war, Prime Minister

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Katsura Taro, president of the Privy Council Ito Hirobumi, Army Chief of Staff Yamagata Aritomo, Army Minister Terauchi Masatake, and Chief of the General Staff of the Army in Manchuria (the so-called Manchurian Army) Kodama Gentaro, were all from Choshu. For the people of Yamaguchi Prefecture, it is not hard then to imagine the patriotic feeling and pride they must have held. Moreover, for the Sato family, the affairs of state were no distant world. Nobusuke's great-grandfather, Sato Nobuaki, formerly vice governor of the Hamada Domain and later governor of Shimane Prefec­ ture, was on intimate terms with Ito and Yoshida Shoin, a Choshu patriot who had sought the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate. When Sato died in his eighties in 1902, his passing made top news in Japan, but for Kishi, who was then six at the time, and his brothers, he was someone close and not the person of nation wide fame. Following Sato's death, the family fortune began to decline, however, and the family business, a sake brewery, apparently did not go well ei­ ther. Hidesuke, Nobusuke's biological father, was not an overachiever and did not stand out; his mother Moyo was the center of the household. It was Moyo's younger brother, Matsusuke, being the oldest male child, who was to continue the family line. Matsusuke studied medicine at Tokyo Imperial University, becoming an assistant there and later a professor of obstetrics at Okayama Medical College, about halfway be­ tween Yamaguchi and Osaka. Because Matsusuke and his wife, Shizue, who was the younger sister of Matsuoka Yosuke (who later became foreign minister), did not have any male children between them, they adopted Kishi's younger brother Eisaku as the prospective husband of their daughter (and his first cousin) Hiroko. In this way, the blood ties between the Sato family, the branch family, and the Kishis were tightly bound together. Moreover, the Sat5 family, through their eagerness in education, was evenly more strongly bound together. During his time in Tokyo, Matsu­ suke brought his two younger brothers and nephews and nieces to Tokyo and sent them to schools there, and while in Okayama as well, had Nobu­ suke's two younger sisters and Nobusuke stay with him in order to at­ tend school nearby. Matsusuke, who quickly became aware of Nobu­ suke's intelligence, had a home tutor come to help him prepare for the difficult entrance exams into Okayama Middle School, and after his suc­ cessful passing of the exams, even hired a British man to teach Nobusuke English. Treating his nephew like a son, Matsusuke showered as much affection on Nobusuke as did his own parents. However, during Nobusuke's second year of middle school, Matsu­ suke died suddenly from pneumonia at the age of thirty-five. With this, a saddened Nobusuke was whisked off to Yamaguchi again to the house of his mother's younger sister, Sawa, whose austere husband, Yosaku, was a teacher at Yamaguchi Middle School. This family's love of learning was

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also great, as shown by Yosaku's son, Kan, becoming a diplomat. (Kan j later married Sakurako, the eldest daughter of Yoshida Shigeru, thus making Kishi and Yoshida distantly related.) As seen from the above, Nobusuke possessed many of the attributes necessary in forming a politician—a glorious past, present misfortune, a mother and family dedicated to education, strong supporters nearby, and finally ample intelligence. With the exception of "present misfortune," j which was not so apparent at this juncture, Kishi had everything it took to become a politically active person. Kishi, who throughout middle school was almost always at the top of his class, entered the First Senior High School in Tokyo in 1914. Doing well there as well, Kishi finished in 1917 and entered Tokyo Imperial .] University, graduating in 1920 not only at the top of his class but with unprecedentedly high marks as well. What should not be overlooked about Kishi's years in college is prob­ ably the relationship with Uesugi Shinkichi, his professor. These years were the era of Yoshino Sakuzd, the liberal political scientist, and many students were attracted to his teachings during this period of "Taisho Democracy." In the area of constitutional law, the same could be said for Minobe Tatsukichi. However, Kishi was not taken to their teachings, probably because they called for liberation from the authoritarian Meiji State setup—an idea that was quite alien to Kishi having grown up in Choshu with its ultrapatriotism. On the other hand, as Hara points out, this did not mean that Kishi was a total admirer of Uesugi's teachings either.7 Kishi was a practical person and did not think that Japan would develop with the emperor as an absolute ruler. At the time Kishi entered university, the prime minister was again someone from Choshu, Terauchi, the former army minister. However, that cabinet lasted a mere one year and was soon replaced by the cabinet of Hara Takashi (or "Kei"), leader of the Friends of Constitu­ tional Government Party, in whose cabinet Choshu's next rising star, Tanaka Giichi, was made army minister. Likewise, progressive politi­ cians from Choshu, like Shimooka Chuji, became secretary general of the rival but short-lived Constitutional Party and Kamiyama Mitsunoshin, a member of the House of Peers from the Constitutional Party group. Kishi must have seen that the end of the influence of the feudal clans was rapidly approaching to be replaced by competing political parties. Upon graduation, Kishi entered the Ministry of Agriculture and Com­ merce. This was a somewhat unusual choice for at the time most aspiring bureaucrats applied for the Home Ministry, hoping to become governor one day. The Home Ministry was a huge organization and the power of a governor appointed by the central government was great. Kishi's sempai from Choshu, Kamiyama, who had worked in both ministries, reproved him for his choice.

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However, this was a very Kishi-like move. If he entered the Home Ministry, he was sure to be appointed a governor, and perhaps vice min­ ister, as well as being appointed to the House of Peers. He may have even become a cabinet minister of some sort. Yet, no matter how much author­ ity he possessed at the time, the Home Ministry was after all an adminis­ trative agency. There he could not assist in the development of Japan. Kishi's ambition, which was formed by a combination of his nationalism, his desire to see Japan grow, and his wish to physically participate in that realization, must have been quite large. In this sense, the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce was a new frontier. It was a ministry where one could distinguish oneself greatly. The development of heavy industrialization during World War I greatly changed the structure of the Japanese economy. Having gone into a recession following the war, it was job of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to revive and develop the heavy industries. In 1925, the ministry was split into a Ministry of Commerce and Industry and a Min­ istry of Agriculture, and Kishi moved into the former. The following year, Kishi had a chance to stay in the United States to assist in Japan's participation in the Philadelphia World's Fair and was stunned by Amer­ ica's huge economic power. At the time, Japan was seeking an annual volume of steel production at one million tons, the United States was already producing over five million tons. Kishi later recalled that he "was overwhelmed to the point of almost being disheartened."8 However, after that, Kishi traveled to Europe and observed first-hand the difficulties Germany was having in its recovery and realized that Japan could overcome its own difficulties. In particular, Kishi was im­ pressed by the efforts of authorities to bring about the rationalization of industry. Kishi recognized that a new role for bureaucrats included the rational distribution of limited resources and the careful planning of the country's strategic development. Kishi began to see a new direction for productive industry in the same way that his forefathers led Japan in the Meiji era in its policies oifukoku kyohei, or "rich country, strong army." In the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Kishi was greatly relied upon by his superior by eight years, Yoshino Shinji (the brother of Yoshino Sakuzo), and the two formed a strong partnership, leading the minis­ hy in its path to bring about the rationalization of Japanese industry. The Vital Industries Control Law and the Industries Union Law, both passed in 1931, and the Commercial Union Law of 1932, were all born out of the efforts of the Yoshino-Kishi partnership. With the retreat of party politics in the early 1930s, the focus and hopes of the now dominant military turned to Kishi and Yoshino. On the other hand, the zaibatsu business conglomerates and liberalists began to Warn Minister Ogawa Gotaro of the Kishi-Yoshino partnership and in f ^36 they were sent away from the ministry temporarily. Just how much Power Yoshino wielded was shown by the fact that he had already been

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vice minister five years by this point. Kishi, who had been section chief of the Ministry's Industrial Bureau for two years, on the other hand, was only thirty-nine years old. Kishi's new assignment was in Manchukuo, the puppet state estab­ lished by Japan in March 1932. There, with the support the Japanese Kwantung Army, Kishi, as vice minister of the Industrial Department of Manchukuo, became the de facto force with regard to the industrial de­ velopment of Manchukuo. One of the reasons for this is because there were no established political parties, zaibatsu, or other obstacles in the way. In the development of Manchukuo's industry, Kishi's uncommon ability has become the stuff of legend, most notably the implementation of a five year plan for Manchuria's industrial development and, in order to facilitate this, the invitation to the Nissan concern to set up operations there in 1937. This was a large operation which required a lot of political power, and was made possible by Kishi's outstanding planning and the powerful backup of the Kwantung Army. In 1939, Kishi returned to Tokyo to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, becoming vice minister. Then in 1940, attempts were made to make him minister of Commerce and Industry in the second Konoe Fumimaro cabinet, but he abandoned the idea (due to expected problems with the zaibatsu) and supported the appointment of entrepreneur and founder of the Hankyu Train Line, Kobayashi Ichizo. Yet Kishi and the liberal Kobayashi soon clashed and it looked as though Kishi would be forced to resign. However, the times needed a man like Kishi and he was made minister in the Tojo Hideki cabinet in October 1941. Kishi was then forty-four. After becoming minister, Kishi's style differed quite a bit from those of other bureaucrats and politicians. First of all, in the name of adminis­ trative reforms, Kishi requested the resignations of his seniors and jun­ iors alike, with the result that he strengthened the ministry with his allies, many from Manchukuo days. Then, in 1942, Kishi ran in the general election and won. He was prepared to resign his post as minister in order to participate, but in the end ran while as an incumbent minister and was elected. Then, with the creation of the Munitions Ministry in 1943, Kishi be­ came vice minister under Tojo, who had concentrated his power by be­ coming minister of munitions, in addition to his positions as prime minis­ ter and war minister (and later in February 1944, army chief of staff). Kishi willingly cooperated in administrative reforms which meant a low­ ering of his status (although of course he was still a state minister). Be­ cause he could not be both a vice minister and a Diet member at the same time, Kishi resigned his Diet seat. However, Kishi was not a "yes man" to the military by any means. Kishi's intelligence and vision was vital to organizing for total war, and he sometimes went against the wishes of the military for the sake of the

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large effort. Thus, important members of the military could not ignore Kishi's influence. Kishi's view of national mobilization, also, did not en­ vision the creation of a system of absolute control by bureaucrats. That was because he recognized, as seen in the relocation of Nissan, the impor­ tance of entrepreneurial skills in the private sector. The private sector was the core of production, Kishi believed, but at the same time, it was not until the strong leadership of bureaucrats came along that the power of the private sector could be efficiently brought into full play. At the same time, it is uncertain what Kishi personally thought about the national mobilization system as a whole. For example, in 1936, Kishi supported the Law for Automobile Makers which was done to ensure that automobiles were made in Japan. However, Yoshida Shigeru and others strongly opposed such measures arguing that they were not in Japan's interest, yet Kishi obviously believed differently. Likewise, compared to Kishi, who as a member of the Tojo cabinet, bore some responsibility for the outbreak of war with the United States, Yoshida sought to oppose war at all costs, to the point of even supplying state secrets to U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Grew. Even with the coming of the Hull Note, Yoshida did not give up, and considered bringing about the collapse of the cabinet in some way in order to prevent the outbreak of the war. In retrospect, Yoshida was superior to Kishi in thinking about the larger interests of the country at times of momentous decisions. How­ ever, Kishi was not simply a technocrat. At the end of the Tojo cabinet, Kishi at great danger to himself, strongly opposed Tojo and brought down the cabinet. Moreover, after that Kishi formed the National Salva­ tion Society in March 1945 with approximately thirty others to oppose the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, which had been established in 1940 to bring about national unity through the dissolving of political parties. Although only forty-seven years old, Kishi clearly believed that he still be would be able to influence Japan's future destiny. Following Japan's defeat, Kishi was arrested as an "A Class" war criminal, and imprisoned in Sugamo Prison in Tokyo. Kishi biographer Hara, in his recent work, discusses Kishi's words and actions during his years in Sugamo.9 Kishi believed that Japan's war was one of self-defense and thus his arrest and a trial were inappropriate, expressed his concern about the threat of communism in Japan and abroad, and would often predict Japan's future destiny. All of these views were held for the most part by Kishi's fellow prisoners and Kishi's ideas were therefore in no way any different. In December 1948, Kishi was released from prison. While the years between the ages of forty-eight and fifty-two, which are often the most Productive in a man's life, were thus robbed from him, there are many things that suggest it was an important time for Kishi. In April 1952, with the coming into effect of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, Kishi and others were depurged, and around the same time, Kishi

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established the Japan Reconstruction Federation. However, in the general elections that fall, Kishi's group was badly defeated, with only one candi­ date being elected. While Kishi himself did not run (as he did not believe the federation was ready to participate in the elections as a political par­ ty), it was in any case a great disappointment to him. After this, Kishi considered for a while joining the right wing of the Socialist Party, but that did not go well either as Kishi actually desired a united conservative movement. With the dissolution of the Diet in March 1953, Kishi came back from a trip to West Germany and after being given the Liberal Party's endorse­ ment, through the intervention of his brother, Eisaku (a former bureau­ crat himself, who was by then a central figure in Yoshida's Liberal Party), and others, was elected in the elections that April. In this way, one year after restarting political movements, after two disappointments, Kishi entered an established party. Kishi attempted to base all of his political movements—the 1942 General Elections, the National Salvation Society, Japan Reconstruction Federation, the plan to join the Socialist Party—on national movements. It is clear that he was very much conscious of popu­ lar movements and socialism. In any case, Kishi did not consider his moves just a simple return to politics. If Kishi entered an established party, it would have been easy, with his experience and connections, to occupy a prominent and power­ ful place in the political world. The fact that Kishi would not choose this path is likely attributable to his unusually large ambitions. In November, six months after acquiring his Diet seat, Kishi formed a group of about forty parliamentarians, becoming in all but name the Kishi faction. Ki­ shi's movements received a great deal of attention because at the time the fifth Yoshida cabinet was a minority cabinet and having difficulty in forming a majority. Yoshida's efforts to form a majority in due time developed into the problem of permitting the return of Hatoyama Ichiro's breakaway group, the Hatoyama Liberals. In order to show an interest in revising the consti­ tution—which was made a condition for their return—Yoshida set up the Constitutional Revision Investigation Committee within the party on De­ cember 15,1953, appointing Kishi to become its chair. From this point on, talk of a merger of the conservatives increased dramatically. In order to restore the party's fortunes, members of the Liberal Party, as well as those of the Progressive Party and the eightmember Japan Liberal Party, a splinter group that was supporting a Ha­ toyama premiership, began to openly call for Yoshida's retirement. In the middle of these movements, Kishi, along with Ishibashi Tanzan and Ashida Hitoshi, formed in April 1954 the Council for the Promotion of the Organization of a New Party. In November, Kishi was expelled from the Liberal Party but the Kishi and Hatoyama factions left as a whole to form the Democratic Party with the Progressive Party and the Japan Liberal

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party. In December, having gained the cooperation of the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party brought down the Yoshida administration and the first Hatoyama cabinet was formed on December 10. As secretary general, Kishi engineered the victory of the Democratic party in the February 1955 elections (the holding of which was a condi­ tion for gaining the earlier cooperation of the Socialist Party in forming the initial Hatoyama administration) where the party jumped from 124 seats to 185, and the Liberal Party fell from 180 to 112. Subsequently, Kishi set his sights on the merger of the two parties, which can be called the "Second Conservative Merger." In May, Kishi called for "a conserva­ tive union for the strong promotion of policies toward a conservative merger." Yet, with such a merger not coming about, Kishi in June began implying in statements that numerous options, such as tie-ups and coali­ tions, still existed. His true goal was of course an actual merger. Howev­ er, in leaving room for maneuvering, Kishi disarmed opponents and was able to gauge the situation. Yet in doing so, he earned the dubious nick­ name of ryogan, or "two sides," which implied that he played both sides of the fence or, at a minimum, often sat on the fence. The Liberal Democratic Party, combining the Liberal and Democratic parties, came into being at long last in November of that year. Choosing the leadership was the most difficult problem and as a result a four-man committee comprised of Hatoyama, Ogata Taketora, Miki Bukichi, and Ono Bamboku was introduced with Hatoyama as prime minister, Ogata as party president, and Kishi as secretary general. In Kishi's case, this was an obvious choice based on his success and leadership in the conservative merger. It is necessary at this point to highlight the special characteristics of Kishi's moves during this time. First of all, what made Kishi's rapid rise possible were the networks he made during his time in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and as minister, as well as probably the money connections he had access to. Kishi's prewar style of economic control, as discussed above, was conducted with the support of the private sector and as a result he had a close relationship of trust with the business world. Second, Kishi was more or less indifferent to getting a cabinet post. With the exception of the prewar and wartime, Kishi did not be­ come a cabinet minister until he served as foreign minister in the Ishibashi Tanzan cabinet in late 1956. Kishi, in other words, already had enough political knowledge, experience, and access to funds that could be gained from a cabinet position and thus felt that he did not need such a post again. What Kishi desired—and got—was a central organizational Position in the party organization like secretary general, which would be the pivotal point of any realignment of the political world. Third, being in this position, Kishi could watch the development of events in the way that earned him the nickname of being a fence-sitter or playing both sides °f the fence. Fourth, Kishi's goal, the merger of the conservatives, seems

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to have been just as he himself said it to be—the fundamental policy for the true reconstruction of Japan and the establishment of a strong frame­ work in order to bring this about. The author suggests that the reason for Kishi's superior ability in forecasting the future was based in large part because the goals he set were clear. Kishi was highly consistent with the policies he later came to adopt— constitutional reform, seeking equality in the Japan-U.S. relationship, deepening relations with the countries of Asia. Kishi believed that the path laid by Yoshida, namely aligning Japan with the United States, was clearly the only choice that Japan had in order to develop and as such, Kishi sought, within this framework, to realize these and other outstand­ ing issues. Few politicians were as confident as Kishi himself was that his political success was therefore linked to the above bilateral dynamics. On December 14,1956, one of the most famous LDP presidential elec­ tions in postwar Japanese political history took place over the choosing of Hatoyama's successor. Kishi, Ishibashi, and Ishii Mitsujiro, a key member of the former Liberal Party each entered the contest. With Kishi reported to be well ahead, Ishibashi formed an alliance with Ishii in which the winner of the two would support the other, thereby blocking a Kishi premiership. In the first ballot, Kishi won 223 votes to Ishibashi's 151 and Ishii's 137. Not having acquired a majority, a second vote was taken and as a result of the "No. 2 and No. 3 Alliance," Ishibashi beat Kishi by a mere seven ballots—258 to 251. Although stunned, Kishi composed him­ self and congratulated Ishibashi on the stage in front of the party mem­ bers. However, after this, Kishi dealt toughly with Ishibashi. In response to a request by Ishibashi to join the cabinet, Kishi said he would join the cabinet if it was in the interest of party unity, but as he had garnered half the votes of the party, he would not support an administration that had Ishii, and not himself, as deputy prime minister. With this, Ishibashi was forced to abandon his plan to appoint Ishii deputy prime minister, in­ stead having Kishi become both deputy prime minister and foreign min­ ister. These moves largely foreshadowed the formation of a future Kishi cabinet. On January 31,1957, having fallen ill less than five weeks after becom­ ing prime minister, Ishibashi appointed Kishi acting premier, and even­ tually resigned three weeks later. Kishi was named prime minister on February 25 and, keeping all of the cabinet ministers in place, began his administration. In the beginning, when forming it, Kishi was neither overly anxious nor fretted about the challenges ahead. In other words, Kishi was not worried in the least about the weight of responsibility nor was he uncer­ tain about his administration's agenda and seems to have felt the time was ripe to form a government.10

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the time he became prime minister, Kishi likely had, the author a great deal of ambition. As a member of the Toj5 cabinet, Kishi participated in the decision to start the war with the United States. The war resulted in a terrible defeat for Japan. In Kishi's mind, the progress th a t had been made since the Meiji Restoration in 1868 was lost. Industry la id in ruins, a constitution was forced upon Japan's leaders against their w ill, true independence was still far away. Full of confidence in his own a b ility and the possessor of a great deal of pride in the role his Choshu forefathers had in developing Meiji Japan, Kishi likely felt that if it was p o s s ib le , he would lead defeated Japan in its complete rebuilding. With th is, his name would be cleared as well. In rebuilding Japan, economic reconstruction and the restoration of independence would be necessary. In order to bring about the restoration of independence, it was necessary, Kishi and his associates believed, to revise the constitution, undertake rearmament, fix the unequal relation­ ship with the United States, and develop an autonomous foreign policy with regard to countries in Asia and the world. From Kishi's perspective, he felt Yoshida leaned too much in the direction of cooperation with the United States, while Hatoyama on the other hand, leaned too far in the direction of seeking an independent path at the expense of the U.S.-Japan relationship so vital to Japan. Kishi felt that both in fact were possible and he placed his political fortunes on this bet. The most difficult thing for a politician is to find an agenda. The question is just how to combine a keen eye for the demands of the times and the demands of society with one's political future. On this point, Kishi did not waver at all. These guesses by the author are not based on any conclusive evidence per se. Indeed, finding sound proof on a politician's intentions is nearly impossible. However, Kishi's actions and statements following his return to the political world in 1952 certainly suggest the above direction to be the case. Kishi managed the affairs of the state daily without much prob­ lem, while continuing to hold a deep interest in the larger goals of his administration. The reply to a comment by his son-in-law, Abe Shintaro, who said that Kishi should concentrate on the economy, his strong area, to the effect that economic matters was not something that the prime minister should devote too much energy to is quite well-known and sug­ gests Kishi's more political agenda. Kishi's main efforts were toward the revision of the U.S.-Japan secur[ty treaty. Kishi later recalled that about 70 percent of his energy during his time as prime minister was devoted to the treaty revision.11 It was lik e ly not planned like that from the beginning, and probably included some rationalization. Regardless of this, Kishi's enthusiasm was a fact. One of the opportunities for the revision of the treaty began on January 30, 1957 —the day before Kishi assumed his duties as acting prime ftjinister—with the so-called Girard Incident, in which an American sol­ dier, William S. Girard, shot and killed a woman on a U.S. firing range At

su p p o ses,

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who was there salvaging expended cartridge cases, causing a problem over jurisdiction. Japanese public opinion grew enraged. When the new U.S. ambassador, Douglas MacArthur II, arrived at his post that Febru­ ary, Kishi began to meet often with him in an attempt to build a relation­ ship of trust. As a result on April 10, Kishi handed MacArthur and his embassy staff a memorandum that said without a major change in policy, anti-American opinion would grow in Japan, possibly endangering the bilateral relationship. Likewise on April 13, Kishi prepared two more memorandums, pro­ posing concrete plans. The first one dealt with the security relationship stating: (1) it is to be reaffirmed that if there was not a clear invasion, U.S. forces in Japan were not to be used; (2) the security treaty would be revised, (a) the stationing and use of American forces would be based on agreement between the United States and Japan, (b) the relationship be­ tween the security treaty and the Charter of the United Nations would be made clear, (c) the term of the treaty would be five years; (3) Japan would continue to increase its defense ability and in turn the United States would begin to remove is ground forces from Japan. The second memo­ randum dealt with an expression for the desire of the return of the Ryukyu and Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands. These were very bold diplomat­ ic proposals at the time, to say the least. In addition, Kishi began to announce related policies one after the other. On May 20, the "Basic Policy on National Defense" was adopted by a cabinet resolution. Made up of four points, it stated T h e o b jectiv e o f n a tio n a l d e fe n se is to p re v e n t d ir e c t a n d in d ire ct a g ­ g re ss io n , b u t o n c e in v a d e d , to re p e l s u ch a g g re s s io n , a n d th e re b y , to s a fe g u a rd th e in d e p e n d e n ce a n d p e a c e o f J a p a n b a s e d o n d e m o c ra c y . T o a ch ie v e th is o b jectiv e, th e fo llo w in g b a s ic p o licie s a re d efin ed : 1.

S u p p o rtin g th e activ itie s o f th e U n ite d N a tio n s, p ro m o tin g in te rn a ­ tio n al co lla b o ra tio n , a n d th e re b y , m a k in g a c o m m itm e n t to th e re a l­ iz a tio n o f w o rld p e a ce .

2.

S tab ilizin g th e liv e lih o o d o f th e p e o p le , fo ste rin g p a trio tis m , a n d th e re b y , estab lish in g th e n e c e s s a ry b a sis fo r n a tio n a l se cu rity .

3.

B u ild in g u p ra tio n a l d e fe n se cap ab ilities b y ste p s w ith in th e lim it n e ce ssa ry fo r self-d efen se in a c c o r d a n c e w ith n a tio n a l s tre n g th an d situ atio n .

4.

D ealin g w ith e x te rn a l a g g re ssio n b a se d o n th e s e cu rity a rr a n g e ­ m e n ts w ith th e U .S . u n til th e U n ite d N a tio n s w ill b e ab le to fulfill its fu n ctio n in s to p p in g s u c h a g g re s s io n e ffectiv ely in th e fu tu re.

This policy phrase continues to be employed in the Defense White Book even today. That is because its contents, attaching great importance to democracy, the United Nations, and international cooperation, as well as pointing out increasing patriotism and the gradual building up de­

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capabilities, as well as openly stating the reliance on the U.S.-Japan system, all still hold true for today. Compared to the direction of armament during the Hatoyama administration, which was undefined a n d vague, Kishi made it clear that he would move forward based on the Japan-U.S. relationship. Previously in August 1955, Kishi, who was then secretary general of the Democratic Party, accompanied Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru to Washington for a meeting with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles where Shigemitsu called for making the relationship more equal. Howev­ er, Dulles quickly dismissed Shigemitsu's request by directly asking his counterpart if he really believed Japan had that kind of military capabil­ ity. This reply greatly shocked Kishi and he likely realized then and there that as long as Japan did not have a basic policy that clarified Japan's thinking, it would be very difficult to convince Dulles. The same day that the above resolution was approved by the cabinet, Kishi embarked on his first trip abroad. His destinations were the coun­ tries of Asia—Burma, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Thailand, and Taiwan. By this point, reparations problems with each of these countries had been taken care of. In the three South Asian countries, Kishi met with leaders who were pro-Japanese, having been inspired in their nationalist move­ ments by Japan's victory over Russia a half-century before. Kishi chose, therefore, as his first trip abroad countries whose friendly relations with Japan were certain. The purpose of his trip was clear. It was to strengthen relations with these countries. Not only was this in itself meaningful, but it also strengthened Japan's position vis-a-vis the United States by Japan's show of support for America's policies in the area. Moreover, Kishi hoped to see U.S. investment in the region grow and wanted to contribute to the development of the region. If that were realized, than the region would become a promising market for Japan.12 One more reason for Kishi's trip may have been for the political points he expected. The prime ministers before Kishi, Yoshida, Hatoyama, and Ishibashi, were either too old or too sick for such a trip. Compared to them, Kishi was sixty at the time of his assuming the premiership and he sought to show off his relative youth and vitality. Upon coming back from his trip, Kishi immediately left for Washing­ ton. Under the slogan of a "New Age in Japanese-American Relations," Kishi sought to make the bilateral relationship more equal, requesting the review of the security treaty and the return of the Ryukyu and Ogasawara Islands. In response to the former request, President Dwight D. Eisen­ hower reacted favorably and an agreement to set up a joint committee to study the problems of the security treaty was included in the joint declaratl°n at the end of their summit. In September of that year, Foreign Minister Fujiyama Aiichiro and Ambassador MacArthur exchanged official documents which clarified fe n s e

d efen se

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that the actions of U.S. forces in Japan were in accord with the United Nations Charter. A part of Kishi's goals set forth in the April 13 memo­ randum was already realized. Shortly after this in November, Kishi departed for his third trip abroad. Kishi again visited Southeast Asia, meeting with leaders from South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya, Singapore, Philippines, Indo­ nesia, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Anti-Japanese feeling was particularly strong in Australia and the Philippines, while in Indonesia the problem of reparations was yet to be resolved. However, Kishi sin­ cerely apologized for the war and called for cooperation in the future. In Australia and elsewhere, initially cool receptions dramatically changed and newspapers praised Kishi's frankness and courage. It was at this time that the problem of reparations in Indonesia was resolved in princi­ ple. Having looked at Kishi's foreign policy briefly, it is necessary now to turn to the political base of his administration. First of all, as an index of his intraparty support, the following shows the relative strength of his faction in the party leadership (three members, four when there was a vice president's post) and cabinet line-up. In the first Kishi cabinet of February 1957, which essentially inherited the Ishibashi cabinet, the Kishi faction had three posts, Sato zero, Ishibashi two, Ishii four, Ikeda one, Kono two, Ono two, Miki four, independent one, and others two. When Kishi reshuffled the cabinet in July that year, the Kishi faction had three posts, Sato jumped to three, Ishibashi, Ishii, and Ono all dropped to one, Ikeda remained at one, K5no increased to five, Miki dropped to two, independents increased to three, and "others" stayed at two. While there were minor adjustments in-between, with the second Kishi cabinet being formed in June 1958 following the general elections, Kishi increased his faction's representation to seven, his brother Sato's to five, and kept eve­ ryone else at one each (with "others" at four). One year later, as he pre­ pared for the final stages of the security treaty revision, Kishi's faction increased to ten, Sato's dropped to two, Ishibashi to zero, Ishii one, Ikeda two, Kono two, Ono four, Miki one, and independents and others to zero. (During these three years, the number of cabinet ministers varied be­ tween twenty-one to twenty-three.) As was mentioned above, the Kishi cabinet in the beginning was a continuation of the short-lived Ishibashi administration. The cabinet reor­ ganization following Kishi's June 1957 trip to the United States saw, therefore, the first actual Kishi cabinet. Of note is the fact that the presi­ dent of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Fujiyama, who was not a member of the Diet, was appointed foreign minister. An old friend and ally of Kishi, he was in many ways also his patron. Kishi's selection of Fujiyama for this post was in part a way to repay his giri, or obligation, and in part based on his desire to be able to handle foreign policy problems freely on his own. Another major aim of Kishi's person­

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nel choices had to do with bringing in powerful individuals, such as Ikeda and Kono Ichiro, first and foremost, as well as his brother Eisaku. j-Iowever, Ikeda turned down Kishi's request to remain in the cabinet (o u t of consideration for his benefactor, Yoshida Shigeru, who opposed K ish i) and as a result, the Sato and Kono factions each received an addi­ tio n a l three allotments, with Kono's group occupying as many as five p o s ts .

To Kishi, the next most important move in order to strengthen his base in the party was to hold a general election. However, due to the opposition of antimainstream factions (i.e., those who chose not to coop­ erate with the party leadership), Kishi's plan to dissolve the Diet in Janu­ ary was not realized until April. In the May 1958 General Elections, the LDP won, although the number of seats acquired dropped by 3 to 287. The Socialist Party increased its strength to 166 in this election, but did not feel that it was a victory. The reason is the Socialists had expected to win even more seats, having fielded many candidates in the hopes that it would acquire enough seats to take over the leadership of the govern­ ment as the majority party (with 467 seats in the Diet at the time, a minimum of 234 seats would have been necessary to do this). After this, the Socialists were never able even to field enough candidates to acquire a majority. In any case, this was the first Lower House election under the so-called 1955 System and was an important one in that the LDP stopped the growth of the Socialists, thereby securing the base for its thirty-eight year near-domination of Japanese politics (which ended with the forma­ tion of a non-LDP cabinet in the summer of 1993). In the cabinet reorganization following the election, Kishi appointed his brother as finance minister and brought in members of the Ikeda and Miki Takeo. However, of the twenty-two important posts, twelve were held by the Kishi and Sato factions. In addition, stating that the elections showed that the LDP had gained the absolute confidence of the public, Kishi filled the positions of speaker and vice speaker of the Lower House, as well as the chairpersons of standing committees with LDP men, creat­ ing a high profile government to the anger of the opposition parties. At that time, the problem of the security treaty also was being dis­ cussed, with the debate boiling down to two choices—the complete revi­ sion of the treaty or an exchange of notes, without revising the treaty. Of these two, the revision of the treaty was the most effective. However, Problems were expected with its ratification by the U.S. Senate and in other procedures. Moreover, on the U.S. side, the Vandenberg Resolution forbade any treaty that was one-sided and did not possess reciprocity, and thus a major problem existed with the fact that the constitution made the sending of Japanese forces abroad difficult. However, at a very early stage, Ambassador MacArthur in February f 958 sent the State Department a draft of a mutual security treaty that his staff had prepared. MacArthur explained that by the United States as-

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suming the security of Japan with Japan protecting U.S. forces stationed there, an answer for the problem of reciprocity, which was viewed as so difficult, could be found.13 It was in July that year when MacArthur showed the draft to Kishi. The Foreign Ministry, having not given consid­ eration to the revision of the treaty, was thus greatly caught off guard. Prime Minister Kishi, believing that only in overcoming such difficulties could U.S.-Japan relations enter a new era, announced the treaty revision formula, surprising the upper echelons of the more hesitant Foreign Min­ istry. Kishi, however, probably planned to do so in any case well in advance. With the victory in the general elections, the success in the formation of the cabinet, and Ambassador MacArthur's favorable re­ sponses all realized, Kishi sought to bring about a resolution of the prob­ lem head-on. Kishi was too ambitious to simply be content with securing practical benefits for a long administration. However, this time was in any event the high point of the Kishi ad­ ministration. In the thirtieth extraordinary session of the Diet in October, Kishi rather suddenly sought to introduce a revision of the Police Duties Execution Law (Keisatsukan Shokumu Shikoho) and the opposition parties, warning of a return to the prewar police state, strongly protested. Even the antimainstream groups of the LDP criticized Kishi as high-handed and pressed Kishi to shelve the legislation for the time being. In Decem­ ber, the Kishi cabinet faced a large crisis with the resignations of the minister of state without Portfolio Ikeda, Economic Planning Agency di­ rector general Miki Takeo, and Education Minister Nadao Hirokichi. In nearby China and the Soviet Union, strong opposition arose against the treaty revision. Ever since the May 1958 incident in Nagasaki, where an anti-Communist youth tore down a People's Republic of China flag at a trade show there, the Chinese government had been increasing its criti­ cism of Kishi. In November, the Chinese attacked the security treaty revi­ sion by calling for Japan's neutralization and this was followed by a similar announcement by the Soviets. In this situation, in order to rebuild his forces within the party, Kishi moved up the scheduled LDP presidential elections from March to Janu­ ary. Both Ikeda and Miki were unprepared and thus were badly defeated, with 166 non-mainstream votes going to Matsumura Kenzo versus 320 for Kishi. At this time, Kishi used very dangerous means. In response to a request from Kono to secure cooperation from LDP vice president Ono Bamboku, Kishi promised to pass the next administration on to Ono— one of several suspicious written pledges that Kishi made.14 In the personnel changes that January, one more problem revolved around the party leadership. Kishi replaced Kawashima Shojiro, who had been secretary general since July 1957, with Fukuda Takeo, chairman of the Policy Research Council. Kishi deeply trusted Fukuda. However, since the former bureaucrat Fukuda was a newcomer to the faction, Kawashima, Shiina Etsusaburo, and other long-time friends of Kishi were

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dissatisfied and this would become the main reason for instability in the faction. Nevertheless, Kishi was able to overcome these problems and sought the early signing of the new Mutual Security Treaty. Support for the LDP was high. In the Upper House elections held in early June 1959 for half the seats, the LDP gained ten seats going from 61 to 71 seats and increas­ ing their overall strength to 135 (out of 249 seats) as compared with the results of the 1956 elections three years prior, while the Socialists lost 11 seats (from 47 seats to 38) and thus dropping in total strength to 81 despite this big victory, Kishi was unable to control intraparty opposi­ tion. Beginning in February, Ikeda, Miki, and Kono began calling for major revisions of the security treaty and related Administrative Agree­ ment. When Kishi accepted this and requested the United States to begin negotiations, MacArthur became very angry, particularly because it was an unwritten understanding that the Administrative Agreement would be left as it was. Yet MacArthur responded and negotiations were begun in late June 1959. Kishi no doubt probably hoped to use the differences within the party to his advantage in the negotiations as well. Particularly conspicuous were Kono's actions above, taking a hard­ line on the treaty revision question. Although the Kishi-Ono secret agree­ ment was arranged by Kdno, and it does not seem, looking at the party shake-up mentioned above in June, that Kono had any intention of bring­ ing down the Kishi cabinet, he probably sought to make Kishi more dependent on him now that he was no longer chairman of General Coun­ cil after the personnel changes that January. In the cabinet reorganization, Kono requested the post of secretary general. If both Ikeda and Kono turned against Kishi there was no way that the Kishi administration would last, and with Ikeda not likely to change his anti-Kishi stance, Kono reasoned, Kishi would have to accept Kono's request. When Kishi did in fact reject his demand, Kono replied that if Ikeda were to say no, he hoped to consult with Kishi again. How­ ever, Ikeda, overcoming the opposition of his associates, agreed to head the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and joined the cabinet. When the Kono camp heard of Ikeda's reply, they were reportedly at a loss for words. This was an extremely important moment in postwar politics. The three factions of Kishi, Ikeda, and Sato promised to work together for the revision of the security treaty. The phrase "conservative mainstream" has been used often so far. While the meaning is not entirely clear, often it vaguely refers to the bureaucratic factions, particularly the Yoshida-led faction, as opposed to the party politician factions. However, the author uses the term "conservative mainstream" here with regard to foreign policy. The path of U.S.Japan cooperation that Yoshida laid was the essence of the mainstream, w>th the relationship to Yoshida and the bureaucrats being secondary. Moreover, the question of whether the line of thinking was pro-U.S.

