ABSTRACT
Spring 1950 ushered in a new era for East Asia as a whole and for Japan in particular. The Cold War between the two postwar superpowers, the USSR and the United States, broke out into full-fledged combat in Korea and spurred negotiations leading to the San Francisco Peace Treaty in September 1951. What the Japanese Conservative camp has shared with conservatives elsewhere in the world has been a commitment to anticommunism and a willingness to be allied with the United States in the Cold War. In the late 1960s college students again emerged as important participants in political warfare when the Vietnam War fueled another flare-up over the issue of Japan's alliance with the United States. In 1958 the Education Ministry issued a Guide to Ethical Education, which once again led to a storm of criticism over its prewar tone. In 1960 Japan's most serious postwar political crisis exploded.
