Kishi Nobusuke
Kishi Nobusuke (岸 信介 November 13,1896 - August 7,1987) was a Japanese politician and the 56th and 57th Prime Minister from February 25,1957 to June 12,1958 and from June 12,1958 to July 19,1960.He was born Sato Nobusuke in Tokyo, but left his family at a young age to move in with the more affluent Kishi family, adopting their family name. His biological younger brother, Sato Eisaku, would also go on to become a prime minister.
He attended Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo) and entered the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 1920. In 1935, he became one of the top officials involved in the industrial development of Manchukuo. Prime Minister Tojo Hideki, himself a veteran of the Manchurian campaign, appointed Kishi Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1941, and he held this position until Japan's surrender in 1945.
Until 1948, Kishi was imprisoned as a Class A war criminal. Unlike Tojo (and several other cabinet members), Kishi was found not guilty by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. As a free man, Kishi decided to go into politics, and joined the new Democratic Party, which had just elected Yoshida Shigeru prime minister. In 1954, the Democratic Party and Liberal Party merged to elect Hatoyama Ichiro as the head of the new Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. Two prime ministers later, Kishi was voted in in 1957, after the resignation of the ailing Ishibashi Tanzan.
In the first year of Kishi's term, Japan joined the United Nations Security Council, paid reparations to Indonesia, set up a new commercial treaty with Australia, and signed peace treaties with Czechoslovakia and Poland. In 1959, he visited Buenos Aires, Argentina. Kishi's next foreign policy initiative was much more difficult: reworking Japan's security relationship with the United States.
That November, Kishi laid down his proposals for a revamped extension of the US-Japan Security Treaty. Suddenly, rioters were clashing with police in Nagatacho, at the steps of the National Diet Building. 500 people were injured in the first month's rioting. Once the protests died down, Kishi went to Washington, and in January 1960 returned to Japan with a new and unpopular Treaty of Mutual Cooperation. President Dwight Eisenhower visited Japan that June, but upon Air Force One's arrival at Tokyo International Airport, it was mobbed by more angry Japanese rioters, and forced to fly back to the United States.
On July 15, 1960, amidst growing public furor over the treaty, Kishi resigned and Ikeda Hayato became prime minister.
In 1979, he was awarded The United Nations Peace Medal with Ryoichi Sasakawa.
Abe Shintaro is his son-in-law, and Abe Shinzo is Kishi's grandson.
| Preceded by: Ishibashi Tanzan |
Prime ministers of Japan | Succeeded by: Ikeda Hayato |