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cooperation with a focus on the economy or pro-U.S. cooperation with a focus on the security relationship is also secondary. That was because in many ways this was determined by the political dynamics and makeup of the American administration as well as the international environment at the time. In other words, if "conservative mainstream" is defined as the overwhelming group supporting the maintenance of the U.S.-Japan cooperation line of diplomacy, it becomes possible to explain the postwar more consistently. Thus, it can be said that the formation of the conserva­ tive mainstream was at this point, in June 1959. The Yoshida line (focus­ ing on the economy) and the Kishi line (focusing on security aspects) were fused together and at the core of the LDP ran the conservative mainstream/pro-U.S. cooperative line of diplomacy. Initially, Yoshida was quite unreceptive to Kishi's plan to revise the treaty. Yoshida thought that expressions like "equal" and "autonomous" were quite irrelevant in the age of international mutual interdependence and that America's obligation to defend Japan did not go beyond formal­ ity only.15 However, as long as America responded positively to Kishi's initiative, there was no reason to oppose it any longer. Yoshida hoped that the next administration would be an Ikeda-led one, and he wanted to avoid Ikeda's forming a cabinet after having criticized Kishi's pro-U.S. approach. It was necessary, in other words, to support the treaty revision in order to be able to take over the next administration. The best chance for this therefore came when Kishi and Kono fell out over the cabinet and party reorganization in June. Yoshida's influence was no doubt impor­ tant in Ikeda's decision to join the cabinet. In fact, Yoshida's attitude toward Kishi after this was cooperative. Kono, on the other hand, continued to criticize the security treaty. While not as strongly as Miki did, Kono nevertheless pressed Kishi on clarification of Japan's right of veto during prior consultations, the exclu­ sion of Okinawa and Ogasawara from the areas defined by the treaty, and other issues. If the problem of the Police Duties Bill (discussed above) had not arisen, the signing of the new security treaty was possible in late 1958. Moreover, if there wasn't the issue over the Administrative Agreement, then a signing could have happened in February or March 1959. The Administrative Agreement problem, namely concerns over the extent of extraterritoriality and other rights to be given to the U.S. government when hosting American bases, was worked out in late June, but due to problems in the intraparty negotiations were delayed further. After having resolved the party problems in October, Kishi went to the United States in January 1960 to sign the mutual security treaty. Upon his return, Kishi thought of dissolving the Diet and holding an election, but Secretary General Kawashima and others strongly opposed this and Kishi in the end was forced to give up his plan. If an election had been held, it is likely that the LDP would have won, the new treaty would have been ratified by the Diet relatively easily, President Eisenhower

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vvould have been able to follow through on this planned visit to Japan, and Kishi would have continued in power. Because of this last probabil­ ity, the anti-Kishi forces were absolutely dead set against an early disso­ lution and even within Kishi's own faction there was some hesitation. The chaos that emerged in the ratification of the treaty in the spring and early summer of 1960 is well-known.16 Deliberations on the treaty were held up by opposition from the Socialist Party and demonstrations began to grow outside around the Diet building. Kishi decided to call in the police to preserve order ivithin the Diet, and forced through a fiftyday extension of the Diet session and then, immediately after that (in the absence of the Socialist Party) went ahead with the ratification of the treaty. The decision to go ahead with the ratification literally minutes after the extended session began was made by Kishi and a few close associates and was so secret that not even Secretary General Kawashima knew about it. As the reader is probably aware, the forced ratification caused unprec­ edented demonstrations outside the Diet building denouncing Kishi's "antidemocratic" moves. The Diet became paralyzed. Kishi prepared to wait out one month until the treaty automatically went into effect. How­ ever, on June 15, a female student from Tokyo University was killed during the protests and the leftist student demonstrations grew (al­ though the public as a whole was disapproving of the violence of the students) forcing the decision the next day to request the cancellation of President Eisenhower's visit set to begin on June 19. Following the ex­ change of ratified copies of the treaties on the morning of June 23, Kishi announced his resignation. Kishi was inarguably an extremely capable politician. Yoshida did not view revision of the treaty as necessary, but as the Girard Incident and others showed, the U.S.-Japan relationship could have easily fallen into a crisis situation under the old treaty. Kishi recognized this and bet his political fortunes on it. His actions were bold and swift. It was Kishi who early on raised with MacArthur the fundamental problems of the security relationship and who decided on the complete revision of the treaty. In conducting his Asia-Oceania diplomacy with the United States in mind, Kishi was skillful. While not covered in this discussion, it was also Kishi who had great success in assisting small and middle-sized enterprises and in realizing a National Pension Law, as well as starting the plans for the "Income Dou­ bling Plan" for which the Ikeda administration would get most of the credit. Kishi' s power base was very strong. He had warm support from the business and financial world. For Kishi, therefore, it was not terribly difficult for him to acquire the cooperation of close to half the party Members.

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But because Kishi had this much power and was considered near perfect, he invited a great deal of opposition. Outside, it was Communist China; domestically the Socialist Party, and outside the Diet building the popular demonstrations against his "undemocratic actions." More than anything else, the most difficult elements for Kishi were the antimain­ stream groups in the LDP and the disharmony that existed within his faction. Kishi may have been too much of a perfectionist, too direct and frank for the political culture of Japan at the time. If Kishi did not attempt the complete revision of the security treaty, his administration would likely have continued longer and he could have probably gotten a great many other things accomplished. If Kishi had not leaned so much on his faction and the Sato faction for his ministerial and party leadership appoint­ ments, and within the faction, had not relied too much on Fukuda, he probably could have secured much more cooperation from the party and faction as a whole. If Kishi did not try to celebrate the new U.S.-Japan era by having Eisenhower pay an official visit to Japan right after the ratifica­ tion, not being rushed for time, he may have been able to avoid the high­ handed tactics he used in the Diet and could have later held elections. His too-perfect plans and his ambition to fulfill them actually became stum­ bling blocks that he tripped over along the way. Having Sato, a powerful force in postwar politics, as a brother also presented problems. Within the LDP, in addition to Kishi's own faction, when there were two or more other cooperative factions was the first time that a stable majority could be had. In order to bring about this, it was important that other factions loyally fight on one's behalf, but in Kishi's case, Kishi and Sato were too close and other factions were wary of approaching them. Thus, even with Kono and Ikeda, who were close with Kishi, in the end, they felt, that they would always be third in importance, after the factions of Kishi and Sato. What if Kono had cooperated with Kishi at the risk of losing face? That would have helped the life of Kishi's administration, but once Kono was no longer needed, he might have been dumped in favor of Ikeda. Indeed, Kishi possessed just such a brutal image about him. In showing Kishi that he was beginning to waver in 1959 and then stubbornly de­ manding the post of secretary general, Kono probably had a hunch that such a fate awaited him. It is also possible to suggest that if Sato weren't there, Kishi might have thought to hand over the administration to another leader with the intention of returning to power later. But that sort of scenario—Kishi heading an administration twice—would have been unlikely. Once his administration ended, it was a time to leave the political world. It is often said that foreign policy should not be a tool to use in politi­ cal battles, but during the 1950s this was not clear. Moreover, in the end, that is the logic of the powerful. The weaker party uses diplomatic prob-

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]ems as well to undermine the person in power. If one goes too far, then it will be used as a minus against his own grip on power. Kishi succeeded in skillfully combining desires for a change in Yoshida's style of diploma­ cy with the continuation of the pro-U.S. line. Kono, on the other hand, failed. However, his reckless advance was a fatal injury to Kishi. After the revision of the security treaty and his resignation, Kishi was not able to return to the front stage of politics again. Yet, the legacy and jesSons of the Kishi cabinet were deeply inherited by the LDP administra­ tions that followed. The biggest legacies Kishi left behind were the rees­ tablishment of the basis for cooperation with the United States after years of drifting, and domestically speaking, the establishment of the conserva­ tive mainstream. Support for the U.S.-Japan relationship became in fact a condition to be elected party president. However, failures caused by Kishi's overly direct and forceful way of doing business led later LDP presidents to emphasize consensus both within and outside of the party. Within the party, factional politics with cabinet and party appointments made by balancing factional strength began to develop. Toward the opposition parties, the LDP sought to avoid where possible contentious issues and confrontational positions. It can be said that the willingness to consult with the opposition and ham­ mer out agreements with them in the Diet Affairs Committee was born as a result of this. Kishi may have seen too far ahead when he was moving his policies forward. Learning from this failure, Ikeda and Sato went on to build the "Golden Age" of the LDP. The "1955 System," following Kishi, turned into something different, what the author has previously called the "1960 System."17 Considering the role that Kishi played in the merger of the conservatives in the early to mid-1950s, it would not be an exaggeration to describe him as the "Father of the LDP's long-term rule." However, despite the long time in power, the LDP did not attempt to deal with constitutional revision and other goals that Kishi felt were necessary to fundamentally rebuild Japan. Kishi, who lived until 1987, would have to spend his remaining days with these mixed feelings of ambitions left frustrated. NOTES T Kdsaka M asataka, "Y o sh id a Shigeru Iko (A fter Y o sh id a S h igeru )," in K osaka, 1 9 6 8 ° ^0s^ a Shigeru (Prim e M inister Y osh id a Shigeru), (Tokyo: C h uo K oronsha, 2. See, respectively, H ara Y oshihisa, Sengo Nihon to Kokusai Seiji: Anpo Kaitei no Seiji Nikigaku (P o stw a r Jap an and In ternational Politics: The Political D yn am ics of the Se­ curity Treaty Revision), (Tokyo: C h uo K oron sha, 1988); H ara Yoshihisa, Nichibei KanP no Kozu: Anpo Kaitei o Kensho Suru (The Structure of the Japan-U .S. Relationship: Exam ining the S ecurity T reaty R evision), (Tokyo: N ih on H oso Shuppan K yokai, 1991);

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and H a ra Y oshihisa, Kishi Nobusuke: Kensei no Seijika (Kishi N obusuke: The Politician of P ow er), (Tokyo: Iw anam i Shoten, 1995). 3. Sakam oto K azuya, "S higem itsu H obei to A n p o Kaitei K oso n o Z asetsu (The Shigem itsu Visit to the U nited States and the Failed Treaty Revision P lan )," Mie Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Gakkai Hokei Ronshu, V ol. 10, N o. 2 (1992), 2 3 -5 8 ; S akam oto K azuya, "K ishi Shusho to A n p o Kaitei n o K etsud an (Prim e M inister Kishi and the D ecision to R evise the S ecurity T r e a ty )/' Handai Hogaku, V ol. 4 5, N o. 1 (June 1995), 2 1 -5 2 . 4. S upervising tran slato r's co m m en t: K itaoka h im self w as later (2 0 0 9 -2 0 1 0 ) in­ v o lv ed in helping the efforts of the Jap an ese g o v ern m en t, com p rised of a D em ocratic P arty of Jap an -led coalition, in d eclassifying Foreign M inistry record s for the p reviou s Liberal D em o cratic P arty-led adm inistration . H is panel of leading d ip lom atic histo­ rians, includ ing H atan o Sum io (au th o r of the ch ap ter on H igashikuni N aru h ik o in this vo lu m e), com p leted their rep o rt on the so-called U .S .-Jap an secret ag reem en ts in M arch 2 010 w ith recom m en d atio n s for fu rth er declassification and u ser friendly ser­ vices. F o r the final rep o rt see h ttp ://w w w .m o fa.g o .jp /m ofaj/g aik o /m itsu y ak u /p d fs/ h ok oku _yush ik i.pd f (accessed O ctob er 2015). F o r a recent in trod uction to d oin g re­ search in Jap an , see M ayu m i Fuk ushim a, "H -D ip lo A rch iv e 1 on 'A ccessin g the D iplo­ m a tic and M ilitary A rch iv es in Jap an ,' O ctob er 16, 2 0 1 5 ," h ttp s://n etw o rk s.h -n et.o rg / n od e/28443/d iscu ssio n s/88842/h -d ip lo -arch iv e-rep o rt-l-% E 2% 80% 9C accessin g d ip lo m atic-an d -m ititary (accessed O ctob er 2015). 5. D an K urzm an , Kishi and Japan: The Search for the Sun (N ew Y ork: Ivan O bolen­ sky, Inc., 1960), 7. 6. Sato H id esuk e (originally Kishi H idesuke) h ad been ad op ted into his w ife's fam ily, the Satos, in o rd e r to con tinu e the fam ily tine. Likew ise, N ob u suk e, as is d escribed b elow w as to be the p ro sp ectiv e h usb and of N o b u m asa's d aughter, Yoshiko, N ob u su k e's first cousin. 7. H ara, Kishi Nobusuke, 23. 8. Ibid., 37-38. 9. Ibid., see ch ap ter 6. 10. Kishi N obusuke, et. al. Kishi Nobusuke no Kaiso (The M em oirs of Kishi N obu­ su ke), (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1981), 184. 11. Ibid., 24. 12. H iw atari Y u m i, "K ishi Gaiko ni O keru Tonan Ajia to A m erik a (K ishi's D ip lom a­ cy in Southeast A sia an d the U nited S tates)," in K indai N ihon K enkyuhen, Nenpo Kindai Nihon Kenkyii, N o. 11 (Tokyo: Y a m ak aw a Shuppan, 1989), 152. 13. "L e tte r from the A m b assad o r to Jap an (M acA rth u r) to S ecretary of State Dulles (Feb ru ary 1 8 ,1 9 5 8 )," FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. 18, Japan; Korea (W ashington, D .C.: U nited States G ov ern m en t P rinting Office, 1994), 8 -1 0 . 14. F o r m o re, see W atan ab e T sun eo (tran slated b y R obert D. Eld ridge), Japan's Back­ room Politics: Factions in a Multiparty Age (L an h am : L exin g to n Books, 2013), p articu lar­ ly the in tro d u cto ry chapter. 15. K itaoka Shinichi, Seito Seiji no Saisei: Sengo Seiji no Keisei to Hokai (The Rebirth of P a rty Politics: The Fo rm atio n and C ollap se of P o stw ar Politics), (Tokyo: Chuo K oron sha, 1995), 2 1 3 -2 3 2 . 16. G eorge R. P ack ard 's Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Princeton: P rinceton U niversity Press, 1966) rem ains the best treatm en t of it in English. F o r an interesting acco u n t u sin g recently declassified d ip lom atic d ocu m en ts, see M ichael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (N ew York: O xford U niversity P ress, 1997), C h ap ter 9, p articu larly 1 5 6 -6 0 . 17. K itaoka Shinichi, Kokusaika Jidai no Seiji Shido (Political L eadership in the Inter­ n ationalization A g e), (Tokyo: C h uo K oron sha, 1990), 1 4 9 -1 5 1 .

NINE Ikeda Hayato The Man Who Created the “Economic Era" Nakamura Takafusa

Whenever the Ikeda Hayato administration is mentioned, it is the "in­ come-" or "wage-doubling plan" that comes to people's minds. After becoming prime minister on July 19, 1960, Ikeda led the Liberal Demo­ cratic Party to victory in the following November's general election using that plan as his centerpiece. As the Socialist Party and the rest of the opposition brought forth their own economic plans in response, the elec­ tion took on the nature of a competition between plans for economic growth. The tense, antagonistic atmosphere of the fight over revision of the security treaty and the bitterly divided public opinion that had ac­ companied it were changed utterly, replaced by rose-colored expecta­ tions of "wage-doubling" and "economic growth." This had been Ikeda's goal. Ikeda inscribed his name in history as a prime minister representing a time of internationalization, one who had transformed the "political era" into the "economic era." Let's first trace Ikeda's personal history. Ikeda was born in 1899 in Yoshina Village, Toyota District (what is today Takehara), Hiroshima Prefecture. His father was a postmaster and brewer but as his was a branch family, Ikeda's regular diet would have consisted of rice mixed with barley. He entered the Fifth High School in Kumamoto after graduatmg from Tadanoumi Middle School. While there he received a monthly allowance of 100 yen, which he often used to gather friends and enjoy himself with. He then attended Kyoto Imperial University, majoring in

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law. It is unclear why he chose Kyoto over Tokyo Imperial University, which was usually viewed as being better. Ikeda entered the Ministry of Finance in 1925 and became the head of the Utsunomiya tax office in 1929. It was at this time that he contracted the stubborn skin disease pemphigus, which he would spend the next five years of his life fighting. The disease covered his body with running sores and caused him to suffer severe itchiness. He even contemplated suicide. His wife, Naoko, whom he had married in 1927, died in 1931, exhausted from caring for him. Ikeda had been on leave from the Ministry of Finance but resigned that same year. After Ikeda finally recovered in 1934, he planned to go to work for Hitachi but was able to return to the Finance Ministry through the intercession of his former colleagues and became head of the Tamatsukuri tax office in Osaka. He remarried and returned to the Tokyo home office's Tax Bureau after serving as head of the Kumamoto Tax Supervision Bureau's Direct Taxation Department. He was made head of the Accounting Division in 1939 and then head of the National Tax Division on December 9, 1941. Ikeda thus arrived at the center of the Ministry of Finance on the day following the outbreak of the Pacific War. He would later recall that he was "happier than the day I became finance minister . . . I thought that if I collected taxes it would benefit the nation."1 Toward the end of the war he became head of the Tokyo Local Fi­ nance Bureau before heading the Tax Bureau, a position he maintained after the war ended. Then, in February 1947, he became vice minister under Minister of Finance Ishibashi Tanzan. This appointment was an act of consideration by Ishibashi, who knew that Ikeda had political hopes. Ikeda felt indebted to Ishibashi for this and did all he could to support him when he ran for LDP president in December 1956. Although Ikeda was a disciple of Yoshida Shigeru, his ties to Ishibashi were also deep, and Ishibashi referred to Ikeda as his "disciple in economic policy." 2 Resigning as vice minister after one year, Ikeda ran as a candidate for the Democratic Liberal Party in his hometown of Hiroshima, winning his first election with the most votes for any candidate. Although his cam­ paign speeches were loaded with numbers and not particularly interest­ ing, it was a comparatively easy election for Ikeda as he was able to draw on the connections of his parents, who had been fervent supporters of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party politician Mochizuki Keisuke. He received the position of finance minister in the third Yoshida cabinet as a freshman member of the Diet. Yoshida actively recruited those with bureaucratic backgrounds because of a lack of qualified personnel within the party. He had appointed Sato Eisaku, a senior bureau­ crat from the Ministry of Transport, as chief cabinet secretary during his cabinet and he now chose Ikeda after he passed an interview with Yoshida's close friend Miyajima Seijiro.

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This was an unexpected piece of good luck for Ikeda. But just as he became finance minister in February 1949, Joseph Dodge, president of the National Bank of Detroit, came to Japan serving as an economic advisor to Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur. American policy toward Japan changed in the international envi­ ronment of the intensifying Cold War: speeding up economic recovery and turning Japan into a bastion against communism was now given priority over democratization. A policy of reducing American aid to Ja­ pan had been adopted in October 1948 in the National Security Council document NSC 13/2, and Dodge was dispatched by President Harry S. Truman to guide Japan's economic recovery. Dodge, a dyed-in-the-wool believer in free market economics, put forward a plan designed to put an end to inflation and wartime economic controls, restore free competition, and establish an exchange rate of 360 yen to the dollar and the standards needed for Japan's return to the international economy. The three policies included in the "Dodge Line" were a strict balanced budget, the elimina­ tion of subsidies and price controls, and an end to new loans by the Reconstruction Finance Bank. Ikeda's first job as finance minister was thus to negotiate with this stubborn older man in an attempt to fulfill his party's electoral pledge of reducing taxes. Dodge harshly rejected this, however, insisting that the only way a defeated nation could get back up was to work hard, suppress inflation, and be thrifty and save. With the electoral promise dashed and finding himself showered with criticism from all sides, Ikeda was com­ pletely dispirited. He began to drink with his secretary Miyazawa Kiichi to distract himself from his feelings and would grumble that he "want[edj to resign as minister." It was Prime Minister Yoshida who stuck up for him and approved Dodge's plan. Afterward, Ikeda pursued balanced finances, faithfully following the "Dodge Line," and came to win Dodge's trust. The "Dodge Line" caused the recession to worsen, but Dodge refused to accept any alterations. Then, as the economic situation was looking truly grim, the Korean War broke out in June 1950, causing the economy to reverse course and head toward prosperity. Immediately prior to this, in March 1950, Ikeda visited the United States on a secret mission from Yoshida, accompanied by Miyazawa and Yoshida's special representative Shirasu Jiro. Publicly, the trip was for the purpose of receiving instructions from Dodge in preparation for the 1950 budget, but it actually also had the purpose of telling Washington directly, through Dodge, of Yoshida's intention to accept a post-peace treaty, American military presence in Japan.3 Through Dodge's fore­ thought, they visited various government offices and banks during the day so as not to incite GHQ and held negotiations at night on tax reduc­ tions and collateral funds (reserve funds from the sale of aid supplies), tkeda and Miyazawa also worked out the framework for the 1950 budget. Little funding had been provided for the trip and it was a difficult time.

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Then, upon their return to Japan, they found they had earned GHQ's displeasure by going over their heads in negotiating with Washington. They were refused meetings when they went to see GHQ officials. Such was the sorrow of a defeated, occupied country. It was also around this time that Ikeda began to generate controversy by making irresponsible remarks and gaffes. At a March 1 press confer­ ence held immediately before his trip to Washington, he commented on the "March Crisis" (sangatsu kiki), saying that it was unavoidable that some small businessmen would go bankrupt and commit suicide: "it is inevitable that a major policy will incur some degree of casualties." Ikeda also stated at the Diet on the following day that "it is inevitable that during the process of putting the economy in order that some will go bankrupt because of the recession. We must walk a thorny path for the time being," a statement for which he received a letter of protest from the opposition parties. Ikeda made another gaffe that December in response to a question from Kimura Kihachiro of the Labor-Farmer Party concerning rising rice prices. The price difference between rice and barley had shrunk com­ pared to what it had been before the war, and everyone had come to eat rice and barley in the same amounts regardless of income. Ikeda said that he wanted "to go forward in line with economic principles with, in accor­ dance with their income, those with low income eating a lot of barley and those with higher incomes eating rice." This became "the poor can eat barley" in newspaper headlines. These two incidents passed with only mild controversy, but another gaffe in November 1952 caused a rebellious group to form within the government party, enabling a motion of no confidence toward Ikeda to pass and giving him no choice but to resign. In response to a question from Kato Kanju, Ikeda (who had by now become minister of Interna­ tional Trade and Industry) touched on his earlier gaffe about small busi­ nessmen, saying the following: "My feelings are that while it's unfortu­ nate that those engaged in the black market and other activities not based on normal economic fundamentals will go bankrupt as we transition from an inflation economy to a stable one, and that some of those will commit suicide due to that bankruptcy, I think it's unavoidable." This was too blunt of a statement and it was inevitable that he be fired for it.4 At this time the Liberal Party had been split by the return of purged politicians such as Hatoyama Ichiro and Ishibashi Tanzan following the peace treaty going into effect. Ishibashi, at the forefront of the anti-Yoshida group and expelled from the party, had of course been one of those who had voted in favor of the motion of no confidence. There's no question that the above three irresponsible statements or gaffes were all lacking in discretion and were too blunt. Although Ikeda was just saying something that was natural from an economic rationale, they were not things to be said by a cabinet minister while addressing the

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Diet, which valued empathy and proper public positions. Although Ikeda would proudly state that "I don't lie," he was basically a brusque person who also had a habit of letting things slip when he had had too much to drink the previous day. Shortly after resigning as minister of International Trade and Indus­ try, he was brought back as the chairman of the Liberal Party's Policy Affairs Research Council, Yoshida had great trust in him, and he was sent to Washington in October 1953 as Yoshida's special envoy for talks with Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Walter S. Robertson. The primary subject of their discussions was the scale of Japanese rear­ mament and the related Mutual Security Assistance. The U.S. government had been demanding since the start of the Kore­ an War that Japan rearm and Yoshida had used Article 9 of the Japanese constitution as a shield with which to limit the scale of the rearmament as much as possible; by this point, the negotiations had become repetitive. Ikeda's trip to the United States was for the purpose of negotiating the scale of rearmament in connection with Japanese acceptance of MSA (four treaties including the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement). In response to American demands for a ground force of ten divisions and 300,000 men, Ikeda emphasized the various constraints on the Japanese. He promised that a ground force of 180,000 would be readied by 1956 but refused to make any further concessions. For this reason, MSA support was set at the low level of $50 million. American demands for rearma­ ment became less strenuous afterward due to Stalin's death in the Soviet Union and the Nikita S. Khrushchev-led reduction in tension. Ikeda was not truly opposed to rearming and it is said that he even considered developing nuclear arms. He took the position that economic recovery was needed first in accordance with Yoshida's plan, however. Turning our focus to domestic politics, the Reform Party led by Shigemitsu Mamoru, Hatoyama's anti-mainstream liberal group, and the Ja­ pan Liberal Party of Miki Bukichi and Kono Ichiro, which had broken away from Yoshida's Liberal Party and officially formed in November 1953, were all seeking to topple the Yoshida administration. Yoshida formed his fifth cabinet in May 1953, appointing Ogata Taketora as depu­ ty prime minister. He also appointed Ikeda as Yoshida's Liberal Party secretary general in July 1954. A problem had arisen in April when per­ mission was sought to arrest then-Liberal Party Secretary General Sato Eisaku in connection with the shipbuilding scandal that had arisen; Sato °nly just managed to avoid arrest when Minister of Justice Inukai Takeru used his authority to quash it. Sato was indicted on violation of the Politi­ cal Funds Control Law, but Ikeda managed to avoid indictment despite rumors of his involvement. Ikeda was thus prepared for difficulties as he became secretary general. As Ikeda assumed his new post in July, a group was being formed to prepare for the creation of a new party. Kishi blobusuke and Ishibashi became the leaders of the anti-Yoshida move-

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merit. Ikeda used his authority as secretary general to have both expelled from the party while Yoshida was travelling abroad. When Yoshida re­ turned to Japan on November 24, the Japan Democratic Party had formed with Hatoyama as its president. A motion of no confidence in the cabinet was put forward with enough support behind it to make passage inevita­ ble. Yoshida immediately decided to dissolve the Diet, but was only sup­ ported in this by Sato and Ikeda. Yoshida was furious and dismissed Ogata and the others who had argued for the cabinet's resignation, but such resignation was ultimately unavoidable. Ikeda thus played out his role as a prize pupil of the "Yoshida School" until the very end. The night that the motion of no confidence in Ikeda as minister of International Trade and Industry passed, Koyama Osanori and Okumura Matajuro visited his residence in Shinanomachi to comfort him. They also swore to form a group of those who were his comrades. Along with Fujieda Sensuke, Ogawa Heiji, Uchida Tsuneo, and Sakuma Toru, they created the "Economic Research Group" (Keizai Kenkyukai), which be­ came the basis for the later Ikeda faction. These men were unaware that Maeo Shigesaburo, Ohira Masayoshi, and Miyazawa were close asso­ ciates of Ikeda. Hatoyama's time in office lasted almost exactly two years. During that time Ikeda belonged to the Liberal Party's antimainstream and main­ tained latent power within the LDP following the conservative interval. Even though the former Yoshida faction had become divided into the Ikeda and Sato factions, the Ikeda faction was still the second largest in the party with forty-seven members in 1958 (to Kishi's sixty). The funds for maintaining such a large faction came largely from donations from the mainstream of the financial world. Kishi, Ishii Mitsujiro, and Ishibashi ran as candidates for LDP presi­ dent following Hatoyama's retirement. Although it was believed that Ikeda would support Ishii because of ties from their Liberal Party days, it seems that he actually backed Ishibashi. Ikeda had twice expelled Ishiba­ shi during his tenure as Liberal Party secretary general because of the feud between Yoshida and Hatoyama/Ishibashi, despite feeling a debt toward him for having selected Ikeda as his vice minister. For his part, Ishibashi had twice voted in favor of no confidence motions brought against Ikeda. Ikeda would say that it had been an honor to expel Ishiba­ shi in a number of speeches. Ishibashi recalled of Ikeda that "he was a man who was dutiful, but at the same time he had that kind of sense of humor." Thanks to Ikeda's backing of Ishibashi, the latter had the second largest number of votes. With Ishii's backing, he was able to defeat Kishi and become prime minister. When Ishibashi formed his cabinet, he pushed through the resistance and named Ikeda as finance minister. Unlike during the Hatoyama ad­ ministration, in which Finance Minister Ichimada Hisato had obsessed over maintaining a budget of one trillion yen and continued passive eco-

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nomic policies, Ishibashi and Ikeda took office pursuing a more active financial policy under the slogan that "a hundred billion yen in tax cuts is a hundred billion yen in aid." Ishibashi soon fell ill, however, and was unfortunately forced to resign after just two months. His successor, Kishi, kept his cabinet in place. Ikeda remained for a year but decided to leave tk,e government in June 1958 after refusing a lateral move to be director general of the Economic Planning Agency (although he remained as a minister without portfolio after being asked). Yoshida sent him a large red sea bream (tai) with a business card attached reading "150 points [great job], my congratulations." At the time the LDP factions were referred to as the "eight divisions" (hachiko shidan). They were divided between the mainstream Kishi, Sato, Ono, and Kono factions and the antimainstream Ikeda, Ishii, Miki Takeo/ Matsumura Kenzo, and Ishibashi factions. Kishi, who fervently wanted to revise the U.S.-Japan security treaty, was careful not to make an enemy of Ikeda. But he did suddenly put forth a bill to amend the Police Duties Execution Act ("Police Law") in October 1958 as part of his preparations for revising the security treaty. He wanted to authorize the police to take preventative measures before crimes occurred in order to maintain order when he revised the treaty. The bill was ultimately dropped due to vehe­ ment opposition from the opposition parties, however. Ikeda undeniably became part of the antimainstream at the end of that same year when he resigned from the cabinet together with Miki Takeo and Nadao Hirokichi, citing differences in their political positions. Kishi invited Ono Bamboku in January 1959, giving him a signed promise that he would be the next prime minister. It is thought that it was around this time that the seeds of the "wage­ doubling" concept were planted in Ikeda. The Japanese economy had experienced a rapid annual growth of 10 percent since the end of the war. It was Shimomura Osamu of the Ministry of Finance who grasped the significance of this and put forth the idea that the Japanese economy was in the midst of a historic period of growth. He formed a study group with Takahashi Kamekichi, Morinaga Teiichiro, and Hirata Keiichiro at the office of Ikeda faction's "Kochikai," and it is believed that the idea reached Ikeda through this. When he returned to his home district in Hiroshima in February 1959, Ikeda made a bold statement about his monthly wage-doubling theory," saying that in ten years' time every­ one's wages would have doubled. The basis for this idea was a commen­ tary in a newspaper by Professor Nakayama Ichiro entitled "Proposing Doubling Wages" (Chingin Nibai o Teisho).5 The premise was that if savlng increased, capital spending would be extended, increasing produc­ tion and income. If that mechanism worked, monthly wages would dou­ ble in ten years. Thus, the government should cut taxes and increase Public investment and social welfare spending for those who did not benefit from economic development. This was the basic model of the

