Nobusuke Kishi

Nobusuke Kishi
岸 信介
Official portrait, 1957
Prime Minister of Japan
In office 25 February 1957 – 19 July 1960 Acting: 31 January 1957 – 25 February 1957
Monarch	Hirohito
Deputy	Mitsujirō Ishii Shūji Masutani
Preceded by	Tanzan Ishibashi
Succeeded by	Hayato Ikeda
President of the Liberal Democratic Party
In office 21 March 1957 – 14 July 1960
Vice President	Banboku Ōno
Secretary-General	Takeo Miki Shojiro Kawashima Takeo Fukuda Shojiro Kawashima
Preceded by	Tanzan Ishibashi
Succeeded by	Hayato Ikeda
Minister for Foreign Affairs
In office 23 December 1956 – 10 July 1957
Prime Minister	Tanzan Ishibashi Himself
Preceded by	Mamoru Shigemitsu
Succeeded by	Aiichirō Fujiyama
Minister of State without Portfolio
In office 8 October 1943 – 22 July 1944
Prime Minister	Hideki Tōjō
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Minister of Commerce and Industry
In office 18 October 1941 – 8 October 1943
Prime Minister	Hideki Tōjō
Preceded by	Sakonji Seizō
Succeeded by	Hideki Tōjō
Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party
In office November 1955 – December 1956
President	Ichirō Hatoyama
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Takeo Miki
Member of the House of Representatives
In office 20 April 1953 – 7 September 1979
Constituency	Yamaguchi 2nd
In office 1 May 1942 – 8 October 1943
Constituency	Old Yamaguchi 2nd
Personal details
Born	(1896-11-13)13 November 1896 Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi, Japan
Died	7 August 1987(1987-08-07) (aged 90) Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic (1955–1987)
Other political affiliations	Imperial Rule Assistance Association (1941–1945) National Defense Brotherhood (1945) Independent (1945–1953) Liberal (1953–1954) Democratic (1954–1955)
Spouse	Yoshiko Kishi [ja] ​ ​ (m. 1919; died 1980)​
Children	2, including Yoko
Relatives	Ichirō Satō (brother) Eisaku Satō (brother) Hironobu Abe (grandson) Shinzo Abe (grandson) Nobuo Kishi (grandson)
Alma mater	Tokyo Imperial University
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Nobusuke Kishi (岸 信介, Kishi Nobusuke, 13 November 1896 – 7 August 1987) was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He is remembered for his exploitative economic management of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in China in the 1930s, imprisonment as a suspected war criminal following World War II, and provocation of the massive Anpo protests as prime minister, retrospectively receiving the nickname "Monster of the Shōwa era" (昭和の妖怪; Shōwa no yōkai).^[1] Kishi was the founder of the Satō–Kishi–Abe dynasty in Japanese politics, with his younger brother Eisaku Satō and his grandson Shinzo Abe both later serving as prime ministers of Japan.

Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Kishi graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1920. He rose through the ranks at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and during the 1930s led the industrial development of Manchukuo, where he exploited Chinese slave labor. Kishi served in the wartime cabinet of Hideki Tōjō as minister of commerce and industry from 1941 to 1943 and vice minister of munitions from 1943 to 1944. At the end of the war in 1945, Kishi was imprisoned as a suspected Class A war criminal, but U.S. occupation authorities did not charge, try, or convict him, and released him in 1948 during the Reverse Course. At the end of the occupation in 1952, Kishi was de-purged, enabling his election to the National Diet in 1953. With overt and covert U.S. support, he consolidated Japanese conservatives against perceived threats from the Japan Socialist Party, and in 1955 was instrumental in forming the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Kishi was thus key in establishing the "1955 System" under which the LDP remains Japan's dominant party.^[2][3]

Kishi served as the first secretary-general of the LDP and as foreign minister under Prime Minister Tanzan Ishibashi before succeeding Ishibashi in 1957. During his tenure, Kishi had the strong backing of business, and promoted domestic industry and commercial interests in Southeast Asia. In 1958, he introduced a bill which would have granted police vastly expanded powers, but withdrew it under heavy opposition. Kishi's mishandling of the 1960 revision of the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty led to the Anpo protests, the largest protests in Japan's modern history, and he resigned in disgrace.^[4] He remained a member of the House of Representatives until 1979 as a staunch anti-communist and conservative with links to right-wing groups.