Assassination of Inejirō Asanuma

On 12 October 1960, Inejirō Asanuma (浅沼 稲次郎, Asanuma Inejirō), chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, was assassinated at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo. During a televised debate, 17-year-old right-wing ultranationalist Otoya Yamaguchi charged onto the stage and fatally stabbed Asanuma with a wakizashi, a type of traditional short sword.^[1]

The assassination weakened the Japan Socialist Party,^[2] inspired a series of copycat crimes,^[3] and made Yamaguchi an enduring hero and subsequently a martyr to various Japanese far-right groups,^[3] including the Greater Japan Patriotic Party^[4] of which Yamaguchi had been a member.

In 1959, Asanuma, a charismatic figure on the Japanese Left, had caused controversy in Japan by visiting Communist China and declaring the United States "the shared enemy of China and Japan" during a speech in Beijing. After returning to Japan, Asanuma, in his role as leader of the Japan Socialist Party (日本社会党, Nihon Shakai-tō; JSP), became one of the key leaders and main public faces of the massive Anpo protests, a series of protests against the 1960 revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (known as "Anpo" in Japanese).^[5][6]

Asanuma and the JSP led a number of mass marches on the Japanese National Diet.^[5] Most notable, as referenced in Yamaguchi's writings, was the June 15th incident, where on 15 June 1960, anti-treaty protestors stormed the National Diet compound.^[7] This led to a brawl with police and counter-protestors, resulting in severe injuries.^[8]

Right-wing groups and individuals, such as Bin Akao and his Greater Japan Patriotic Party (大日本愛国党, Dai Nippon Aikoku Tō), were doubly upset with Asanuma for portraying the U.S. as Japan's main enemy on his trip to China and for actively opposing the Security Treaty. The massive left-wing protests convinced Akao, his party, and many other right-wing groups that Japan was on the verge of a communist revolution. The aforementioned began staging and participating in protests, counter-protests, and other political activities. Akao gave numerous public speeches, notably mentioning the important role of the youth in resisting their political rivals. One of these speeches attracted the attention of 17-year-old Otoya Yamaguchi, who would resultingly join the party, participate in their activities, and later assassinate Asanuma.^[5][6]

Yamaguchi was born on 22 February 1943 in Yanaka, Taitō ward, Tokyo, the son of a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Japanese Army.^[9] Beginning in early childhood, Yamaguchi began reading newspapers. Angered by what he read, he became vehemently critical of politicians and later interested in nationalist movements. Through his older brother's influence, he began attending speeches and participating in right-wing protests and counter-protests.^[9] At age 16, he formally joined Bin Akao's ultranationalist Greater Japan Patriotic Party.^[9][10]

Yamaguchi participated in the Anpo counter-protests, and was arrested and released 10 times over the course of 1959 and 1960.^[11]

Over the course of the Anpo protests, Yamaguchi became disillusioned with Akao's leadership, and later resigned from the party.^[12] In his testimony given to police, he stated that he had resigned from Akao's party in order to "lay [his] hands on a weapon" and be free to take more "decisive action."^[12]

On 12 October 1960, Asanuma was participating in a televised election debate at Hibiya Public Hall in central Tokyo, featuring the leaders of the three major political parties. Also scheduled to participate were Suehiro Nishio of the Democratic Socialist Party and prime minister Hayato Ikeda of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The debate was sponsored by the Japanese Elections Commission, the Alliance for Clean Elections and national broadcaster NHK, which was also televising the event. There was also an audience of 2,500 people in the hall.

Nishio spoke first, and at 3:00 p.m., Asanuma advanced to the podium and began his speech. Immediately, right-wing groups in the audience began loudly heckling him, and the television microphones and reporters sitting in the front row could not hear him, forcing the NHK moderator to interrupt and call for calm.^[13] At 3:05 p.m., the audience finally calmed down. As Asanuma said "During the election, they keep policies that would be unpopular with the public a secret, and then once they have won a majority in the election, they will... " ("選挙の際は、国民に評判の悪い政策は、全部伏せておいて、選挙で多数を占むると..."), Yamaguchi rushed onto the stage and made a deep thrust into Asanuma's left flank with a 33-centimetre (13 in) samurai short sword (wakizashi) that he had stolen from his father.^{[note 1]} Yamaguchi then attempted to stab Asanuma a second time before being swarmed and detained by bystanders.

Autopsy later confirmed that Yamaguchi's thrust had punctured Asanuma's aorta, causing rapid and massive internal hemorrhage with virtually no external bleeding, which is why initial observers believed the wound was not immediately fatal.^[14][15] Asanuma was immediately rushed out of the hall and to a nearby hospital, but died within minutes before he reached it.

On 17 October 1960, an imperial envoy personally visited Asanuma's family home in Shirakawa Town, Kōtō Ward, to deliver a sacrificial offering (saishiryō) from Emperor Hirohito himself, a rare and symbolic gesture of imperial condolence for a socialist politician.^[16]

One day later, on 18 October 1960, Emperor Hirohito addressed a special session of the Diet, condemning the assassination and appealing for public order and national unity in the face of the shock and potential unrest caused by the killing.^[17]

The Ikeda administration had been riding high going into the election debate. Ikeda's newly announced Income Doubling Plan had proven popular, and polls showed his party in a strong position heading toward the election. However, on the night of Asanuma's assassination, approximately 20,000 protesters spontaneously flooded the streets of Tokyo calling for the entire Ikeda cabinet to resign in order to take responsibility for failing to ensure Asanuma's safety. Ikeda and his advisors worried that a new protest movement might arise that would be the second coming of the Anpo protests that had toppled the cabinet of his immediate predecessor, Nobusuke Kishi.