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"wage-doubling plan." Ikeda had found his signature policy. The ratio­ nale and figures for the plan were published in Shinro (The Course), Kochikai's magazine. When Kishi reorganized the cabinet in June 1959, Ikeda rejoined it as minister of International Trade and Industry at Kishi's request (and over the opposition of those close to him). Kishi had wanted Kono to fill the position, but the two fell out when Kono demanded to be made LDP secretary general. Thus, the antimainstream Ikeda's turn came. It made little sense to enter the cabinet when he had departed it acrimoniously just six months earlier, but it is likely that Ikeda wanted the position so as to make his "wage-doubling plan" a reality. This would lead the way to the Ikeda government. The Kishi cabinet turned all its efforts to revising the U.S.-Japan secur­ ity treaty. The prime minister visited Washington and signed the new treaty on January 19, 1960. He also extended an invitation to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to visit Japan in June. He thus had a pressing need to secure the treaty's passage through the Diet by the day before Eisen­ hower's visit in order to be able to exchange the treaty's instruments of ratification. The way the bill was forced through the Diet in order to meet that goal led to voices complaining of a crisis of democracy to become suddenly more prevalent, and the campaign against the treaty gained momentum. The Diet was surrounded by protestors for days, with the opposition movement reaching its peak following the death of Tokyo University student Kanba Michiko. Kishi requested that Eisenhower postpone his visit. The instruments of ratification were exchanged on June 23 with the U.S. ambassador instead and Kishi announcing his resig­ nation. Ikeda immediately decided to become a candidate. When his confi­ dante Ohira Masayoshi warned that he would hurt himself by running at such a chaotic time and that he should let Ishii have the position, Ikeda replied that "you say that, but I can see the premiership in front of me. It's right in front of me." His secretary ltd Masaya said that, when asked "what will you do if you become prime minister?" Ikeda answered "Only economic policies, of course. I'm going to go with wage-doubling.. . . The minds of the people have been darkened by the fight over the security treaty. I'm going to completely reverse that with the wage-doubling plan. This will be a change of pace that truly rejuvenates their minds: a new party president and new policies." Ikeda was "filled with self-confidence, brimming over with a conviction that no one else could do what needed to be done."6 Ishii, Ono, Fujiyama Aiichiro, and Matsumura also ran for LDP presi­ dent. As the July 13 date for the election drew close, Diet members and regional representatives crammed into hotels and bullets flew wildly as always. In the Ikeda camp, "Maeo was in charge of handling the Diet members, Ohira worked behind the scenes, Ohashi [Takeo] tracked votes,

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and Suzuki Zenko was in charge of handling the other factions." Ikeda wasn't involved with the detailed work and would go to the hotel in the jnorning and then return home at five in the afternoon. The election was Relayed a day to the fourteenth. In the first round, Ikeda received 246 votes, Ishii 196, and Fujiyama 49, and in the final round Ikeda received 302 votes to Ishii's 194. As for the party politicians, Ono withdrew on the morning of the thirteenth and sought to raise votes for Ishii but ran against the Kishi and Sato factions that had turned to support Ikeda. The Ikeda faction is said to have spent 700 million to a billion yen on the campaign. In any case, having received the support of the mainstream of the financial world in the name of mainstream conservatism, Ikeda was able to become party president and thus prime minister. The Ikeda cabinet formed on July 19 and was made up of Ohira as chief cabinet secretary, Mizuta Mikio as finance minister, Kosaka Zentaro as foreign minister, Ishii as minister of International Trade and Industry, Ishida Hirode as minister of Labor, and Masutani as LDP secretary gener­ al. Ishida's selection as labor minister was due to the recommendation of Nisshinbo Industries' Sakura Takeshi that the Miike mine strike, which had intensified, be rapidly resolved. The newspapers had been filled since the beginning of the year with stories of the bloody labor dispute. This major strike, which has been called the "last class war," was re­ solved with the defeat of the labor unions in November. After becoming prime minister and receiving advice from all quarters, Ikeda worked hard to change the bureaucratic and pompous attitude for which he had often been criticized. The cabinet's motto was "forbearance and tolerance" (kanyo to nintai) and keeping "a low-profile" became Ikeda's personal creed. He changed the frames of his glasses to a less fancy kind, his suits from double-breasted to single, and announced that he would stop playing golf and going to high-class restaurants. As he had no summer single-breasted suits when he became prime minister, he had to wear between-season suits despite the heat. Ikeda, who loved golf and going out drinking, often told his secretary ltd that they should "gather all the proprietresses of the restaurants and have a banquet when I resign as prime minister" or "have a golf tournament." Maintaining the lifestyle of the ordinary member of the public seems to have been quite difficult for him. The framework of the "wage-doubling" plan that would become Ikeda's primary platform was created by the Economic Planning Agency's Planning Bureau in 1959 during the Kishi government. The Economic Council was formally consulted on the plan that fall and actual work on it thus began when the fight over the security treaty was at its peak. The Ikeda government accelerated the formulation of the plan in order to be able to use it in the general election planned for November and its com­ plete text was made public on September 5. It was the third formal economic plan adopted by the Japanese government, following those of 1956

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and 1957. The plan's distinguishing feature was that it set a goal of dou­ bling real GNP within ten years, with all figures and policies created in concert with that goal. The plan was open to criticism on any number of fronts, such as the substitution of doubling GNP for doubling monthly wages, and inconsistency in its numbers. This author believes that the fundamental attributes of the "doubling plan" were there, however. The government led from the front, seeing that the economic growth that had continued from the late 1940s was not a temporary phenomenon accom­ panying the recovery of the nation but rather the appearance of the vital­ ity inherent within the Japanese economy, and called on the people for rapid economic growth. This plan officially recognized the expectation toward growth that much of the public could feel in their bones. Laborers and office workers, and not just the financial world, sympathized with and were galvanized by the plan for that reason. Ikeda's reading was on the mark. Let's examine the contents of the plan a bit. The target of doubling real GNP in ten years—an an annual growth rate of 7.2 percent—was be­ lieved to be extremely high by the public, but it was actually significantly lower than the actual average growth rate of the time, which had reached 10 percent. Dissatisfied with this and thinking of the generation born during the postwar baby boom entering the labor market, Ikeda raised the growth rate for the first three years of the plan (covering until 1962-1963) to 9 percent. Expectations for growth became further height­ ened. The attention stirred up by the "wage-doubling plan" meant that eco­ nomic growth became the primary issue during the coming general elec­ tion. The Japan Socialist Party, which had cornered the Kishi government during the fight against the security treaty, had no choice but to take up the issue, which was not one of their strengths. It responded with a framework to increase incomes by 50 percent in four years. Just succeed­ ing in forcing the opposition to face him in his field of expertise can be said to have been a tactical victory for Ikeda. The JSP attacked the LDP in its "doubling plan" using the arguments that the envisioned outpouring of population from agricultural villages would mean firing farmers and that the market liberalization policies being advanced at the time threat­ ened farmers and small businessmen. It has to be admitted that these criticisms lacked impact, however. Politically speaking, the "wage-doubling plan" was successful in that it changed the political atmosphere from one of opposition to one of growth, sweeping away the nightmare of the struggle over the security treaty. It was an inferior product with a pressing deadline from a techni­ cal perspective, however. First, the plan gave no consideration to the issue of commodity prices. It was based on the unrealistic assumption that they would remain flat during the ten-year period. For this reason, it came to be criticized as a price-doubling rather than wage-doubling plan

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when the dramatic increase in consumer prices became noticeable during the economic boom. Real GNP growth reached 7.2 percent while growth in the Industrial Production Index, created by the representatives of variqUs industries, reached 11 percent, showing the overall bullishness of industry. But if that was so, then the growth rate for agricultural and tertiary industries would have to have been extremely low, a discrepancy that was ignored. Since the only theoretical basis for the wage-doubling plan was the Harrod-Domar Model, a theory of macroeconomic growth that was popular in the world of economics at the time, faults such as those mentioned above were present. Few realized these problems at the time the plan was announced, however. Ikeda held a press conference on September 7, immediately after the release of his plan, at which he was brimming with self-confidence. The following are excerpts of his statements there: G o v e rn m e n t e x ists to im p ro v e th e liv elih o o d o f th e p u b lic an d e n h a n ce so cia l s e c u rity . T h e m a th s a y s th a t w e n e e d a n a n n u a l e c o n o m ic g ro w th o f 7 .2 p e rce n t to d o u b le in co m e in ten y e a rs a n d I'm s a y in g th a t w e w ill d o so . If y o u lo o k a t th e la st fiv e y e a rs, o u r g ro w th ra te w a s o v e r 9 p e rce n t. So w h a t's w r o n g w ith ta k in g th a t n u m b e r an d e stim a tin g th a t w e w ill c o n tin u e to r e a c h 9 p e rc e n t? . . . P a st g o v e rn m e n ts h a v e a lw a y s lo w -b a lle d th in g s, b u t it's n o t ju st an e stim a te th a t ta x re v e n u e s co u ld n a tu ra lly in c re a s e b y a s m u c h as a h u n d re d b illio n y en .

On market liberalization he stated: W e h a v e [fo re ig n c u rr e n c y re s e rv e s] o f o n e a n d a h a lf b illio n d o lla rs. W e h a v e p le n ty o f fo re ig n c u rr e n c y re a d y , so th a t isn 't a c o n c e rn . E v e n if th e re s e rv e s a re re d u c e d as ra w m a te ria l im p o rts in cre a se , th e r e 's no n e e d to w o r r y a s lo n g as o u r c o tto n , oil, a n d w o o l sto ck s in cre a se . . . . L ib e ra liz a tio n isn 't a g o a l in a n d o f itself; it's a m e th o d fo r e x p a n d in g Ja p a n e se tra d e . T h e a re a o f im p o rts th a t h a s in cre a se d re c e n tly is m a ­ ch in e ry , b u t sin ce th is is d o n e in p re p a ra tio n fo r fu tu re e x p o rts , it's n o t a ca u se fo r co n ce rn .

With regard to welfare, he noted, "It's the issue of social security that concerns me the most. In things like public assistance, health care, unem­ ployment insurance, and welfare pensions, it's important to help the poor with the intention of causing them to stand up rather than saving them by just giving them money." And on corrections to the industrial struc­ ture Ikeda said, "I want to transfer those working in agriculture and forestry to secondary and tertiary industries in a decisive way. I want to systematically establish [technical colleges]. We will have technological innovation. Government under which the poor are unable to pursue an education is unacceptable. I want the government to offer scholarships in a decisive way." In response to Sino-Japanese relations, Ikeda pointed out: "Through diplomacy, we must strengthen that country's trust, be respected by the

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free world, and not mocked by the communists. And it's important that we stabilize our domestic structure. If we don't strengthen domestically, if we make ill-planned moves, won't they mock us? I'm skeptical about whether the situation is right for diplomatic innovation." Indeed, while "economic Ikeda" was passionate in the press confer­ ence about the topic of economic growth, when the subject moved to social security, he honestly said "I'm not sure what to do." His desire to avoid the topic of Sino-Japanese relations is readily apparent as well. He was generally successful as he campaigned across the country with the "doubling plan," although he occasionally encountered communists. During a speech he gave in front of the Nagoya television tower, mem­ bers of the crowd shouted "Go for it, Ikeda! Go for it, Ikeda!" (Ikeda-san ganbare). This "Ikeda Boom" was shaken by the October 12 assassination of Asanuma Inejiro, the chairman of the JSP, during a political debate held between the three party leaders at Hibiya Hall by NHK. Asanuma had drawn criticism from the Japanese Far-Right when he stated that "American imperialism is the common enemy of China and Japan" dur­ ing a visit to Beijing the previous year. No one imagined that he would be struck down by a knife-wielding right wing teenager mid-speech at a podium on stage, however. The Prime Minister's Residence was sur­ rounded by protests organized by General Council of Trade Unions. Yamazaki Iwao, chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, To­ kyo Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ogura Ken, and Commissioner General of the National Police Agency Kashiwamura Nobuo all had no choice but to resign. Even though it was not the cabinet's direct respon­ sibility, it was still necessary to respond to the public's anger. The JSP intended to make the coming extraordinary Diet session into a "funeral Diet" and Ikeda decided to give his own eulogy for Asanuma at the opening session on October 17. Ikeda began the speech by expressing his sadness at the loss of a worthy rival and denouncing violence before reviewing Asanuma's ca­ reer and touching on his character: Y o u to o k u p g iv in g s e rv ic e to th e p e o p le as y o u r p o litica l c re e d . Y o u w e re c o n s ta n tly o n th e m o v e . Y o u p o s se sse d u n e q u a le d e lo q u e n ce an d p a s s io n an d w e re c o n tin u a lly a p p e a le d to d ire ctly b y th e m a s s e s o f th e n a tio n . N u m a 's th e s p e e c h -g iv in g c o m m o n e r D irty clo th e s a n d a ta tte re d b a g T o d a y 's th e p u b lic h all in H o n jo [T o k y o ] T o m o r r o w 's a c r o s s ro a d s te m p le in K y o to T h a t w a s a p o e m re c ite d b y o n e o f A s a n u m a 's frie n d s a t th e tim e o f th e J a p a n L a b o r-F a rm e r P a r t y 's fo rm a tio n in th e la te T a ish o p e rio d . E v e n a fte r h e b e c a m e c h a irm a n , h is sp irit as a "s p e e c h -g iv in g c o m m o n e r "

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w a s n o t le sse n e d in th e slig h test. . . . Y o u w e re c o n te n t w ith h o n e st p o v e r ty a n d liv e d a sim p le life in an a p a rtm e n t in th e o ld to w n o f T o k y o fo r th irty y e a rs . T h e h ig h lig h t o f y o u r d a y w a s w a lk in g in y o u r n e ig h b o rh o o d w ith y o u r d o g .7

Some of the Socialist Diet members present were even moved to tears by Ikeda's speech. He praised his secretary Ito, who had drafted it, in his typical language: "that speech was worth five hundred million, a billion yen." His government could have faced a crisis had he mishandled the Asanuma incident, given that the embers of the fight over the security treaty were still smoldering. His appropriate response prevented that crisis. The Diet was dissolved on October 24. Ikeda toured the country cam­ paigning, debated JSP chairman Eda Saburo and Democratic Socialist Party chairman Nishio Suehiro on television, then headed west for more campaigning. The LDP won 296 seats in the general election held on November 20 (300 if including independents), the JSP 145 seats (an in­ crease of 23), and the DSP suffered a major defeat, falling to 17 seats from 40. Ikeda's target had been on the mark and his hard work had borne fruit. The victorious Ikeda visited Yoshida Shigeru at Oiso. Sato and Masutani were there, and Sato asked Ikeda to allow him to form the next government. Ikeda told ltd that "I said I would . . . but I have no idea when I'm going to quit, do I? And I didn't put it in writing." Factional infighting began within the LDP and Ikeda, unfamiliar with party busi­ ness, became wrapped up in the internal scheming. In a special session of the Diet, Ishii withdrew himself as a candidate for speaker. Ono offered himself for the position, but a compromise was reached three days later in which Ikeda nominated Kiyose Ichiro and the JSP received the position of deputy speaker. A large 1.95 trillion yen budget was submitted when the Diet opened, a 24.4 percent increase over the initial budget from the previous year. There was a remarkable increase in spending on public works projects, especially road construction, and social security also saw a considerable increase for items such as increased welfare benefits. Natural increases in revenue were projected out to their fullest, as these were incorporated as revenue sources. Another electoral pledge advocated for in the doubling plan was the passing of the Agriculture Basic Act. Industry was often described as having a "two-tiered structure" (nijii kozo) at the time, with agriculture and smaller businesses being representative examples of those on the losing side of things. Ikeda established this law with the goal °f improving agricultural incomes, which was to be achieved through structural and distributive reforms. These included promoting indepen­ dent enterprises which could achieve salaries comparable to those of ur­ ban office workers and laborers solely through agriculture, and "selective

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expansion" (sentakuteki kakudai), the expansion of the production of agri­ cultural goods to meet regional requirements, or in response to societal demands. Deliberations over ratification of the ILO Convention and a bill reforming the two defense laws experienced difficulty, however, as did the agricultural law. These were passed by the Diet in a rough manner, without the JSP Diet members in attendance. Right wing terrorist acts were also regularly occurring at the time; the Asanuma incident was the most notable of these, but former Prime Minister Kishi was also attacked and wounded, and two were killed and wounded at the home of Chuo Koron's publisher in the Shimanaka Incident after the monthly journal ran the novel, Furyu Mutan.8 The Kishi, Sato, and right wing factions of the LDP put forward a bill for a law against political violence. Ikeda was amenable to the proposal, but the Socialists resisted and the Diet was surrounded by protests. Although the bill passed the House of Represen­ tatives, opposition from the LDP leadership prevented it from leaving the committee in the House of Councilors in what was a clear defeat for Ikeda. Ikeda visited Washington following the closing of the Diet session. He met with President John F. Kennedy aboard the presidential yacht and the two agreed to establish an annual Japan-U.S. joint committee of cabi­ net-level officials. In a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, he proudly stated that "this time I have not come to appeal for aid," a state­ ment that suggests how low Japan's reputation had been until then. He reorganized his cabinet immediately after returning to Japan. The new cabinet was filled with powerful individuals: the deprived Kono was appointed minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Sato became minis­ ter of International Trade and Industry, and Fujiyama, Miki Takeo, and Kawashima Shojiro were, respectively, made director general of the Eco­ nomic Planning Agency, Science and Technology Agency, and Adminis­ trative Management Agency. On the party side, Ono became vice presi­ dent, Maeo, secretary general, Akagi Munenori, General Council chair­ man, Tanaka Kakuei, Policy Affairs Research Council chairman, and Su­ zuki Zenko, chief deputy secretary general. With Maeo and Suzuki in important positions, Ikeda had established a party structure that he could be secure in. But good things could not last forever, and shadows began to be cast over the economy's growth. The previous year's wage-doubling boom had evoked an abnormal passion for capital spending from early 1961, and consumption also rapidly increased. Consumer prices increased by 5 percent over the year and the trade balance went into a significant deficit. The economy was clearly overheating and policies to restrain it were unavoidable. The official discount rate's daily interest was increased by 0.1 percent on July 22 and again on September 29. Stock prices (DoW Jones average) had surged to 1,829 yen by July 18 from a value of roughly 500 yen at the beginning of the year and then fallen to 1,315 yen by

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QCtober 19. Business credit became tight and a number of in-progress capital spending projects were put on hold. It seemed as if high speed growth had been stymied. The opposition parties seized this opportunity to attack the plan as having doubled prices rather than incomes. Economic Planning Agency director general Fujiyama also began arguing that stable economic growth was needed. Fukuda Takeo, who was close to Kishi and Sato and had been PARC chairman, criticized Ikeda's policies as creating a "Showa Genroku" 9 and began developing the movement to reform the party. Amid these unfavorable winds, Ikeda got closer to Kono, whom he had had difficulties with in the past. Joining with Kono, who had great politi­ cal power and audacious ideas, unavoidably meant making enemies of the Kishi and Sat5 factions. Ikeda toured Southeast Asia in November 1961. India's prime minis­ ter Jawaharlal Nehru met with Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and Gamal Abder Nasser of Egypt just before Ikeda's visit and made a statement about the urgent need for comprehensive arms reductions. When Ikeda explained why Japan was not going to become neutral, Nehru only re­ plied that it was natural for each country to take a position based upon its particular environment. When the second day of talks moved to econom­ ic issues and Nehru asked that Japan increase its imports of Indian cotton and sugar, however, Ikeda replied that the quality of Indian goods was poor and their prices high; that even touring an exemplary Indian agri­ cultural village would show it to be unmodern. He argued that India needed to increase its level of economic development and improve its international competitiveness. Although Nehru was judged to have had the better showing on the first day, Ikeda scored points on the second. In Burma, Ikeda spoke of what Japan had experienced since the Meiji Restoration. He said that a socialist system was not sufficient by itself, that it was necessary to stimulate the energy of the population and devel­ op industry. The Burmese government requested that Japanese experts be sent to reevaluate the country's four year economic plan. This was included in the leaders' joint statement. Ikeda was full of self-confidence in Southeast Asia, touting development based on free market principles and, at the same time, beginning to gain an understanding of summit diplomacy. The year 1962 was one of recession, and opposition to Ikeda's empha­ sis on high-speed growth became all the stronger. Ikeda understood this and shifted his emphasis to structural improvements for agriculture and small business rather than stubbornly sticking to the growth rate. Ikeda's two-year term as LDP president expired in July of that year. Sato and Fujiyama, both members of his cabinet, expressed an interest in running for the position but then dropped out a week before the formal Section. The result was a safe victory for Ikeda, who received 191 votes a8ainst 35 blank ballots, 37 invalid ballots, and 72 votes cast in protest.

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The cabinet reorganization that followed Ikeda's reelection was turbu­ lent. Sato, Fujiyama, and Miki departed, and Ohira and Tanaka Kakuei received the important positions of foreign and finance minister, respec­ tively. Kono and Kawashima remained, with Kono becoming minister of Construction and Kawashima becoming director general of the Adminis­ trative Management Agency. It is said that Tanaka received his position along Ohira as a reward for dissuading Sato from running for the LDP presidency. The Kishi, Sato, and Fujiyama factions became the LDP anti­ mainstream, opposing the mainstream of the Ikeda, Kdno, Ono, and Kawashima factions. This arrangement would persist through the re­ mainder of Ikeda's time in office. On September 2, the Soviet Union announced that it would provide Cuba with weapons and that it would be dispatching technical experts. Kennedy responded with a special statement in which he confirmed that the Soviets had provided Cuba with defensive missiles and warned that "the gravest issues would arise" if evidence of offensive capabilities be­ ing inserted into Cuba was found. He sought to have the NATO nations halt the transport of Soviet supplies to Cuba. Kennedy announced a na­ val blockade of Cuba on October 22 after offensive missiles were discov­ ered there. American ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer visited Ikeda's private residence on the following day and gave him a personal letter asking for his full support. Ikeda first gave the bureaucratic answer that Japan was able to act autonomously, based on the conventional practice of international trea­ ties. But he then added that "while international treaties and accepted practices are important, this seems to be a situation where they fall flat. I have to approve of Kennedy's thinking here. Please convey this policy to Ambassador Reischauer. I will have the Japanese government's state­ ment be written along these lines."10 Ikeda was forced to make a decision that could be connected to a third world war. The United Kingdom and France acted in the same way. Khrushchev notified Kennedy on the 28th that the offensive weapons would be dismantled and returned to the Soviet Union, reducing the threat of nuclear war. This situation placed a great strain on Ikeda, even though he played no more than a small role internationally. Ikeda departed on a trip to Europe in November during which he met with West Germany's chancellor Konrad Adenauer, France's prime min­ ister Georges Pompidou and President Charles de Gaulle, Britain's prime minister Harold MacMillan and Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home, European Economic Community president Walter Hallstein, and Italy's prime minister Amintore Fanfani. Ikeda expressed his inclination for Ja­ pan to form a close relationship with the EEC in the way it had with the United States and sought their support for Japanese entry to the Organ­ ization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Ikeda became aware from his first view of the EEC that "economics can become a weap­

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on of diplomacy," that before long economic union could lead to political union and the development of organizations that extended past bor­ ders.11 Ikeda was naturally cautious, to an excessive degree, when it came to the issues of Sino-Japanese and Korean-Japanese relations. Foreign Min­ iste r Ohira met in November with Kim Jong-pil, the head of the Korean C e n tr a l Intelligence Agency, and arranged for the payment of $300 mil­ lio n in compensation, $100 million in economic assistance, and a further p a y m e n t of $200 million, but this was rather suddenly not agreed to. LDP v ic e president Ono visited Korea in December to formally present this o ffe r, but circumstances on the Korean side prevented the settlement. As fo r Sino-Japanese relations, Ikeda wanted to separate politics from eco­ n o m ic s and expand Japanese trade with China, but he did not embark on th is, instead working hard on gaining American understanding. As was to b e expected, he was timid when it came to important diplomatic mat­ te rs.

The political situation in Japan after Ikeda's return from Europe was one of unrest, with the opposition parties clashing with the LDP over policy toward the coal industry, which was in crisis due to the energy revolution.12 The JSP used "cow-walking" tactics (a slow walk during voting to stall for time) against the government's bill and voices within the LDP opposing compromise became more strident. This situation con­ tinued through the end of the year. In 1963, Ikeda used the expression "people-building is the core of nation-building" in a policy address, and he launched a "Round-Table Conference on People-Building" in August to delve into "an image of humanity that we can rely on." Ikeda had argued during the April re­ gional elections that high-speed growth had created financial resources for education, public investment, and social welfare and that the spread of diligence, brain power, and education among the Japanese people had been the cause for the revival of the economy. He said that Japan had become one of the three pillars of the free world and was becoming a country trusted by the free world and respected by the communist world. The range of topics he used had become noticeably broader in scope. The restrictive financial measures of the previous year were rescinded and the business climate headed for recovery. A round table conference °n the issue of commodity prices was created do to their rise, and the Small and Medium Enterprises Basic Act was passed, following the earli­ er one on agriculture. The political issues for the year were designating the "new industrial cities," seeking a breakthrough in Korean-Japanese relations, joining the Partial Test Ban Treaty, and Ikeda's "people-building" policy. He took each on in turn and, apart from the Korean-Japanese issue, tentatively Settled them. The cabinet and LDP leadership were reorganized in July. LDP Secretary General Maeo, Foreign Minister Ohira, and Finance Minis­

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ter Tanaka remained in place and the reorganization was successful in bringing in the powerful, with Sato reentering the cabinet as director general of the Hokkaido Development Agency, Fujiyama becoming LDP General Council chairman, and Miki becoming PARC chairman. Ikeda toured Southeast Asia again in September. He met with Presi­ dent Sukarno of Indonesia for the primary purpose of discussing patch­ ing up relations with Britain and not getting close to China. British Prime Minister MacMillan had requested this of Ikeda the previous year when they met. Although Ikeda's efforts didn't bear fruit, the episode shows the improvement of Japan's international position. After returning home, Ikeda dissolved the Diet in an extraordinary session. As he campaigned across the country, Ikeda was tired; he was surrounded by workers when he visited Miike and his speeches were not at their usual level. Even so, the LDP won almost as many seats as they had in the prior election. Ikeda's position was secure. Kennedy was as­ sassinated on November 22, immediately after the Japanese election, and Ikeda hurriedly travelled to America. After returning to Japan, Ikeda told Ito he was "envious of Kennedy. Truman and Eisenhower are crestfal­ len." Kennedy had been the first American president to speak of "Europe and Japan." The government began a policy against rising prices in 1964, putting in place a one-year price freeze on the cost of public utilities. But even though the economic recovery was slow, the trade deficit once again went into deficit and more credit restraints had to be implemented on March 18. When Ambassador Reischauer was stabbed by a mentally dis­ turbed youth on March 24, Ikeda immediately used the opportunity to exchange messages (live to the United States) via satellite television and expressed his regrets. Ikeda met with General Council of Trade Unions Chairman Ota Kaoru and Secretary General Iwai Akira on April 16 be­ cause of the imminent half-day strike by the Council of Public Corpora­ tion and Government Enterprise Workers Unions, planned as the high­ light of that year's spring labor offensive, and only barely managed to settle things. With the Diet largely put in order, the coming LDP presidential elec­ tion was the pressing concern. Ono, one of Ikeda's most important sup­ porters, died in May. Sato spoke with Ikeda over the phone and asked that he "give up [the leadership] via conversation," but Ikeda refused, saying that he couldn't "criticize [his] administration." Sato and Fujiyama decided to run as candidates. Supporting Ikeda were the Kono, Kawashima, former Ono, and Miki factions in addition to his own. He was op­ posed by the Kishi/Fukuda, Sato, Fujiyama, and Ishii factions. Ikeda had an edge in terms of numbers, but there were Sato supporters hidden among the groups supporting him, so he tried to convince each member individually. The election was held on July 10 amidst increasing antago­ nism between the two camps. The results were Ikeda 242 votes, Sato 160,

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13 7

and Fujiyama 72. Ikeda only just barely won his third term, securing a majority by just 4 votes. Ikeda's voice had always been gruff, but it became increasingly hoarse from the beginning of 1964. Although uneasy about his health, Ikeda assembled the ministers and top officials of each ministry and held a tenday long study on correcting perceived "distortions" in the finally bois­ terous Japanese economy. Ikeda listened well to all that was said and showed that he was able to understand it fully. Ikeda campaigned in Kumamoto and Hiroshima with the cabinet in August. The general meeting of the International Monetary Fund opened on September 7 in Tokyo. Ikeda greeted each country's finance ministers and central bankers, then gave a speech as the host nation's prime minis­ ter. He was admitted to a cancer center to begin receiving radiation treat­ ments on September 9, just after this spotlight moment. Although his family and associates knew that he had cancer of the throat, Ikeda him­ self was told that his condition was precancerous; this is what was pub­ licly announced. He left the hospital on October 10 and attended the opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics in what would be his last public role. Ikeda wanted to continue as prime minister even as he real­ ized the seriousness of his illness. He wanted to modernize agriculture and small business, attend the United Nations General Assembly meet­ ing in December, and prepare the budget for the coming year. He ulti­ mately decided to resign, however. On October 25, the day after the Olympics' closing ceremony, he gave his resignation verbally. LDP Vice President Kawashima and Secretary General Miki coordi­ nated opinion within the party over the succession. The candidates were Sato, Kono, and Fujiyama. Ikeda named Sato on November 9 on the advice of Kawashima and Miki. Sato had been a friend since high school and had Yoshida's recommendation. Ikeda went along with the choice due to these connections and the general feeling within the party. Ikeda was briefly healthy after leaving the hospital. National Cancer Center Director Kurume Masaru pronounced him to be in full health in March 1965, and Ikeda attended a celebration held by business figures where he gave a fifteen-minute speech in which he said he wanted to be a 'good former prime minister." Kono Ichiro died suddenly on July 7. Ikeda attended the wake where he told Shigemasa Seishi of the Kono faction that it was unfortunate that Kono had died before Ikeda could repay him for all that he had done for him. Ikeda said that if there was anything he could do he would, and to come talk to him. He felt an obligation toward Kono until the very end. In July, the cancer had reappeared. He entered Tokyo University HosP'tal on July 29, a day after arranging his youngest daughter's engage­ ment gifts. He had a tracheotomy and lost the use of his voice. He under­ went a major operation on August 4 to remove all of the affected areas but died on August 13 of postoperative pneumonia. He was sixty-five.

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Ikeda Hayato was a man who had been much blessed as a politician. He became prime minister as postwar Japan rose, touting his "doubling plan," and completely changed the atmosphere in the country following the fight over the security treaty. He took charge of the government dur­ ing the peak of postwar Japan's economic development and achieved his ambitions to a significant degree. He developed the novel approach o f moving the rapid development of the economy into the center of Japa­ nese politics, something that the prime ministers that preceded him had not done, and was successful in this. The Japanese economy grew like a storm from the 1960s to early 1970s and the nation's industrial structure, corporate management, and the livelihood of the people all changed to a visible degree. Although those changes should be seen as an eruption o f the energy intrinsic to the Japanese economy, Ikeda's policies accommo­ dated the needs of the time. Those close to Ikeda all said that same thing: "People who continue to grow the way Ikeda did, both as a person and a politician, are rare. The way that he grew from before taking office, to serving as prime minister, to his final years was eye-opening" (Masutani). "If you compare the first and second halves [of his time in office], his skill, competence, and pres­ ence as prime minister all progressed to a higher level" (Kawashima). Ikeda's unique characteristic was that he was able to progress appropri­ ately as he rose in position. When he was a bureaucrat, "although it was thought that he'd prob­ ably not advance after he went from section chief to regional bureau chief, he then became a bureau chief in the home office. Many men his age were purged after the war, but since Ikeda's advancement had been slowed due to his illness, he was chosen from among the few 'survivors' to become vice minister. At that time, some of those he had preceded him questioned 'whether Ikeda can do it,' something that had also happened when he became a bureau chief in the home office. But each time, he mysteriously displayed enough competence that people thought better of him. After he entered the world of politics, he passed the tests put before him as finance minister and LDP secretary general; as prime minister he did such good work as to have earned his place in history." There were the words of Miyazawa, one of those closest to Ikeda.13 Hamaguchi Osachi, who had begun in the Ministry of Finance many years before Ikeda, was a prime minister a lot like him. His advancement as a bureaucrat was slow, but he entered politics and became prime min­ ister in 1929. He had unflagging determination and wrestled with the difficult issues of naval limitations and lifting the gold embargo. Al­ though a famous prime minister, he was assassinated after only a year. Ikeda led Japan's economic development and internationalization w it h the same unflagging approach. Since Ikeda was blessed with a m u c h better situation than Hamaguchi, he maintained his government for four years and was able to reap the results of his own policies. Neither man

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vvas an outstanding genius; instead, they were hard workers. They are the same in that both overcame hurdles one by one to rise to the highest office and risked their lives to fulfill their duty. NOTES 1. Ito M asaya, Ikeda Hayato: Sono Set to Shi (Ikeda H ayato : H is Life and D eath), (Tokyo: Shiseido, 1967). L ater republished as Ikeda Hayato to Sono Jidai (Ikeda H ayato and His E ra), (Tokyo: A sahi Shim bun, 1985). 2. M atsu u ra Shutaro and Shiga Kenjiro, Ikeda Hayato Sensei o Shinobu (C o m ­ m em orating Ikeda H ay ato ), (Tokyo: 1967). 3. For a detailed stud y of this, see R obert D. Eld ridge and A y ak o K usunoki, "T o Base or N ot to Base? Y o sh id a Shigeru, the 1950 Ikeda M ission, and Post-T reaty Jap a­ nese Security C o n cep tio n s," Kobe University Law Review, Vol. 33 (1999), 9 7 -1 2 6 . 4. The ab ove three Ikeda quotes are all from Shioguchi Kiichi, Kikigaki Ikeda Hayato (Account of Ikeda H a y a to ), (Tokyo: A sahi Shim bun, 1975) ch ap ter 8. 5. Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan u ary 3 ,1 9 5 9 . 6. Ito, Ikeda Hayato, 88. 7. Ito, Ikeda Hayato, 91. 8. The novel, w h o se title tran slates as "T h e Story of a D ream of C o u rtly E leg an ce," was a sto ry ab ou t the d re a m of the n a rra to r in w hich leftists took o v er the Im perial Palace and b ehead ed the C row n P rince A kihito and P rincess M ichiko (the cu rren t em peror and em p ress) of Jap an before a delighted crow d . The publication of this story in late 1960 infuriated the Im perial H ou seh old A g en cy and su p p o rters throu ghou t Japan. On Feb ru ary 1, 1961, a right w in g teenager broke into S him anaka's h om e and killed his m aid and severely injured his w ife. The au th or, Fu k azaw a ShichirS, subse­ quently w en t into hiding, su g gested that w riting about the Im perial fam ily becam e more taboo. 9. G enroku w as the n am e of an era in the late seven teen th cen tu ry m ark ed b y high inflation 10. Ito, Ikeda Hayato, 108. 11. Ito, Ikeda Hayato, 111. 12. A m o v em en t to w a rd u sin g gas an d oil rath er than coal. 13. The three ab ove quotes are fro m Ikeda Hayato Sensei o Shinobu.

