Authors

Discussion

This paper examines the political activities of Suetsugu Ichiro (1922-2001), an influential fixer in Japan-Russia relations during the latter half of the 20th Century. During his youth, he received special training in guerrilla warfare at Japan’s Army School, Rikugun Nakano Gakko, and acquired a nationalistic spirit. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, Suetsugu started volunteer work for Japanese POWs returning from the Soviet Union. He was critical of the Hatoyama Ichiro’s Cabinet’s policy toward the Soviet Union, especially about the compromise content of the Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration in 1956. After that, he became an influential hard-liner on the territorial dispute with Russia and organized track-two-level regular discussions with statesmen and international affairs experts in the Soviet Union. In this paper, the author will research Suetsugu’s political activities using his archives which opened recently at Japan’s National Diet Library Constitutional Material Room, and suggest that he played de-fact commander in chief of Japan’s territorial disputes against Russia.