Word: yoshida
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...answer in a strong voice, and you look healthy," a conservative mocked him. "The fact that the Prime Minister is able to appear at all ... is due to our spirit of chivalry," taunted a Socialist. At one point during his long inquisition before the Diet, 76-year-old Shigeru Yoshida, Premier of Japan for seven years, began to defend himself, but lost his way through his notes. "Ah ... ah ... ah," he mumbled, shuffling his papers. "Ah ... ah ... ah," his enemies mimicked him in pitiless unison...
...Advance or Retreat." Hostilities began when Japan's No. 2 conservative, a 71-year-old cripple named Ichiro Hatoyama, led a sizable walkout from the Liberal Party. Hatoyama once led the party, had to turn it over to Yoshida when purged as "undesirable" by Douglas MacArthur, and never got the leadership back. Hostilities deepened when Mamoru Shigemitsu, 65, a crippled ex-war criminal who signed the surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, withdrew the support of his right-wing Progressive Party from Yoshida, leaving Yoshida with only 183 votes in the Lower House of the Diet. The two dissident forces...
Confronted by a massed opposition, the Premier began a tactical withdrawal. "It would be highly unpleasant," wrote Yoshida to his remaining conservative associates, "should my actions give the impression . . . that I am hanging on to power. With the situation as it is, I ask you to deliberate . . . disregarding my personal advance or retreat for the time being." His associates deliberated and concluded: stay on for now as Premier, they said, but step down as Liberal Party leader. Said Yoshida: "I am in complete agreement...
Uncertainty & Suspense. Yoshida's long identity with the U.S. beginning with the occupation, now hurts him in the inevitable resurgence of Japanese nationalism. As for the new Democrats, they insist that they are not anti-American, only pro-Japanese. But their platform says...
...Shigeru Yoshida might yet prove able to outsmart his opponents. He could dissolve the Diet and force a new general election. He might resign in favor of Taketora Ogata, a trusted conservative junior ("my Eden"), and watch matters from the sidelines. His enemies, confident that they can at last strike him down, are nonetheless warily respectful of the old man's political skill...