TEN Sato Eisaku The Truth about the Politics of Waiting" Kosaka Masataka

At the youthful age of forty-seven, Sato Eisaku became on October 17, 1948, the chief cabinet secretary in the second cabinet of Yoshida Shigeru. That nomination was for him not only the first, but also the most deci­ sive, selection. This is because Yoshida's choosing of Sato propelled him into the political world, allowed him, as secretary general of the Liberal Party, to become one of the main pillars of support for the Yoshida cabi­ nets, and opened the road for him to become prime minister as one of the elite graduates of the so-called Yoshida School. In fact, by today's standards youth was not a correct way to choose. At that time, life expectancy was much shorter than it is today. Moreover, purges were taking place in the political, bureaucratic, and financial worlds, as well as that of the press. Because of this, many leaders came all °f a sudden from the younger ranks. In looking at Sato's case as well, he found himself as the head of the Osaka Railroad at the end of the war. Becoming director general of the Railway Division of the Ministry of Transportation in February 1946, Sato was promoted to vice minister one year later. At the time, becoming chief of a provincial railroad after havlng been a chief at the head office would have been seen as a demotion and perhaps the last position for that person. But that did not happen due f° purges of one's seniors and general confusion that followed the aftermath of defeat in 1945. Genji Keita describes this situation with a light touch in a novel that later became quite famous, Santo juyaku (Third Class Executive). 141

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However, even the "third classers," if they became directors or execu­ tives, did not have an easy going. Violent periods of transition have the effect of sifting out people. Those without ability or luck are eliminated while a few ascend. Sato, who had become director general of the Rail­ way Division, earned Yoshida's trust in his handling of the violent rail­ way disputes at the time. Sato was first put to the test from February 25-26, almost immediately after taking up his post. In the middle of a conflict between the "moderates" and the communists in the National Railways Union over what type of union to make, the communists an­ nounced a "safe driving campaign" and proceeded to drive the trains slowly around the city, paralyzing the capital and creating mass confu­ sion—to the point that some of the passengers resorted to violence. The situation required of course the firing of all those involved, but the exces­ siveness of the labor union was overlooked. However, Sato pressed for­ ward and suspended the top three labor leaders. At the same time, he had the director of the Tokyo Railway take responsibility by resigning and reprimanded six executives. Years later Sato wrote, "these drastic measures were a warning to labor unions who were quite possibly get­ ting out of control, and thus at the time were probably highly praised."1 At this time, Sato did not just suddenly perform well. The labor union brought the case before the Central Labor Committee to have the order punishing the three leaders cancelled. Their case went into deliberations and it did not look good for the management of the railways. At this point, Sato had Matsuoka Komakichi and Nishio Suehiro, Japan Federa­ tion of Labor union leaders who were also members of the Central Labor Committee, convince the committee to accept the punishment. When Sato had been director of Osaka Railways, he and Nishio had developed a friendship and Nishio had high praise for Sato. In fact, when Nishio became chief cabinet secretary in the Katayama Tetsu cabinet, Nishio had asked that Sato be appointed deputy chief, and after that as well the two continued a long friendship. However, while Sato was polite about Nishio's request, he turned down it flatly in the end. Sato may have judged that a Socialist govern­ ment could not do a particularly good job due to the makeup of the party. Moreover, Yoshida already by this time had high hopes in Sato. The general strike scheduled for February 1,1947, was to be the high point of the radical political labor unions in the postwar, and although the unrest was temporarily calmed by MacArthur's having order its cancellation, Yoshida watched Sato's handling of the railways disturbances and prob­ ably gave him high marks. Around this time, Yoshida was reshuffling the cabinet and thought of making Sato the minister for Transportation. However, Sato's older brother, Kishi Nobusuke, was being held as a war criminal and as a relative was barred by GHQ from becoming a minister. Yoshida then called Sato to the Prime Minister's Residence and after explaining the situation to him, told him that he would make him vice

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minister, thereby fulfilling his obligation. At this point, it is very likely that Sato felt that he could entrust his future to Yoshida. In this process, the commendations of Matsuno Tsuruhei, one of the leaders of the Liberal Party, to Yoshida were very important and unmis­ takably was the start of Yoshida's paying attention to Sato. Matsuno him­ self first became aware of Sato at the time the former was minister for Railways in 1940 when the "Subway Problem" occurred (discussed be­ low). When the Katayama cabinet was formed in May 1947, Yoshida gathered the top members of the bureaucracy, including Ikeda Hayato and Hashimoto Ryogo, both from the Finance Ministry, Ohashi Takeo from the Home Ministry, and Sato to act as Yoshida's "brain group" to formulate policy. These men would support the Yoshida cabinet and become the leading graduates of the "Yoshida School." In this way, Sato's becoming chief cabinet secretary was not then a sudden happening, as Miyazaki Yoshimasa, an associate of Satd, has written.2 In any case, it was clearly an unusual choice, as was seen in the strong resistance that such a move encountered from long-time veteran politicians Ono Banboku and Hirokawa Kozen, who opposed the young bureaucrats on the way up.3 To be named transportation minister was understandable to some degree—Sato's name was known there. Howev­ er, Yoshida's choosing Sato, who had never served in the Diet, as cabinet secretary was found hard to understand by veteran politicians. Yoshida was well-known for making his own choices and decisions regarding personnel appointments and this was particularly true in the early post­ war period. Such leadership was important in finding and developing talent in others, and is understandable if one thinks of the expression used in England, "favoritism was a way to develop people." However, in Sato's case, this personnel decision was different. It is likely that in choosing Sato, Yoshida was attempting to remake the Liberal Party in his own image by bringing in new people. That need was made quite clear immediately before the formation of the second Yoshida cabinet due to a plot to make Yamazaki Takeshi prime minister. This incident was planned by the Government Section of GHQ in order to prevent Yoshida, whom they saw as a "reactionary," from gaining con­ trol of the government after the Ashida Hitoshi cabinet had to resign following the Showa Denko scandal. The Government Section had a group from the Democratic Liberal Party (formerly the Liberals) nominate Sec­ retary General Yamazaki as prime minister, and sought to have the Dem­ ocratic Liberals and a group from the Socialist Party to vote for Yamaza­ ki. From the principle of party politics, this was a completely reckless ftrove by the Government Section. However, the people in this section Were New Deal reformers who probably viewed their reforms as "good" and people who held different views were "bad." As the famous phrase attributed to Lord Acton goes, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power

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corrupts absolutely." Yet, because the power of the occupation army was in fact almighty, many in the political world, including Yoshida's own Democratic Liberal Party, felt that because it would be impossible to gain control of the government again under Yoshida he should be pushed aside—an idea known as the Minjito Dappiron, or "shedding of the Demo­ cratic Liberal Party." Within the Democratic Party, likewise, there was a strong desire to continue as the governing party which led the party to support Yamazaki for the premiership under a "coalition for rebuilding the country (kyokoku renritsu seikeri)."4 If this plot were to have succeeded (it did not—Yoshida was chosen premier again in a minority cabinet), there probably would have been an unpleasant feeling in the Japanese political world that would not have been easily shed. Moreover, if GHQ had interfered to that extent in Japa­ nese politics, the political world would become more and more con­ trolled from outside and would invite criticism of the occupation army by the people. Fortunately, the leadership of the Democratic Liberal Party forced Yamazaki's resignation as a Diet member and as a result he was no long­ er eligible in the vote thus ending the incident. In the process, there is no doubt that many were involved but probably what really prevented this plot from succeeding was the role of vice secretary general of the Demo­ cratic Party, Hori Shigeru, and Suzuki Mosaburo of the Socialist Party, who showed the will to move into the opposition rather than allow the rules of party politics to be violated.5 Along with this, the movements of the leadership of the Democratic Liberal Party was important and it seems that Sato and others whom Yoshida had gathered as his advisors also worked hard to prevent the plot from succeeding. Sato later spoke often and in detail about the so-called Yamazaki Takeshi Incident, con­ sidering it the most important incident of the occupation period as well as being a time of great trial. Welcomed as president of the Liberal Party due to the purging of Hatoyma Ichiro, Yoshida did not possess a base of support. Feeling the need to develop such a base, Yoshida set about gathering his brain-group of advisors and the like. At the time of the formation of his second cabi­ net, Yoshida had the will to go ahead and form his government, with the hard-working Sato as chief cabinet secretary. In fact, less than two months after coming to power again, Yoshida dissolved the Lower House and called elections for January 23, 1949. In this general election, Yoshi­ da's party took 264 seats out of a total of 466, making his the first govern­ ment in the postwar to have an absolute majority. What is equally aston­ ishing was that there were 131 first-time candidates (with only 25 from the prewar and wartime period) elected. Yoshida's restructuring of the Democratic Liberal Party turned out to be a great success, which goes to show that in personnel matters, the will and ideas of the leader are of vital importance.

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In any case, for Sato, his being chosen as cabinet secretary was a great Sato's wife, Hiroko, recalled that "the state of excitement in our h o u s e at that time was unbelievable. More than anything, we had no idea w h a t the job of the chief cabinet secretary entailed. Our children and our secretary could not sleep they were so excited knowing that it was an important post."6 Sato's family's reaction is quite understandable. Until the end of the war, Sato was sort of slow and did not stand out that much. In the first place, Eisaku compared unfavorably to his oldest brother, Ichiro, a vice admiral in the Imperial Navy, and his second oldest brother, Nobusuke, would become prime minister from 1957 to 1960. "In looking back at our childhood," Hiroko (their cousin) wrote, "it was Nobusuke, rather than Eisaku, who left us with the stronger impression. When Nobusuke was a student in the First High School and Eisaku was in Yamaguchi Middle School, Nobusuke was very popular among his female relatives. When he came back in his school uniform with the school's emblem of an oak tree leaf on his cap, the girls could not resist gathering around him. He was interesting, and active. In today's parlance, he was 'cool.' His stories about Tokyo were very interesting. Even when we knew he must be exaggerating, we still were charmed and listened. In contrast, Eisaku paid no attention to the girls and was not aware whatsoever of what they were interested in. He would go off on his own to pick mushrooms in the mountains or catch eels in the river. He was actually very good at catch­ ing eels, and would split them and cook them himself." 7 Sato continued to be kind of slow after entering the Ministry of Rail­ ways. For nearly ten years, from the time he received his appointment in May 1925 until he was sent abroad to England and the United States for training in 1934, Sato worked outside of the capital in different parts of the country. Even as his colleagues were brought back to the home office in Tokyo, he continued to work in the countryside. Sato's style of politics during his time as prime minister being called "the politics of waiting," or machi no seiji, can probably be traced, without mistake, to the first half of his life. Sato himself had to wait. However overemphasizing this aspect is a mistake bordering on mythology, being pregnant with the danger of misreading the characteristics of his "politics °f waiting." That is to say that despite his working in the countryside for ten years, then sent for training abroad for another two, after returning to Japan, Sato became a person known as "the three-step jumping Eisaku," °r sandan tobi no Eisaku. In other words, after becoming the chief of the Railways Section of the Control Bureau of the Ministry in 1938, Sato became chief of the General Affairs Section in 1940 and the director of the Control Bureau in 1941. Sato's good fortune continued in 1943 when he became the director for Automobiles in the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications. s e l e c t io n .

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Hiroko explained his success in the following way. "Well, there were probably different reasons, but I really think that it was due to the vice minister of railways, Suzuki Kiyohide, having taken a special liking to him."8 In addition to this, Hiroko noted that Sato never tried to seek promotion or change jobs while he was working outside of Tokyo, nor when he was on his rise did he have any special contacts with his super­ visors. Sato believed that his superiors should see his true working ability and that until they had a good understanding of his reliability, he did not want to do anything to undermine their confidence. He often said that trying to seize a chance on the first try was not good. If it was truly a good thing, the chance would come again. These words were the same as the great shogi player, Oyama Yasuharu. In other words, opportunities should not be forced. If chances are prematurely grabbed at, they may not produce much success. It is truly interesting to note that both of these men held records at roughly the same time in their respective fields, Sato as the prime minister longest in office and Oyama as the longest leading shogi champion. The story from the time when Sato was chief of the Railways Section, where his rapid rise began, shows his fundamental philosophy and be­ havior pattern. One of the problems that Sato handled, as was mentioned above, was the "Subway Problem." In 1934, Hayakawa Tokuji, president of the Tokyo Subway Company, opened an eight-kilometer route from Ueno to Shinbashima. Resisting this was the Tokyo-Yokohama Rail Line's Goto Keita, who also controlled the Tokyo High Speed Railways Company, which had opened a 6.3-kilometer line from Shibuya to Shin­ bashima. Obviously, this would be convenient for them, but the rivalry between these two men led them to fight over using each other's tracks, taking more than seven months before reaching an agreement for mutual use. Due to this experience, Goto decided that he would buy the Tokyo Subway Company, eventually succeeding in getting more than one-third of the stock. However, the Tokyo Subway Company fought back and in the spring of 1940, broke with Goto's company and planned to hold a stockholders' meeting. On top of this, the employees of the Tokyo Sub­ way Company stood up to protest how easily the stocks were acquired and voiced their opposition to the merger itself. While this all involved the privately-owned companies, it was in fact a problem that the Rail­ ways Ministry could not avoid. It would be Sato's job, as the official responsible for railways, to handle this problem. However, the problem was much more complicated because of the support that each of these companies had from the political and f i n a n c i a l worlds —in Tokyo Subway Company's case was the Bank of Japan governor Yuki Toyotaro, and supporting the Tokyo High Speed Railways Company was the very politically influential Kuhara Fusanosuke, who had become president of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party

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jn 1939. At the time, Sato held a strong aversion to a company or an individual gaining control of a public enterprise such as a subway line through the acquisition of stocks. However, Sato also realized that he could not demand the management rights to a company that was legiti­ mately earning income from stocks based on commercial law. Facing p r e s s u r e from both parties, Sato established an arbitration committee, as is described in the following passage: In p a rt, u n d e r th e in stru ctio n s o f V ice M in ister K ian K enjiro, H o n o ra r y C h a irm a n o f th e T o k y o C h a m b e r of C o m m e rc e H a tta Y o sh ia k i a n d G o v e rn o r o f th e In d u stria l B an k of Ja p a n H o ra i Ic h im a tsu , a n d P re s i­ d e n t o f th e O d a k y u R a ilw a y C o m p a n y T o sh im itsu T s u r u m a ts u w e re a sk e d to b e c o m e m e m b e rs o f th e co m m itte e . H o r a i's h e a rin g w a s b ad , so K a w a k a m i K o ich i, w h o w a s s e rv in g as th e v ic e g o v e rn o r o f th e b an k a n d w o u ld s u cce e d H o r a i in 1 9 4 0 , w a s ask ed to a tte n d an d assist h im in th e m e e tin g s. T h is w a s a b it o f a p e rfo rm a n c e , b u t K a w a k a m i w a s a c la s s m a te o f K ian an d G o to fro m T o k y o Im p e ria l U n iv e rs ity . H e w a s a sk e d to c o n v in c e G o to to c o o p e ra te w ith th e a rb itra tio n co m m itte e . S ato b e lie v e d it w o u ld b e im p ro p e r to b u y u p th e sto ck a n d seize m a n a g e m e n t c o n tro l a n d d id n o t th in k c o m m e rc ia l la w w o u ld p e rm it su ch c o n tro l. In ste a d , h e s o u g h t to g a in H a y a k a w a 's u n d e rsta n d in g . A fte r a c o o lin g o ff p e rio d , S ato h im se lf s u b m itte d a p ro p o s a l o n Ju ly 17, w h ich b o th p a rtie s a c c e p te d o n A u g u s t 13. H a y a k a w a s te p p e d d o w n as d ire c to r o f th e s u b w a y c o m p a n y , an d G o to fro m th e h ig h s p e e d ra il­ w a y s c o m p a n y . N a k a jim a K u a k ich i b e c a m e p re sid e n t o f th e s u b w a y co m p a n y a n d H a y a k a w a s e r v e d as an a d v i s o r .9

Sato's actions at this time clearly indicated the type of person he was as well as of course his philosophy. First of all, he did not cave in to pressure. Although Kuhara went so far as to suggest the dismissal of Transportation Minister Matsuno Tsuruhei, Sato did not give in. It was Sato's strength that had first led Matsuno to evaluate him highly. Next, Sato's desire to preserve order in a time of crisis is something that de­ serves attention. Sato recognized both the importance of a public enter­ prise as well as the legitimate commercial actions of the companies in­ volved, and between these two clashing priorities—public and private— he sought to find a moderate solution. Thirdly, Sato's stance of consider­ ing measures to solve problems by including personnel matters, as seen in having Hayakawa and Goto removed from positions of responsibility (as well as in the careful consideration of Hayakawa's treatment), was also very important. Business problems cannot be solved if personnel issues are not taken into consideration; the same is true in other areas as 'veil. The essence of what Sato would come to be called, Jinji no Sato, or Sato, Who Was Good at Personnel Matters," was already formed by this Point. Finally, it can be added, Sato's having the shared feeling of being "on the job" with workers like those of the Tokyo Subway Company was also

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very important. Indeed, this sense was probably the most important thing that Sato received during his time in the Railway Ministry. While probably greatly different today in the age of high-tech and high speed computers, years ago the human trust that existed between the site and the controllers was vital for the running of the railways. In order to run the railways, detailed, strict rules are necessary, but just by going by the books did not mean that trains always run on time. As seen in the "drive slow" campaign discussed above, when safety standards are obeyed too carefully, the trains are often driven quite slowly. Later in Japan there would be the junpo toso, or "go slow strike," which had its origins in England. There, the trains were driven according to the manual with the purpose of making them late. On the other hand, safety rules were not carefully obeyed—only the very important rules that should be followed for certain were, with the others being only lightly handled, but the result was that the trains were running normally. In other words, a trusting relationship was essential. The National Railways being viewed as one big family was because of this, which Sato of course knew. Thus, at the time of the successive labor disturbances, if Sato emerged, then the prob­ lem would be solved.10 In other words, with the coming of a superior he could respect, who kept his eye on him, Sato, working hard, did not push or act in a hurry for a job of true value. When he did find himself in such a position, he did not lose heart in a difficult situation, did not give in to pressure, and was a responsible person. On the other hand, if those conditions did not exist, someone like Sato, who did not try to seize chances, would find himself at a disadvantage. Perhaps, after his quick rise when he was sent to be the director of the Osaka Railways Bureau—which was seen as a demotion— was because of this indifference to seizing chances. A similar situation occurred later when after his time as chief cabinet secretary, chairman of policy affairs for the party, and secretary general, and later when he was criticized in the shipping scandal, Sato had the chance to join a new party but elected not to, joining Yoshida and Hashimoto Tomisaburo as independents. At the time Sato decided upon this, he and his wife went to see Yoshida at his home in Oiso, where Yoshida told Hiroko that he "was going to follow her husband's lead." It is not hard to believe that Sat5 had earned Yoshida's deep respect. Sato had to wait for one more thing before he became prime minister. That was Ikeda Hayato's becoming premier before him. Looking at the atmosphere at the time, that was the natural order. In many ways it was also the best order. Both Ikeda and Sat5 each had their special strengths which they were able to make good use of, making it possible for Japan to have the Golden Years of the 1960s. Sato probably did not possess the ability that Ikeda had to direct economic growth as a popular, national goal. However, once economic growth got on track and people became

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aVvare to view that as normal and to look at the downsides, Sato was better able to handle such a situation. The seven years and eight months of the Sato administration was in fact a difficult period for politics. That was because great changes were taking place both inside and outside of Japan. Immediately after the first gato cabinet came into being in late 1964, a recession set in but by the end 0f 1965, an economic boom known as the Izanagi Keiki happened that lasted until 1970. The 1960s overall were a period of rapid economic growth and led to the stability of the two administrations of the Liberal Democratic Party. However, large fundamental changes could not be cleaned up that easily. Today, looking at various statistics from that tenyear period, one cannot help but get the impression that Japan of I960 was a different country. By 1975, Japan came to look like the country we are familiar with, but at the start of the 1960s, things were much different. In 1960 for example, there were only five hundred thousand privately owned automobiles, but by 1975 that number had leaped to three million. Likewise, today, telephones are everywhere and possessed by us all; however, in I960 only three million were in the homes. The number of university students, too, was quite few. In 1960, five hundred thousand were attending col­ leges and universities; by 1975 that number had jumped to 1.7 million, not much different from today's numbers of two million plus. If one looked at a chart for the 1960s it would be quite clear; growth was not just steady, it skyrocketed and the rate of change was equally large.11 Popula­ tion changes were also great. According to one researcher who looked at the changes in the population for a twenty-year period from 1955 to 1975, more than one-third of the entire population, in other words an outstand­ ing thirty-seven million people, moved from the countryside to the in­ dustrial-city belt along the Pacific Ocean.12 The 1960s turned Japan into a different country. All of this thrust new tasks into the political arena, forcing changes in the way politics was conducted. This was seen most clearly in the changes in the population structure. With the decrease in the farming population, the traditional support base of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the support rate for the LDP decreased. One LDP leader, Ishida Hirohide, pointed out this trend as early as 1963 and argued that the LDP had to make changes.13 In the first general elections held under the Sato administration in January 1967, the LDP took only 49.5 percent of the v°te, a loss of 5.2 percentage points compared to the previous elections held in 1963. The LDP found itself in a particularly difficult situation in the cities. In the 1965 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections, the Saciallst Party took over as the largest party. This was followed by a loss in the 1967 Tokyo gubernatorial election to Minobe Ryokichi, the cancidate sponsored by Socialist and Communist parties, and the defeat in the 1971 Osaka Prefecture gubernatorial election to a progressive candidate. The

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only time that Sato's LDP won in a major election was the general elec­ tions held in December 1969, following the successful conclusion to the negotiations for the return of Okinawa.14 This was a situation in the larger shift toward a multiparty system in which the Socialists lost, and the LDP lost slightly in overall percentage of votes attained. It was not that Sato did not recognize the need to respond to the great changes brought about by the rapid economic growth. In trying to take over control of the government during the Ikeda administration, the cen­ ter of Sato's policy platform was "Social Development." Sato felt that downside of the rapid economic growth being pursued was the large distortions it was causing in society. Considering Japan's economic vul­ nerability in the past, pursuing policies of "production-first" to an ex­ treme was almost unavoidable. However, Satd pointed out that economic growth without humanism was becoming the result and thus he argued that when thinking of the future "a balance had to be struck between economic development and social development."15 Sato's platform, "social development," was announced during the party presidential elections in 1964 when Sato was running against Ikeda. This program was in fact prepared by the "Sato Machine," headed by the former Sankei Shimbun reporter Kusuda Minoru, who later became the private secretary to Sato when he was prime minister, and other news­ paper men, as well as Aichi Kiichi, who acted as a pipe between the group and Sato's faction.16 Based on a reading of Senda Hisashi's Sato Naikaku no Kaiso (Reflections of the Sato cabinet), it seems that the group decided not to place constitutional revision on the administration's agen­ da but rather focussed their discussions instead on issues that would be more practical to the future administration like "Social Development" and understanding the international situation. "Social Development" was in fact an issue that many people were becoming more aware of, such as Miyazawa Kiichi, later prime minister, of the Ikeda faction. When Sato announced his platform, it is said that members of Ikeda's staff were so upset that Sato had announced it before them, they kicked the floor in frustration. When Sato became prime minister, he immediately began to turn his platform into policy, setting up in February 1965 a "Social Development Roundtable Discussion Group," as sort of a private advisory council. The work of the group proceeded quickly: in July that year, the group submit­ ted its interim report, and on December 1, the final report was handed in. However, the report did not influence public opinion in the least and after a while it was soon forgotten. There were probably two reasons for this. One was that the group, being made up of large number (sixtythree) of leaders from numerous fields, was unable to come up with bold policy initiatives and ended up producing only general, safe, low-key suggestions. Moreover, the timing was probably inappropriate: immedi­ ately after the first Sato cabinet came into being, the Japanese economy

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went into a recession and it was not until the report was being finished that the economy started to show signs of recovery. However, "Personnel Sato" had to have understood that such a large roundtable probably would not gain good results. When he wanted to realize something such as the reversion of Okinawa, Sato did not form such a large unwieldy group. Perhaps Sato did not have control of the bureaucracy at this point. In any case, it seems that Sato did not possess a link between his group of advisors and the bureaucracy. Thus, round­ tables, normally made up of a well-qualified staff, would be there to develop important policies. Yet, the most important reason for the failure of "Social Develop­ ment" probably was that the future course and timing were unclear. Economic growth greatly changes society. However, what are the changes, and in what ways and to what degree do these changes take place are questions whose answers are hard to know until well after the growth has been occurring. Many people realize that with population movements and urbanization the problem of housing becomes signifi­ cant. The roundtable group, too, argued that housing policies should take precedence in the report. But economic growth in itself can also better the housing situation: the size of an average house in 1958 was 4.64 tatami mats, but by 1973 had grown to 6.52 mats. The problem had more to do with the wide living spaces, which is related to city planning. With a large number of people moving quickly into the city areas, plus the rapid growth of the automobile society, it is nearly impossible to plan the type of city that should exist. Looking back, it is easy to say that more train lines should have been built, that parking facilities should have been made near train stations, that roads should have been improved in between the stations and homes. However, in the age when it was normal that people traveled to work by trains and walked to and from the stations, who ever would have thought that such things would have been necessary to incorporate into city planning. Moreover, there were technical problems involved as well. Likewise, envisioning new technology was also difficult. There is no doubt that environmental problems were beginning to be recognized. However, the people were absorbed in economic development and no one seemed cer­ tain as to how to balance economic growth with the rules to do away with pollution. Prime Minister Sato placed the creation of a Basic Pollu­ tion Law as a policy goal early on. In 1961 in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, the cases of asthma-related illnesses rapidly increased and local residents started protesting the industries in the area. Likewise in the cities of hiumazu and Mishima, and the town of Kiyomizu, all in Shizuoka Prefec­ ture, protests by local residents against the building of an oil refinery Vv'ent on from 1963 to 1964, eventually preventing its construction. In any case, that many people believed that it was necessary to pursue growth when possible was a natural occurrence of society. Thus, the

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contents of the Basic Pollution Measures Law, passed in 1967, called for protecting the living environment while "being in harmony with healthy development," which limited any chance that strong measures would be taken. No records seem to indicate that public opinion was upset by this. Everyone it seems viewed economic growth as more important. It was not until May 1970 before Sato finally put his energy into pollu­ tion-related problems when he established the Central Pollution Meas­ ures Headquarters. In November of that year, many pollution laws were submitted and in July 1971, the Environmental Agency was established. One of the results was the world's strictest standards for automobile emissions, which also had the effect of greatly improving the quality of the automobile industry as a whole and securing for Japan a large posi­ tion in the world market. However, even at that time, it was hard to make manufacturers comply with the standards, and officials from the industry felt that the extremely harsh conditions were forced upon them. If Sato was someone who had a great imagination then it might have been possible to also conceive a sort of "Grand Design" that would cut down on pollution while increasing the quality of the Japanese economy thereby allowing Japan to take a leading position in world. However, Sato did not possess that ability. Probably the only ones who could have envisioned such a design were non-political romanticists. Therefore, at the time the social development discussion group was continuing with its not very meaningful work, the Sato cabinet was steadily making progress in dealing with its pending questions. Firstly, the Japanese government normalized relations with the Park Chung Hee administration in South Korea in February 1965, followed shortly after that by the passage in May of revisions in national and regional public labor laws in order to allow for Japan's ratification of Convention 87 of the International Labor Organization (namely, the freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize) on June 14 that year (an agreement first signed in 1948 and which went into effective in 1950). While passage of both votes on the related legislation and treaty was forced, the Sato cabinet was able to finally solve the problems that Ikeda, while having made preparations toward, had avoided in the end. As economic historian Nakamura Takahide has noted, "Sato's ability to take care of pending matters in a business-like approach is something that should be paid attention to."17 Indeed, Nakamura's indication was quite true. It is likely that at this time Sato was reminded that he was in fact the prime minister. As the above has shown, Sato was not one who envisioned striking, brilliant platforms or grand designs, but rather was a politician who ex­ celled in solving problems when the time was ripe. In this sense, Sato's style of politics was indeed "the politics of waiting." However, when "Social Development," which had been planned ahead of time, was not able to motivate people, Sato felt that something

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else was necessary. While "Social Development" was indeed necessary, Sato seems to have realized that a concrete image did not come to mind for him. In the end, Sato was the type of person that did not try to force chances to happen, preferring instead to wait them out. The latter half of the 1960s was also a difficult period in the interna­ tional environment. As almost a sign of the times, toward the end of the Tokyo Olympics, which were a sort of sending-off festival domestically for Ikeda, Nikita S. Khrushchev was dismissed and Leonid Brezhnev took over, followed by nuclear tests in China, which showed that Com­ munist China had joined the nuclear club. However, the biggest problem for Japan was America's deepening of its involvement in the Vietnam War. As seen in a public opinion survey, the Vietnam War clearly wors­ ened America's image. In the postwar, the United States was consistently the country that Japanese liked most; the security treaty crisis of 1960 did not change people's opinions whatsoever. However, in the first half of 1965 (the time of the bombing of North Vietnam), the percentage of Japa­ nese saying they liked the United States rapidly dropped to 41 percent, as compared with 49 percent in the previous year. That declining trend continued until reaching the low point of 18 percent in the 1973 to 1974 period.18 U.S. ambassador to Japan Dr. Edwin O. Reischauer, who served from 1961 to 1966, touched upon this in his autobiography. "The Vietnam situ­ ation had a clear impact on our next prefectural visit on May 11-15 (1965) to four prefectures in Kyushu," Reischauer writes, "the Communist Party had decided to go all out to break up our trip. They managed to get all the universities which had invited me to speak to withdraw their invita­ tions, and wherever we went we found groups of noisy Communist dem­ onstrators. I remember one woman who replied to my smile by trying to spit on me. For Japan this seemed truly shocking."19 Reischauer placed great importance on having a dialogue with Japan as seen in his desire to visit all of Japan's (then forty-six) prefectures. However, this experience in Kyushu forced a change in his thinking. "The authorities were obviously nervous and surrounded us with pla­ toons of bodyguards, while larger formations of police were drawn up around the corner," Reischauer remembered. "When I suggested that we did not need so much protection, I was given the cheerful response, 'Oh, this is less than we gave [Anastas] Mikoyan.' That was scarcely comfortlr*g. Being compared with an unfriendly Soviet leader helped make up °ur minds that this was not the time for further goodwill trips, and we decided to abandon them for the time being."20 America's intervention in Vietnam lacked legitimacy, and the images °f the guerilla warfare and the extreme actions taken to try to suppress it ernotionally affected the people of Japan. That put Japan, an alliance Partner, in a very difficult situation. Even if the Japanese entertained doubts about the actions the United States, it could not at the same time

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openly criticize America while it was fighting its war. However, looking at public opinion, the Japanese government could not at the same time defend America's behavior. As America's image was continuing to de­ cline rapidly, there were fears that protests against the security treaty in 1970, when its ten-year period was set to expire, would exceed the pro­ tests in 1960 at the time of the treaty's revision.21 In the middle of this situation, Sato concentrated all his energy into the very difficult Okinawa problem, thus putting the U.S.-Japan relation­ ship on a firmer basis. It seems that such a decision went against his more careful style, "the politics of waiting." However, as has already been introduced in several other examples, Satd did not run away from diffi­ cult situations, possessing the ability to confront problems head-on. What he did not have was an aggressive imagination in good situations or the ability to lead people. In other words, Sato was at his best in adverse situations. It is not clear when in fact Sato placed the return of Okinawa high on his agenda. Until then the Kishi and Ikeda cabinets sought the return of administrative rights based on the "residual sovereignty" formula of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. However, America's attitude was firm. The result was the "gradual approach" of securing one concession after an­ other seen in two countries' joint statement at the time of Ikeda's meeting with President John F. Kennedy in which the U.S. side affirmed it "would make further efforts to enhance the welfare and well-being of the inhabi­ tants of the Ryukyus and welcomed Japanese cooperation in these ef­ forts."22 The Japanese side did not make a direct demand that the islands be returned, and instead sought to reestablish and deepen the ties be­ tween mainland Japan and Okinawa, which were essentially completely severed. Of course, this disappointed the people of Okinawa leading to the passage in the Ryukyu Legislature on February 1, 1962, of a unanimous resolution, which included members of the Okinawa Liberal Democratic Party, calling for reversion of administrative rights. The resolution even referenced the United Nations' "Declaration on the Granting of Indepen­ dence to Colonial Countries and Peoples," adopted at the 15th General Assembly of the UN on December 14, 1960. It was sent to the UN head­ quarters and member countries, and included the statement "There were residents of Japanese territory that were being unjustly dominated." This apparently surprised the U.S. government which publicly stated for the first time, a month later, on March 2, that the Ryukyu Islands were a part of the Japanese mainland. Movements toward the reversion of Okinawa can be said to have started at this point. Reischauer's contribution to the Kennedy administration's Okinawa policy was big. As Reischauer wrote in his autobiography, when he visit­ ed Okinawa as ambassador in early August 1961 shortly after taking up his post in mid-April, he realized the need for reversion and spoke of this

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to Robert F. Kennedy, the attorney general of the United States and brother/confidante of President Kennedy, who was visiting Japan at the same time the Ryukyu Legislature was passing its reversion resolutions.23 Reischauer recalled that "Bobby Kennedy's visit to Japan changed [his] statuS in Washington considerably. Henceforth," Reischauer wrote, "[he] had a powerful friend there and a direct channel to the President, if bottlenecks developed further down in the . . . machinery of govern­ ment."24 At the same time, Reischauer did not hide his frustration with the slowness of Sato and the Japanese government in responding, as seen in the following quote: In o rd e r fo r th e re v e r s io n o f O k in a w a to b e re a liz e d , it w a s n e c e s s a ry fo r th e Ja p a n e s e g o v e rn m e n t to k n o w th e p o ssib ility o f re v e rs io n tak ­ in g p la ce , a s w e ll as to h a v e th e feel fo r k n o w in g in w h a t w a y th e U n ite d S ta te s w o u ld a g re e to O k in a w a 's re v e rs io n . H o w e v e r, th e J a p a ­ n e se g o v e rn m e n t d id n o t b e lie v e th a t th e U .S . g o v e rn m e n t w a s a lre a d y g e ttin g p re p a re d (to g iv e O k in a w a b a ck ), a n d its effo rts to seek re v e r ­ sio n w e re slo w . B e c a u s e Ja p a n w a s a fraid th a t th e U n ite d S tates w o u ld sh o w itse lf n o t w illin g to listen , P rim e M in iste r S ato w a s e x tre m e ly ca re fu l a n d se e m s n o t to h a v e w a n te d to ta lk a b o u t re v e rsio n . T h a t w a s b e ca u se h e w a s th in k in g th a t th e re s p o n se w o u ld b e re je c te d .25

This quote in fact did not appear in Reischauer's My Life Between Japan and America, but was from his book Nihon e no Jijoden (My Autobiography to Japan), prepared four years earlier in 1982 in cooperation with the Nihon Hoso Kyokai. Since the organization and contents of both books resemble each other, the removal of this analysis is quite interesting. Probably, Reischauer in preparing the English version of his autobiogra­ phy, had more time to reflect on it, thinking of the Japanese position more. In any case, there is no mistaking that he was frustrated with the Japanese side for not seizing the chance earlier. There were reasons why Japan had to proceed carefully. First of all was the fact that despite it having been his new policy regarding Okina­ wa, after recognizing Okinawa to be "a part of the Japanese homeland" in the joint statement, Kennedy's announcement that he "look[ed] forward to the day that when the security interests of the Free World will permit their restoration to full Japanese sovereignty" was added on. If that were the case then the Cold War had to end and international society would have to become stabilized before Okinawa could be returned. But world events in 1965 were pointing in a different direction. Moreover, the high commissioner in Okinawa, Lieutenant General Paul W. Caraway, more 0r less completely ignored Kennedy's new approach, forcing the State department to call for his replacement. But the army stood firm. Realizlng the reversion of Okinawa would require the consent of the Defense Department. There was nothing at the time to allow for such an optimishc mood on the Japanese side.

