SNA (Tokyo) — When Ichiro Hatoyama finally gained the premiership from 1954-1956, he had become elderly and was in failing health. This did not stop him, however, from scoring two major achievements: he presided over the creation of the Liberal Democratic Party and reestablished diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

Transcript

On December 10, 1954, Ichiro Hatoyama became the prime minister of Japan.

He was a career politician who had spent decades in the House of Representatives and was denied the premiership more than eight years earlier, only due to the intervention of the US occupation forces. He was now in his 70s and in poor health, but he had finally reached the pinnacle of Japan’s political world.

The general public mostly welcomed Hatoyama’s ascension to the top office. Many felt sympathy for his struggles and were ready to move on from the long and tumultuous years of the Yoshida administration.

The political left, however, was worried about Hatoyama, particularly because he was the leading advocate of rearmament. The right and left wings of the Socialist Party mulled reunification into a single party to better head off the potential threat.

First, however, Hatoyama called general elections to consolidate his authority.

The results of the February 1955 elections generally went in Hatoyama’s favor. His new Japan Democratic Party emerged on top by a clear margin, though the two conservative parties fell a bit short of the 2/3 supermajority needed to revise the pacifist Constitution.

In October, the socialists finally repaired their internal relationships to the point that, after seven crucial years, they reestablished a united Japan Socialist Party, now led by the left-wing socialist Mosaburo Suzuki.

By this time, however, Hatoyama was well into negotiations with far more profound implications. It was agreed the following month—November 1955—that the two rival conservative political parties would merge into a new organization called the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP.

Little was it realized at the time that the LDP would become the semi-permanent ruling party of Japan. This was the birth of what would come to be called the “1955 System,” which locked down the hegemony of the conservatives over Japan for decades to come. Hatoyama had put into place the final major element of the conservative-dominant postwar era which had eluded Shigeru Yoshida.

This dominance in electoral politics was undergirded by the land reforms that were forced on the Japanese government in the progressive early phase of the US military occupation, as well as by funding and support from big business, which was growing more prosperous by the year.

Unknown until the 1990s, the unification of the conservative parties was also facilitated by secret payoffs to Japanese politicians carried out by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The end of the formal occupation had not brought an end to Washington’s interventions into Japanese political affairs, although it was now covert and indirect.

In order to achieve the unification of the conservative parties, Hatoyama had agreed to pay a heavy political price. Although he would become the inaugural leader of the LDP, it was expected that he would turn over the reins of leadership to the head of the former Liberal Party, Taketora Ogata, before too many months had passed.

This personal sacrifice proved unnecessary, however, when Ogata unexpectedly died in January 1956 at the age of 67.

Hatoyama pushed forward with his own political agenda.

The Atomic Energy Basic Law was passed, laying the legal groundwork for the development of nuclear power in the nation that had been the first victim of atomic bombs—indeed, Hatoyama himself is believed to have been banned from political office back in 1946 largely because he had described those bombings as constituting a US war crime.

Even more controversially, Hatoyama was eager to prepare the way toward the remilitarization of Japan, in part as a step to make Japan more independent vis-a-vis the Americans.

Revising the pacifist Constitution was no easy task, however. It required the approval of a 2/3 supermajority in both the House of Representatives and the now democratically elected upper chamber, called the House of Councillors.

Hatoyama attempted to clear this hurdle by rewriting the electoral laws in a manner that would strongly favor the LDP. The plan called for replacing multi-member electoral districts with first-past-the-post single-member electoral districts. This maneuver was widely criticized, and it gave birth to the term “Hatomander,” a play upon the American term Gerrymander.

Although the Hatomander passed the House of Representatives, opponents within the House of Councillors were able to run out the clock before the end of the Diet session. Hatoyama’s defeat on this measure was confirmed when the Socialist Party picked up seats in the July 1956 House of Councillors election, depriving the LDP of its majority in that chamber.

Though politically weakened, Hatoyama did have another task he hoped to complete, and this was one he knew that the political left would actually support; he wanted to sign a peace treaty with the Soviet Union.

As noted, Hatoyama was uncomfortable with Japan’s degree of dependence on the United States. He felt that the time was ripe for Tokyo to assert itself more boldly. Reestablishing relations with the Soviets would demonstrate that he was not Washington’s puppet but rather the leader of an independent nation.

But it turned out that Washington was not at all prepared to welcome this show of independence. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles blocked Hatoyama’s plan to make a final wartime settlement with the Soviets, threatening Tokyo bluntly—if Japan gave away some of the disputed northern islands to the Soviet Union, then the United States would retaliate by keeping permanent possession of Okinawa.

Hatoyama was thus forced to settle with the more limited Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. This agreement ended the bilateral state of war, reestablished diplomatic relations, and opened the way for trade. The dispute over what Japan would call the “Northern Territories” would remain unresolved.

Nevertheless, Hatoyama did succeed in adding normalization of relations with the Soviet Union to his earlier achievement of overseeing the creation of the ruling LDP. In order to get reluctant Japanese conservatives to agree to ratify his Soviet pact, he pledged in return to step down from leadership.

As a final bonus, the Soviets and their allies allowed Japan to be admitted to the United Nations by unanimous consent.

Ichiro Hatoyama resigned as prime minister on December 23, 1956. He had served for 2 years and 14 days.

He remained a member of the House of Representatives, beset by failing health. He passed away at home in March 1959.

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