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.
Shigeru Yoshida’s second premiership from 1948-1954 was one of the most transformative in Japanese history, taking the nation from its progressive, unstable early postwar era into a long period of entrenched conservative rule, ostensibly exercising independence but in reality functioning as a client state absorbed into the informal American empire.
Conservative diplomat Shigeru Yoshida was thrust into the premiership in 1946-1947 after the US occupation forces blocked the ascendance of general election-winner Ichiro Hatoyama.
English-speaking diplomat Kijuro Shidehara served as prime minister in 1945-1946, corresponding with the most progressive phase of a US military occupation which was initially guided by the principles of the New Deal and the American concern that Japan never again pose a military challenge to US hegemony in the Pacific.
