Kishi Nobusuke

Kishi Nobusuke (born Nov. 13, 1896, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan—died Aug. 7, 1987, Tokyo) was a statesman whose term as prime minister of Japan (1957–60) was marked by a turbulent opposition campaign against a new U.S.–Japan security treaty agreed to by his government.

Born Satō Nobusuke, an older brother of future prime minister Satō Eisaku, he was adopted by a paternal uncle bearing the Kishi name. He graduated from the Tokyo Imperial law department (1920) and began a successful civil service career. In 1936 he became a vice minister of the Manchukuo government’s industrial department and helped to promote the industrialization of Japanese-occupied Manchuria and China. On his return to Japan (1940) he contributed to wartime economic organization as vice minister of commerce and industry. He resigned when frustrated in his attempts to impose government control of the zaibatsu (industrial combines) but returned to government in 1941 as commerce and industry minister in the Cabinet of Tōjō Hideki. In April 1942 he won a seat in the House of Representatives. Subsequently he served as Tōjō’s vice minister of munitions but increasingly opposed Tōjō’s policy of continuing the war at all costs; Kishi’s opposition contributed to the fall of the Tōjō Cabinet in 1944. Although imprisoned in 1945 by the Allied Occupation authorities, Kishi was released (1948) without trial.

After reestablishing himself as a businessman, Kishi resumed his political activities. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1953 and then helped to organize the Japan Democratic Party, which he was instrumental in merging with other conservative factions to form the Liberal-Democratic Party in 1955. The following year he became foreign minister in the Cabinet of Ishibashi Tanzan. When Ishibashi fell ill, Kishi succeeded him as prime minister in February 1957.

As prime minister Kishi emphasized Japan’s special relationship with the United States and sought to ease tensions with the nations of Southeast and South Asia, visiting them in 1957 to promote reparations agreements and economic cooperation. In 1959 he traveled to western Europe and Latin America. Kishi had visited Washington, D.C., in 1957, and he returned in January 1960 to sign a revised U.S.–Japan security treaty intended to put the relationship between the two nations on an equal basis and to restore independent diplomacy for Japan. To implement this policy he initiated an official study of the controversial postwar constitution, which outlawed war, and he encouraged Japanese self-reliance in national defense.

Kishi used his conservative parliamentary majority to ratify the revised treaty while the opposition parties were boycotting the Diet session. This was viewed as high-handed and undemocratic and provoked large-scale public demonstrations against Kishi; the protests led to the cancellation of a scheduled visit to Japan by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In the aftermath, Kishi resigned, to be succeeded by Ikeda Hayato. Although the section of the constitution outlawing the “potential to make war” was not altered, Kishi initiated a policy of interpreting this clause liberally, allowing the Self-Defense forces more armaments. He remained an active member of the Liberal-Democratic Party.