John Lindsey
26th May 2001, 17:17
The Asahi Shimbun
May 26, 2001
Author Yukio Mishima probably is best known for his novels and his shocking ritual seppuku suicide in 1970. But there was a darker side to the author who wanted to use the Self-Defense Forces to stage a coup d'etat.
It turns out he had such close ties with the Ground Self-Defense Forces that he and his private militia, Tatenokai (Shield Society), were given secret training in guerrilla warfare tactics and military intelligence.
These aspects of the private side of the author's life are to be disclosed in a book next month by Kiyokatsu Yamamoto, a former SDF major-general who trained Mishima in the art of warfare.
This portrait of Mishima until now had rarely been glimpsed. Yamamoto reveals that Mishima had confided in him his hopes of persuading the SDF to rise up, such was the author's despair at the direction in which Japan was headed.
Mishima himself exhorted troops to rebel in 1970 when in November of that year he and a small band of followers broke into the Eastern Regional Headquarters of the GSDF in Tokyo's Ichigaya district.
When he was jeered and realized his cause was lost, Mishima committed ritualistic disembowelment and a follower then lopped off his head with a sword.
Until his retirement in 1972, Yamamoto taught intelligence agents how to counter psychological warfare.
full story:
http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/0526/asahi052602.html
May 26, 2001
Author Yukio Mishima probably is best known for his novels and his shocking ritual seppuku suicide in 1970. But there was a darker side to the author who wanted to use the Self-Defense Forces to stage a coup d'etat.
It turns out he had such close ties with the Ground Self-Defense Forces that he and his private militia, Tatenokai (Shield Society), were given secret training in guerrilla warfare tactics and military intelligence.
These aspects of the private side of the author's life are to be disclosed in a book next month by Kiyokatsu Yamamoto, a former SDF major-general who trained Mishima in the art of warfare.
This portrait of Mishima until now had rarely been glimpsed. Yamamoto reveals that Mishima had confided in him his hopes of persuading the SDF to rise up, such was the author's despair at the direction in which Japan was headed.
Mishima himself exhorted troops to rebel in 1970 when in November of that year he and a small band of followers broke into the Eastern Regional Headquarters of the GSDF in Tokyo's Ichigaya district.
When he was jeered and realized his cause was lost, Mishima committed ritualistic disembowelment and a follower then lopped off his head with a sword.
Until his retirement in 1972, Yamamoto taught intelligence agents how to counter psychological warfare.
full story:
http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/0526/asahi052602.html