Published on November 29, 2019.
Following the death of former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, this article introduces Sankei Shimbun’s report on his memorable words and political stance.
Through phrases such as “A politician is a defendant standing before the court of history,” “There is a nation in my heart,” “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” “the dead-man’s-bluff dissolution,” and “political terrorism,” it looks back on Nakasone’s constitutional revision agenda, his call for a final settlement of postwar politics, his proposal for direct election of the prime minister, and his sharp critiques of later politicians.
It also criticizes television wide shows for obsessing over the “Cherry Blossom Viewing Party” issue while neglecting matters of national importance.

November 29, 2019
Those involved in wide shows are doing such things in order to make their own living.
They are members of the most malicious people in this world, who feel no shame in damaging Japan’s national interest for the sake of their own high salaries.
When I returned home from an errand, there were two things that surprised me.
One was that, when I turned on the television to see Shibuno’s result, a wide show appeared, and what it was broadcasting with precious airwaves was something about the “Cherry Blossom Viewing Party.”
I was utterly appalled by this.
Those involved in wide shows are doing such things in order to make their own living.
They are members of the most malicious people in this world, who feel no shame in damaging Japan’s national interest for the sake of their own high salaries.
The other was the following news that had just arrived digitally from the Sankei Shimbun.
The other day, I had written about a sharp commentator who, on a TV Tokyo news program, pointed out, based on former Prime Minister Nakasone’s four principles of diplomacy, that South Korea’s conduct deviated from all four principles.
So I thought this might be something along that line.
But it was news that he had passed away.
Former Prime Minister Nakasone dies.
“The prime minister and my lover are chosen by me,” “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” “playing dead,” “political terrorism” — memorable words that became popular phrases.
Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who died on the 29th, left behind many memorable sayings that sounded warnings to politics and society, such as “A politician is a defendant standing before the court of history,” “There is a nation in my heart,” and “A people without ideals or goals will perish.”
Mr. Nakasone, who had made constitutional revision his life’s work, personally wrote the lyrics of “The Song of Constitutional Revision,” which criticized the current constitution with words such as, “The people welcomed the MacArthur Constitution while worrying about the future of the nation.
We should establish our own constitution and build the foundation of the nation,” and announced it in 1956.
From 1961, using the catchphrase “The prime minister and my lover are chosen by me,” he advocated constitutional revision to introduce a system for the direct election of the prime minister.
During his visit to the United States immediately after becoming prime minister, it was reported that, at a breakfast meeting with the owner of an American newspaper, he said he would “strongly defend the Japanese archipelago like an unsinkable aircraft carrier.”
Mr. Nakasone said that his statement, “a large ship with high walls,” had been translated into English as “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” but diplomatic documents disclosed two years ago revealed that he himself had used the phrase “unsinkable aircraft carrier.”
In his policy speech in 1986, he emphasized that “the final settlement of postwar politics” was intended to correct the distortions and defects of the forty postwar years and to prepare for the twenty-first century.
In the simultaneous House of Representatives and House of Councillors elections that same year, in which he led the Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide victory, he carried out a dissolution of the House of Representatives while pretending not to do so, even as the opposition parties were on guard against it.
In fact, from the beginning of that year, he had resolved to “go by playing dead,” and when he dissolved the House, he said, “They say I played dead, but the opposition parties pretended not to know.”
It came to be called the “dead-man’s-bluff dissolution.”
In 1996, when the House of Representatives election was held under the single-member district and proportional representation parallel system, the LDP leadership guaranteed him the “lifetime number one” position in the North Kanto proportional representation block.
Later, when a move emerged within the party to introduce a “retirement age of 73,” he showed his eagerness to continue as an active politician, saying, “I am an old soldier who does not die, but only keeps fighting” in 2000.
In 2003, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi asked him to retire from the Diet, he rebelled, saying, “This is political terrorism,” but in the end he announced that he would not run in the House of Representatives election.
He expressed his feelings in the poem, “Even at dusk, for as long as life remains, the cicadas still sing.”
His concise criticism of younger politicians also attracted attention.
In 1996, when Yukio Hatoyama founded the Democratic Party under the banner of “fraternity,” the political creed of his grandfather, former Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama, Nakasone sarcastically pointed out the difference from Ichiro’s political stance by saying, “Love, friendship, liberal — it is like soft ice cream.”
He described Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi as a “vacuum prime minister” because “the inside is a vacuum, so he has the suction power to absorb anything.”
He described the Koizumi Cabinet, launched with five women appointed as ministers, as a “show-window cabinet.”
He described Mr. Koizumi’s style of speaking as an “instant-touch assertion type,” in which he “grasps things instantaneously and states only the conclusion.”
He described Prime Minister Naoto Kan as a “citizen-politician” who had no support base and had emerged with citizens’ groups in the background.