Eisaku Satō (佐藤 栄作,Satō Eisaku; 27 March 1901 – 3 June 1975) was a Japanese politician who served asprime minister of Japan from 1964 to 1972. He was the thirdlongest-serving and second longest-uninterrupted–serving Japanese prime minister. Satō is best remembered for securing the return ofOkinawa in 1972, and for winning theNobel Peace Prize in 1974, which stirred controversy. He was a former elite bureaucrat like his elder brotherNobusuke Kishi and a member of the Yoshida school likeHayato Ikeda.[1]
In 1964, Satō succeeded Ikeda as LDP president and prime minister. He had the support of Japanese business and finance, and presided over a period of rapid economic growth. In foreign policy, he oversaw the normalization of diplomatic relations withSouth Korea and maintained close relations with the United States, allowing theU.S.–Japan Security Treaty to renew in 1970 and arranging for the return ofOkinawa to Japan in 1972. In 1967, Satō introduced the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" (the non-production, non-possession, and non-introduction ofnuclear weapons), and in 1968 signed theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for which he won theNobel Peace Prize. However, it was later revealed that Satō had made secret agreements with the U.S. to allow violations of the principles. Facing mounting economic problems and falling approval ratings in the early 1970s, Satō resigned in 1972 and was succeeded as prime minister byKakuei Tanaka, quickly losing his political influence when his protégéTakeo Fukuda did not succeed him.
From left Sato (then Minister of Construction), Prime MinisterShigeru Yoshida and Party chairman Saeki Ozawa (1953)
Satō was born on 27 March 1901, inTabuse,Yamaguchi Prefecture, the third son of businessman Hidesuke Satō and his wife Moyo. His father had worked in the Yamaguchi Prefectural Office, but quit in 1898, and started asake brewing business in Kishida, Tabuse. The family had a history in sake brewing and had held the right for sake brewing for generations.[2] Satō's great-grandfather was asamurai of theChōshū Domain, with their outsized influence inMeiji era Japan, with more Meiji andTaisho prime ministers coming from Yamaguchi than any other prefecture. His two older brothers wereIchirō Satō, who would become a vice admiral, andNobusuke Kishi, who served as prime minister from 1957 to 1960.[3]
He served as Minister ofPostal Services and Telecommunications from July 1951 to July 1952. Sato gradually rose through the ranks of Japanese politics, becomingchief cabinet secretary to then prime ministerShigeru Yoshida from January 1953 to July 1954. He later served as minister of construction from October 1952 to February 1953.
After the Liberal Party merged with theJapan Democratic Party to form theLiberal Democratic Party, Satō served as chairman of the party executive council from December 1957 to June 1958, followed by a post asminister of finance in the cabinet of his brotherNobusuke Kishi from 1958 to 1960. As minister of finance, Sato requested the US to fund conservatives.[5]
Satō succeeded Ikeda after the latter resigned due to ill health.[6] He would go on to serve the longest stint of any prime minister up until that time, and by the late 1960s he appeared to have single-handed control over the entire Japanese government. He was a popular prime minister due to the growing economy; his foreign policy, which was a balancing act between the interests of the United States and China, was more tenuous, and his grip on domestic politics was challenged by growing opposition to his administration's support for theAmerican military operations in Vietnam.
Satō is the last Prime minister of Japan to visitTaiwan during his term. In 1965, Satō approved a US$150 million loan toTaiwan. He visitedTaipei in September 1967. In 1969, Satō insisted that the defense of Taiwan was necessary for the safety of Japan. Satō followed the United States in most major issues, but Satō opposed theNixon visit to China.[7] Satō also bitterly opposed the entry of the PRC into theUnited Nations in 1971.
During Satō's term, Japan participated in the creation of theAsian Development Bank in 1966 and held a ministerial level conference onSoutheast Asian economic development.[8] It was the first international conference sponsored by the Japanese government in the postwar period. In 1967, he was also the first Japanese prime minister to visitSingapore. He was largely supportive of theSouth Vietnamese government throughout theVietnam War.
