Hello, the episode you're about to listen to is part of a multi-part series introducing an overview

of Japanese history.

This is a repeat of one of the original projects the History of Japan podcast was built on,

and is intended to serve as an update and supplement to these original works.

After 10 years, my hope is to return to this approach and to do it a little bit better,

given the skills that I have improved in the intervening years.

If you haven't been doing so already, you should listen to these episodes sequentially,

starting with episode 501.

Without any further ado, enjoy the episode.

Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 537, The New Order.

America's occupation of Japan came to an end earlier than planned, and with little fanfare,

late in the spring of 1952.

The impetus, as with so many foreign policy decisions made by the United States during the

20th century, was the Cold War. Seriously, if you're trying to explain basically any decision

made by the U.S. government from about 1945 to 1991,

the answer is almost certainly because of the commies.

Specifically, the outbreak of the Korean War in the summer of 1950 drew huge numbers of American

troops away from Japan and towards the peninsula, and accelerated an already

growing trend towards abandoning the lofty early occupation goals of a total reconstruction

of Japanese society in favor of simply getting things up and running, so to speak, as a Cold

War ally of the United States.

And so on September 8, 1951, then Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshida Shigeru, found himself

...