To respond to the crisis, Ikeda took the unusual step of delivering a memorial speech at a plenary session of the Diet on 18 October. The Socialist Party Diet members vocally opposed the speech. Despite Ikeda's reputation as a poor public speaker and the expectation that he would give a short boilerplate speech, Ikeda surprised the crowd by delivering a lengthy oration in which he offered an eloquent and generous assessment of Asanuma's love for his country and the Japanese people as well as his hard work ethic.^[18] The speech was reported to have moved many Diet members to tears.^[19]

Ikeda's party went on to win the election, increasing its number of seats in the Diet, although Asanuma's Japan Socialist Party also fared well.^[20]

Following the assassination, Yamaguchi was arrested and imprisoned awaiting trial. Throughout his imprisonment, he remained calm and composed and freely gave extensive testimony to police. Yamaguchi consistently asserted that he had acted alone and without any direction from others. Finally, on 2 November, he wrote "Long live the Emperor" (天皇陛下万歳, tennōheika banzai) and "Would that I had seven lives to give for my country" (七生報国, shichishō hōkoku) on the wall of his cell using toothpaste, the latter a reference to the last words of 14th-century samurai Kusunoki Masasue, and hanged himself with knotted bed sheets.^[3]

On 3 November, the day after Yamaguchi's suicide, Kyōko Asanuma, widow of Inejirō Asanuma, held a press conference to address the news. She stated that she had learned of Yamaguchi's death from the morning newspapers and expressed pity for the young man rather than hatred, while directing strong condemnation toward the influences that had radicalized him: "I learned of young Yamaguchi's suicide for the first time this morning in the newspapers. Rather than hating him, I feel more pity for him. Against the forces behind the scenes that instilled such ideas in a 17-year-old boy and drove him to assassination, a deep and burning hatred rises again from the bottom of my heart." She implicitly referenced the principle of "hating the crime but not the person", noting its difficulty in full application.^[21][22]

In his November 1960 police confession, Yamaguchi compiled a list of primary targets for assassination to curb what he saw as Japan's slide toward communism, including figures like Iwao Kobayashi (Nikkyoso chairman), Sanzo Nosaka (Japanese Communist Party leader), Inejirō Asanuma (his victim), Ichiro Kono, Tanzan Ishibashi, and Koichiro Matsumoto.^[23] He extended criticism to Prince Mikasa, brother of Emperor Hirohito, including him on a broader target list. Yamaguchi accused the prince of opposing Kigen-setsu (National Foundation Day), making statements that denied the imperial family's role, and allowing himself to be "used by the left wing." He expressed a desire to seek the prince's "reflection by some means", interpreted in context as implying potential confrontation or violence, due to Mikasa's liberal and pacifist views, including criticisms of Japan's actions in the Greater East Asia War.^[23][24] No evidence indicates Yamaguchi acted on plans beyond Asanuma before his arrest and suicide.^[24]

The Japan Socialist Party had been an unhappy marriage between far-left socialists, centrist socialists and right socialists who had been forced together in order to oppose the consolidation of conservative parties into the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955. Asanuma was a charismatic figure who had been able to hold many of these mutually antagonistic factions together through the force of his personality.^[2] Under Asanuma's leadership, the party had won an increasing number of seats in the Diet in every election over the latter half of the 1950s and seemed to be gathering momentum. Asanuma's death deprived the party of his adroit leadership, and thrust Saburō Eda into the leadership role instead.^[2] Eda rapidly took the party in a more centrist direction, far faster than the left socialists were ready to accept.^[2] This led to growing infighting within the party and drastically damaged its ability to present a cohesive message to the public. Over the rest of the 1960s and going forward, the number of seats the socialists held in the Diet continued to decline until the party's extinction in 1996.^[25]

Because Asanuma's assassination took place in front of television cameras, it was repeatedly shown on television for weeks and was seen by almost everyone in Japan with access to a television. Within a few weeks of the assassination, Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburō Ōe wrote two novellas, Seventeen and The Death of a Political Youth, that were obviously inspired by Yamaguchi's actions, although he was not mentioned by name.

The most notable copycat crime was the Shimanaka incident of 1 February 1961. In this incident, Kazutaka Komori, a 17-year-old member of the Greater Japan Patriotic Party, attempted to assassinate the president of Chūō Kōron magazine for publishing a graphic dream sequence depicting the beheading of the emperor and his family. This played a role in establishing what came to be known as the Chrysanthemum taboo.^[26]

A photograph of the moment immediately after Yamaguchi stabbed Asanuma was taken by Mainichi Shinbun newspaper photographer Yasushi Nagao, who had been assigned to cover the debate. As Yamaguchi rushed Asanuma, Nagao instinctively adjusted the focal distance of his lens from 4,5 m (15 ft.) to 3 meters (10 ft.) and captured an extremely clear image of the assassination. Nagao's photograph won the World Press Photo of the Year award for 1960, and the 1961 Pulitzer Prize.^[27]

Yamaguchi became a hero and martyr to several Japanese far-right groups.^[3] On 15 December 1960, a large number of Japanese far-right groups gathered in the Hibiya Public Hall where the assassination had taken place to hold a "National Memorial Service for Our Martyred Brother Yamaguchi Otoya."^[3] The Greater Japan Patriotic Party has continued to hold an annual memorial service for Yamaguchi every year on 2 November,^[4] the anniversary of his suicide. An especially large event was held on 2 November 2010, the 50th anniversary of his suicide.^[3]

On 12 October 2018, Gavin McInnes of the Proud Boys, along with members of the group, participated in a reenactment of the 1960 assassination at the Metropolitan Republican Club.^[28]

• List of assassinations in Asia

• Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674984424.