Since the end of theSecond World War,Okinawa had been occupied by theUnited States. While visiting theUnited States in January 1965, Satō openly asked PresidentLyndon Johnson to return Okinawa to Japan. In August 1965, Satō became the first post-war prime minister of Japan to visit Okinawa.
In 1969, Satō struck a deal with U.S. presidentRichard Nixon to repatriateOkinawa: this deal was controversial because it allowed theU.S. forces in Japan to maintain bases in Okinawa after repatriation.[9] Okinawa was formally returned to Japan on 15 May 1972, which also included theSenkaku Islands (also known as the Diaoyu Islands in China and the subject, since 1971, of a Sino-Japanese sovereignty dispute; seeSenkaku Islands dispute).
In his early years as prime minister, Sato had argued that Japan needed to develop nuclear weapons of its own to match those of China, but the United States government was staunchly opposed to this, and the Johnson administration pressured Japan to sign theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[10]
Accordingly, Satō introduced theThree Non-Nuclear Principles on 11 December 1967, promising the non-production, non-possession, and non-introduction ofnuclear weapons inside Japan. Thereafter, Satō shepherded Japan's entry into theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Diet passed a resolution formally adopting the Non-Nuclear Principles in 1971. For these actions, Satō would receive theNobel Peace Prize as a co-recipient in 1974.
However, recent inquiries show that behind the scenes, Satō was more accommodating towards US plans of stationing nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. In December 2008, the Japanese government declassified a document showing that during a visit to the US in January 1965, he was discussing with US officials the possibility of using nuclear weapons against thePeople's Republic of China.[11] In December 2009, his son reported that his father agreed in a November 1969 conversation with US President Nixon to allow the stationing of nuclear warheads inOkinawa even after it was restored to Japanese sovereignty.[12]
Overcrowded universities, increasing student radicalization, hopes for an abrogation of theUS-Japan Security Treaty after its initial 10-year term ended in 1970, and growing opposition to Japan's material and ideological support forAmerica's war in Vietnam helped precipitate large scale protests at hundreds of Japanese schools and universities in 1968–1969, part of aworldwide protest cycle in 1968. After more than a year of conflict, Satō's administration responded by calling in riot police to forcibly clear the university campuses. Thereafter, Satō allowed the Security Treaty to automatically renew in 1970, dashing the hopes of activist groups who stagedlarge street protests in an attempt to eliminate it.
The successful resolution of the university crisis, continued robust economic growth, and above all, the 1969 announcement of the United States' commitment to return Okinawa to Japan, made Satō broadly popular with the Japanese public and allowed him to win a then unprecedented third consecutive term as prime minister. However, Satō's popularity soon nosedived, in the aftermath of so-called "Nixon Shocks" of 1971.[13] In July 1971, the Japanese government was stunned by Nixon's dramatic announcement of his forthcomingvisit to the People's Republic of China.[14] Many Japanese were chagrined by the failure of the United States to consult in advance with Japan before making such a fundamental change in foreign policy, and the sudden change in America's stance made Satō's staunch adherence to non-relations with China look like he had been played for a fool.[15]
The following month, the government was again surprised to learn that, without prior consultation, Nixon was imposing a 10 percent surcharge on imports, a decision explicitly aimed at hindering Japan's exports to the United States, and was unilaterally suspending the convertibility of dollars into gold, which would eventually lead to the collapse of theBretton Woods system of fixed currency exchange rates.[13] The resulting decoupling of the yen and the dollar led the yen to soar in value, significantly damaging Japan's international trade and economic outlook.
With his approval ratings plummeting, Satō abandoned plans to run for a fourth term, and resigned from office in 1972. His heir apparent,Takeo Fukuda, won the Sato faction's support in the subsequent LDP presidential election, but the more popularMITI minister,Kakuei Tanaka, won the vote, ending the Satō faction's longstanding dominance in Diet politics.
