suffered: "[…] our battles were being lost because of defeats at sea. Defeat in battle was caused by the fact that we were overwhelmed in the air war. We were losing the air war because we had failed to secure air superiority with our fighters. In short, we were losing the war because our fighters were being defeated." Genda documented his World War II experiences in a revealing autobiography, published in Japan. In 1961, while visiting London for five days as Chief of Staff of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, he commented he had no regrets about the attack on Pearl Harbor except that "We should not have attacked just once--we should have attacked again and again." Later military and political career With the surrender of Japan and subsequent dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Genda went into private business. After the establishment of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in 1954, Genda was commissioned into the Japan Air Self-Defense Force as a Major General. He served as its Chief of Staff from 1959 to 1962. As commander of the Air Self-Defense Force, Genda successfully pushed for the acquisition of the F-104 Starfighter, of which Japan bought 230. This became part of the Lockheed bribery scandals, as evidence emerged that Lockheed had paid him a bribe. Genda visited Lockheed's headquarters in California and at his own request personally flew a Starfighter. He was awarded the Legion of Merit by the United States Air Force a few months later. After retiring from the military in 1962, he ran for and was elected to the upper house of Japan's legislature, the House of Councillors, as a member of the Sato Faction within the Liberal Democratic Party. He was the first of several former SDF officers who entered politics under the auspices of the Sato Faction, mostly at the far right end of the Japanese political spectrum. He remained influential in politics for more than 20 years, as a leading member of the Defense Division of the LDP's Policy Affairs Research Council, often representing the hardline nationalist position advocating abrogation or curtailment of Article 9 of the postwar Japanese Constitution and open remilitarization of the armed forces. During a speaking engagement in the U.S. in 1969, in response to a question from the audience, he said that he thought the Japanese would have used the atomic bomb if they had had it; in the resultant