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Within Japan, too, the Foreign Ministry was hesitant to request Okina­ wa's early return vis-a-vis the United States. Senda's Sato Naikaku Kaisd, which is one of the best accounts of the Sato administration's negotiations for Okinawa's return, introduces a "Talking Paper" that the Foreign Min­ istry prepared prior to Sato's meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson in January 1965, when he requested the early return of administrative rights to Okinawa.26 It did not seek the early return of administrative rights; instead it was no more than a description following events since the 1961 Kennedy-Ikeda talks. Essentially, Senda writes, "The Foreign Ministry at the time looked at Sato incredulously as if he really thought the United States would return Okinawa."27 Indeed, it would probably be incorrect to suggest that Sato's mind was made up early on. True, he had stated at a press conference at the time of his candidacy for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party in July 1964 that he "would actively demand the return of the Southern Kurile Islands toward the Soviet Union and Okinawa by the United States. Without these territorial problems being taken care of, it will be impossible to say 'the postwar is over,' or 'the establishment of the U.S.Japan partnership has been accomplished,' or 'the promotion of peaceful diplomacy with the Soviet Union is proceeding.'" However, the reporters that heard these remarks felt that they were bold comments that only an opponent can make, feeling that what he said had to be taken with a grain of salt. While Sato formally requested the early return of the Okina­ wa's administrative rights, the Foreign Ministry continued to be skepti­ cal, as mentioned above. Sato's resolve seems to have been made clearer following his visit to Okinawa (the first one by a prime minister) in August 1965. Sat5, after taking care of numerous pending issues in the first half of 1965, made his visit to Okinawa in the middle of America's increasing involvement in Vietnam, a war in which Kadena Air Base in Okinawa played an impor­ tant role in the bombing.28 Upon arriving in Okinawa, Sat5 announced that "Until Okinawa is returned, Japan will not have completely emerged from her postwar period." However, it is likely that Sato himself had little confidence that Ja­ pan's wishes would be realized. His actions were likely done in order to explore the possibility of an Okinawan reversion. If reversion was pos­ sible then his search for a solution to the Okinawa problem was not wrong. Indeed this stubbornness was probably a part of his personality. That was seen in his press conference during the 1964 LDP presidential elections. With questions in the postwar still outstanding, Sato argued that future diplomacy could not been accomplished. His public pro­ nouncement should be seen more than usually is, as an expression of his true feelings. He may have believed that the postwar questions were for the most part the responsibility of the victors to handle, and that in par­ ticular the United States had a special responsibility to carefully take care

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0f the postwar questions. Yoshida felt this way and Sato may have inher­ ited that line of thought from him. However, Sato's obstinacy was a natu­ ral characteristic of his and it may be closer to the truth to say that YoshiHa had expectations in Sato to carry through with clearing up matters that concerned Japan like Okinawa. It is not so much quick calculations but rather intentions and decisions that could be called instinctive which are the source of a politician's strength and vitality. Sato's strong confidence in the ability to realize the return of Okinawa, placing it as the most important issue on the cabinet's agenda, likely came about in the spring of 1966. During that March, the Defense Depart­ ment, examining the problem of administrative rights over Okinawa, be­ gan a military evaluation of the bases in Okinawa, reversing long-stand­ ing policy. In June, members of the State Department were added to the discussion and a Special Working Group on the Ryukyus was formed. Of course Sato knew about this. Someone who lived and worked as long as he had in the bureaucracy did not overlook its significance. Sato's stance clearly becoming more positive about this time can be documented. On March 10, Sato stated during a meeting of the Budget Committee of the Lower House that "if Okinawa were attacked, Japan would also participate in its defense." This statement caused the opposi­ tion to go into an uproar, with deliberations being interrupted. On March 16, Sato restated that "As long as Okinawa remains under U.S. adminis­ trative control, the Self-Defense Forces can not be mobilized legally or treaty-wise." Put in other words, Sato could probably be said to have been speaking about Japanese sovereignty in relation to Okinawa. A clearer expression came in the "Otsu Announcement" on January 14, 1967, in which Sato disavowed a "partial reversion" plan. This was a concept enunciated by Mori Kiyoshi, the director general of the Prime Minister's Office during the first Sato cabinet, whereby if the full rever­ sion of Okinawa was thought to be impossible at the time then Japan could try to ask the United States to return separately responsibilities for education, health and welfare, and local industrial policy. This "accumu­ lation style" of bringing about reversion gradually one step at a time would do no harm in any case it was believed. However, Sato rejected this outright despite Mori's plan without doubt being a realistic one. If Sato wanted to play it safely, he probably would have incorporated Mori's ideas into his policies. That Sato rejected this was in part due to his fundamental position that the main point—the return of Okinawa—was m° st important. It was also due to the fact that by this point Sato had become more confident that reversion could indeed take place. Usually People do not easily give up the "bird in the hand for the two birds in the bush." In August 1967, Sato reorganized the Okinawa Problem Discussion Council during Mori's tenure as director general by placing directly Under the prime minister as a private advisory organization and creating

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under its chairman, Ohama Nobumoto, formerly the president of Waseda University and the chairman of the Association for the Relief of Our Compatriots in the Southern Areas, a private advisory organ known as the Okinawa Reversion and Base Problem Study Group. Suetsugu Ichiro became its secretary and under him were numerous young experts on international affairs and security issues such as Wakaizumi Kei (who would act as a special emissary for Sato), Kamiya Fuji, Nagai Yonosuke, and the author. Together, they studied the role of the bases following reversion. This was the first time in Japan that politicians and intellectu­ als worked together in policymaking. "It is my opinion that Japanese politics until then," according to Kusuda, the prime minister's personal secretary, "were a type of 'catch ball' between the government and the newspapers on the one hand and the political parties and the newspapers on the other. It was nothing more than throwing the ball and then catch­ ing it. Why was it that the people called scholars and intellectuals were always sitting by the pool side taking it easy? In America for example, university professors sometimes enter the government and assist the ad­ ministration in power. When their job is done, they return to the univer­ sity. This type of case happens all of the time and no one thinks of it as strange. In Japan on the other hand, if a scholar or intellectual were to help out in the government, that would be viewed as an unnatural situa­ tion. Thus, on the whole, this anti-establishment attitude is often taken up by journalists, while those with less critical views are not always given a fair play in the press. Thinking about this state of affairs, I could not help but be worried. Just who was doing the thinking in our cabinet system? It was at this point that I strongly realized once again the need for a think tank. Moreover, I believed that it should not be of a fixed shape. Rather it had to be a very large one capable of absorbing a wide range of informa­ tion properly."29 The author would agree with this. However, as someone who partici­ pated in these events, the author believes the Sato cabinet brain trust and that of the Kennedy administration were different. Both Sato and Kusu­ da, who Sato had put in charge of organizing this private advisory group, sought not only to use the abilities of the brain trust but also respected these scholars and intellects, even if that came to be understood by them later. The Sato administration did not try to use the group politically, but instead, thankfully, allowed the group to work as it pleased and seemed satisfied in having the group give form and voice to the policies formulat­ ed. Usually, when politicians try to put into practice the ideas of scholars and intellectuals, it does not often go well. At the same time, when politi­ cians ask scholars and intellectuals to justify or develop their logic in support of policies they are aiming for, it usually will not work. Thus, calling this "catch ball," as Kusuda does, is a little bit strange; both politi­ cians and scholars thinking and acting independently, enlightening each

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other as they go along, is the true shape of policy (and idea) formation that should exist. In many ways, this activity was brought together by Kimura Toshio, the deputy chief cabinet secretary (from August 1966) who became chief cabinet secretary in June 1967 after the formation of the second Sato cabi­ net earlier that year. Kimura went out of his way to meet with the Okina­ wa Problem Discussion Council and others regarding the Okinawa issue, playing a big role in formulating policy. Moreover, Kimura agreed to become deputy chief cabinet secretary again in November 1968 in order to allow party veteran Hori Shigeru to become chief cabinet secretary. This unusual set of personnel changes, done at Sato's request, shows just how much he valued Kimura. Likewise, Sato's asking Hori to become chief cabinet secretary was taken as a measure against the bureaucracy and the party, and reflects that the stage was then finally set for the return of Okinawa. It is likely that Sato had decided by this time to attempt the reversion of Okinawa "without nuclear weapons, on par with the mainland," or kakunuki, Hondo nami. Shortly after this, Sato had the Japanese ambassador to the United States, Shimoda Takezo, return to Tokyo on January 6,1969, for discussions prior to the inauguration of the new administration of President Richard M. Nixon, at which time he expressed his wish for this formula. This was a natural consequence of his fundamental thinking. Although not given any attention at the time, this was first shown in his January 1965 meeting with Johnson in which he stated that the bases in Okinawa "were vital to the security of the Far East," the first time that the Japanese side had officially recognized this. At the same time, Sato also requested the early return of administrative rights over Okinawa. Of course, preserving the military function of the bases in order to allow the return of Okinawa was believed to be difficult but it was in fact the only road to reversion. Permitting the weakening of the military capability of the alliance while calling for the return of territory lost in war was some­ thing obviously that would not be accepted—a fact Sato understood. Sato's fundamental thinking was shown in a second way. After the November 1967 meeting with Johnson, in which the return of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands and formula that an agreement for the return of Okinawa would be reached "within two to three years" was agreed upon (as Japan desired) and announced, Sato explained his "Three Non-nucle­ ar Principles" as a response to questioning at the Diet by Socialist Party member Narita Tomomi. More specifically, the opposition parties were attempting to pass a resolution which would include four principles of Japan's nuclear policies: adherence to the three non-nuclear policies, reliance on the U.S.-Japan security treaty, promotion of nuclear disarma­ ment, and promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. At that time, the problem of nuclear proliferation had become an international issue and following the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,

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Sato was thinking about the question of nuclear management and nuclear weapons. This leads to the problem about whether nuclear weapons were neces­ sary on the bases in Okinawa. In Japan, by the summer of 1968, it was felt that they were no longer necessary. This view was also held within the Base Problem Study Group in which Kimura was participating. It was pointed out that strategic nuclear weapons did not have to be kept out front any more and likewise, the use of tactical nuclear weapons may have been considered during the Korean War, but their use was not even brought up during the Vietnam War. Rather, it was known that in the United States the question as to what sort of role Japan would play in the security of the Far East was viewed as much more important. Thus, it was very important to ascertain if, in reverting Okinawa to Japan, the Japa­ nese people would be positive or not in cooperating with the United States. It was a commonly held view by the Foreign Ministry and others that the formula for reversion "without nuclear weapons" was of course a difficult one and it was feared that if that were the goal then reversion could be delayed. However, in thinking about the final results, it was better than a compromise. In this way, the question of when to make this attitude known became the problem. Sato chose his response to questioning by Socialist Party member Maekawa Tan in the Upper House Budget Committee on March 10, 1969, as the opportunity to make his views known. Two days before that, the Base Problem Study Group had released its report calling for the "complete application of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty after reversion of administrative rights," in other words, the "nuclear-free, on par with the mainland" formula. This report, based on the Japan-U.S. Kyoto Confer­ ence on Okinawa and Asia Affairs held in late January 1969 that the Base Problem Study Group sponsored, which brought several prominent American scholars, including former ambassador Reischauer, and mili­ tary figures together with their Japanese counterparts, was extensively covered in the press the next morning. Of importance, it was reported that at the conference, nuclear strategy experts Drs. Albert J. Wholstetter and Thomas Schelling had not voiced opposition to the Japanese desire to have Okinawa returned without nuclear weapons. Suetsugu, who was the secretary of the Base Problem Study Group, observed later that the "American members were constantly calling Washington to discuss the issues before their meetings with us. Their international telephone bill was quite large."30 This was all likely relayed to Sato who judged that the time was right to proceed with the reversion negotiations. The United States in fact had yet to decide its policy. It was not until mid-April before the State Department and the Defense Department had come up with reports on the different policy options to be pursued, and a while after that before these reports were given to the National Security Council, headed by Dr. Henry A. Kissinger. This case greatly represented

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Sato's negotiating style. He would, it seems, carefully watch a situation

and after gaining a certain feel for it, commit Japan a little bit earlier than the United States, and with a final push get America to consent to the Japanese position. In retrospect, it is not difficult to clarify that method theoretically. However, the efforts made to recognize a situation as prom­ ising, the way and timing to commit, as well as the strength to go ahead with the final push are definitely not easily managed. Sato pledged his political fortunes on the return of Okinawa. Together with this, Sato's caution can be said to have led to the success of the negotiations. In fact, in retrospect, looking at the larger flow of events, negotiations were far from easy. Particularly, as expected, nuclear weapons were a problem. At the Kyoto Conference, the question of reversion "without nuclear weapons" was in fact not a big topic of discussion. Indeed, the problem of having nuclear weapons here and there was felt to be the bigger problem. It is not surprising that this response was heard since toward the end of the 1960s, it was seriously being considered to remove tactical nuclear weapons from the front lines. While unknown at the time, this thinking was hinted at publicly in an article in Foreign Affairs by former secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara and others.31 However, although the removal of tactical weapons from tense theaters was theo­ retically a correct policy, it would take until after the Cold War to do so because of opposition from the Europeans. It is probably very difficult to take away powerful weapons that have already been deployed somewhere. Or perhaps it is that changing to such a new policy meets the dynamics of bureaucratic resistance. That is prob­ ably why Sato had to use his personal emissary, Wakaizumi, and give his "personal" assurances that he would not necessarily oppose the re-introduction of nuclear weapons if that were necessary.32 While meaningless strategically, it was probably seen as a gesture necessary to convince some of the bureaucracy. Yet, one cannot help but think it might have been better to use their heads for things more positive than something as pointless as the nuclear weapon issue. Another problem that the emissary dealt with was the problem of textile exports. During the 1968 presidential elections, Nixon had promJsed supporters in the South that he would make Japan exercise volun­ tary restraints on its textile exports to the United States, and during the final stages of the Okinawa reversion negotiations, he requested this to the Japanese government. This was the so-called Southern strategy; after the American Civil War ended in 1865, the South was a strong point for the Democrats where the Republicans could not make any inroads. However, this began to change in the mid-1960s, and the shrewd Nixon was able to pick this up. Yet, it was truly unnatural that the textile issue should have become the object of a bargaining point in the Okinawa negotiations. That is why negotiations could not take place in the open ar|d instead was taken up in a private agreement. Nixon was probably

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one of the five outstanding world statesmen of the postwar, having a large list of accomplishments. However, it also seems that at times he did not act like a great leader, instead thinking only of his own personal interests, this being one example. Despite this disharmonious note, the November 1969 summit between Sato and Nixon was a great success. Okinawa was returned to Japan with the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty being applied to it. After the meeting, Sato announced at the National Press Club that Japan would play a respon­ sible role in the case of a crisis on the Korean Peninsula, a position not unexpected, in light of the fact that Sato had been stressing that since the January 1965 meeting with Johnson. In the general elections held at the end of 1969, the LDP won a large majority. However, a year or so later, the Sato cabinet began its decline, and in the 67th Extraordinary Session of the Diet in the fall of 1971, experienced difficulties in getting the Okinawa Reversion Agreement (signed on June 17 of that year) ratified. One reason with the increasing unpopularity of the Sato cabinet had to do with the fact that the people began to get tired with the long Administration and the LDP gradually lost its adhesiveness under Sato. This tendency gradually began to in­ crease following Sato's election to a fourth term as LDP president in October 1970. With people like Kimura Toshio, Sato's friend, even ex­ pressing opposition to his running for a fourth term, Sato himself began to have second thoughts. However, Deputy Prime Minister Kawashima Shojiro and Secretary General Tanaka Kakuei paved the way for Sato's election. This Kawashima-Tanaka plan, which hoped to see Tanaka as the next LDP president (and hence prime minister), was undertaken because they judged a delay in the timing of a change in administration as benefi­ cial to this final goal. However, Sato considered Fukuda Takeo to be an appropriate successor. As a result, a secret intraparty struggle began over a successor. Moreover, eleven days after Sato's election on October 29, Kawashima died. Eleven years Sato's senior, Kawashima had a much longer career as a party politician (first being elected in 1928), and "with his awareness, knowledge, and power" as Sato's "Number Two" acted as the stabilizing force in Japanese politics and was "a major driving force behind Sato's long administration."33 His death came as a big blow to the Sato cabinet. While his support for Tanaka, rather than Fukuda, for the premiership generates interest, the fact that he died before it could be realized added to the instability and uncertainty surrounding the choice of a successor. However, fundamentally, that people felt Sato's mission was over, was also an important contributing factor to the decline in the Sato cabi­ net. In July 1971, Kissinger visited China and announced that Nixon would visit the following February. Exactly one month later, the Nixon administration announced that it was taking the dollar off the gold stan­ dard and temporarily charging a ten percent tax on imports as emergen-

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cy economic measures. America was in effect renouncing its role as world economic manager and the search began for a new international econom­ ic system to replace it. The Sato cabinet was not able to come up with a clear policy and gradually started to lose its governing power. Someone who looked at the larger picture perhaps could have, based on some logic, foreseen these events and might have been able to develop counter­ measures. The Vietnam War had a profound impact on the United States, shaking its society and driving its international balance-of-payments into the red. It had to reexamine its commitments in Asia as well as readjust its position in the international economy. In the beginning of 1968, John­ son had sent Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Eugene V. Rostow to Japan to request the Japanese government's cooperation in defending the dollar. This problem was also taken up in the Joint United States-Japan Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs. Regarding the reexamination of its Asian commitments, one finds Nixon's "Guam Doc­ trine," which included the remarks that "However, I believe that the time has come when the United States, in our relations with all of our Asian friends, be quite emphatic on two points: One, that we will keep our treaty commitments, our treaty commitments . . . but, two, that as far as the problems of internal security are concerned, as far as the problems of military defense, except for the threat of a major power involving nuclear weapons, that the United States is going to encourage and has a right to expect that this problem will be increasingly handled by, and the respon­ sibility for it taken by, the Asian nations themselves."34 Going beyond just the bases, it was important for both Japan and the United States to think about what their respective roles should be. How­ ever, humans are unfortunately not always endowed with the ability to grasp an accurate understanding of a new situation or what that new situation calls for. Regarding the exchange rate, the philosophy of "exportism" within Japan reigned supreme. That thinking probably could not have been helped because it had only been a few years since Japan's international balance-of-payments situation was stabilized. Revaluating the yen upward met the strong resistance of the financial world and going into the 1970s the subject was almost taboo in the government and bureaucracy.35 Representative of the situation at the time, modern eco­ nomic scholars called in May 1970 for repeated, yet slight increases in the value of the yen known as the "crawling peg" theory. It was not that attention was not paid to the earlier announcement of the "Guam Doctrine." Rather, everything was placed in the context of the reversion of Okinawa. It was widely thought that it would be good to Readily develop U.S.-Japan relations after the reversion. In addition, from the latter half of the 1960s, China was thrown into turmoil by the Great Cultural Revolution—not even conducting diplomatic relations for a while—and Sino-Soviet relations reached new heights of tension. It was f° their credit that both Nixon and Kissinger saw in this a chance, but in

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any case it was clear that a change in U.S.-Sino relations was theoretically possible. The world witnessed changes in the international environment as seen in the passage by a majority for the first time of an "Albaniantype Resolution" to seat the People's Republic of China as the representa­ tive of China in 1970. (In actuality, because the United States was able to have the problem of the change in representation itself made an "Impor­ tant Question" requiring, as per Article 18 of the United Nations Charter, a two-thirds majority, the so-called Albanian Resolution did not pass.) Yet, no one, including the author, really seemed to have expected the situation to change that rapidly. That is why periods of change are in fact a time of rapid changes. Moreover, it can be said that many were tired by everything with Okinawa. In that sense the author evaluates Sato favorably for not moving with all of the sudden changes. Because a person's ability to foresee events, as well as to take action, is limited, it is an important sign of a politician's character not to make rash decisions or movements. At the U.N. General Assembly meeting in the fall following the shocks of 1971, the problem emerged whether Japan should continue, as before, to be a joint sponsor with the United States on the "reverse important question" and the two representatives system. Public opinion felt it was critical, feeling that to do so would be "going against the times." Although there were also voices within the LDP that were opposed, Sato boldly went ahead and sponsored what would become the two proposals jointly with the United States. It was certainly within the realm of possibility that a "transitional measure" would be possible to continue to allow the Republic of China to maintain a seat in the United Nations while affirming the PRC's right to a seat and its becoming a permanent member of the Security Council. While certainly having experienced some shock, Sato avoided at the same time making any dramatic or rash changes and attempted to do what he believed to be correct, thereby earning trust. That made Japan's position stronger in its negotiations later over the normalization of relations with China and certainly did not act as a negative. After the two "Nixon Shocks" in the summer of 1971, Sat5 remained calm and did not get visibly angry at the United States. One can even say that that was probably Sato's last job. At the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal, in writing about the rough, rapid changes in U.S. foreign policy that year, described Japan's "attitude as that of the most civilized country." The author would argue that that appraisal of the Sato cabinet's handling of the foreign policy crisis was not incorrect. NOTES 1. Sato Eisaku, Kyd ha (Tokyo: Feisu, 1964), 1 8 3 -8 4 .

Ashita no Zenjitsu (T od ay is the D ay Before T om orrow )/

Sato Eisaku 2. M iyazak i Y o sh im asa,

165

Saisho Sato Eisaku (Prim e M inister Sato E isaku), (Tokyo:

5hinsangyo K eizai K enkyukai, 1980).

3. Ibid., 19. 4 . M asum i Jun nosu ke (translated b y L onny E. Carlile), Postwar Politics in Japan, 1945-1955 (Berkeley, C A : Institute of E ast A sian Studies, U niversity of California,

1985), 1 6 2 -6 6 . 5. A cco rd in g to H ori, "it w as all v ery eccen tric as far as political p arties g o ." (M asumi, Postwar Politics in Japan, 1945-1955, 165.) In the sam e book, Suzuki relates how G H Q a p p ro ach ed h im and said, "H o w about form ing a coalition cabinet w ith the left w ing an d p a rt of the right w in g w ithin the JSP and forces w ithin the D LP exclu d ­ ing the Y o sh id a factio n ?" (pp. 1 6 5 -6 6 ). 6. Sato H iroko, Sato Hiroko no Saisho Fujin Hiroku (Sato H iroko: A Secret A cco u n t of Being the P rim e M inister's W ife), (Tokyo: A sahi Shim bunsha, 1974), 47. 7. Ibid., 22. 8. Ibid., 32. 9. Tetsudojin Satd Eisaku K ankokai, ed., Tetsudojin Sato Eisaku (R ailw ay M an, Sato Eisaku), (Tokyo: Tetsudojin Sato Eisaku Kankokai, 1977), 1 6 3 -6 5 . 10. Ibid., 294. 11. N ak am u ra Takahide, Showashi (H istory of the S how a E ra), (Tokyo: T o y 5 Keizai Shinposha, 199 3 ), C h ap ter 7. 12. Senda H isashi, Sato Naikaku Kaiso (R eflections of the Sato C abinet), (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1987), 225. 13. Ishida H irohide, "H o sh u Seito n o Bijon (A C o n serv ativ e P a rty 's V ision )," Chuo Koron, Vol. 78, N o. 1 (Jan uary 1963). 14. In actuality, of the n u m b er of seats w on, 288 w ere officially sp o n so red LD P candidates and 12 w ere co n serv ativ es w h o, follow ing the elections, w ere given LD P recognition. 15. On "S ocial D evelo p m en t," see K usuda M inoru , Sato Seiken: 2 7 9 7 Nichi (The Sato A dm inistration: 2 7 9 7 D ays), (Tokyo: G yosei M ond ai K enkyujo, 1983), p articu larly 64-68. 16. On the so-called Sato M ach in e o r Sato O peration, see K u su d a M inoru, Shuseki Hishokan (Private S ecretary to the P rim e M inister), (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1975), 29. 17. N ak am u ra, Showashi, 540. 18. N H K H oso Y o ro n K enkyujo, Zusetsu Sengo Yoronshi (G raphs: P ostw ar Public Opinion H isto ry ), (Tokyo: N ihon H oso Shuppankai, 1975), 179. 19. Edw in O. R eischauer, M y Life between Japan and America (N ew Y ork: H arp er and Row Publishers, 1986), 287. 20. Ibid. 21. A cco rd in g to term s of the 1960 treaty, after 1970, either p arty could call for the end of the treaty giving one y e a r's n otice. The treaty w ou ld end therefore one y ear later. O bservers at the tim e called this "T h e 1970 C risis." 22. "Joint S tatem en t of Jap an ese Prim e M inister Ikeda and U.S. P resident K ennedy, W ashington, D .C ., June 22, 1 9 6 1 ," Department of State Bulletin, X L V (July, 10, 1961), 57-58. 23. R eisch auer, My Life, 236. 24. Ibid. 25. E dw in O. R eisch auer, Nihon e no Jijoden (M y A u to b io g rap h y to Jap an ), (Tokyo: Nihon H oso S huppankai, 1982), C h ap ter 9. 26. Senda, Sato Naikaku Kaiso, 11. 27. Ibid. 28. A ctu ally , the bases in G u am w ere the m ain ones. A fter av o id in g typ h oon s in Guam by going to O kinaw a, the bom bers w ou ld then d ep art for V ietnam creating a storm of p ro test in Japan. 29. K usu d a, Sato Seiken, 43. 30- Senda, Sato Naikaku Kaiso, 65.

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31. Supervising tran slato r's n ote: M cN am ara w ro te several articles in Fo reig n Af­ fairs con cern in g n u clear w eap on s. The on e the late K osaka is referring to is likely; M cG eorge B u n d y, G eorge F. K ennan, R obert S. M cN am ara, an d G erard Sm ith, "Nu­ clear W eap on s and the A tlan tic A llian ce," Foreign Affairs, V ol. 60, N o. 3 (Spring 1982), 7 5 3 -6 8 . 32. F o r the acco u n t of his role as em issary, see W ak aizu m i Kei, Tasaku Nakarishi o Shizemu to Yosu (I W o u ld Like to Believe That There W ere N o O th er C h oices), (Tokyo; Bu ngei Shunju, 1994). This b oo k w a s later tran slated into English as The Best Course Available b y John S w en son-W right and published b y U n iv ersity of H aw aii P ress in 2002. 33. K usu d a, Sato Seiken, 54. 34. R ichard M . N ixon , "In fo rm al R em ark s in G u am w ith N ew sm en , July 2 9 ,1 9 6 9 ." 35. N ak am u ra, Showashi, 579.

ELEVEN Tanaka Kakuei The High Point of Developmental Politics Mikuriya Takashi

There is a four-character word, kiyohohen, which means both "praise" and "censure." Supposedly, this word can be applied to Yoshida Shigeru and Tanaka Kakuei, former prime ministers in postwar Japan. However, the general perception toward these two men is completely opposite. In the case of Yoshida, following his premiership, his reputation actually grew as the key figure of the early postwar era for his having prepared the foundations for the period of high economic growth witnessed during the Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku years of the 1960s and early 1970s. However, the case of Tanaka was different. It was during the IkedaSato era, prior to his assumption of the premiership, that Tanaka's repu­ tation had grown as one of the leading figures of the period of the high economic growth and that reputation peaked at the time of his inaugura­ tion, even being called the modern-day equivalent of Toyotomi HideyoSH a general and warlord who lived from 1537-1598 and was considered the second "great unifier" of Japan. According to one public opinion poll at the time, his approval rate was 62 percent. This was the highest for any starting prime minister for two decades before it was broken by the Hos°kawa Morihiro cabinet in July 1993. Despite this high approval rating, his popularity dropped dramatically. The Tanaka cabinet, which came into being on July 7, 1972, and con­ tinued until December 9, 1974, adopted the slogan of "Decision and Im­ plementation" (Kettei to Jikko). During those years, Japan and China re­ stored diplomatic relations in the foreign policy arena and remodeled the 167

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Japanese archipelago among other political agendas in domestic affairs before his resignation. In retrospect, it is quite apparent that he succeeded in diplomacy but failed in domestic politics. What brought about this demise was his own personal financial scandal, which caused public sup­ port to decline. Interestingly, he was able to maintain control over his political faction after his resignation as well, and when he was indicted in August 1976 in the Lockheed case, he actually was able to expand his influence as a "shadow shogun" or "kingmaker" to the extent that Tanaka ruled the political world from behind the scenes. This dual structure in politics continued until February 1985, when the Takeshita Noboru group orga­ nized a revolt within Tanaka's faction, and Tanaka's political involve­ ment effectively stopped due to a stroke he suffered immediately after the revolt. For the ten years following his resignation as prime minister when he solidified his control over Japanese politics, the view of Tanaka remained divided. On the one hand, Tanaka's political prowess was well known as was his influence in Niigata's third district (Tanaka's constituency), Nagata-cho, and Kasumigaseki. On the other hand, Tanaka was criticized for his amateurish and brazenness among the mass media. There is a proverb, kan o bite kotosadamaru, or "a person's worth is known only when their coffin is sealed." As for Tanaka, however, it is still difficult to assess him accurately, although he died in 1993. Most people in mass media suggest his crimes weigh heavier than his accom­ plishments, of which there were some. This point became clear following his death. According to former Administrative Vice Minister of the Na­ tional Land Agency Shimokobe Atsushi, who was interviewed by the Niigata Nippo newspaper, "When Tanaka's condition worsened and it looked like he would die, several newspaper companies asked me 'how they should praise Tanaka.' None of them knew how to pay tribute to him."1 This was both a sad commentary and a humorous episode about the way the media viewed Tanaka and his money scandals that the press did not even know what good things to say about him. On the other hand, according to a public opinion poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun in early 1995, Tanaka was named "the person who had contributed the most to Japanese development" in fifty years of the postwar with 23 percent, one percentage point ahead of Yoshida. Moreover, Tanaka had a stable approval rating of 25 percent from people between thirty-one and fifty years old, while Yoshida's highest (35 percent) was among only older people, such as those in their fifties and sixties. In other words, Tanaka won the support of many people in the prime of their working lives. Thus, the reason why perceptions of Tanaka have been divided until now is because of the above differences—namely the political view of the beholder. Tanaka makes an ideal litmus test about evaluating the political

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value of a politician—namely, politics as practical (real intention) or as ethics (principle). There is no middle ground between these two views — each is "all or nothing" to the other. If one takes the view that these two values cannot co-exist, what will happen is that you will end up with an emotional conclusion—one that is either "good" or "bad." Presumably, this is why a discussion about Tanaka Kakuei has remained difficult—the same things get repeated endlessly with no true deepening of our under­ standing of him as a politician. Eto Jun and Ishihara Shintaro had a noteworthy discussion about Ta­ naka in a book titled Nihon Yo, Shinobiru no Ka (Japan, Are You Preparing to Die?) that introduced the role of words in the worlds of politics and literature.2 Eto: Until when did politicians place emphasis on their words, and carefully chose their expressions. When did politicians stop reading, or writing? Ishihara: Well... it seems it has been since after Sato. Eto: I agree with that after all. Ishihara: When Kakuei Tanaka appeared, he sprayed verbosity of empty argument brilliantly. People were exhausted, and were dragged along by his speaking. Here Et5 contrasts Tanaka's style with that of Yoshida, who was like a politician of the Meiji and Taisho eras. Yoshida wrote out his thoughts and would have people read them. It was in his letters that his approach to politics developed. Ishihara, on the other hand, contrasted Tanaka with Sato, who "showed sensitivity, although he was of few words" and had "the strength of expression that was not easily expressed." Tanaka was certainly ill-qualified if he was expected to have the ability to express himself as demanded by Eto and Ishihara, not to mention the level of intelligence and degree of sophistication that was probably desired, too. In any case, if we presuppose politics as the world of self-expression, both Yoshida and Sato kept the information they gathered, using it at the appropriate time at a future point by conveying through their respective Ways of self-expression. In a sense, there was a significance to the length °f time that they held on to the information. However, to be a great politician, each has to have his or her own ability to express oneself. What was the rhetoric for Tanaka? The reason why Ishihara curiously described Tanaka's rhetoric as "insubstantial garrulity mixed with a certain gorgeousness" must be because of both the style and content of Tanaka's self-expression. Style here meant Tanaka's Uricanny ability to turn what was meant as a dialogue into a monologue,

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and content, his ability to win out over supposedly smarter rivals, such as his releasing a book that became a best seller, which frustrated his rival, Fukuda Takeo, who graduated from the prestigious law school of Tokyo Imperial University. To Tanaka, all information had to be "flowing" not "stored." All of his secretaries say the same thing, but when some new issue was raised or some new piece of information was shown to Tanaka, the title would be written down on an index card with a detailed response or countermeas­ ure, and three to five reasons for that. This was based on his belief that there are always three to five reasons for something, but never any more. He was great at memorizing facts and numbers especially, storing them all in his brain. Armed with this information, once he opened his mouth he spoke endlessly and one-sidedly. Furthermore, the significance of information as "flow" results in that most of his political concerns related to public works, investments, and infrastructure. His daughter, Tanaka Makiko, who also became a politi­ cian, reminisced as follows: In th e ca se o f m y fa th e r, it w a s n o t d ifficu lt fo r h im to w o rk a t m a c r o ­ lev el p o licy a n d m ic r o -le v e l p o litics a t th e s a m e tim e o r to m a k e th e m co m p a tib le . R e p a irin g a sm a ll lo ca l b rid g e , c o n n e c tin g S h ik o k u an d th e m a in islan d o f H o n s h u b y b rid g e an d ro a d , o r n e g o tia tin g o v e r th e re tu r n o f th e fo u r isla n d s in th e N o r th e r n T e rrito rie s fro m R u ssia, w e re all th e s a m e th in g to h im as th e y w e re all b e in g d o n e in th e n a m e o f Ja p a n . T h e re fo re , m y im p re s s io n o f h is w o rk in g s ty le is th a t it w a s n a tu ra l fo r h im to w re s tle w ith th e se d ifficu lt p ro b le m s o n th e s a m e p la n e.

