Editing Ichirō Hatoyama (section)

==Premiership==
[[File:Ichirō Hatoyama Cabinet 19551122.jpg|thumb|right|The Hatoyama Cabinet in 1955]]
{{See also|First Ichirō Hatoyama Cabinet|Second Ichirō Hatoyama Cabinet|Third Ichirō Hatoyama Cabinet}}
Hatoyama was appointed prime minister in December 1954. His cabinet included  Shigemitsu as deputy prime minister and foreign minister; [[Hisato Ichimada]] as finance minister; Tanzan Ishibashi as trade minister; and Ichiro Kono as agriculture minister.{{sfn|Itoh|2003|p=124}}

Hatoyama favored pardons for some of the Class A war criminals who had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the [[Tokyo Trial]].<ref>Trumbull, Robert. [https://www.nytimes.com/1955/06/21/archives/japan-urges-u-s-free-war-guilty-continued-appeals-are-based-largely.html?sq=Ichiro+hatoyama+parole&scp=1&st=p  "Japan Urges U.S. Free War Guilty; Continued Appeals Are Based Largely on Dire Straits of Prisoners' Families"], ''The New York Times.'' 21 June 1955.</ref> He hoped to revise the [[Constitution of Japan|Constitution]] to remove [[Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution|Article 9]] and eventually remilitarize Japan.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=81|isbn=9780674988484}}</ref> To this end, in 1956 he established a "Constitutional Research Commission" to prepare for the process of constitutional revision.<ref name=Kapur80/>

That same year, Hatoyama attempted to implement his infamous "[[Hatomander]]" (ハトマンダー, ''hatomandā'', a portmanteau of Hatoyama and [[Gerrymander]]), an attempt to replace Japan's [[Single non-transferable vote|SNTV]] multi-member constituencies with American-style [[first-past-the-post]] single-member districts, which would have made it easier for the LDP to secure the two-thirds of seats in the Lower House of the [[National Diet]] needed to revise the Constitution. The plan passed the Lower House of the Diet, but was shelved in the face of intense popular opposition before it could pass the Upper House.

In October 1956, he restored diplomatic ties with the [[Soviet Union]], which had been severed since the [[Soviet–Japanese War|Soviet declaration of war in 1945]], through the [[Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956]].<ref name=Kapur80>{{Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=80|isbn=9780674988484}}</ref><ref>Jorden, William J. [https://www.nytimes.com/1956/10/18/archives/hatoyama-takes-plea-to-bulganin-return-of-some-isles-urged-at.html?sq=Ichiro%2520hatoyama&scp=26&st=cse  "Hatoyama Takes Plea to Bulganin; Return of Some Isles Urged at Moscow Peace Parley --Treaty Reported Near Goodwill Aspect Stressed"], ''The New York Times.'' 18 October 1956.</ref><ref name=odaka>{{cite web|last=Odaka|first=Konosuke|title=The Evolution of Social Policy in Japan|url=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/wbi37202.pdf|publisher=World Bank|access-date=13 January 2013|year=2002}}</ref> After that he announced his resignation as prime minister and stepped down in December 1956.

Ichirō Hatoyama died in his Hatoyama Hall house, in Tokyo's [[Bunkyō]] ward, on 7 March 1959. He was buried in the [[Yanaka Cemetery]], in nearby [[Taitō]] ward.