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Fanatic Past. The assassin's father, Colonel Shimpei Yamaguchi, resigned from the army but defended his son, saying: "A rightist is better than a leftist." Great Japan Patriots' Party Leader Bin Akao, whose hero is Hitler, praised young Yamaguchi as "a paragon of Japanese virtue," and called Asanuma's end a "heaven-sent punishment." Hundreds of mourners burned incense before a shrine set up in the yard of Asanuma's Tokyo home, and the Socialists plainly hope to use his murder to gain them votes in the election.
Despite all the benefits of democratic government. Asia's highest literacy rate and the world's fastest-growing economy, Japan still often seems a nation with one foot planted in the fanatic past. Chief worry of responsible Japanese is that Asanuma's murder may be only the first of a renewed wave of political killings in a country where, before the war, political assassination was almost a tradition.