Makoto Oda, a writer and leader in the anti-Vietnam War campaign in Japan, died of stomach cancer early July 30 at a Tokyo hospital, his family said. He was 75.

He revealed in April he was battling terminal cancer.

A native of Osaka, Oda studied at Harvard University on a Fulbright scholarship in the late 1950s and later traveled to Europe, the Middle East and Asia, an experience that led him to write his 1961 best-selling book Nandemo Miteyaro ("I'll Go Everywhere and See Everything").

As the Vietnam War escalated, he and other antiwar activists in Japan formed the Peace for Vietnam! Committee campaign, which is also known by the Japanese acronym Beheiren, in 1965.