Rehabilitating Yoshida

Having painted Yoshida Shigeru in a less-than-positive light yesterday, I shall attempt to mend my errand ways.

After all, he was the one of the most amazing and outstanding Japanese premiers in post-war Japan, and his name and ideas were said to have evolved into "a yardstick against which all would measure their own successes and failures." (Richard J Samuels, Machiavelli's Children - Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan)

And though accused by some for having sold out to the United States, historians noted that Yoshida "met America's needs but never nestled complacently in its pockets."

Overall, he was described by John Dower as "virtually a one-man show: now the sword swallower, now the contortionist, now the Houdini who made elephants appear and disappear ... Under his government, Article 9 was blown up like a balloon, twisted like a pretzel, kneaded like plasticene. In the end, however, it still remained unamended, and its survival was as significant as its mutilation." (John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience 1878 - 1954)

Hmm, maybe that was a back-handed rehabilitation?