Upon leaving the premiership in 1972 to an approval rating of 19% (by April) and a fractured party, Satō moved back to his home inSetagaya Ward, Tokyo, staying out of the eyes of the media but remaining in the Diet. His reputation, however, quickly began to be rehabilitated, starting in November of that year with his awarding of theGrand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum. Satō opened up to the media after the award, with outlets noting his visual image change, with a longer hairstyle reminiscent of the post-presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.[16]
Satō quickly settled into his life as an elder statesman. In January 1973, Satō and his wife were invited toPresident Richard Nixon's second inauguration. Satō maintained close relations with Nixon, sending him his personal condolences upon hisresignation, and Nixon attended his funeral.[17]
Upon returning to Japan, his successor, the initially-popularKakuei Tanaka, who had been handed a rebuke with 17 seat losses in the1972 Japanese general election, looked to Satō to repair relations within the LDP, especially towards his rivalTakeo Fukuda. Both men were Satō's protégés, and Satō advised Tanaka in the forming of his post-election cabinet, notably including Fukuda as director-general of the Administrative Agency. Although privately critical towards Tanaka's government, Satō remained in the public eye a unifier within the LDP.[18]
Satō shared theNobel Peace Prize withSeán MacBride in 1974. He was awarded for representing the Japanese people's will for peace, and for signing the nuclear arms Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970.[19] He was the first Asian to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. (In 1973, Vietnamese politicianLe Duc Tho had become the first Asian towin the prize, but Tho had rejected it.[20]) Satō began working with MacBride shortly after, joiningAmnesty International.[21]
In April 1975, as part of his last foreign visit before his death, Satō was chosen as the LDP representative to attend thefuneral of Chiang Kai-Shek. However, upon protest from the Chinese government of Satō's role as "official envoy of the LDP president", his role was relegated to a "friendship representative".[22]
On 19 May 1975, Satō attended a dinner in Shikiraku, a restaurant in Tokyo'sTsukiji district, attended by Fukuda. During the event, he suffered a massive stroke, resulting in a coma. He was held in an emergency unit in the restaurant for four days before being moved to hospital.[23] He died at 12:55 a.m. on 3 June at theJikei University Medical Center, aged 74. After a public funeral, his ashes were buried in the family cemetery atTabuse.
Satō was posthumously honored with the Collar of theOrder of the Chrysanthemum, the highest honor in the Japanese honors system.
From left – Hiroko, Shinji, Eisaku, Ryūtarō, & Fujie (Matsuoka), 1931
Satō married Hiroko Satō (佐藤 寛子; 5 January 1907 – 16 April 1987) in 1926 and had two sons, Ryūtarō andShinji. Hiroko's father, Matsusuke Satō, was Eisaku's maternal uncle and the head of main Satō family. After Matsusuke died in 1911, Hiroko, her sister and mother were supported by her maternal uncle, diplomatYōsuke Matsuoka. Their son Shinji followed his father into politics, serving in both houses and as a cabinet minister. Shinji's son-in-law,Masashi Adachi, currently serves in theHouse of Councillors, and formerly worked as an aide for his cousin-in-law, Eisaku's grandnephew,Shinzo Abe.
^䝪䞊䜲䝇䜹䜴䝖日本連盟 きじ章受章者 [Recipient of the Golden Pheasant Award of the Scout Association of Japan](PDF).Reinanzaka Scout Club (in Japanese). 23 May 2014. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 11 August 2020.
Dufourmont, Eddy (2008). "Satō Eisaku, Yasuoka Masahiro and the Re-Establishment of 11 February as National Day: the Political Use of National Memory in Postwar Japan". In Wolfgang Schwentker and Sven Saaler ed.,The Power of Memory in Modern Japan, Brill, pp. 204–222.ISBN978-19-05-24638-0
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