Ichiro Hatoyama (1 January 1883 – 7 March 1959) was Prime Minister of Japan from 10 December 1954 to 23 December 1956, succeeding Shigeru Yoshida and preceding Tanzan Ishibashi. He was the first Prime Minister of Japan to be a Liberal Democratic Party of Japan member, and he was the third postwar Christian Prime Minister of Japan. Hatoyama's son Iichiro Hatoyama became a Finance Ministry member, and his grandson Yukio Hatoyama became Prime Minister in 2009.
Biography[]
Ichiro Hatoyama was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1883 to a wealthy Baptist family. He was elected to the National Diet in 1915 as a Seiyukai Party politician, and he was believed by the United States to have cooperated with the authoritarian government during the 1930s and 1940s, leading to the USA preventing his election as Prime Minister in 1946. In 1952, ultranationalists plotted to assassinate Shigeru Yoshida and install a more hawkish government led by Hatoyama, but the plot was never carried out. Hatoyama would be elected as Prime Minister in 1954 as a Liberal Party of Japan member, and he became the head of the new Liberal Democratic Party of Japan that next year. As Prime Minister, he rebuilt diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union, and he also paroled some Class A war criminals. He left office in 1956, and Tanzan Ishibashi succeeded him.