Editing Hayato Ikeda (section)

==Prime Minister of Japan==

Ikeda was elected president of the LDP and became Prime Minister in July 1960, at an extremely difficult moment in [[Japanese politics|Japanese domestic politics]] and [[U.S.-Japan relations]]. Ikeda's immediate predecessor as prime minister, [[Nobusuke Kishi]], had disastrously mishandled his attempt to revise the [[Anpo|U.S.-Japan Security Treaty]] (known as [[Anpo]] in Japanese), leading to the massive [[Anpo Protests|1960 Anpo protests]], which were the largest protests in Japan's modern history.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=1}} Although Kishi was ultimately successful in ramming the revised treaty through the [[National Diet|Diet]], the size and violence of the protests that followed forced him to cancel a planned visit by U.S. president [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] and resign in disgrace. Ikeda also inherited from Kishi [[Miike Struggle|a violent dispute]] at the [[Miike Coal Mine]] in [[Kyushu]], where striking coal miners repeatedly clashed with right-wing thugs sent by their corporate overlords to break the strike. Ikeda had been a compromise candidate to succeed Kishi, and had only secured the premiership by promising to call an immediate election, just a few months later in the fall of 1960. Given Ikeda's image as an unpopular politician out of touch with the common people and prone to verbal gaffes, few expected Ikeda to be anything more than a temporary placeholder prime minister.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=75}}

However, Ikeda surprised observers by undertaking a dramatic personal makeover. He drew a sharp contrast to Kishi's "high posture" (高姿勢, ''kō shisei'') and ruthless, take-no-prisoners approach by taking a "low posture" (低姿勢, ''tei shisei'') and by adopting an accommodating stance toward the political opposition and making "Tolerance and Patience" (i.e. toward the political opposition) his slogan for the fall election campaign.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=76}} Ikeda also underwent a deliberate physical makeover, switching out the dark, double-breasted suits and severe, wire-rimmed glasses he had worn prior to becoming prime minister for more approachable light, single-breasted suits and thick, plastic-rimmed glasses.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=84}} Most dramatically of all, Ikeda announced his bold [[Income Doubling Plan]], which promised to double the size of Japan's economy in just ten years' time, by 1970. Eschewing the usual 5-year economic plan, Ikeda set an extremely ambitious 10-year time frame, promising a package of targeted tax breaks, government investment, and an expanded social safety net to turbocharge economic growth. Ikeda's new image and Income Doubling Plan proved popular,{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=84}} and he won a resounding victory at the polls in the fall, leaving no chance that one of his factional rivals in the LDP could replace him.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=94}}

Upon taking office, Ikeda acted quickly to defuse the [[Miike Struggle|bloody clash]] at the Miike mine. As his Labor Minister, he chose [[Hirohide Ishida]], who was a member of a rival political faction but was seen as more trustworthy by labor unions. He immediately dispatched Ishida to negotiate a compromise between the miners and [[Mitsui]] corporation, which owned the mine, and Ishida succeeded in getting the two sides to agree to binding arbitration, finally bringing an end to the year-long [[Miike Struggle]] in December 1960.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=136–37}}

[[File:Ikeda and Kennedy 1961.jpg|thumb|June 1961 summit meeting in Washington D.C. between Hayato Ikeda (second from left) and [[John F. Kennedy]] (fourth from left)|260x260px]]

Ikeda also placed a high priority on repairing the U.S. Japan relationship, which had been damaged by the anti-American character of the [[Anpo protests|anti-Treaty protests]] and the cancellation of Eisenhower's visit. He gave numerous reassurances to the U.S. government that he would staunchly support U.S. [[Cold War]] policies, including support for [[Taiwan]] and non-interaction with mainland [[China]]. He asked for, and was granted, a summit meeting with incoming U.S. president [[John F. Kennedy]] in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1961. At the summit, Ikeda reiterated his support for U.S. policy, and Kennedy promised to treat Japan more like a close ally such as [[Great Britain]].{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=60–62}} Ikeda hoped to make up for Eisenhower's inability to visit Japan by hosting Kennedy in Tokyo, and Kennedy agreed. Plans were made for Kennedy to visit Japan in 1964, but he was assassinated before he could visit, and Secretary of State [[Dean Rusk]] went in his stead.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=50}}