In the case of Tanaka, information inputted was always in flow mode, as was his output, in the form of proposals, opinions, and his openly expressed thoughts. Everything, from micropolitics at the election district level to macro-level politics of Japan and international affairs as a whole, was grasped not as issues at different three-dimensional levels but as a flat and constantly expanding concentric circle. To say it another way, no matter how high Tanaka rose politically, his style of dealing issues never changed in quality, only in quantity. Tanaka, in fact, used to compare himself to Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels, stating: W h a t I m e a n 'b y G u lliv e r is n o t th a t I lo o k d o w n fro m a b o v e o n Ja p a n like a g ia n t. W h a t I m e a n is th a t it is im p o r ta n t fo r a p o liticia n to o b s e rv e th in g s fro m b ir d 's -e y e v ie w . If y o u o b s e rv e s o m e th in g fro m a b o v e , y o u c a n se e th e b ig p ic tu re . Y o u c a n see w ith o n e lo o k w h e r e a ro a d b e c o m e s a d e a d e n d o r th a t th e r e is a w a te r s o u rc e o n th e o th e r sid e o f th e m o u n ta in , o r th a t s o m e th in g o v e r h e re re p re s e n ts a p re cio u s n a tu ra l re s o u rc e . B u t y o u c a n n o t d o so if y o u c o n d u c t p o litics if y o u a re b e in g p re o c c u p ie d o n ly w ith th in g s in fro n t o f y o u a n d w h ile y o u a re m o v in g a ro u n d clo se to th e g r o u n d .3

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the same time, Tanaka also professed that a politician's responsibility toward the citizens is the ability to implement policies. If he doesn't, his v a lu e is worthless. Thus, Tanaka constantly sought concrete solutions to p r o b l e m s — nothing more, nothing less. Tanaka firmly believed that while anyone could criticize, it was the mission of the politician to contribute by r e a l i z in g concrete policies. Tanaka, of course, knew that implementing policy with concrete solu­ tions would not please everyone all of the time. Indeed, the more con­ crete the solution, the more it might cause opposition from various quar­ ters. Thus, paradoxically, it can be said that it is safer for politicians if they did nothing, because if they did nothing, no division or conflict would occur. As Tanaka told his secretary, Hayasaka Shigezo, "For ex­ ample, if we build a bridge in the middle of the river, those upstream and those downstream would be opposed. If we built it downstream, those in the middle and further upstream would be opposed. If it was built up­ stream, those in the middle and below would be against it. No matter what one does, no matter what work tries to get accomplished, someone, somewhere will express his opposition."4 Aware of all of these challenges, Tanaka still believed that the role of the politician was to shake things up. He did not simply accept requests and petitions from his constituents or others and ask for the necessary funding like an automaton. He studied them carefully, and provided input to them, something he started when he became a member of the Diet in the late 1940s. He became so good at it that he could anticipate requests, and actually went on the attack. His secretary Sato Akiko vivid­ ly describes such a scene when Tanaka was secretary general of the Liber­ al Democratic Party during the Sato Eisaku administration: T a n a k a h a d m e m o riz e d all o f h is co n n e ctio n s in e a ch o f th e p re fe c tu re s th r o u g h o u t th e c o u n try . M e m b e rs of p re fe c tu ra l asse m b lie s w h o c a m e to se e h im w e re su rp ris e d to se e th a t h e k n e w th in g s th e y w e re n o t a w a re of, a n d c o m m e n te d o n th a t. O n ce h e in p u t it in to his h e a d , h e n e v e r fo rg o t it. D u rin g in sp e ctio n s s o m e w h e re , if h e th o u g h t s o m e ­ th in g sh o u ld b e fix ed , h e m a d e a m e n ta l n o te . H e w a s ab le to c o m m e n t o r ask a b o u t c o n c re te issu es o n th e sp o t. F o r e x a m p le , h e m ig h t s a y "I s u p p o s e th e riv e r in y o u p re fe c tu re h a s to b e w id e n e d b y a fe w m e ­ te r s ," o r " w h a t h a p p e n e d to th e ro a d in q u e s tio n ? " a n d so o n . E v e n local p e o p le , s u ch as m e m b e rs o f a p re fe c tu ra l a sse m b ly , w o u ld h a v e d ifficu lty a n s w e rin g s u c h q u e s tio n s .5

Throughout his time as secretary general Tanaka polished this princi­ ple of his. His way of handling petitions continued after he became prime Minister, making him very busy. It was not simply a technical or political skill he possessed. It was the art of politics itself. Konaga Keiichi, who served as one of his secretaries while he was prime minister, reflected on that time in the following way: "Tanaka used to say he could tell what the

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visitor wanted by looking at his face when they come into the reception room even before the petition was presented. . . . He also said he there­ fore understood what their petitions were when they opened their mouths, but he never prematurely cut them off to say he understood without first listening to them. He would then have another secretary, Yamada Yasushi, take care of the matter, and was able to handle one petition every two to three minutes. In one hour, tens of petitions were presented."6 However, Tanaka handled those petitions not simply by reading their mind in advance and using his own main principle. What he emphasized when implementing policy was to avoid being trapped in bureaucratic thinking, practices, or customs. In other words, he made a clear distinc­ tion between what could and could not be done as policy, by contrasting what was "the reality" (genjitsu), what was "the law" (horitsu), and what "the system" (seido) was. Gotoda Masaharu, who served as the deputy chief cabinet secretary in the Tanaka administration, described him as "a politician with exceptional talent."7 Even if that may be hard to notice at first glance, one can see it in the way he was able to expand the interpre­ tation of laws, revise or abolish laws, or create new laws. In these various areas, Tanaka was able to pursue "decision and implementation" in his own skillful way. Below are some examples of this from the micro- to the macro-level of politics. One was that of his electoral district.8 It was basically impossible for the local communities to pay for the construction of a high-speed road that was to connect Tochio and Nagaoka by tunnel. Tanaka got involved and decided to connect the prefectural roads first and build National Highway (Kokudd) 351 using national funds, and then had the high-speed road built as a bypass, again using the central government's budget. Another example was a highway built in Okinawa during his tenure as Prime Minister.9 In 1972, Governor Yara Chobyo requested that a north-south expressway be built in the prefecture prior to the opening of the Okinawa Ocean Expo in 1975. The Ministry of Construction was not optimistic that it could be done as quickly, as the Meishin Expressway took six years to build. However, Tanaka asked how it might be built in three years' time and as the result of some bold land acquisitions, the Okinawa Expressway was completed in three years. The last example was of the Japan-U.S. negotiations over textiles while he was the minister of International Trade and Industry.10 In his meetings with the U.S. side, Tanaka gained the trust of the bureaucrats of MITI by upholding their views that "there would be no regulation of trade where there was no damage caused" and that "the balance of bilat­ eral trade should be thought of from a multibase perspective." With this in mind, Tanaka felt the high point in the bilateral negotiations, which even his predecessors as ministers for MITI, Ohira Masayoshi and Miyazawa Kiichi (both later prime ministers), were unable to resolve, was

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corning and decided to conclude the internal discussions and bilateral interactions in one set. In other words, he negotiated with the Ministry of finance to have it pay the Japanese domestic textile industry two billion yen to offset its countermeasures, while at the same time, completely conceding to U.S. demands. Tanaka, for this, was able to thoroughly control the bureaucrats. G o t o d a , watching him as prime minister, had this to say about Tanaka's strengths. "Tanaka, also, was very good at using government officials. He knew which ones were good, reliable workers, and those who were not, checking all those he came into contact with. For government officials he f o u n d to be capable, he would try to learn everything he could about them, such as their home town, their career to date, how they were v i e w e d in their office. Backed with this detailed knowledge, he was able to u s e it when necessary with them."11 The bureaucrats who served Tanaka in those days unanimously view his political style highly, in particular his ability to make new policies without being limited by existing interpretations of rules, which was un­ like traditional administrations that hesitated to change rules or would not even consider a change. This is very much the critical attribute be­ tween politics and administration, something Tanaka skillfully handled. This view is held not only by the bureaucrats, but also by the politicians, too. For example, Hashimoto Ryutaro, who developed as a politician under Tanaka's mentoring (and later became prime minister himself from January 1996-July 1998), said one of Tanaka's teachings emphasized that it was important to employ the wisdom of the bureaucrats while approaching the problem or solution from a different perspective—that of the politician.12 It is interesting to note, at the same time, however, that Hashimoto had some rough experiences with Tanaka, too, after the latter became prime minister. After all the work on the budget would be done, for example, Tanaka would occasionally come up with some exorbitant ideas which would cause all that effort to be for nil. This suggests that even while politics leads the bureaucracy, when a politician decides to go be­ yond a certain point, politics can almost become arbitrary in nature. Hashimoto seemed to have sensed a danger in Tanaka's style of poli­ tics. Namely, Tanaka always focused on the quantity and speed over the quality and carefulness. Tanaka believed that responding with an unlimhed number of concrete proposals to the equally unlimited number of Petitions and requests was at its essence the origins of democracy. As such, Tanaka would proactively engage anyone, even if that person was a Political adversary or dissenter. As the result, Tanaka's secret supporters grew within other factions, too. Tanaka had a well-known saying to capture this: "In order to reach the top, you must reduce the number of enemies as much as possible. It is important to increase or broaden the number of people who view you

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positively."13 But, it is interesting to note that the intention followed the result, rather than the other way around. In other words, since the mid1940s, as a result of Tanaka's politics, he ended up increasing the number of his supporters. It was not until the mid-1950s that he noticed he had a large number of followers and it was from that point that he set out to reach the top. Tanaka's start as a politician was as a "construction worker parlia­ mentarian" (dokata daigishi). He graduated from a higher elementary school in Niigata in 1933, and moved to Tokyo in 1934. He became close with Okauchi Masatoshi, a physicist and entrepreneur with the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, and in 1943 established Tanaka Con­ struction Company (Tanaka Doken Kogyo). With the end of the war in 1945, he left the Korean Peninsula, where he had been, and joined the Japan Progressive Party at the urging of one of the prewar leading politi­ cians of the former Constitutional Democratic Party, Oasa Tadao. He unsuccessfully ran in the general election of April 1946, but was elected two years later in 1948 in the first Lower House election under the new postwar constitution as a candidate from the Democratic Party. He be­ came a standing member of the National Land Development Program Committee and began his life as a politician. He opposed state control of the coal mines, and along with the Shidehara Kijuro faction of the party, joined the Democratic Liberal Party of Yoshida Shigeru. Since then, Tana­ ka belonged to Yoshida's Liberal Party and participated in all of the main legislation about construction and engineering works. As a new parliamentarian in the latter part of the 1940s, Tanaka did not necessarily show off. Nowadays, however, Tanaka is remembered for his large public persona, but when contrasted with these early days, the image is quite different. This can be seen from his own accounts as well as those of the people around him who speak of his prowess with a grain of salt. Indeed, as Nakasone Yasuhiro, who was elected at the same time as Tanaka and who was consistently among the progressive-most ele­ ments of the Progressive Party being very critical of Yoshida, said quite frankly, "while I was out there in the forefront enjoying the spotlight for my attacks on Yoshida, Tanaka was, I think, quietly and busily working away. He was implicated in the coal mines scandal (although found inno­ cent during the appeal process), which caused him to stay out of the spotlight for the most part until the mid-1950s."14 Tanaka was the central character/actor/player in the scandal that af­ fected him during his first term as a Lower House member. Although he served only one month as the parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Justice, his political life was secure, much like during the Lockheed scan­ dal years later when he successfully won the election while under the cloud of scandal. Tanaka had his own acute gut instincts and realized from the beginning he would be able to utilize this sense within the Diet. The Diet at the time was chaotic, with both the old and new coexisting

u

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and GHQ intervening in the political world and government policies. Tanaka enjoyed the ability to maneuver as he did, and the situation was made all the better as the postwar approach pushed by GHQ was to emphasize the role of permanent committees in crafting legislation rather than in the main session of the parliament as had been the case in the Imperial Diet. For Tanaka, whose expertise was construction, the Nation­ al Land Planning Committee, as well as the Construction Committee, became his home turf. He and his associates, describing themselves as a blessing to postwar democracy, is in that sense correct. However, it is noteworthy that when looking back at the latter half of the 1940s, the main focus of Tanaka the politician was consistently his relationship with the construction industry. Of course, construction and public works have a direct connection to the interests of one's constituen­ cy. Since the prewar, any sensible politician would have been very inter­ ested in projects that benefited one's community. However, these matters were discussed behind the scenes once they made it to the Diet. For most politicians, the parliament was the place for great debate and party-driv­ en or faction-driven activities in support of leading statesmen at the time. For Tanaka, however, construction was an important area. From the beginning of his term on the National Land Development Committee, he called for the creation of a full-blown construction ministry rather than a construction agency following the breakup of the prewar Home Ministry and its related Civil Engineering Bureau. In 1947, for example, Tanaka stated in the above committee, "As a member of the construction indus­ try, I have called for the establishment of a construction ministry for the last ten years."15 His comment was succinct and without hesitation, in that Tanaka looked at postwar reconstruction through the basic daily necessities of clothing, food, and housing. In particular, housing was the most pressing issue, and Tanaka believed a future construction ministry, which would become the center of this effort, was therefore necessary. As the earliest patron of the Construction Ministry, officially estab­ lished in 1948, Tanaka was actively involved in the National Comprehen­ sive Development Law (Kokudo Sogo Kaihatsuho), Public Housing Law {Koei Jutakuho), and the so-called Three Road Laws (Doro Sanpd). At the same time, while he involved himself in protecting local interests in the problem of the diversion of the water supply with the Tadamigawa River into Niigata Prefecture, he was very much different from the run-of-theordinary politicians with their parochial interests. In other words, Tanaka would take a problem whose interests were limited to a local area and apply a national, standard legal framework for which the issue could be handled. Using this interconnected system of laws, Tanaka created a structured way for funding to take place using national government funds. The result of this was not only of benefit of course for Tanaka's constituency but also to other areas as well in that a l°t of money—as much as the coffers would allow—was given to them

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for their development. What's more, every time Tanaka was involved in the legislative process for land development, he not only became privy to information from around the country but also strengthened his bond with the Ministry of Construction. Looking at specific examples, at the time of the establishment of the National Comprehensive Development Law in 1950, Tanaka was able to acquire information on water systems throughout the country. Through a revision of the National Comprehensive Development Law in 1952 and the establishment of the Law for the Development of Power Sources (Dengen Kaihatsu Sokushinho), Tanaka was able to secure the development of Tadamigawa River and, at the same time, grasp the overall power sources around the nation. In addition, at the time of the establishment of the Public Housing Law, Tanaka brought about a shift from simply pro­ viding housing for the poor to those for the "salary man" (i.e., middle class white collar worker), which led to the creation of the Japan Housing Corporation. Eventually, Tanaka's application of the gasoline tax as a specified source of funds for the establishment of the Three Road Laws contributed to the formalization of the relationship between him and the Ministry of Construction. In later years, Tanaka proudly spoke about his relationship with the ministry. "One time, I recall, the Asahi Shimbun, which prides itself on accuracy, wrote when introducing me that I had served as minister of construction (kensetsu daijin). Among the public, apparently, I have been thought of as the minister of construction, but in fact, I have never served in that capacity. Despite this, it is probably because I made the Three Road Laws in 1952 in my capacity as a legislator that everyone thinks so."16 It is understandable that Tanaka, who served as a patron unlike any­ one seen before for the Ministry of Construction, somehow became in people's eyes "the construction minister." According to his secretary, Sato, "Tanaka was almost never in his office in the House of Representa­ tives Building across from the Diet itself. When he had a free moment, he would be at the vice minister's office in the Ministry of Construction. When he had a phone call, we would constantly have to locate where he was."17 Moreover, in order to grow his connections with the officials in the Ministry of Construction, Tanaka would openly link public funds to the ministry. He would even use public funds for his own personal use. In 1955, the first subsidized paved road was completed in Mishima County in his electoral district.18 According to one elected local official, Tanaka reportedly used 300,000 yen of the 600,000 yen dedicated to the opening ceremonies for presents for visiting Ministry of Construction officials and their wives. What's more, Tanaka had learned the age, body size and shape, personality types, and other things about the wives, which in­ formed his decisions when making the purchases.

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In this way, Tanaka stated the following at the time of the 1958 general election when he was serving as the minister for Posts and Telecommuni­

cations in the cabinet of Kishi Nobusuke: I d o n o t h a v e a b ig d r e a m o r an id e a to b e c o m e a p o liticia n a c tiv e o n th e w o rld s ta g e o r a p rim e m in is te r lead in g th e la rg e st p o litical p a rty . I a m o fte n ca lle d th e " C o n s tru c tio n W o rk e r P a rlia m e n ta ria n " fo r m y in te re st in ro a d s, b rid g e s, riv e rs , a n d p o rts , a n d m y w o rk to w a r d im p ro v in g la n d d e v e lo p m e n t. W h ile it is fine to b e a sso cia te d w ith th e m o v e m e n t

(Gensuibaku Kinshi Undo) o r th e (Sekai Renpo Undo), I b e lie v e in fo cu sin g on

a g a in st a to m ic a n d h y d ro g e n b o m b s W o rld F e d e ra list M o v e m e n t

o n e 's "lo c a lity first" an d d o n 't m in d a n y c ritic ism I ta k e fo r th is p o si­ t io n .19

Tanaka did not hesitate to promote his "Construction Worker Parlia­ mentarian" identity, and in contrast to high politics that emphasized ideology, Tanaka declared that politics exist for the nation's land devel­ opment, which is closely tied to people's living and work. Tanaka, whose political smarts would earn him the nickname of "computerized bulldozer," was driven by the underdevelopment of Ja­ pan's rural areas, such as his. This motivation was seen in a conversation he had in 1971 with Konaga, who had just became his secretary, when Tanaka was serving as the minister for MITI. Tanaka said of the Okaya­ ma Prefecture-born Konaga, "For those of you in Okayama, snow has a romantic image, I am sure," and after alluding to Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country (Yukiguni), which was one of the three books nominated by the Nobel Committee of his when granting him the Nobel Prize for Liter­ ature, challenged him, "does snow have a romantic image for you, too? For us on the other side of Japan (lira Nippon), it is a daily battle for our livelihoods. This is the origins of my desire to develop the country."20 The resentment harbored by those in Ura Nippon about their condi­ tions and toward their wealthier cousins, simply put, applied to Tanaka as well. The politician Tanaka, as explained earlier, increased the flow of information the higher he rose. Nevertheless, no matter how much the volume of his politics developed, the quality did not change. This is to be expected in a sense as people are the products of personal experience and feeling. He would revert easily to memories of his childhood. This is true of anyone, but that information tends to be stored, only brought out as one needs it during different development phases in one's life when con­ firmation or assurance is required. In Tanaka's case, there was only one time in his long political career that he set about explaining the above feelings and experiences. That was ln 1966, when it started to become apparent he might become prime minister at some point. He was secretary general of the LDP and was hospitalized to undergo a complete medical checkup. He used this time to write his memories as part of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun series, "Watashi

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no Rirekisho (My Biography)," in which a prominent figure in society writes about his or her life and times over the course of a month. While Tanaka's installments were running, his writing was even praised by Kobayashi Hideo, an influential critic at the time.21 This seems to be the only time Tanaka actually sat down to reflect and write about his life. In fact, it was less about the politics itself, and more about his views of politics as whole. There was never a more earnest attempt by him to express himself. Always the standard-bearer for the importance of information flow, Tanaka may have shown himself, how­ ever briefly, however unguardedly, as a flagbearer of storing informa­ tion, too. Tanaka described the time immediately following the Great Kanto Earthquake, when many people fled home to Niigata Prefecture. M y u n c le a n d au n t, w h o w e re b u rn e d o u t o f th e ir h o m e s , re tu rn e d to N iig a ta . M y g ra n d f a th e r p la n n e d to c u t tim b e r a n d sell it as w e ll as h is field s. T h e p e o p le o f T o k y o b o u g h t u p a lo t o f ric e a n d m iso . B e c a u s e o f th is, a s a ch ild , I th o u g h t th e p e o p le fro m T o k y o w e re b a d . M y m o th e r w o u ld g e t u p , in th e d a rk , a n d w o r k th e field s, in clu d in g ta k in g c a re of th e c o w s a n d h o rs e s . T h e re w a s w o r k to d o e v e ry d a y . W ith o u t sh a m e , th e p e o p le fro m T o k y o w o u ld c o m e an d ta k e all th a t sh e h a d p ro d u c e d a w a y . P e rh a p s it w a s o u t o f m y lo v e fo r m y m o th e r, b u t I b e c a m e v e ry s a d w itn e s sin g this.

This passage is representative of the resentment that the people of Ura Nippon (Niigata) have toward the people of the "front side" (Omote Nip­ pon), or Tokyo. The feeling burned into Tanaka when he was a child that those from Tokyo took from those of Niigata. This would become the driving force of his political belief of the necessity to correct the socioeco­ nomic divide between the two parts of the country. This resentment over the haves and have-nots was seen, too, in Tanaka's huge victory (gaining 220,000 votes) in the Lower House election conducted immediately after he was found guilty in the first of the Lockheed-related trials. Before his excitement had cooled, he supposedly said, "When my younger brother and sister would come back from Tokyo, they would ask for rice and vegetables and take them back with them. The oldest brother and his wife took care of the family house, and I went into construction work. It was hard on us and many people in similarly poor situations, and we were ready to explode. The 220,000 votes I received was the equivalent of an agrarian revolution unhappy with the poverty there."22 Tanaka's "flow" was not limited to information. It was also seen in his use of money and political funds. Therefore, when Shiina Etsusaburo and Gotoda stated they did not believe Tanaka took any money from Lock­ heed, they were merely guessing, as Tanaka always had so much money he did not even know where it was coming in from or even where it was going.23

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In Watashi No Rirekisho, Tanaka describes a story from his childhood about his poor sense of fiscal responsibility, similar to the above com­ ment. He had been accused by his mother of stealing money out of his grandfather's wallet. When questioned by her, he answered, "I did not take it. But I saw two five-yen pieces on the shelf and thought someone should use that money since it was lying out. I bought some tangerines (rnikan) and shared them with my friends. My defense, 'I did not take money from the wallet, but I did use it/ confounded her, but my grand­ father just laughed and said, 'since it was you, that's okay.'"24 The historical writer Matsumoto Kenichi later commented about this episode, "It seems that the origins and structure of the Lockheed Scandal had its roots in this story."25 In any case, the resentment that Ura Nippon has toward Tokyo that Tanaka felt as a child, and the loose approach to money Tanaka himself had since his youth, were formative experiences that influenced his style of politics. Looking at the postwar, all the cabinets until that of Tanaka were at the high politics level, handling a major issue facing Japan at the time. The Yoshida cabinet had to work out the arrangements for the treaty of peace with Japan. The Hatoyama Ichiro administration dealt with the normalization of relations with the Soviet Union. The Kishi cabinet han­ dled the revision of the Japan-U.S. security treaty. The return of adminis­ trative rights to Okinawa occurred during the Sato administration. The Ikeda cabinet was the only one that lacked an agenda that could be con­ sidered high politics. While high politics was the mainstream in the first half of the postwar, public works, social investment, and national land development was another area that increasingly came to the forefront. As was explained earlier, Tanaka was a pioneer in the latter area. Initially, the Yoshida cabinet did not have a clear theme to address, and went about things through Diet-sponsored bills. At this time, the relation­ ship between Yoshida and Tanaka is interesting to look at. Of course, the two had completely different childhoods and upbringings. In addition, on the policy side, Yoshida was against politics focused on public works and other building and development projects for their own sake. As Shimokobe Atsushi explains, this was because Yoshida was not inter­ ested, politically, in correcting the gaps that existed between the different localities.26 At the same time, both Yoshida and Tanaka bored easily with bureaucratic thinking and did not limit themselves to existing laws. They sought solutions that went above this, bringing out the real meaning of politics at that time. Furthermore, for Yoshida, Tanaka was much younger than Ikeda and Sato, almost like a grandson. Because of this, Yoshida could actually relax and enjoy his company. Despite differences in politi­ cal style and policy, Yoshida liked Tanaka. Perhaps for this reason, to­ ward the end of the Yoshida administration, Tanaka was given a seat at the table, becoming the thirteenth person in Yoshida's inner circle.

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Regarding Tanaka's relationship with Ikeda and Sato, Tanaka had the following to say about both men in March 1984, one year before he col­ lapsed from a stroke. It was published posthumously a decade later.27 He described Ikeda as having helped him by appointing him finance minis­ ter, and Sato with having helped him financially (through Tanaka's being made an advisor to the Nagaoka Railroad Company28). However, their relationships were not limited to merely this support. Yet, it is very inter­ esting that Tanaka simply notes, "individually, we were involved in a lot of projects together."29 In other words, Ikeda, Sato, and Tanaka were sometime allies, de­ pending on the situation, in the various policies they sought and shared in the developmental politics Tanaka was pursuing. He facilitated the deliberations in the committees when Ikeda was finance minister and they were discussing the Public Housing Bill, and with Sato, who was construction minister, when they discussed the Three Road Laws.30 Ta­ naka argued on behalf of the correctness of developmental politics, and tried to draw Ikeda and Sat5 in. For instance, in the case of Sato, Tanaka stated in a committee, T h e [P acific C o a st] sid e o f Ja p a n re c e iv e d th e b u lk o f th e a tte n tio n o v e r th e y e a rs . T h is is a p p a r e n t in th e c o m m e n ts b y re p re s e n ta tiv e s o f th e se a re a s . It is tru e as w e ll o f th e b u r e a u c r a c y an d p o litics as a w h o le , th a t th o s e a re a s , e sp e cia lly th e cities, h a v e b e e n g iv e n m o r e a tte n tio n an d a re b e tte r off. I d o n 't e v e n n e e d to p o in t o u t th a t th e b a ck sid e o f Ja p a n , in clu d in g H o k k a id o , h a s re c e iv e d little in th e w a y o f th e n a tio n 's b le ss­ in g s. I h a v e a p ro b le m w ith th e w a y th e o th e r a re a s h a v e b e e n ta k e n c a r e at th e e x p e n s e o f o th e r p a rts o f th e c o u n try . I w o u ld like y o u to c o m m e n t o n th is, b e in g a w a re th a t th is in fa ct is th e situ a tio n .

Faced with this visceral resentment, Sato was forced to respond, "Your feelings are very well understood, but I want you to know there was no conscious attempt to place more emphasis on the Pacific Coast side of Japan in our road policies. . . . I wish to adopt policies that posi­ tively affect every area." Through interactions with these two ministers, Tanaka was able to quickly determine that Ikeda's policies emphasized a non-ideological approach to economic policies, and Sato emphasized high politics. Although the Hatoyama cabinet and Kishi cabinet, which came into being before and after, respectively, the establishment of the "1955 Sys­ tem" of an LDP-led administration that dominated Japanese politics over the smaller number two party, the Japan Socialist Party, and the other minor parties, emphasized high politics, they also were characterized for their beginning to clarify various domestic issues in the developmental politics area moving beyond the early stages of the Yoshida era.31 For example, the Hatoyama cabinet established the first housing policies in the postwar. He succeeded in developing the concept that housing was

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not an extension of social policy but one of social capital. As discussed previously, Tanaka had suggested this direction from the Yoshida era. In addition, the Hatoyama cabinet also started three public corporations to establish the foundations for this social capital: the Japan Housing Corpo­ ration, Aichi Irrigation Corporation, and the Japan Highway Public Cor­ poration. Next, the Kishi cabinet pursued the project proposals each ministry had presented that were continuations of the work started by the Hatoya­ ma administration. There were numerous laws passed during this time, including the Special Multipurpose Dam Law (Tokutei Tamokuteki Damuho), Tohoku Development Promotion Law (Tohoku Kaihatsu Sokushinhd), Roadway Maintenance Emergency Measures Law (Doro Seibi Kinkyu Sochihd), Industrial Irrigation Projects Law (Kogyo Ydsuidd Jigyoho), Metropolitan Expressway Public Corporation Law (Shuto Kosoku Doro Kodanhd), and Erosion and Flood Control Emergency Measures Law (Chisan Chisui Kinkyu Sochihd). Tanaka became the youngest minister of Posts and Telecommunications when he joined the first reshuffled Kishi cabi­ net in July 1957. In fact, Tanaka's relationship with Kishi was somewhat unusual. Tanaka's secretary Sato got the impression from Tanaka that he felt "the first time to become a minister is like a race."32 On the other hand, Kishi said in later years that he "does not think he made a mistake by choosing the young Tanaka to become the minister of Posts and Tele­ communications in the 1950s. Later, when he took on even more impor­ tant jobs, such as secretary general of the party and finance minister, he did well and was very good at what he did. As a person, he was also quite interesting."33 As the point man for the Kishi cabinet on telecommunications, Tanaka gained a name for himself by granting preparatory licenses to as many as forty-three television stations around the country. On this, Kishi was certainly supportive. Nevertheless, he still clearly was hesitant about Ta­ naka. The appearance of the Ikeda cabinet, which Tanaka helped bring about, following the extreme point of high politics —the revision of the Japan-U.S. security treaty—at the end of the Kishi cabinet was for both Tanaka and developmental politics a great stroke of luck. At the direction of his confidantes, Ohira, Kurogane Yasumi, Miyazawa Kiichi, and Ito Masaya, the already anti-ideological Ikeda put forward as his cabinet's catchphrase, "forbearance and patience," and focused its policy agenda °n the Income- or Wage-Doubling Plan. High politics was pushed to the hackburner and an economics-first approach to a degree previously unimaginable took over. For Tanaka, there was no greater chance to pursue his developmental politics, which would underpin the Ikeda cabinet's economic policies. Tanaka quickly came to head the Special Committee on Water Re­ sources in 1960, the LDP's Policy Affairs Research Council in 1961, and

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the Finance Ministry in 1962. This unprecedented rise in influence was not possible without the existence of Ikeda, who followed the stock mar­ ket every day on his transistor radio. Even if Ikeda once made fun of rickshaw pullers and horse handlers, his political agenda could not be imagined without Tanaka.34 Moreover, Tanaka was intimately involved in the drafting of the National Comprehensive Development Plan in the twelve years following the National Land Development Law. This in­ volvement was particularly important as a result of the resentment of the Ura Nippon toward the Ikeda's Income- or Wage-Doubling Plan, which was predicated on the development of the Pacific Coast side of Japan. This resulted in the creation of a national development network, includ­ ing identifying new industrial cities. By combining Tanaka's own future and that of developmental politics, he was able to develop his vision for the remodeling of Japan, ideas that were shared with his secretary Fumoto Kuniaki and Hayasaka.35 The Sato cabinet, which succeeded the Ikeda government, tried to place high politics at the forefront again through the reversion of Okina­ wa, the peace treaty with South Korea, and the Taiwan issue. Sato also sought to bring some sense of order to the issue of social development (shakai kaihatsu), which had taken on an ideological flavor, building on the developmental politics and advice of Aichi Kiichi. Sato basically wanted to use Tanaka while weakening his power. During the eight years of the Sato administration, Tanaka served as the finance minister for one year in the beginning and MITI minister at the end, as well as four years in total (1965-1966; 1968-1971) as secretary general of the LDP. There was only one year and a half when he had no posts. In fact, during the time Tanaka was serving as secretary general of the party, he gradually tried to avoid any face-to-face communication with Sato. He was so successful in doing so that Sato once asked Nikaido Susumu, a close confidante of Tanaka, "What is Tanaka up to, I won­ der?"36 There was in fact a reason behind Tanaka's actions. The alliance between him and Ohira Masayoshi had grown stronger after Ohira had secured the foreign minister position for himself and the finance minister position for Tanaka in the Ikeda cabinet. The two of them first met in the 1940s when Ohira was head of the public works division of the Economic Stabilization Board. Ohira would try to decide on things without seeing Tanaka, because if he did meet him, he was afraid he would end up doing what Tanaka wanted done. As mentioned earlier, Tanaka had a way of making concrete proposals on things that made it difficult for others to decide otherwise. Tanaka would even make proposals to his political enemies. Because of this attitude, it was hard to see Tanaka because one would be told how to do things. Sato was aware of this and warned those around him "not to see Tanaka. You'll be misled." Ishihara Shintaro provided some insights into the relationship be­ tween Sato and Tanaka. Sato, who "had a way of expressing himself that

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defied expression," would often get angry at the Tanaka, who "found beauty in empty words." Sato would sometimes scream at Tanaka, but Tanaka later said, "I did not give it a second thought. It did not bother me jn the least and had no effect." However, Sato probably did not like it when someone did not understand his explanations.37 As proof of this, Tanaka long rejected offers to become the chief cabinet secretary because be would have to see Sato every day. Tanaka would often jokingly say if be became the "chief cabinet secretary, he would be killed."38 While dealing with the various pressures that the presence of Sato represented, Tanaka began to think about an organized framework for a national land policy concept in order to take the lead in developmental politics.39 In 1967, Tanaka was appointed the chairman of the LDP's Ur­ ban Policy Study Committee and began to have the party take the lead drafting policies by removing the various barriers that existed as a result of the stovepiped bureaucracy. He gathered young officials, such as Shimokobe, and experts, and within a year the committee produced the report, "Urban Policy Guidelines" (Toshi Seisaku Taiko). Like the "Remod­ eling Plan for the Japanese Archipelago" which came later, this publica­ tion was based on Tanaka's remarks to which details were added. The report was finalized primarily by Tanaka's secretary, Fumoto, with the assistance of Hayasaka, another of his secretaries. The report immediately enjoyed the high praise of the media, begin­ ning first with the Asahi Shimbun. At the same time, Tanaka was seen as a new type of politician with a revolutionary sense. As a result, the dis­ tance that once existed between him and Prime Minister Sato began to lessen. On the one hand, the report called for the "establishment of a framework for development laws" and "a consolidation of the structure of national development" to lead for the improvement in the inefficient bureaucracy, while also calling for the "emphasis on the public good when utilizing land," which appeared to be very much in line with the preamble of the postwar constitution. In other words, the phrase, "The fundamental principle of the public good being emphasized is estab­ lished by private property being used for the benefit of the public," made quite a convincing argument. In the end, Urban Policy Guidelines was released as an LDP publication and, interestingly, became not only a best seller, but a "long seller" as well, requiring additional printings. Just then, the Sato cabinet was draftIng the "New National Comprehensive Development Plan" (Shin Zenkoku Sogo Kaihatsu Keikaku), and this document, along with the guidelines, strategically and ideologically appealed widely to the public about the important of national development plans and developmental politics. As the end of the Sato cabinet approached, these plans, along with the prob­ lems of pollution and land utilization, developmental politics increasing­ ly reached the level of high politics.

