Nobusuke Kishi

Nobusuke Kishi
岸 信介
Official portrait, 1957
Prime Minister of Japan
In office 31 January 1957 – 19 July 1960
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
Director-General of the Japan Defense Agency
In office 31 January 1957 – 2 February 1957
Prime Minister	Tanzan Ishibashi
Preceded by	Tanzan Ishibashi
Succeeded by	Akira Kodaki
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	Seizō Sakonji
Succeeded by	Hideki Tōjō
Member of the House of Representatives for Yamaguchi 1st District
In office 1 May 1942 – 8 October 1943
In office 20 April 1953 – 7 September 1979
Personal details
Born	(1896-11-13)13 November 1896 Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Empire of Japan
Died	7 August 1987(1987-08-07) (aged 90) Tokyo, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party (1955–1987)
Other political affiliations	Imperial Rule Assistance Association (1941–1945) Japan Democratic Party (1952–1955)
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
Signature

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. Remembered for his exploitative economic management of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Northeast China in the 1930s, his imprisonment as a suspected war criminal following World War II, and his provocation of the massive Anpo protests as prime minister, Kishi retrospectively received the nickname "Monster of the Shōwa era" (昭和の妖怪; Shōwa no yōkai).^[1] Kishi was also the founder of the Satō–Kishi–Abe dynasty in Japanese politics, which saw his younger brother Eisaku Satō and his grandson Shinzo Abe both later serve as prime ministers of Japan.

Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Kishi graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1920. He rose through the hierarchy at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and during the 1930s led the industrial development of Japan's puppet state of Manchukuo. Kishi then served in the wartime cabinet of Hideki Tōjō as commerce and industry minister from 1941 to 1943 and as deputy munitions minister from 1943 to 1944. After the war, Kishi was imprisoned for three years as a suspected Class A war criminal. However U.S. occupation authorities did not charge, try, or convict him, and eventually released him as they considered Kishi to be the best man to lead a post-war Japan in a pro-American direction.

With both overt and covert U.S. support, Kishi went on to consolidate the Japanese conservative camp against perceived threats from the Japan Socialist Party in the 1950s. Kishi was instrumental in the formation of the powerful Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) through a merger of smaller conservative parties in 1955, and thus is credited with being a key player in the initiation of the "1955 System", the extended period during which the LDP was the overwhelmingly dominant political party in Japan.^[2][3]

After serving in several important posts in the new party, Kishi succeeded the ailing Tanzan Ishibashi as prime minister in 1957. As prime minister, Kishi had the strong backing of business and worked to promote domestic industry and Japanese commercial interests in Southeast Asia. In 1958, he attempted to introduce a bill which would grant police vastly expanded powers to crush demonstrations, but was forced to withdraw it under heavy opposition. Kishi's mishandling of the 1960 revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty led to the massive Anpo Protests, which were the largest protests in Japan's modern history and which forced him to resign in disgrace.^[4] Thereafter, Kishi remained in the House of Representatives as a staunch anti-communist and an influential conservative.