Hideaki Kase

Hideaki Kase (加瀬 英明) was a Japanese diplomatic critic known for promoting historical revisionism.

His father, Toshikazu Kase, was a diplomat under Shigenori Tōgō who negotiated an end to the Pacific war.

Yoko Ono is his cousin.

Kase was the Chairman of Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact, a right-wing organization promoting historical revisionism.

In an interview with BBC journalist Bethan Jinkinson, Kase said: "The majority of our people believe that Japan was forced into war by the United States. America was making unreasonable demands upon us. So we were fighting a war of national self-defence".

He was published in March 1993 and is the author of "Ugly Korean" (醜い韓国人), a Kenkan genre book that has gained considerable popularity in Japan.

The contents of the book are accused of maliciously distorting Korean culture and history.

Hideaki Kase had a history of promoting controversial films that contest Japanese war crimes:

Kase died on 15 November 2022, at the age of 85.

Kase wrote episodes of friendship with John Lennon for the Sankei Shinbun newspaper on 8 December 2016.

Kase said to John Lennon, "the USA forced Japan to fight the USA and reluctantly Japan fought in self-defense. Japanese were the same as Vietnamese who were attacked by the USA."

John Lennon visited many Japanese Shinto Shrines, and one of them was Yasukuni Shrine.

Kase and Ono were in the family of Yasuda zaibatsu, and Yoko Ono was seen as a nuisance in this prestigious financial clan, but Hideaki Kase got along with Yoko Ono.

Also a member of Nippon Kaigi, Kase said about that openly revisionist lobby: "We are dedicated to our conservative cause. We are monarchists. We are for revising the constitution. We are for the glory of the nation".