三木武夫
At the same time as Miki was striving to reach consensus in the Democratic Party he engaged in manoeuvres within the Liberal Party. On 15 May 1955 he met with Banboku Ono, the Chairman of the Executive Council in the Liberal Party. Ono had once been a close aide to Hatoyama but was superseded by Miki even though Miki had previously been Hatoyama's political enemy, and for that Ono despised Miki more than anyone else. Even so, Miki pleaded with Ono, cleverly appealing to his strong sense of patriotism, and won his support. Then a meeting was held between Miki and Kishi and their Liberal Party counterparts Banboku Ono and Kojiro Ishii and they officially began the process of merging their parties. On the other hand, Reform Party leaders Takeo Miki and Kenzo Matsumura fired back with their argument that conservatives should be represented by two parties rather than only one. As the debate was coming to nothing, Hatoyama blurted out while weeping that his cabinet would have to resign, and panicking at the prospect, they ended up backing the merger.