WI: The 1952 Yoshida Assassination Plan Occurred?

[Time Enough]

In 1952, a small group of militarists concocted a plan to kill then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida due to his perceived Pro-American policy and replace him with Ichiro Hatoyama.

Now given this is Pre-1955 system, it’s fair to say that we’re unlikely to see a formation of the LDP, given that there would likely be a lot of tensions between the Right Wing in Japan over the assassination of Yoshida and Hatoyama will probably be not given any important roles any time soon.

Yoshida would likely be a martyr to, given that his later period which soured his premiership didn’t occur.

I could also see a revival in renewed SCAP investigations against Right Wing Japanese politicians due to the assassination which would likely lead to a short circuiting of a number of careers.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Looking for more, found some extra details of:

the plotters were led by Takushiro Hattori, a former private secretary to Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister hanged as a war criminal in 1948.

Two CIA documents said the plot reportedly had the support of 500,000 people in Japan, and that the group planned to use a contact who controlled a faction inside the National Safety Agency -- a precursor to the Defense Ministry -- to help launch the coup.

The files reviewed by the AP strongly suggest the Americans were unaware of the plot until after it had been dropped. The plot was developed after the U.S. postwar occupation of Japan ended in April 1952, and the CIA files say American financial support for Hattori's group had dried up by then.

Still, the documentary evidence of the plot illustrates the violent potential of the right-wing, anti-communist cabal that had worked under the U.S. occupation authority's "G-2" intelligence wing in the early days of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 50s. The CIA operated separately from the G-2.

Hattori and others had worked under the aegis of Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, the anti-communist G-2 chief. During the occupation, Willoughby was considered the second most powerful American after his boss, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Some group members were considered choice war crimes trial targets after the war.

I dunno how the CIA got this "500,000 people" thing, how would you do that and how could that many back a thing without it coming out through natural leaking? But I can believe very easily they didn't know until too late and "whoops turns out we gave the guy money".

So it's not just Yoshida being a martyr and tension against the right, it's going to come out and poss. at the time that Saint Shigeru was whacked soon after America left by people getting American money. The fact the plotters thought he was the pro-US one isn't going to stop the obvious conspiracy theory. Even if it can be shown this wasn't a plot from Washington, a huge problem for America's Cold War plans in the Pacific - and a scandal in America, "hey we let these war crime shits go free and they tried to do it all again".

Ironically, that could all mean a partial aim of the coup succeeds: Japan won't be as reliant on America for security if America-backed bods tried a coup. Only if you've prevented the LDP existing and discredited chunks of the right and all that, at some point it could be the Socialist Party winning an election and doing military policies, a thing the plotters would have screaming nightmares about.

 

[Time Enough]

Ironically, that could all mean a partial aim of the coup succeeds: Japan won't be as reliant on America for security if America-backed bods tried a coup. Only if you've prevented the LDP existing and discredited chunks of the right and all that, at some point it could be the Socialist Party winning an election and doing military policies, a thing the plotters would have screaming nightmares about.

I guess any future political situation would probably not lead to JSP domination exactly, but the Rightists of the JSP could be the driving force in a coalition.

I could see calls for a Social Democratic Non-Aligned Japan in some capacity and everyone grumpily accepting it.

 

[I Saw A Red Sky]

I could see calls for a Social Democratic Non-Aligned Japan in some capacity and everyone grumpily accepting it.

US would never allow this.

 

[Time Enough]

US would never allow this.

Well I could see calls for it to happen, the likely outcome is a American aligned Centerist/Centre Left Japan.

 

[History Learner]

I could see a Soviet-backed Far Right/Neo-Fascist Japan emerge from this.