70. Telegram From the Embassy in Japan to the Department of State0
2600. CINCPAC for POLAD; Kishi asked me to meet privately with him last evening to give me his general assessment of Japanese political picture in light of recent elections. Only Wada (as interpreter) was present.
Kishi was elated over election results and believed it would greatly strengthen his position. He felt important factors in LDP success in upper house elections were LDP victories in Osaka and Tokyo gubernatorial elections last April. He commented that had Tokyo been lost to Socialists in April, he did not believe he would have been able to remain in office very long.
Kishi was especially happy that principal issue in upper house elections had been foreign policy, particularly Japan’s close ties with US in security field. He said election results clearly demonstrated that [Page 186] preponderant majority of Japanese fully support his policy of increasingly close ties with US and other free world countries and at same time clearly reject neutralism. This he felt would be very helpful when new US-Japan security treaty comes up for ratifications.
Kishi said he is now engaged in study very complex problem of reshuffling cabinet and top party posts. He commented wryly that “this reshuffle is much more difficult than winning an election”. He believes there is reasonable chance that both Miki and Ikeda may accept a top party or cabinet post. However in this connection he said his most difficult problem is to try to find slots in cabinet or party that will balance off Ikeda and Kono so that each will feel other has not been given better post. I mentioned reports that Kono might be given secgen-ship of LDP but Kishi shook his head and said this would result in increased factional cleavage within LDP.
I asked Kishi whether in his judgement Socialist defeat would lead to split in Socialist Party. Kishi said he knew on reliable authority that Nishio is deeply disturbed over present leadership of Socialist Party and pro-leftist orientation of its policy and is contemplating splitting if present leftist policies of party are continued. In confidence, Kishi said that should Nishio split away from Socialist Party, he personally would not object if twenty or so of more liberal LDP members of Diet join with Nishio faction. This he said would give Nishio group sufficient members and standing to exercise strong appeal to Socialist voters at expense of left-wing socialists.
I asked whether as result of upper house election victory LDP had any plans to change electoral law for upper house by eliminating provision for national constituencies which gave great advantage to Sohyo and left-wing labor unions. Kishi said LDP wished to eliminate national constituencies and he thought election results would be helpful to LDP in this respect since there was growing doubt and even criticism among public and press as to soundness of a national constituency system which gave advantages to special pressure groups. However, he had no intention of acting precipitously and said there was ample time to consider how best to attack problem of revising upper house electoral law since next upper house elections would not take place for three years.
Kishi was in extremely mellow mood and at end of our talks reminisced over great progress which had been made in Japan-American [Page 187] relations since new era was established two years ago in his meeting with President Eisenhower. He recalled many papers he had submitted to us before his Washington visit proposing adjustments in US-Japan relations, including such matters as reduction of US Armed Forces in Japan, Okinawa, Bonins, treaty revision, war criminals, trade relations, etc., and expressed great happiness that while complete solutions had not yet been found to all problems, great progress had been made. Japanese-American relations in his judgement have never been better than at present. He explained that as result of cooperation and understanding which had developed between his government and our government there were no burning or envenomed issues which could be exploited by leftists or neutralists and there were also no issues where Japanese had feeling US was being unreasonable or unresponsive to legitimate Japanese desires. This he said had been an important factor in conservative successes in recent elections.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 794.00/6–659. Confidential. Repeated to CINCPAC, COMUS/Japan, Fukuoka, Kobe, Nagoya, Naha, Sapporo, and Yokohama.↩