Kakuei Tanaka

Kakuei Tanaka
田中 角栄
Photographic portrait, 1972
Prime Minister of Japan
In office 7 July 1972 – 9 December 1974
Monarch	Hirohito
Deputy	Takeo Miki
Preceded by	Eisaku Satō
Succeeded by	Takeo Miki
Minister of International Trade and Industry
In office 5 July 1971 – 7 July 1972
Prime Minister	Eisaku Satō
Preceded by	Kiichi Miyazawa
Succeeded by	Yasuhiro Nakasone
Minister of Finance
In office 18 July 1962 – 3 June 1965
Prime Minister	Hayato Ikeda Eisaku Satō
Preceded by	Mikio Mizuta
Succeeded by	Takeo Fukuda
Minister of Posts and Telecommunications
In office 10 July 1957 – 12 June 1958
Prime Minister	Nobusuke Kishi
Preceded by	Taro Hirai
Succeeded by	Yutaka Terao
Member of the House of Representatives
In office 25 April 1947 – 18 February 1990
Constituency	Niigata 3rd
Personal details
Born	(1918-05-04)4 May 1918 Nishiyama, Empire of Japan
Died	16 December 1993(1993-12-16) (aged 75) Tokyo, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party (1955–1993)
Other political affiliations	Democratic Party (1947–1950) Democratic Liberal Party (1950–1955)
Spouse	Hana Sakamoto
Children	Masanori Tanaka (by Hana Sakamoto, died age 4) Makiko Tanaka (by Hana Sakamoto) Kyo Tanaka (by Tsuji Wako) Hitoshi Tanaka (by Tsuji Wako) Atsuko Sato (by Akiko Sato)
Signature
Military career
Allegiance	Japan
Service/branch	Imperial Japanese Army
Years of service	1939–1941
Rank	Superior Private
Battles/wars	Second Sino-Japanese War Second World War
Japanese name
Shinjitai	田中 角栄
Kyūjitai	田中 角榮
Kana	たなか かくえい
Transcriptions Romanization Tanaka Kakuei

Kakuei Tanaka (田中 角栄, Tanaka Kakuei, 4 May 1918 – 16 December 1993) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1972 to 1974. He served in the House of Representatives from 1947 to 1990. As prime minister, Tanaka advocated large-scale infrastructure development and oversaw the normalization diplomatic relations with China. Afterwards he was arrested in connection to the Lockheed bribery scandals, but nevertheless exercised a dominant influence on Japanese politics until suffering a stroke in 1985.

Born in rural Niigata Prefecture, Tanaka grew up under poor circumstances and received little formal education. As a young man he worked in the construction industry, becoming the president of his own construction company at a young age. He made a fortune from military contracts during the Pacific War. After the war, Tanaka went into politics and became noted for his earthy and tenacious political style. Becoming a member of the Liberal Democratic Party when it was founded in 1955, Tanaka successively served as minister of posts and telecommunications, chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council, minister of finance, secretary general of the LDP and minister of international trade and industry.

After a power struggle with Takeo Fukuda, he became prime minister in 1972. Diplomatically, he pursued negotiations leading to the Japan–China Joint Communiqué. Domestically he pursued his "Plan to Remodel the Japanese Archipelago," an infrastructure development program, but his standing was hurt by the 1973 oil crisis. He resigned amidst allegations of corruption in 1974. Two year later Tanaka was implicated in the Lockheed bribery scandals, which led to his arrest and trial; he was found guilty by two lower courts, but his case remained open before the Supreme Court until his death. Throughout his legal problems, he maintained influence through his faction, the largest faction in the LDP, and was able to serve as kingmaker for subsequent prime ministers, which led to him being called "Shadow Shōgun" (闇将軍, Yami-shōgun). A debilitating stroke he suffered in 1985 led to the collapse of his political faction, with most members regrouping under the leadership of Noboru Takeshita in 1987.^[1]

He was nicknamed Kaku-san (角さん, Mr. Kaku)^[2] and was known as the "ima taiko" (今太閤, modern taiko) and "Shadow Shōgun" (闇将軍, Yami-shōgun).^[3][4] His politico-economic direction is called the construction state (土建国家, Doken Kokka).^[5] He was strongly identified with the construction industry but never served as construction minister.^[4] His daughter Makiko Tanaka and son-in-law Naoki Tanaka were also prominent politicians.