This was the first revelation of the massive CIA support for Japan’s right-wing Liberal Democratic Party in the early 1950s.

In a major covert operation of the cold war, the Central Intelligence Agency spent millions of dollars to support the conservative party that dominated Japan’s politics for a generation.

The C.I.A. gave money to the Liberal Democratic Party and its members in the 1950’s and the 1960’s, to gather intelligence on Japan, make the country a bulwark against Communism in Asia and undermine the Japanese left, said retired intelligence officials and former diplomats. Since then, the C.I.A. has dropped its covert financial aid and focused instead on gathering inside information on Japan’s party politics and positions in trade and treaty talks, retired intelligence officers said.

The Liberal Democrats’ 38 years of one-party governance ended last year when they fell from power after a series of corruption cases — many involving secret cash contributions. Still the largest party in Japan’s parliament, they formed an awkward coalition in June with their old cold war enemies, the Socialists — the party that the C.I.A.’s aid aimed in part to undermine.

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