Assassination of Inejirō Asanuma

Inejirō Asanuma, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), was assassinated on 12 October 1960 at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo. He was participating in a televised three-party election debate broadcast by NHK, alongside Suehiro Nishio of the Democratic Socialist Party and Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda of the Liberal Democratic Party, before an audience of roughly 2,500 people. As Asanuma spoke, 17-year-old Otoya Yamaguchi, a member of Bin Akao's ultranationalist Greater Japan Patriotic Party, rushed onto the stage and stabbed him with a 33-centimetre wakizashi stolen from his father, puncturing Asanuma's aorta. Asanuma died within minutes, before reaching the hospital. Yamaguchi was subdued by bystanders and arrested at the scene.

Background circumstances included Asanuma's 1959 visit to Communist China, where he called the United States "the shared enemy of China and Japan," a statement that drew backlash from conservative and right-wing groups. Asanuma had declined bodyguard protection despite the controversy. He was also a prominent leader of the 1960 Anpo protests against revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which further angered right-wing groups including Akao's party, which Yamaguchi had joined at age 16.

Yamaguchi, held awaiting trial, gave extensive testimony to police and consistently maintained he had acted alone. On 2 November 1960, he wrote nationalist slogans on his cell wall using toothpaste and died by suicide, hanging himself with bedsheets. The following day, Asanuma's widow, Kyōko Asanuma, held a press conference expressing pity for Yamaguchi rather than hatred, while condemning the ideological influences that had radicalized him.

The assassination had significant political and cultural consequences in Japan. Emperor Hirohito sent a sacrificial offering to Asanuma's family and addressed the Diet on 18 October 1960 appealing for public order. Prime Minister Ikeda delivered an unusual and widely noted memorial speech praising Asanuma before the Diet. The event weakened the JSP's cohesion following Asanuma's death, contributing to the party's later decline. A photograph of the stabbing by Mainichi Shimbun photographer Yasushi Nagao won the 1960 World Press Photo of the Year and the 1961 Pulitzer Prize. The assassination also inspired copycat violence, including the 1961 Shimanaka incident, and Yamaguchi became a lasting figure of reverence among some Japanese far-right groups, which continue to hold annual memorial gatherings on the anniversary of his suicide. Asanuma is separately commemorated annually on 12 October, designated Asanuma Memorial Day by the JSP and successor groups.