Japanese Political Leader. At the height of his career, he was Chairman of Japan's Socialist Party and a strong critic of the Liberal Democratic Party and the security pact between Japan and the United States. During a speech in Beijing the previous year, he suggested that the United States was a common enemy of the Sino-Japanese people. Minutes into a speech during a televised political debate at Tokyo's Hibiya Hall, he was attacked at the podium by Otoya Yamaguchi, a 17 year old right-wing university student, who stabbed him once in his abdomen and once in his chest. "Mainichi" newspaper photographer Yasushi Nagao snapped a photo as Yamaguchi withdrew the blade from his second stab. Asanuma staggered and fell, dying soon thereafter before reaching a nearby hospital. His murder resulted in massive protests in Tokyo. Yamaguchi later committed suicide. For his photograph, which was published in U.S. newspapers, Nagao became the first foreign winner of a Pulitzer Prize for news photography(1961).
Japanese Political Leader. At the height of his career, he was Chairman of Japan's Socialist Party and a strong critic of the Liberal Democratic Party and the security pact between Japan and the United States. During a speech in Beijing the previous year, he suggested that the United States was a common enemy of the Sino-Japanese people. Minutes into a speech during a televised political debate at Tokyo's Hibiya Hall, he was attacked at the podium by Otoya Yamaguchi, a 17 year old right-wing university student, who stabbed him once in his abdomen and once in his chest. "Mainichi" newspaper photographer Yasushi Nagao snapped a photo as Yamaguchi withdrew the blade from his second stab. Asanuma staggered and fell, dying soon thereafter before reaching a nearby hospital. His murder resulted in massive protests in Tokyo. Yamaguchi later committed suicide. For his photograph, which was published in U.S. newspapers, Nagao became the first foreign winner of a Pulitzer Prize for news photography(1961).
Bio by: Warrick L. Barrett
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