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the Mainichi Daily News
A declassified U.S. document has shown that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to make key conservative politician Taketora Ogata Japan’s prime minister in the 1950s, in a bid to place the nation under U.S. control.
The document describes a plan by the CIA to make Ogata — former leader of the Japan Liberal Party, who played a leading role in merging conservative parties into the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955 — the prime minister, adding that it would allow the United States to manipulate the Japanese government to suit its interests.
Waseda University Prof. Taketoshi Yamamoto, Hitotsubashi University postgraduate school Prof. Tetsuro Kato and Rikkyo University instructor Noriaki Yoshida took a year to analyze the five-volume, 1,000-page CIA document declassified in 2005.

Called “The Ogata File,” it details personal information on Ogata as well as the records of CIA and the Department of State officials’ contact with him from 1952, when he joined the fourth Cabinet of then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, to 1956, when he died.
U.S. officials met with then Prime Minister Yoshida and Ogata, who served as deputy prime minister, on Dec. 27, 1952 and urged Japan to set up its own intelligence organization. The plan failed after meeting stiff opposition from the Foreign Ministry and the public, but still won influence for Ogata with the CIA.
Ogata, an advocate of a two-party system who was widely viewed as a possible successor to Yoshida, subsequently became leader of the Japan Liberal Party. As the proponent of the merger of conservative parties into a single entity, he was also expected to be the first president of the LDP.
Then Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama, who headed the Japan Democratic Party, was enthusiastic about resuming diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. However, the CIA, which believed that the Soviet Union was trying to help the Leftist Socialist Party and the Rightist Socialist Party into a single party, viewed it an urgent task to integrate conservative forces. The CIA thought Ogata was most suited to be Hatoyama’s successor, and dispatched agents to accompany Ogata — codenamed “POCAPON” — on his regional campaigns in 1955.
Operation POCAPON ran from October to December of that year, during which agents contacted Ogata on a weekly basis and attempted to make him prime minister as symbol of anti-Soviet and anti-Hatoyama forces. In turn, the CIA came to rely on Ogata as a source of information on the Japanese government and political world. Information provided by Ogata was passed on to then CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles.
Shortly before the House of Representatives election in February 1955, Ogata asked CIA agents to tell Dulles not to worry about the outcome of the race. He promised to a CIA agent shortly afterwards that he would lay the groundwork for conservatives to gain an absolute majority in both houses of the Diet within a year if he became prime minister. He added that if necessary, Japan would revise election legislation.
However, the LDP adopted a collective leadership system when it was launched in November 1955. Ogata was unable to become leader of the party, and died in January 1956.
The CIA commented that Ogata’s death was unfortunate for the governments of both Japan and the United States. There is a record showing that Dulles sent a telegram of condolence to Ogata’s bereaved family.
Hatoyama finally became the first president of the LDP two months after Ogata’s death. The CIA then targeted Okinori Kaya, who later served as justice minister, and then LDP Secretary-General Nobusuke Kishi, who subsequently became prime minister.
“It’s an important material that shows the circumstances surrounding Japan-U.S. diplomacy during the Cold War,” Prof. Kato said. “The CIA wasn’t a secret organization at the time. Nor was Ogata a convinced spy.”

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