SDF trained Mishima as intelligence agent
 

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/0...ahi052602.html

John,

Well, it wasn't that well done from what I've heard. Nakamura sensei told me that Mishima took two hits to the shoulder/neck area; then a second follower took the sword and actually severed Mishima's head -- three strokes in all. This second follower then performed "kaishaku" on the first follower -- who also committed seppuku. Nakamura sensei stated that the follower who flubbed the kaishaku was a 2nd dan in kendo (or 3rd??), but he had never learned tameshigiri.

Nakamura sensei once owned the sword that Mishima was carrying that day. He told me that it was such a shame that Mishima had to endure three strokes ... it made his efforts "mottainai" (a waste). Nakamura sensei has given the keynote speach on at least one of the annual Mishima Memorial Society gatherings, and he's performed tameshigiri for them also. Yeah, he's still a bit to the right of "conservative" ... but he's a d@mned good teacher.

I've heard that the cut Mishima inflicted on himself wasn't such a big deal. Sure wish I could cite the source -- it might have been one of my teachers, but my brain turned to oatmeal about 9 years ago when I turned 40 :) .

Regards,
Guy

For reading (the book should be available in the public library, as that's where I found it):

Scott-Stokes, Henry. The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974).

Online, see also http://www.vill.yamanakako.yamanashi.../his65_70.html

John Nathan also published a bio of Mishima in 1974 ("Mishima: A Bigraphy") which details the botched kaishaku Guy refers to amid the surreal events of the aborted "coup." It's the only bio Mishima's family cooperated with, and among the international writers in Mishima's circle was singer Bonnie Raitt's present husband!

As kinky and obsessed (with the beauty of death among other topics) as Mishima was the power and beauty of his prose is clear even in translation. I've never read anything so consistently weird written so consistently beautifully. He did achieve dan ranking as a budoka though someone said his techniques were more "sly and cowardly" than "beautiful and elegant." Must not have been a fan.