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At just the same time, domestically as well as diplomatically, with the two so-called Nixon Shocks of President Richard M. Nixon's plan to visit China and his taking the dollar off the gold standard, the handling be­ came more difficult, and increasingly the race for the post-Sato period began. In 1971, Tanaka, who was serving as the minister of International Trade and Industry, had tackled the U.S.-Japan textile issue which had long troubled Sato, as explained earlier. Tanaka was thus successful in weakening Sato, who had supported Fukuda as his successor. Tanaka launched his own clear policies when the timing was right in both do­ mestic and foreign affairs. In the area of high politics in foreign affairs was the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations, and in domestic mat­ ters was developmental politics in the form of the "Remodeling Plan of the Japanese Archipelago." If that is the case, it is curious why Tanaka felt the need to release the Remodeling Plan for the Japanese Archipelago when the media had been so approving of the Urban Policy Guidelines.40 In fact, Tanaka was un­ comfortable with some aspects of the Urban Policy Guidelines, which he told to his secretaries. One problem had to do with the fact that the guidelines were the party's policy publication, not his own book. The second one was that the contents, while understandable to specialists, were not easy for the common person to follow. Another issue seems to have been Tanaka's inability to embrace the ideology behind the major points of the guidelines of there being limitations on private rights and a greater emphasis on the public good. The sentences had the ideological flavor that time—one of great student unrest at the universities. "The work we are going to do from now is the milestone of a journey of a thousand miles," was one expression used, as was "the building of a new Japan begins from here." No matter how one looks at it, these sentences were not expressions that Tanaka would use. This writing style was quite different from that seen in Watashi no Rirekisho, his memoirs described above. In other words, while the motivation to develop a national land policy framework was the same, the contents and expressions were different. Essentially, while the Urban Policy Guidelines were written together by Tanaka and his close associates, such as Fumoto, the objectives of it or goals in doing it were somewhat different. First of all, for Tanaka, devel­ opmental politics was not an ideologically charged high politics issue. Tanaka did not like or want abstract policy discussions—he wanted nononsense, clear cut, practical solutions. Anything other than that missed the mark. His Building a New Japan: A Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago (Nihon Retto Kaizoron) was precisely this.41 When writing it, he worked this time with Hayasaka and a group of officials from MITI, including Konaga, to provide as many detailed solutions as possible, in time for the LDP presidential election. Although Tanaka possessed a lot of information which he could introduce quite voluminously, it was

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nevertheless a difficult project to complete in the mere six months they had.

In the preface and epilogue to Building a New Japan, we find for the first time since the publication of Watashi no Rirekisho Tanaka reflecting on stored information. In it was Tanaka's feelings about rural Japan and Japanese politics not seen Urban Policy Guidelines. Tanaka wrote, "It is true that the urban concentration of both people and production has been the driving force in building today's prosperity. The process of this mas­ sive flow has given rise to many whose only home is a two-room apart­ ment in a big city, sapped the villages of their youth, and left behind the aged and housewives to sweat and toil in back-breaking labor."42 Fur­ ther, using the concrete phrase about remodeling Japan, "a set of policy programs to solve simultaneously both overcrowding and underpopula­ tion," he proposed a vision of relocating people and industry into less populated areas.43 Building a New Japan, while of a different context of the normal high politics found in other areas, was nevertheless the high point of Tanaka's development-focused politics. Reflecting this, in the epi­ logue, Tanaka ended with, "For the past twenty-five years, I have done my best as a statesman to make Japan a well-balanced, comfortable place to live in. And I shall dedicate the remainder of my life to the consumma­ tion of this task. A society where every home is filled with laughter, where senior citizens live peaceful, restful lives, where the eyes of youth shine bright with the light of hope."44 Tanaka took over the premiership with his slogan of "Decision and Implementation" in July 1972 after having defeated Fukuda for the party presidency. Despite this slogan, Tanaka made a series of completely contradictory decisions with regard to personnel. First, he included Miki Takeo, Nakasone, Ohira, and Fukuda, who would become his greatest rival, in his cabinet. These were, in other words, all those who were considered potential future prime ministers. Unlike Sato, who was the strongest of the herd, Tanaka was unable to rise above his rivals. As such, he was incapable of establishing a strong leadership position as prime minister. As such, Tanaka's power gradually weakened and he could only watch as these rivals undermined his authority, such as when Fuku­ da described the worsening economic situation in terms of its "skyrocketmg prices" or when Miki called elections held at that time as "a contest between businesses." They would eventually resign their posts. Second, there was no one within the Tanaka cabinet who performed a role similar to that which Tanaka played in the Ikeda and Sato cabinets. As a result, Tanaka had to serve not only as prime minister but also as the secretary general of the LDP. The life of a prime minister is busy enough already, but having to do this extra "job" made Tanaka desperately busy. His appearance and manner changed, too, according to his secretary, Sato Akiko. "After becoming prime minister," she wrote, "I think his counte­ nance greatly changed. He lost some of his sense of happiness, and dis­

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played a resolute expression fitting of prime minister. He became shorttempered and strict."45 Tanaka probably did not have much time to think about what a prime minister is or what the prime minister is to accomplish. There is the famous expression, "The presidency makes the president." In Tanaka's case, he became increasingly busier as prime minister, which only wors­ ened his already close involvement in all political matters. He was not able to act like a prime minister, as he continued to be involved in small matters. Former Prime Minister Kishi saw through this and was quite critical: "Tanaka may have been the best person there is for the secretary general or maybe the president of the party, but not as the prime minis­ ter. As the face of Japan, whenever he represented the country, he lacked what was necessary, and certainly he lacked the refinement. He was ill bred. As prime minister, a person needs to be cultured."46 The normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China, which had been a short but intense effort for Tanaka, was the only policy success for his administration. What should have been the shining piece after a quarter century of politics in the area, the "Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago," ended in failure as a result of missing not only the timing and place but the methodology and environment to pro­ mote his grand vision. A great misunderstanding was created by the success of his book of the same title, which sold a million copies. The book sold so well because Tanaka himself was popular, and while it was a compilation of practical solutions to problems, it simply ended up be­ ing a manual for developmental politics leading to the dramatic increase in land prices. Tanaka was very good at giving practical advice on the spot to anyone who came to see him. His problem is that he was determined to publish the book, and as a result, shared with everyone his specific plans. In the end, ironically, his publication of the book describing the remodeling plan did the plan in. Fukuda, who succeeded Aichi as finance minister after the latter died suddenly in November 1973 following the start of the oil shock crisis, declared that the plan for remodeling the Japanese peninsula was no more than Prime Minister Tanaka's personal idea, and with this, along with a relentless attack by the opposition parties, the remodeling plan was shelved. When discussing the Tanaka cabinet, there of course were other is­ sues—not covered here—to include a single-seat constituency electoral system, new Middle East policy, National Lifestyle Stabilization Emer­ gency Measures Bill (Kokumin Seikatsu Antei Kinkyu Sochiho), the G o t o d a Committee, National Land Utilization Planning Bill (Kokudo Riy° Keikakuho), establishing the National Land Agency. Tanaka was forced to resign in December 1974 as a result of his in­ volvement with money politics. After the cabinet's resignation en masse,

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Tanaka quietly told the press corps gathered, "Although I seldom pray at our family's altar, I did so today. I also called my mother in Niigata. She said, 'good job.' Mothers are like that, aren't they?"47 Perhaps the best way to end this chapter is to draw from Tanaka's book, Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago, in which he says: People that were born in the Meiji and Taisho eras had a profound love of their hometowns. Even if one's community had been poor, one still had a strict father, a loving mother, childhood friends, mountains, riv­ ers, the sea, green fields. Those that left one's hometown went to study, work, raise a family, or experience a kaleidoscope type of life. Muro Saisei [a famous poet and novelist from nearby Ishikawa Prefecture], wrote, "Home is where you reminisce when you are far away and sing with sorrow." Regardless of whether someone was successful or not, they always remembered their hometown, and know that it was the unchanging people, customs, institutions, and scenery that would be the continued source of emotional support for them. NOTES 1. "H ak k u tsu Tanaka K akuei (D iscovering Tanaka K akuei), N o. 5 4 ," Niigata Nippo, M arch 1 9 ,1 9 9 4 . 2. Eto Jun, Nihon Yo, Shinobiru no Ka (Japan, A re Y o u P rep arin g to D ie?), (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1995), 81. 3. H ayasak a Shigezo, Hayasaka Shigezd no "Tanaka Kakuei" Kaisoroku (H ay asak a Shigezo's "T an ak a K aku ei" M em oirs), (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1987), 23. 4. H ayasak a Shigezo, Oyaji to Watashi (The Boss and M e), (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1987), 167. 5. Sato A kiko, Watashino Tanaka Kakuei Nikki (M y Tanaka K akuei D iary), (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1994), 49. 6. K onaga Keiichi, "H ak k u tsu Tanaka K akuei (D iscovering Tanaka K akuei), N o. 16," Niigata Nippo, F eb ru ary 1 9 ,1 9 9 4 . 7. G otoda M asah aru , Sei to Kan (Politics and B u reau cracy ), (Tokyo: K odansha, 1994), 18. 8. H ayan o Torn, Tanaka Kakuei to “Sengo" no Seishin (T an aka K akuei and the Psychology of the "P o s tw a r"), (Tokyo: A sah i Bunko, 1995), 16. 9. Takahashi K oichiro, "H ak k u tsu Tanaka K akuei (D iscovering Tanaka K akuei), No. 6 6 /' Niigata Nippo, M arch 3 1 ,1 9 9 4 . 10. O ra Keiichi, "H ak k u tsu Tanaka K akuei (D iscovering T anaka K akuei), N os. I l ­ ls ," Niigata Nippo, F eb ru ary 1 2 ,1 9 9 4 . 11. G otoda, Sei to Kan, 21. 12. "H ak k u tsu Tanaka K akuei (D iscovering Tanaka K akuei), N o. 8 2 ," Niigata Nippo, April 2 0 ,1 9 9 4 . 13. H ayasak a, Hayasaka Shigezo, 28. 14. N iigata N ip po H od o b u , Saisho Tanaka Kakuei no Shinjitsu (The T ruth about Prime M inister Tanaka K akuei), (Tokyo: K odansha, 1994), 30. 15. H ayasak a Shigezo, Seijika Tanaka Kakuei (Tanaka K akuei, the Politician), (Tokyo: Chuo K oron sha, 1987), 47. 16. H ayasak a, Hayasaka Shigezd, 53. 17. Satd, Watashino Tanaka Kakuei Nikki, 48. 18. N iigata N ip poh en, ed., Za Etzuzankai (The E tsuzankai), (N iigata: N iigata N ip po, 1983), 33.

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19. H ayan o , Tanaka Kakuei to "Sengo" no Seishin, 28. 20. N IR A K enkyu H dkokusho, Sengo Kokudo Seisaku no Kensho (A n E xam in atio n of P o stw a r L an d Policies), (Tokyo: Sogo K enk yu K aihatsu K iko, 1995). 21. H ayasak a, Oyaji to Watashi, 187. 22. H ayan o , Tanaka Kakuei to "Sengo" no Seishin, 31. 23. N iig ata N ip po H od o b u , Saisho Tanaka Kakuei no Shinjitsu, 40. 24. Tanaka K akuei, Watashino Rirekisho (M y B io g rap h y ), (Tokyo: N ih on Keizai Shim bunsha, 1966), 65. 25. M atsu m o to K enichi, Sengo Seijika no Bunsho (C h ap ters on P o stw ar Politicians), (Tokyo: D aisan B unm eisha, 1988), 112. 26. Shim okobe A tsush i, Sengo Kokudo Keikaku e no Shogen (T estim ony about the P o stw a r N ational L an d Plan ), (Tokyo: N ihon Keizai H yo ro n sh a, 1994), 141. 27. Tanaka K akuei, "T an ak a K akuei D ok u hak uryok u: W ag a Sengo H ishi (Tanaka K aku ei's M onologue: M y Secret P o stw ar H isto ry )," Gendai, Vol. 4 0 , N o. 2 (February 1994), 68. 28. The au th o r w rites "a d v is o r" b ut ap p aren tly he w as m ad e p residen t of the rail­ ro ad as early as 1950. 29. Tanaka, "T an ak a K akuei D o k u h ak u ryo k u ," 71. 30. H ayasak a, Seijika Tanaka Kakuei, 81. 31. Shim okobe, Sengo Kokudo Keikaku e no Shogen, 114. 32. Sato, Watashino Tanaka Kakuei Nikki, 96. 33. Kishi N ob u suk e, Kishi Nobusuke no Kaiso (The R em iniscences of Kishi Nobusuke), (Tokyd: Bungei Shunju, 1981), 165. 34. N iigata N ipposha, ed., Kakuei no Fushi (The C u ltu ral and Spiritual Clim ate of K aku ei's H o m eto w n ), (N iigata: N iig ata N ip posh a, 1983), 9. 35. N iigata N ip poh en, ed ., Za Etzuzankai, 29. 36. "H ak k u tsu Tanaka K akuei (D iscovering Tanaka K akuei), N o. 5 9 ," Niigata Nippo, O ctob er 3 1 ,1 9 9 4 . 37. H ayasak a, Hayasaka Shigezo, 129. 38. Y a m a d a Eizo, Seiden Sato Eisaku (The Official B iograp hy of Sato Eisaku), Vol. 2, (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1988), 81. 39. M ikuriya Takeshi, "K o k u d o K eikaku to K aihatsu Seiji: N ihon R etto K aizo to K odo Seicho n o Jidai (N ation al L an d Planning and D evelopm ental Politics: The Re­ m od elin g of the Jap an ese A rch ip elag o and the P eriod of H igh E co n o m ic G row th)," Nenpo Seijigaku, V ol. 46, N o . 2 ,6 4 - 7 8 . 40. M ikuriya, "K o k u d o K eikaku to K aihatsu Seiji," 67. 41. Tanaka K akuei, Building a New Japan: A Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipela­ go (Tokyo: Sim ul Press, 1972). 42. T anaka, Building a New Japan, 218. 43. T anaka, Building a New Japan, 218. 44. T anaka, Building a New Japan, 220. 45. Sato, Wat ashino Tanaka Kakuei Nikki, 18. 46. H ara Yosh ihisa, Kishi Nobusuke: Kensei no Seijika (Kishi N obusuke: The Politician of P ow er), (Tokyo: Iw an am i Shoten, 1995), 78. 47. N iigata N ip posh a, ed., Kakuei Zanzo (Lasting Im age of K akuei), (N iigata: Niigata N ip posh a, 1988), 45.

TWELVE Miki Takeo Politics of Conviction and Public Opinion Shinkawa Toshimitsu

The Miki Takeo cabinet was formed on December 9, 1974, and after one reshuffle on September 15, 1976, ended on December 24 the same year after taking responsibility for his party's loss in the Lower House elec­ tions earlier that month.1 The background to the formation of the cabinet by Miki, who was never in the mainstream in the complicated factional dynamics of the Liberal Democratic Party, lay in response to the public outcry over his predecessor Tanaka Kakuei's Lockheed scandal. Miki was someone seen as "clean" and far removed from the money politics Tana­ ka epitomized. However, this "clean" image was also Miki's weak point, in the constant political battles for control. Although the clean image of the Miki administration helped the LDP overcome a crisis, because it was unable to resolve the internal conflicts within the party when dealing with the Lockheed Scandal, the administration has been described as a 'repairman's cabinet," without any positive, long-lasting results to show for itself.2 Yet, this view of Miki's being a caretaker cabinet downplays its role as like a railroad switchman for conservative politics. Namely, the years 1974 to 1976 were ones that were fluid both domestically and inter­ nationally, and while it is true that the Miki cabinet was at the mercy of fhis (his weak position within the party did not help either), it can be said that he presented a new direction for conservative politics. The policies and political actions that set the direction of the Miki cabinet include purging politics (through the revision of two electoral laws), seeking a fairer society (through revisions to the antitrust law and 189

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expanding welfare policies), and bringing about a soft landing of the economy from rapid growth to stable growth (through its handling of the 1975 workers' demands for higher wages and the issue of strikes). In addition, while not given much attention, the writing of the National Defense Program Outline (Bdei Seisaku Daiko) should also be noted. This chapter introduces these policies and while exploring how Miki's beliefs and leadership skills affected the making of these policies; it will also examine the characteristics and limitations of Miki's politics. The Miki cabinet, born against the backdrop of public criticism of money politics, placed at the top of its agenda the ending of unprincipled methods of gathering political funds and deceitful political activities. In April 1975, it submitted bills to the Lower House reforming the Cam­ paign Finance Law (Seiji Shikin Kiseiho) and Public Offices Election Law (Koshoku Senkyoho), and on July 4, both bills were passed in the Upper House. The main points of the revisions in the latter law included an adjustment in the number of seats up for election, an increase in the initial deposit for becoming a candidate, and a strengthening in the regu­ lations for distributing campaign-related books and newsletters. The real attention-getter of the Miki cabinet's efforts at political reform was with the Campaign Finance Law. Through the clarification of the definition of political parties, political funding groups, and political organizations, the focus of regulation was more specific, but required each organization to submit income and expenditure reports on political funds to the election commission and/or the Ministry of Home Affairs.3 It also limited the upper amount a political organization could receive from a business, organization, or individual, and required the names of donors over a certain amount to be publicized. In these ways, the Miki cabinet qualitatively and quantitatively strengthened the regulations on political funds, but Miki had to make significant concessions due to the degree of opposition he faced within the LDP itself. Initially, Miki had indicated he wished "to end political donations from businesses within three years" but there were many in the LDP who were strongly opposed to this and eventually he had to give up. Furthermore, from the perspective of qualitative restrictions, there was no obligation of the donor to report his or her donations. In addition, the names of political organizations did not have to be publicized for donations under one million yen (approximately $3,250 in 1975). Com­ pared to political parties and political fund groups, restrictions were dra­ matically eased. Quantitatively speaking as well, there were no limits on the number of political organizations a politician could possess. While donations from businesses and labor unions could not exceed 100 million yen per year according to the law, an addendum to it permitted "for the time being" funds up to half that amount to go to political parties, politi­ cal funding groups, and other political groups, thus giving them an es­ cape clause. There were a lot of problems with the bill, in other words.

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However, for Miki, who had spent his entire life calling for the cleansing °f politics, political reform was not a temporary measure but some­ thing that must be continued. Even after he stepped down as prime min­ ister, Miki produced his own recommendations, "Essence of a Special Measures Law to Cleanse Elections" (Senkyo Joka Tokubetsu Sochiho Yoko), which called for the expansion of publicly managed elections, strengthen­ ing of regulations on campaigning, reduction of the cost of elections, strengthening of guilt-by-association system, lengthening of the loss of voting rights for those who violated election laws, and other measures.4 It became clear that the revisions of the electoral laws during the Miki cabinet were not enough in the later "Recruit" and "Sagawa" scandals of the late 1980s, but they should be praised for being proactive steps taken to cleanse politics. In his policy speech for the 75th session of the Diet in January 1975, Prime Minister Miki stressed the need to bring about a fairer society while stabilizing prices, and called for expanding the foundations for earning a living and helping the socially needy through the establishment of fair rules in a liberal economy.5 With regard to welfare matters, the late Murakami Yasusuke, a professor of economics and social choice theory at Tokyo University, led the effort to draft the "Life Cycle Plan" (Shogai Sekkei [Raifu Saikuru] Keikaku), which emphasized the principles of selfhelp and community help while offering government support to the peo­ ple at different stages in their life to reach a national minimum standard. Based on this concept, Miki announced in his policy speech the following year on January 23,1976, that Japan "would pursue a welfare policy that was neither British in nature nor like those in Northern Europe, but would be its own, unique, Japanese style.6 In the end, there was no con­ crete policy development during the remainder of the Miki cabinet, but the idea of "Japanese style welfare" would continue in the administrative reforms of the 1980s. With regard to the realization of social fairness, Miki focused on re­ forming of the antimonopoly law and pursuing "equality in competition" and the "protection of consumers' interests." Using the 1973 oil crisis as an excuse, immoral businesses charged outrageous prices, causing the public to harbor a great deal of resentment. In response, Japan's Fair Trade Commission, chaired by Takahashi Toshihide (a former senior offi­ cial in the Ministry of Finance), prepared a draft revision to the antimonopoly law. Based on this draft, Miki decided to take up an antimonopoly agenda by calling for the "creation of new rules for a liberal economy." The contents of the revision included articles that dealt with the fundamentals of the economy such as heavily taxing profits earned from illegal cartels, measures to end the monopolistic situation, and lim­ bing the amount of stocks financial institutions could hold. These efforts at revision led to great criticism from not only those in the LDP but the business community as well. Shiina Etsusaburo, a former bureaucrat

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from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry who is considered to be the one who "gave birth" to the Miki administration, became angry with the prime minister wondering if the latter was "trying to destroy the LDp and the business world," and their relationship increasingly worsened from this point.7 The business world, which took a wait-and-see attitude with regard to the measures to strengthen controls on political funds, came out strongly against revisions to the antimonopoly law believing they would lead to the decline in the international competitiveness of Japanese enterprises and the lengthening of the recession.8 Eventually, while the draft revision of the antimonopoly bill would be withdrawn until there were voices that said there was "no harm," there was no place for the business community, which feared Miki's "shift to the Left," to voice their concerns. Secretary General Nakasone Yasuhiro, acting on the wishes of LDP vice president Shiina, instructed on June 19, 1975, that the antimonopoly revision bill should be put off. However, Miki went over the heads of the party leadership and asked Yamanaka Sadanori, the chairman of the LDP's Monopoly Law Research Commit­ tee, and Tanaka Rokusuke, a member of the party's Commerce Commit­ tee, for their help and even eventually reached out to the opposition parties. Thanks to Miki's interest and passion, the draft bill passed the Lower House on June 24 and was sent to the Upper House for its deliber­ ation. However, at a meeting of the LDP's Upper House, members' criti­ cism emerged over Miki's ignoring of his own party and his cooperating with the opposition. In addition, Fujii Heigo, vice president of Nippon Steel Corporation and representing the business community, formed a group of "13 Opposed to the Anti-Monopoly Law" (Dokkinhd Soshi jusanshu). Eventually, the bill was not discussed in the Upper House's Commerce Committee.9 With the introduction of market principles by the neoconservatives from the 1980s onward, the demand to break up "big government" had increased. However, whether it involves the privatization of public ser­ vices or the reduction in regulations, without rules for the realization of fair competition or the protection of consumers, a "dog-eat-dog" world seems to have been invited. Indeed, the revision and strengthening of the antimonopoly laws actually is an indispensable premise to the neocon­ servative strategy (although, of course, it does not guarantee a fair soci­ ety). In this sense, the revision and strengthening of the antitrust laws, furthermore, was a necessary precondition of the new conservatism strat­ egy (whether this would ensure a fairer society is debatable). Miki's ef­ forts were not a break from the conservatives, but instead the ushering in of the new conservatism. At the time of the formation of the Miki administration, it had b e c o m e clear that the economic challenges following the 1973 oil crisis were not a temporary problem and that the days of Japan's high economic g r o w t h had come to an end. As such, it was necessary for Miki to come up with a

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" s o f t landing" by which "stable economic growth" would be pursued. \\e continued to repeat the phrase "switching to the path of stable eco­ n o m ic growth" from the time of his first policy speech onward. His first c h a ll e n g e was the spring 1975 demands by the labor unions for salary increases known as shunto, or "spring labor offensive." It was necessary fo r these demands, which had long been honored annually with a slight ris e in pay, to be tampered down if his pursuit of stable economic growth was to be realized. Because the government looked at capping an increase in salaries as the most critical issue, there were concerns raised by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Japan Chamber of Commerce a n d Industry that the economy would cool off, Miki continued the con­ trols on aggregate demand until after the spring labor talks. This policy of "overkill" allowed companies to avoid paying high increases in salaries, which was aided by the collaboration between the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations and the Japan Federation of Employers' Associ­ ations, as well as by the cooperation of the Japan Confederation of Labor and the Japan Council of Metalworkers Unions, resulting in the rise in salaries being limited to an average of 13 percent, versus nearly double that the year before. Subsequently, salary increases were kept in the sin­ gle digits in the latter half of the 1970s. The cooperation of the labor unions was crucial in this, but this cooperative relationship did not end with only the labor unions making concessions. Management was also rationalized and made more efficient. It was during the Miki administra­ tion that this cooperative relationship truly came about.10 It was not only a demand for higher wages. The direct confrontational style of the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan, which opposed the conservative government and management side based on pseudo-class, was contained in favor of a cooperative agreement between labor and management. However, in the 1975 spring labor offensive, while the de­ mands by the General Council for a "large salary hike" were blocked, the influence of the Japan Federation of National Service Employees, which favored the direct confrontational approach, continued intact. The Sutokensuto, or "the strike for the right to strike," in November that year became the perfect opportunity to weaken the power of the Federation of National Service Employees. The General Council's direct confrontational style was seen against the backdrop of a "production-first" mentality in the workplace, and was quite effective in the 1974 spring labor offensive. Moreover, recovering the right to strike, which had been a long-standing concern for the Federation of National Service Employees, also made some headway that year. Specifically, Oki Shogo, the executive director of the General Council's Spring Labor Offensive office, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Nikaido Susumu, put together a "Agreed Five Points" memorandum, and a decision Was made to conduct discussions about the ideal basic labor rights for

I

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workers of public corporations and government enterprises by the ministers concerned. The council was to make its conclusions by the fall of 1975, but the General Council and the Federation of National Service Employees held out hope that the new government under Miki, seen as the left wing element of the LDP, would be more supportive of the right to strike. As if to strengthen this view, Prime Minister Miki and Minister of Labor Hasegawa Shun announced their intention to "End the vicious cycle of firing someone due to their participation in strikes." However, as the fall of 1975 approached, voices opposed to giving the right to strike began to be heard within the government and LDP, cen­ tered on the Tanaka faction. In despair, the Federation of National Ser­ vice Employees launched the "Strike for the Right to Strike" on Novem­ ber 26 but ended it on its own on December 3 without having received any concessions from the government. This large strike, which occurred just as the Japanese economy was beginning to recover from the recession following the oil crisis, caused the Federation to be heavily criticized as "lazy, protected bureaucrats" by many, including the mass media, public, Japan Confederation of Labor, and Democratic Socialist Party. Even the private sector labor unions within the General Council were not suppor­ tive of the Federation's activities. In addition to the strong outcry, the Japanese government took administrative action against public employ­ ees and legal action against the General Council, and as a result, the embattled General Council became so busy protecting itself it was unable to launch a large strike again. Moreover, there was a leadership change within the council, which adopted a more practical stance. Like the classwar labor movement of the private sector essentially ended with the Mitsui-Miike Labor Dispute of 1960, the class-war labor movement of the public sector workers ended with the failure over the "strike for the right to strike" in the mid-1970s.11 The first half of the 1970s was the period of detente in international politics, symbolized by President Richard M. Nixon's visit to China. In response, Japan set about normalizing its relations with China. Miki had lent his support to Tanaka in the final round of voting in the LDP presi­ dential election in July 1972 conditioned on Tanaka's normalizing rela­ tions with China upon becoming prime minister. As Tanaka's successor, Miki was enthusiastic about signing a peace treaty with China, but nego­ tiations over the "hegemony clause" got bogged down and it would not be until the Fukuda Takeo cabinet until the treaty was actually signed. It was in defense matters where Miki saw concrete policies emerge in response to detente. The debate over the "Peacetime Defense Capability' (Heiwaji no Boeiryoku) concept, which was premised on the "autonomous defense" in the 1970s took place primarily within the Defense Agency and the ruling LDP. Within the Miki administration, the concept of hav­ ing a standard defense force which would "not invite aggression or at­ tack" was finalized in October 1975, and in October 1976, the National

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pefense Program Outline (Bdei Keikaku no Taiko) based on the Standard Defense Force Concept (Kibanteki Boeiryoku Koso) was published. In No­ vember that year, the cabinet formalized, through a cabinet decision, the long-standing custom of having the defense budget not exceed 1 percent 0f GNP, which had not been a problem per se due to Japan's high rate of economic growth. The scholar Otake Hideo described the defense policies of the Miki cabinet as "both the completion of the Detente approach and a turning p o in t in the armaments race."12 In other words, the Standard Defense F o r c e Concept was premised on detente and promoted autonomous de­ fe n s e while not seeking to become a military superpower. Furthermore, the Self-Defense Forces were well established by this point in the public's e y e , and the framework for U.S.-Japan defense cooperation was strength­ e n e d . Both of these points permitted the potential expansion of Japan's military capabilities, if the need arose. Therefore, the Nakasone cabinet's exceeding, while only slightly, the "1 percent of GNP" limit, can be de­ s c r ib e d as not a negation of Miki's policies but a natural extension of them. Having looked at the main activities and policies of the Miki cabinet, it is now important to discuss Miki's political beliefs and style of leadership and how these related to the accomplishments of the Miki cabinet. Miki Takeo was born on March 17, 1907, in Donari Town, Itano County, Tokushima Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. As the only son of Hisakichi and Takano, he was doted on and warmly raised. Takeo was expected to take over Hisakichi's business in providing fertilizer to farm­ ers, but his oratory skills were quickly noted in school. He was active in the debate society of Meiji University, and eventually sought a career in politics, having expanded his horizons while studying in Europe and the United States. First elected in April 1937, Miki was the youngest to ever be elected to the Lower House at the time. He served more than fifty years in the Diet, and was still a member when he passed away in No­ vember 1988. When he first ran in 1937, he called for the "reform of parties and an end to bureaucratic control of cabinets." This platform represented his life-long ideals.13 In October 1963, Miki, who headed the Organizational Research Com­ mittee on Modernizing the Party, submitted a set of recommendations by the committee to Liberal Democratic Party president Ikeda Hayato that called for the disbanding of factions and the creation of a party focusing °n policies, as well as the concentration of political funds in the party (as opposed to being held by factions).14 Miki argued throughout that it was necessary to end the bureaucratic control of politics. This was due to his belief that no matter how talented bureaucrats were, they lacked creativ'fy and long-term insights, and if the political process came to be domi­ nated by bureaucrats, the connection between the people and politics Would be lost and Japan risked becoming bureaucratic, if not autocratic.15