Ikeda also relentlessly pushed Japanese trade abroad, in support of his goal to expand export-led economic growth under the Income Doubling Plan. Targeted government investment in strategic manufacturing industries helped Japan move up the value chain and into high-tech and other higher-value-added goods. In 1962, French president [[Charles de Gaulle|Charles De Gaulle]] famously referred to Ikeda as "that transistor salesman,"<ref>{{cite book|last=Gordon|first=Andrew|title=A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present (3rd ed.)|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2014|pages=248}}</ref> signalling that Japan was becoming more known for exporting electronics than for the cheap toys, bicycles, and textiles it had exported in the 1950s.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hahnel|first=Robin|title=Democratic Economic Planning|publisher=Routledge|year=2021|pages=271}}</ref>

Domestically, Ikeda fulfilled his promise to expand the social safety net in support of the Income Doubling Plan. A universal national pension scheme was established in 1961,<ref>The Japan of Today, Published in 1989 by The International Society for Educational Information, Inc.</ref> together with a system of universal health insurance.<ref name=kobayashi09>{{cite journal|last=Kobayashi|first=Yasuki|title=Five Decades of Universal Health Insurance Coverage in Japan: Lessons and future challenges|journal=JMAJ|date=July–August 2009|volume=52|issue=4|pages=263–268|url=http://www.med.or.jp/english/journal/pdf/2009_04/263_268.pdf|access-date=10 February 2013}}</ref> The Physically Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Law was passed in 1960 to promote the employment of people with physical disabilities through the creation of an employment quota system in Japan, an on-the-job adjustment scheme, and a financial assistance system in addition to offering vocational guidance and placement services through approximately 600 Public Employment Security Offices (PESO) and their branch offices.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/english/asia/resource/apdrj/z13jo0100/z13jo0106.html| journal=Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal|volume=9|issue=1|year=1998 |title= An Overview of the Impact of Employment Quota System in Japan|author=Matsui, Ryosuke }}</ref> In addition, the 1963 Welfare Law for the Aged provided funding for respite care, home care, homes for the aged, and other services paid by taxes collected through local and central governments.<ref>Moses, Stephen A. [http://www.centerltc.com/pubs/Articles/ltcjapan.pdf "Kaigo-Jigoku (LTC Hell) and What Japan's Doing About It: Valuable Lessons for the U.S. and Vice Versa"].</ref>

In 1963, Ikeda remained extremely popular and was able to win a second term as prime minister. Now he was powerful enough to take on the factional rivalries that had nearly torn the LDP apart during the Security Treaty Crisis. Ikeda took a number of steps to tame intra-party factional infighting,{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=88–98}} including appointing an "All-Faction Cabinet" with members from enemy factions,{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=94}} and bringing his bitter rival [[Ichirō Kōno]] into his government as Agriculture Minister, Construction Minister, and finally Minister in charge of planning the [[1964 Tokyo Olympics]], thus allowing Kōno to accrue much of the glory and credit for the successful Olympic Games, which were seen as Japan's "coming out party" after completing postwar reconstruction.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=94–95}}

By 1963, Ikeda was also powerful enough to announce, over the objection of many conservatives in his own party, that the LDP would renounce any effort to revise [[Constitution of Japan|Japan's postwar constitution]] and specifically [[Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution|Article 9]], which forbade Japan from maintaining a military.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=80–81}} He even made "no constitutional revision on our watch" one of the LDP's campaign slogans for the general election.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=81}} This move outraged his predecessor Kishi, who had avidly pursued constitutional revision.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=81}} However, it also severely damaged the electoral prospects of the opposition [[Japan Socialist Party]] going forward, as the JSP had previously been able to win votes by pointing out that they needed at least one-third of the seats in the Diet to block the LDP's attempts at revising the Constitution.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=81–82}}