October 12, 1960. It's election season in Japan. Three thousand people file into Tokyo's Hibiya Hall to hear Socialist Party Chairman Inejiro Asanuma debate current Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda. Ikeda was inspired by the Nixon-Kennedy debates and decided to hold his own with his opponents. Asanuma criticized the government for its mutual defense agreement with the United States, and right-wing students in the audience began throwing pieces of paper at the curmudgeonly president.
The police swooped in, and Otoya Yamaguchi, the 17-year-old son of a self-defense force colonel, ran out of the police raid carrying a samurai sword. Before anyone could stop him, he drew his sword into Asanuma, pulled it out and speared Asanuma again - through the heart. Less than three weeks after the murder, while being held in a juvenile detention center, Yamaguchi hanged himself using his bed sheet. He lived up to his samurai tradition to the end: his suicide was an apology to Owabi, or those who were inconvenienced by his murder.
The outcome of a murder was always shocking. Socialists have tried to make the killing the main issue of the election. Hoping for a sympathy vote, they paraded Asanuma's widow. After Yamaguchi's death, socialists pointed out that the fact that an important criminal could kill himself exposed the total irresponsibility of the responsible authorities, and pointed out with shame that Yamaguchi had the only cell in Japan with lights strong enough for hanging. . They also tried to connect Yamaguchi with the ruling party, the United States and the CIA. Yamaguchi, in fact, belonged to an ultra-nationalist group called the Great Japanese Patriotic Party, which worshiped Adolf Hitler as well as the Japanese emperor. Although the Great Japanese Patriotic Party quickly distanced itself from Yamaguchi, they called Asanuma's assassination a "heavenly punishment." Perhaps of all the covers, none says the prejudices and sensibilities of the time as much as this article in TIME magazine.
Japan's Yasushi Nago is caught on camera in this very powerful stabbing incident where we see the student remove the weapon from Asanuma's body after delivering one of the two fatal blows.
The photo, which immediately went viral, won Naao the World Press Photo of the Year that same year and the Pulitzer Prize the following year.
The killer committed suicide in prison three weeks later
Although many reporters, television crews and photographers were present, only one managed to capture the crucial moment: Yasushi Nago, staff photographer for the Tokyo Mainichi Shinbun newspaper, took this picture with his last photo left on camera. The photo was widely distributed by United Press International under the headline “Tokyo Stabbing” and reprinted in many American newspapers. Life magazine dedicated the spread. Nagao became the first non-American photographer to win a Pulitzer Prize in photography.