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Miki did not like hearing that the bureaucrats-turned-politicians repre­ sented the mainstream of the LDP, and instead prided himself as belong­ ing to the tradition of politicians Okuma Shigenobu and Itagaki Taisuke, pointing out that it was they who were the mainstream and bureaucrats, such as Ito Hirobumi, who got their start amid party politics and were in fact the late comers.16 In addition to "cleaning up politics" and "ending bureaucratic control of politics," the third pillar of Miki's politics was "middle-of-the-roadism." Miki, who was elected in April 1942 despite not having the endorsement of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, established in October 1940, agreed with Yamamoto Sanehiko, the founder of the jour­ nal Kaizo, in his calls for "cooperative-ism" (kyodd kumiai shugi) and helped with the founding of the Cooperative Democratic Party in May 1946. Cooperative-ism was influenced by the Utopian Socialism of Robert Owen and Francois Marie Charles Fourier, opposed to the amassing of wealth by large producers and big business. Instead, cooperative-ism supported small producers helping one another by providing each other with capital, land, and labor, with the objective of creating a cooperative society without profit or exploitation. Afterward, the CDP combined with other various small parties, and during that process, the phrase kumiai, which means "union" or "association" was removed and later so was "cooperative-ism." What remained unchanged was Miki's commit­ ment to "middle-of-the-roadism," which he saw existing in cooperativeism and which rejected both capitalistic exploitation and leftist class war­ fare in favor of social justice within the framework of capitalism. Having criticized Tanaka's money politics and left the cabinet, Miki said, in what was a true manifestation of his passion for moderation: "Today, Japan's economy takes the form of capitalism, but we must get rid of the bad aspects of capitalism. My position is in favor of progressive conservativism."17 While Miki possessed on the one hand this "idealism," he was also known as a hard realist and sometimes called the "Balkan politician." According to Miki's biographer, it was Mizutani Nagasaburo of the Japan Socialist Party that gave him that name. "Although Miki began as a mem­ ber of one of the 'minority parties' he was skillfully able to use each administration for his own growth," one appraisal went, and another explained that "while Miki might be seen as plain, he was actually a very clever politician."18 Miki, therefore, was seen on the one hand as "centerLeft, and clean," and yet as someone who was a scheming realist, skilled at getting close to the center of power.19 The activities of his cabinet over the two years can be explained using this description of Miki's dual nature. In the first period of his adminis­ tration, Miki strongly put forward his idealistic side, revising the two election laws and the antitrust law. However, particularly at the time of the revision of the antitrust law, Miki met strong resistance from within

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the LDP and had to temper down his idealistic side and extreme left position in the party in favor of a more realistic stance. He ended up cooperating with the hawks in the party at this time. At the time of the submission of the revisions to the antitrust bill, Miki adopted the position of Tanaka Kakuei, Shiina, and the hardliners demanding the reopening of the Japan-Taiwan air route, praying at the Yasukuni Shrine, and chal­ lenging the right to strike (although Miki himself believed in the condi­ tional right to strike). This was known as the "season of cooperation." Nevertheless, with the Lockheed Scandal, Miki again went on the offen­ sive. With public support as a backdrop, Miki directed prosecutors to get to the bottom of things, requested documents from the U.S. side, and even wrote a personal letter to President Gerald R. Ford making that request. During this third period, Miki pushed harder for the political reforms he had not been able to accomplish during the initial phase. This led to a decisive clash with Shiina and accelerated efforts within the LDP to "bring Miki down" (Miki oroshi). As Miki tried to deal with the re­ sponse, it became more and more likely he would have to resign. The above "duality" explanation is quite good, but it does not cover everything. First, amid the activities of the Miki cabinet, there were exam­ ples where the duality explanation does not match, such as the case of the "strike for the right to strike," the response to which was a realignment and strengthening of the cooperative relationship between labor and management. The "1975 Spring Labor Offensive" in the first period was part of a consistent policy. In other words, there was no great difference between the first and second periods. Moreover, in the third period, which was said to be about the focused effort on pursuing the Lockheed scandal, there were actually many important policies being made in the defense arena. Based on the above, it is necessary to think separately about the activities of the Miki cabinet and the leadership of Miki himself. The 1975 Spring Labor Offensive is considered the turning point in transitioning to the path of stable growth. The strategy to keep worker pay from getting too high through the cooperation between the business community and moderate labor groups had been already established at the time of the Tanaka cabinet through the "Finance Minister FukudaLabor Minister Hasegawa Line." Fukuda, who was serving as the deputy prime minister in the Miki cabinet, was in charge of the Economic Countermeasures Ministers Council. Hasegawa, as well, was reap­ pointed as the labor minister after a one-year hiatus. Although Miki him­ self called on both labor and management to exercise self-control, the direct handling of the Spring Labor Offensive was done by the FukudaHasegawa team, and not by Miki. Similarly, with regard to the "National Defense Program Outline," it Was not Miki who took command but rather his director general of the Defense Agency, Sakata Michita. From the time of the Yoshida Shigeru (see chapter 3) administration, Miki had introduced his views on defense

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policy matters, calling for "autonomous defense" (jishu boei) and "collec­ tive security" (shudan anzen hosho).20 At the time of his own administra­ tion, Miki had complete faith in Sakata. Over the next two years, Sakata would lead the making of Japan's defense policy. Sakata established the "Defense Study Council," comprised of experts from the private sector, and published the white paper, Defense of Japan (Boei Hakusho), in order to raise the consciousness of the public on defense matters. Through these efforts, as well as the enhancement of the National Defense Council and the establishment of the Defense Committee within the Diet, Sakata was able to seek the systemization of Japan's autonomous defense policy. In this way, defense policy and the countermeasures to the spring labor offensive were unmistakably both the most important activities for the Miki cabinet, and yet there are no signs that Miki himself exercised any strong leadership at this time. Thus, these two examples are not appropriate ones to use when considering his leadership. With regard to the problem over the right to strike, while Miki showed consistency, it has to be said that he failed at first glance in demonstrating leadership from the beginning period to the second period. He showed the desire to break the negative cycle of "strike-dismissal-strike," he also made clear his proactive position on the "conditional right to strike." In response, the Tanaka faction took a hawkish view against the right to strike and began to bully Miki to the extent that Miki was forced to compromise. Nikaido and Ide Ichitaro were the point men for Tanaka and Miki factions, respec­ tively, each serving as chief cabinet secretary in their administrations. Nikaido was so enraged with Miki over the question of the "right to strike" that he told "Ide he would make Miki wipe his [Nikaido's] ass." However, it is necessary to point out that Miki's "conditional right to strike" belief was based on the premise of the National Federation be­ coming more moderate. In his policy speech in the Diet following the "strike for the right to strike," Miki called upon the labor unions to stop illegal strikes, in order for the negative cycle to be ended.21 It might be too harsh to say that this was simply done after the fact to justify his stance. While serving as the secretary general of the Reform Party in 1954, Miki cautioned in the Diet that the right to engage in labor disputes was being abused, raising social awareness.22 In January 1975, after becoming prime minister, Miki called upon both management and labor to end the conflict between them.23 Thus, while it cannot be denied that Miki gave in to Tanaka to some degree on the issue of the right to strike, it cannot be said that his call for there to be cooperation between labor and manage­ ment on the question of the "strike for the right to strike" was a great departure from his long-standing middle-of-the-roadism.24 As seen from the above, when considering the activities and policies of the Miki cabinet and the leadership of Miki himself, it can be said, with some qualifications, that the pattern of "idealist, compromise with the realists, idealist" was seen. However, this pendulum shift should not be

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attributed to the duality of Miki the politician. As long as politicians are practitioners, it is a matter of course that they need to have the power (authority) to actualize their ideals. Miki strongly believed that "idealism is necessary to give direction to power. Reality that has lost sight of idealism will die, and when that happens, so dies too democratic poli­ tics." Miki was in the end a politician who was an idealist. Sometimes, in order to gain power, he would have to compromise. As someone in the middle of various power struggles, it was a given that he would have to scheme as appropriate. For Miki, this neither contradicted his idealism nor was it another side of him. It is necessary to understand this pendulum shift between idealism and realism in the context of Miki, the idealist, before faced with structu­ ral limits against his actualizing the idealism he believed it. In order to overcome these impediments, he would mobilize the various resources he had at hand. One such example was how he came to be named prime minister in the first place. The "Shiina Decision" (Shiina saitei) was one that was detached from the normal party rules and regulations for elect­ ing a party president, and ignoring even consultations with the party leadership and advisors, and faction heads. What made this unprece­ dented decision possible was the situation in which money and politics had become intertwined within the party, which had become closed and exclusive, bordering on dangerous. Public support for the Tanaka cabinet had plummeted to 12 percent (according to Asahi Shimbun public opinion polls), and while Miki himself denied it, there were movements toward members leaving the party and forming a new party centered on Miki which would lead to the realign­ ment of Japanese politics. The "Shiina Decision" was a skilled one that could kill two birds with one stone and help the LDP overcome its crisis. In other words, Miki, as the extreme left of the party who had long campaigned against money politics and in favor of cleaning things up, was the ideal party presidential candidate at that time, and his becoming the party president would also stop the potential breakup of the party. As such, Miki did not become party president by seizing power through the expansion of his faction. He simply became the head of the party through the organizational system that the LDP is, which judged that someone like Miki was necessary as an emergency measure in the environment the Party faced. Thus, what the conservative mainstream of the party ex­ pected out of Miki was to deal with the crisis and maintain the organiza­ tional integrity of the LDP. However, Miki was an idealist, a politician passionate about the pur­ suit of objectives. He was not the type of leader interested in coordinating °r managing things. Thus, even if he was the ideal party president and Prime minister in certain situations, he was not good at being a trustee of the organization as the mainstream of the party desired. This discrepancy became very apparent when Miki tried to change the way the LDP did

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business. There was a certain degree of consensus within the LDP over the need for political reform, but the complete banning of political dona­ tions from the business community went too far. In addition, the revision and strengthening of the antitrust law was a frontal attack on the cartel­ like nature of the political and economic community, engendering the strong opposition from both within the LDP as well as the business com­ munity. For Miki, who was weak internally within the LDP and had only been given his own administration as an interim, emergency measure, had two options. The first one was to expand the scope of the conflict arena or stage on which to do battle. Although he was only the head of a small faction within the LDP, if he expanded the conflict outside of it he could increase his resources and expand his power base. His emphasis on pub­ lic opinion and his willingness to work with the opposition parties can be seen as examples of his willingness to expand his base. The public sup­ port rate was 45 percent when Miki took office. While this was not a particularly high number when looking at previous administrations, it was a big jump when compared to the previously low rates of the Tanaka cabinet. Miki used this public support as the backdrop to his efforts to address cleaning up politics and developing rules for a fairer society. In the case of revising the anti-trust laws, Miki ignored normal party protocol and reached out directly to the opposition parties, making it possible to revise the government-prepared draft bill. Moreover, it is worth noting that the passage of the revision to the political funding regulations bill in the Upper House was done with a casting vote by the speaker of the House of Councilors, Kono Kenzo. Usually, when the speaker is asked to decide on something, it is in favor of the status quo but Kono changed all this by voting in favor of revision. When thinking about his reasons for doing this, it can be deduced that Kono, who was a major proponent of reform of the Upper House, had become the speaker in July 1971 with the help of Miki and the opposition parties, having run against the most powerful LDP member of the Upper House, then-Speaker Shigemune Yuzo. In other words, it can be said that Kono's vote in favor of political reform was an indirect result of Miki's cooperation with the opposition parties. One of the strategies to strengthen his weak power base was for Miki to form alliances with other individuals, groups, and parties. At the time, in addition to the Miki faction, the main factions within the LDP included the Tanaka faction, Ohira Masayoshi faction, Fukuda faction, and Nakasone faction. However, Miki took control of the government by opposing Tanaka, so any chance to work with him, his faction, or the Ohira faction, which was aligned with Tanaka's, was essentially dosed. The strongest candidate for an alliance was the Fukuda faction, whose head had him­ self long fought alongside Miki against Tanaka since the time of the lat­ ter's cabinet. By making Fukuda the deputy prime minister in charge of

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all economic matters, Miki was able to get Fukuda's support. Moreover, Miki asked Nakasone to be in charge of party matters by making him the secretary general. Through these moves, Miki clearly was trying to create a three-faction alliance, comprised of the Miki, Fukuda, and Nakasone factions, against the Tanaka-Ohira group. However, neither Fukuda nor Nakasone showed the full support that Miki had expected. Fukuda fo­ cused on the economy, and kept a distance from Miki's "politics of ideals," and Nakasone himself focused on movements within the party. As seen in Miki's being outnumbered at the time of the revision of the antitrust bill, Nakasone carefully observed the situation and took into consideration the views of Vice President Shiina and sought to prema­ turely give up on the revision. Nakasone was not, in the end, someone Miki could completely trust as an alliance partner. Miki's weakest point within the party was that although he was a leader who sought the realization of important objectives, he did not have anyone around him to do the proper coordinating or managing of the efforts. Therefore, Matsuno Raizo, who belonged to the Fukuda fac­ tion but was somewhat of a lone wolf and was called Machiavelli-like, was tapped to be the Policy Affairs chairman. When the Diet was dis­ rupted due to problems over Justice Minister Inaba Osamu,25 Matsuno was actively involved in dealing with the situation, but became angry with the Miki faction, yelling at the prime minister's secretary, "What is up with the members of the Miki faction? What in the world is Kaifu [Toshiki] doing? I am not a member of the Miki faction, you know." This episode suggests how much the Miki faction lacked the ability to coordi­ nate. In the two-part strategy of Miki to expand the debate and to involve more groups within the party, not only did the latter strategy not go well for the above reason, but the former failed as well due to the pressure to compromise his ideals. Public support for Miki as well, which had been high in the beginning, declined as Miki continued to compromise his political ideals. In a June 1975 public opinion poll conducted by the Cabi­ net Office, support for the Miki had dropped to 34 percent. Public sup­ port continued to drop, and in March 1976, had fallen to 26 percent. In other words, the season of compromise—the second period in the Miki administration—was something that was an unavoidable choice for Miki as his efforts during the previous period to strengthen his base were unsuccessful. The result, however, was the loss of public support, com­ bined with the collapse of his strategy to expand the scope of the conflict arena. It can be said that the lifetime of the Miki cabinet died at the point these two strategies failed. However, the chance for rebirth visited Miki when word reached Japan of testimony on February 5,1975, in the Com­ mittee on Foreign Relations' Subcommittee on Multinational Corpora­ tions of the U.S. Senate that Lockheed had bribed senior Japanese govern­ ment officials. The Lockheed scandal shook Japanese politics.

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Miki immediately announced his intent to get to the bottom of things, and sent a personal letter (the so-called Miki shinsho) to President Ford requesting the relevant documents. Through this concentrated effort to both expand the debate arena and utilize public opinion, Miki gambled at strengthening his leadership. Miki's search for the truth behind the scan­ dal caused repercussions within the party and led him to clash head-on with the money politics structure of those within the party. Miki's letter to President Ford led to strong opposition within the party. Various com­ plaints were heard about Miki, that he was "out of control" or "acting on his own," and LDP Vice President Shiina schemed with the Tanaka and Ohira factions to bring about the end of the Miki administration. This was known as the "First Bringing down of Miki" (Daiichiji Miki Oroshi). The Fukuda faction, which had until then supported the Miki administra­ tion, also joined these efforts weakening Miki's position within the party. However, public opinion criticized Shiina's actions as an attempt to cover up the Lockheed scandal, and supported Miki's efforts at getting to the bottom of things. This first attempt to bring Miki down ended unsuccess­ fully, thanks to the support Miki had from the public. Miki's approach of "politics using public opinion" led to his victory at this stage. The second attempt to bring Miki down began with the arrest of for­ mer Prime Minister Tanaka on July 27. The Tanaka faction, already op­ posed to Miki, was further outraged by his allowing the arrest of a former prime minister. The Ohira and Tanaka factions, looking toward a "postMiki administration," formed a Coordination Council to Strengthen the Party Structure. Miki's decision to use "politics supported by public opinion" and the existence of the internal group that was challenging him, meant that the party was bound to break up, triggered by a dissolu­ tion of the Lower House and the holding of general elections. Indeed, at the LDP advisory meeting held on August 16 after Tanaka's arrest, Miki suggested the possibility of this course when he said "the political resolu­ tion of the Lockheed Scandal is through elections."26 The tension between Miki, who sought the holding of elections fol­ lowing a parliamentary dissolution, and members of the Coordination Council who were opposed to that, reached a high point at the cabinet meeting held on September 10. Miki wanted to call the Diet into a special session which would permit the Diet's dissolution, but the Coordination Council, fifteen of whose members were in the cabinet, strongly resisted. The cabinet meeting lasted for more than five hours, and continued into the next morning. In fact, before the meeting, Miki was said to have been prepared to dismiss the fifteen members and call elections, and reported­ ly had Chief Cabinet Secretary Ide look into the legal and procedural process of doing that.27 However, in the end, Miki was unable to decide. Reaching a compromise with the Coordination Council, elections were not held at that time and instead the cabinet was simply reshuffled. Gen­ eral elections were later held when Miki's term ended in December.

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Miki missed the chance of a lifetime. "If Miki had gone ahead with dissolving the Lower House," members of the Tanaka faction said later, "and held elections, the Tanaka faction would have been decimated and Miki's administration might not have died the death it did. Hashimoto Ryutaro, who himself later became prime minister in 1996, stated, "if the elections that were held in December had been conducted three months earlier, I probably would not have been re-elected."28 By waiting a few months before the elections, Miki caused the battle between the two groups to fade. The hesitation that Miki showed at this decisive time is interesting to know Miki's qualities and limits as a leader. Miki is said to have later commented that "he would be considered a Fascist if he fired fifteen cabinet members,"29 but Miki's efforts to expand the conflict arena and utilize public support for his politics was meant to stimulate the quality of debate of the LDP in contrast to its money- and feelings-based politics and its traditional style of running the party. Miki crossed the Rubicon when he called for the getting to the bottom of the Lockheed Scandal. Thus, Miki no longer had any means of escape, and came to the point where he could only move forward with drastic measures. Nevertheless, Miki's continued avoidance of taking drastic measures for fear of being labeled a "fascist" suggested his healthy balance and sense of the proper use of political power, but it also showed the absence of a long-term view and decision-making ability as a leader who sought to realize his objec­ tives. It is said that "man only succeeds once." Miki, who tried three times to become party president, indeed, lived up to this saying by serv­ ing only one term. By establishing the path of stable economic growth, moving political reform forward, and establishing the Standard Defense Force Concept, the Miki cabinet brought about a turning point in conservative politics. In the 1980s, several neoconservatives around the world pursued a "small government, strong nation" approach (eliminating the welfare state and strengthening national defense), but it was the Miki cabinet that took the lead in our country earlier in these policies. While Japan's defense capa­ bility was described earlier, when looking at the pursuit of policies for social justice, antitrust revisions, or the "life-cycle plan," the Miki cabinet viewed it critically important that opportunities were fair and equal. It is significant to note that these policies were realized by neoconservatives rather than Social Democrats, who nominally called for equality. The journey of middle-of-the-roadism from Miki's cooperativism to neocon­ servatism was reflected in the changes in postwar thought. Miki represented a different type of postwar Japanese conservatism and practiced different ways to pursue that thinking. It is true that Miki's use of public opinion to strengthen his political maneuvering was in part due to his weak standing within the party itself. But it was also likely a reflection of his confidence in his oratory skills as a politician. It was also

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the biggest reason he had to be content with only leading a minor faction within the LDP. As long as he was an idealist, it was not the ideals in which he was judged by but the ability to realize those ideas. NOTES 1. S upervising tran slato r's n ote: the contest, called the "L o ck h eed E lection s," saw the L D P lose tw en ty -tw o seats (d rop p in g fro m 2 7 1 -2 4 9 ). 2. G oto M otoo, U ch id a K enzo, and Ishikaw a M asu m i, Sengo Hoshu Seiji no Kiseki (The P ath of P o stw ar C o n serv ativ e Politics), (Tokyo: Iw an am i Shoten, 1982), 2 9 9 -3 0 0 . 3. The M inistry of H om e A ffairs b ecam e p art of the M inistry of Internal Affairs and C o m m u n icatio n ( Somusho) in Jan u ary 2 001, as p a rt of a larg er g o v ern m en t m er­ ger. 4. Miki Takeo, Gikai Seiji to Tomo ni: Miki Takeo Enzetsu Hatsugenshu (A m id Parlia­ m e n ta ry Politics: The C ollection of Speeches an d P ro n o u n cem en ts b y M iki Takeo), (Tokyo: M iki Takeo K inen Shuppankai, 1984), V ol. 2 ,2 9 4 - 3 0 2 . 5. M iki, Gikai Seiji to Tomo ni, V ol. 1 ,3 1 - 3 3 . 6. M iki, Gikai Seiji to Tomo ni, Vol. 1, 57. 7. Tansuikai, ed., Ware ha Boryii ni Arazu (W e D id N ot B ecom e a M inor G roup), (Tokyo: N in gen n o K agaku sha, 1991), 275. 8. T om im ori Eiji, Sengo Hoshutoshi (The P ostw ar H isto ry of the C o n serv ativ e P ar­ ty), (Tokyo: N ih on H yo ro n sh a, 1977), 2 0 3 -4 . 9. N a k am u ra K eiichiro, Miki Seiken 747 Hi (The 747 D ays of the Miki A dm inistra­ tion), (Tokyo: G yosei M ondai K enkyusho, 1981), 6 3 -7 0 . 10. A rak aw a Toshim itsu, Nihongata Fukushi no Seiji Keizaigaku (The Political Econo­ m y of Jap an ese W elfare), (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1993), 2 0 3 -1 4 . 11. K u m azaw a M ak oto, "S utoken Suto, 1975 N en N ihon (The Strike for the Right to Strike: 1975 Ja p a n )/' Shim izu Shinzo, ed ., Sengo Rodo Kumiai Undoshi Ron (O n the H isto ry of the P o stw ar L ab o r M ovem en t), (Tokyo: N ih on H yo ro n sh a, 1982), 53, and Takagi Ikuro, "K o ro k y o 'Su tok en S uto' (1975): Seiji Suto n o Ronri to K etsu m atsu (The Jap an F ed eratio n of N ational Service E m p lo y ees' 'Strike for the Right to Strike' [1975]: The L og ic and C onclusion of Political P arties' Strikes)," R odo Sogishi K enkyukai, ed., Nihon no Rodo Sogi, 1945-80 Nen (Jap an 's L ab o r Struggle, 1 9 4 5 -8 0 ) , (Tokyo: Tdkyo D aigaku Shuppankai, 1991), 188. 12. O take H ideo, Nihon no Boei to Kokunai Seiji (Jap an 's D efense and D om estic Poli­ tics), (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1983), 139. 13. F o r m o re on M iki's Efe p rio r to b ecom ing p rim e m inister, see M idan Yonosuke, Miki Takeo: Kdyu 50 Nen no Sugao (Miki Takeo: The F ace of 50 Y ears of Friendship), (Tokyo: Sankei Shim bun, 1975), and M asu d a Takuji, Jitsuroku Miki Takeo Shinnen no Kuriin Saisho: Mikiban Seiji Kishi no Kiroku (Miki Takeo, A R ecord of a T ruly Clean P rim e M inister: The N otes of a Political R ep o rter C overing M iki), (Tokyo: Hochiki Shoji Shuppanbu, 1975). 14. Miki, Gikai Seiji, V ol. 2 ,1 9 5 - 2 0 1 . 15. Miki, Gikai Seiji, V ol. 2, 2 4 8 -4 9 . 16. Miki, Gikai Seiji, V ol. 2 ,2 6 7 - 6 8 . 17. Miki, Gikai Seiji, V ol. 2 ,2 6 7 . 18. M idan, Miki Takeo, 2 5 -2 6 . t 19. G oto, et. al., Sengo Hoshu Seiji no Kiseki, 306, T om im ori Eiji, "'T eik o k ara D akyo e' o Bukki to Shite ('F ro m R esistance to C o m p ro m ise' as a W eap o n )," Asahi Jaanaru, D ecem b er 15, 1975, and Tansuikai, ed ., Ware ha Boryii ni Arazu, C h ap ter 8, am ong others. 20. M iki, Gikai Seiji, V ol. 2 ,1 5 9 . 21. M iki, Gikai Seiji, V ol. 1 ,5 1 . 22. M iki, Gikai Seiji, Vol. 2 ,1 5 7 .

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23. M iki, Gikai Seiji, Vol. 1 ,3 6 . 24. M iki M itsuko, Miki to Aruita Hanseiki (A H alf-C en tu ry w ith M iki), (Tokyo: Tokyo Shim bun S hu ppankyoku, 1993), 7 8 -7 9 . 25. S upervising e d ito r's co m m en t: since the au th o r is d eceased , it is im possible to ask w hich "p ro b le m " he is referring to h ere, but Inaba, w h o m Miki h ad originally intended to n am e is d irecto r g eneral of the D efense A g en cy , invited criticism from the opposition w h en h e d escribed the constitution as a "fa u lty " ( kekkan) one. Inaba also came u n d e r attack by the T anaka faction for his w illingness to p ro secu te Tanaka due to the L ockheed scan dal. Both of these issues d isrup ted the Diet. 26. Miki, Gikai Seiji, V ol. 1 ,4 4 0 . 27. Tansuikai, ed ., Ware ha Boryii ni Arazu, 276. 28. N ak am u ra, Miki Seiken 747 Hi, 276. 29. N ak am u ra, Miki Seiken 747 Hi, 275.

THIRTEEN Fukuda Takeo Winner in Policy, Loser in Politics Iokibe Makoto

Fukuda Takeo finally attained the seat of the prime minister in 1976 when he was already an old man of seventy-one. Moreover, he ascended to the post during a dark time. The Japanese economy was still struggling in the midst of a recession caused by the recent oil crisis. Japanese politics was in shambles. Both the Tanaka Kakuei and Miki Takeo administrations had ended in electoral defeat with both men hearing the constant ap­ proach of the footsteps of their reformist foes threatening to overthrow the conservatives. Both stepped down bearing deep grudges. Neverthe­ less, at the time of their inaugurations, both administrations had at first enjoyed the so-called honeymoon period with public opinion during which they were personally popular and had high approval ratings. The Fukuda administration did not even have this. In addition to having an image as a sullen person, he was widely perceived to have toppled Miki. And thus the Fukuda cabinet was born, wrapped in this original sin and being unpopular from the start. Fukuda did not let this bother him. He named his government the 'Okay, let's get to work" (saa, hatarako naikaku) cabinet and got down to Work. From the start the Fukuda cabinet, exceptional in its unpopularity, was surprising. While as a rule governments start out popular but before long go into decline, the Fukuda cabinet went in the opposite direction of the usual pattern. Domestically, it succeeded in righting the economy and m overseeing the opening of Narita Airport, Tokyo's main international gateway at the time. On the diplomatic front it had some remarkable 207

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achievements including the launch of the "Fukuda Doctrine" and the conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship with the People's Republic of China. In line with these accomplishments, the Fukuda government's support rate began to rise gradually. Moreover, the improvement was not the result of a short-term rise in the cabinet approval rating, but rather was tied to a long term structural increase in support for conserva­ tives that was known as the "conservative revival." As things were, it was thought that the Fukuda cabinet might be the first long-lived govern­ ment in a long time. Just as people were beginning to think that, Fukuda lost the election for president of the LDP to Ohira Masayoshi and re­ signed, disappointed. Fukuda's two years in office left people with the impression that something had gone awry. Fukuda demonstrated real ability in realizing significant accomplish­ ments. Out of those in the generation of Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku, Fukuda was a politician that knew the way to handle policy. He was also a magnificent human being. However, one couldn't help but feel that he was tossed about by political machinations like a ship in strong winds, blown off course to some other place. Nevertheless, he didn't pay much mind to such things and continued his work with a carefree heart. It is difficult to judge if Fukuda was a very great man or if he was deficient in some way. Below, the political image of Fukuda Takeo, how his cabinet ranks historically, and his life of ninety years will be explored.1 In 1976, when Fukuda was finally nominated to be the LDP's next party president, he introduced himself by quipping, "I am Meiji thirtyeight years old," referring to the year he was born, the thirty-eighth year of the Meiji era, or 1905. Fukuda was already in his seventies, but by saying jokingly he was "38," he tried to trim his age and appeal to the delegates on the basis of his retention of his youthful vigor. Afterward, Fukuda repeated these words every year. Behind the many famous sayings of Fukuda there must have been even more sayings that were not well received and were soon just forgot­ ten. He said one of these when a journalist asked about his state of mind. He answered, "I guess you could say that after Lushun falls, it's on to the naval camp sites at Shuishingying." In the latter half of the 1970s, there were journalists even in Japan for whom this analogy was something that didn't immediately ring any bells. On the contrary, it seemed strange and somewhat amusing, but it was vintage Fukuda. Nationalism had lost its innocence in the Second World War and it had a negative image is post­ war society, but Fukuda was a politician with a traditional sense of mis­ sion. An aloof appearance and an urbane personality were among his distinguishing traits, but when he really pushed himself, he often ended up using phraseology straight out of the era of the Meiji state. On the one hand, that allowed Fukuda to refuse to accommodate the trends of the times and continued to immerse himself in the serious study of policyOn the other hand, he was not really accepted by the mass media or the

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general population who thought him a politician who did not suit the times in some way. In Fukuda's sayings, there is no use of katakana, in other words, foreign loan words. Whether it was the "Genroku of the Showa period," or "It seems that the heavens need Fukuda again," or even when he spoke of "Fukuda of the world," he showed not the slightest hint of Western culture. Rather, he used terminology from traditional Japanese culture. These were not exactly words from the culture of the elite of Japan or of the East but more like the culture of the traditional Kodanshi bards who used words rich with a commoner's touch, like a "Mito Komon of the Showa period and the World." Fukuda was educated in special higher school during the end of the Taisho (1912-1926) and early Shdwa (1926-1989) periods. He was a man of great ability who went on to graduate from the law department of Tokyo Imperial University. In 1929, he entered the Finance Ministry at the top of his class. He was the creme de la creme and went on soon thereafter to study abroad in the United Kingdom for a little over three years. One would expect that he could have become a person from the internationalized group who walked around with Western knowledge and culture reflected in his bearing if he had wanted to. Nevertheless, he remained the "Meiji thirty-eight years old" man. Ac­ tually, 1905 was a pivotal year in the history of modern Japan. It was in the middle of the Russo-Japanese war on whose outcome the fledgling state had gambled its fate. It was the year that a small Asian country unexpectedly defeated the military might of the great Western power of Russia. The nations of the West were shocked and responded with a mix of accolades for Japan and wariness about the dangers of the "yellow peril." Nationalists in China, India, Vietnam, and other Asian nations reacted to the news as if they'd been shocked by an electric current. It was clear that the domination by whites and the West was no longer some­ thing that had to be regarded as eternal. "Asian stagnation" was not unchangeable any more. If the nineteenth century had been the century of world history as exclusively that of Western civilization, then the twentieth was going to be one that included Asia and the Americas and thereafter it would be "the whole world's world history." It was Meiji 38 when that fact became clear. As a year of birth, it suited "Fukuda of the world" very well. On January first of that year, Lushun (Port Arthur) fell to Japanese forces. General Nogi Maresuke, while maintaining the honor of his de­ feated foe, General Anatoly Stessel, received the instrument of surrender at a signing ceremony held at the naval barracks of Shuishiying, and the Japanese army entered Lushun on January 13. Fukuda was born the next day. The unfamiliar analogy "After Lushun falls, it's on to Shuishiying," Was a drama that actually played itself out at the time of Fukuda's birth. The fact that his birth coincided with this time was something that Fuku-

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da remembered with pride. That sort of natural nationalistic spirit of the Meiji era was the wellspring of Fukuda's character. Fukuda was born in the town of Kaneko in Gunma Prefecture. He was the second son of Yoshiharu and his mother, Tsuta. The name "Takeo" was chosen for him by his grandfather, Kosuke, who selected the name from the Shijing (The Chinese Book of Songs). The characters mean a snake poised to strike advancing and hissing, in other words, a patriotic statesmen who charges ahead with his banner held high. The Fukuda family was held in high regard from times of old. During the Tokugawa era, they served as village headmen. In the Meiji era, Kosuke became the first mayor of Kaneko. After that, Takeo's father and elder brother, Heishiro, each also became mayor. Takeo thus was born and raised in the house of the mayor of his native town.2 This upbringing likely had a lot to do with shaping Fukuda's charac­ ter. He hated to lose, had high self-esteem, and placed a good deal of importance on having enough pluck to choose one's own path. He was unremarkable in appearance and short of stature, but robust in both mind and body. Above all, he was a talented man of extraordinary intelli­ gence. From the time he was in school, he regarded it as natural that he would be a leader. He regarded problems in a straightforward and logi­ cal manner, without any regard for questions of personal gain. It is said that he developed this trait by imbibing the atmosphere of Joshu (the traditional name for present-day Gunma Prefecture). Fukuda was a tire­ less worker, exerting himself for justice, but at the same time, he was easygoing with other people and had a warm and considerate nature. Those politicians and journalists that came to like and admire him are consistent in speaking of Fukuda's charm in that manner. Fukuda came to be a financier and economic policy specialist, which is explored here. In the postwar period, there were three politicians that could be seen as economic policy wonks. These were Ikeda Hayato, Ishibashi Tanzan, and Fukuda. While Ishibashi and Ikeda were known for favoring a proactive expansionary economic policy, Fukuda has an image as a critic of high growth policies, favoring stable growth instead. How­ ever, that image is not necessarily completely accurate. If one looks at Ikeda, while he was finance minister in the Yoshida Shigeru cabinet, he pressed forward resolutely, even recklessly in enforc­ ing the Dodge Line policies of extreme austerity and absolute adherence to a balanced budget. He contributed to the contraction policies of 1954. Even though he pressed this policy through in response to the demands of the times and Prime Minister Yoshida's preferences, Ikeda's own incli­ nation was for an aggressive policy of rapid economic expansion. When he himself rose to the premiership, he was blessed with a golden oppor­ tunity to implement a spectacularly expansionist policy. In contrast, Fukuda, who harshly criticized the expansionary policies of Ikeda and Tanaka, has generally been regarded as a champion of stable

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growth policies, but that is only half the story. When Fukuda was in his later years, he wrote in his memoir, Kaiko Kyuju Nen (Reminiscences of Ninety Years), that he regarded himself as a latter day Takahashi Kore]