Kakuei Tanaka
Encyclopedia
was a Japanese politician
and the 64th and 65th Prime Minister of Japan
from 7 July 1972 to 22 December 1972 and from 22 December 1972 to 9 December 1974 respectively. He was also the most influential member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party
until the mid-1980s, when he fell from power after a long series of scandals, leading him to be described as "that paragon of post-war corruption."
Tanaka, nicknamed Kaku-san, was known as the "Shadow Shogun
" (闇将軍 Yami-shōgun. literally, "Shadow Shogun" or "Shogun of Darkness").
His political-economic direction is called .
. His father was involved with a disastrous venture to start Niigata's first dairy
farm, and so the family scraped by in abject poverty. Kakuei left school after the equivalent of the eighth grade and went to work in the construction
business, and soon moved to Tokyo.
In 1937, while running errands for a construction firm, Tanaka ran into an elevator occupied by the Viscount
Okochi Masatoshi, head of the Riken
corporation. Okochi, apparently impressed with Tanaka's energy and ambition, agreed to help the young man start a drafting office in Tokyo.
The drafting office only kept Tanaka busy for two years: he was drafted into the army in 1939 and sent to Manchuria
, where he served as a clerk in the Morioka Cavalry. After two years in the military, he contracted pneumonia
and was returned to Tokyo to recover; he never re-enlisted.
Back in Japan, Tanaka ended up at the Sakamoto Civil Engineering firm, looking for office space to restart his drafting business. There, he met the late company president's widow, who not only gave him the real estate he needed, but also asked him to marry her daughter, Sakamoto Hana. Tanaka accepted, and married his way into the upper class.
in 1944.
Luck favored Tanaka during the endgame of World War II
. None of his major buildings were damaged in the firebombing of Tokyo, and just weeks before the Japanese surrender, he travelled to Seoul
and cashed in ¥15b (about US$78m) in Japanese war bond
s. In December 1945, as the first postwar Diet
was being planned by the American occupation authorities, Tanaka was able to give generous donations to an associate affiliated with the Japan Moderate Progressive Party (Nihon Shinpoto).
In 1946, he moved from Tokyo to Niigata to prepare his first bid for a Diet seat: he worked around the election laws of the time by buying buildings throughout the district and placing large "TANAKA" signs on them. However, his bid unraveled at the last minute when three other JMPP candidates entered the race. Tanaka only captured 4% of the vote in the general election.
In 1947, however, he placed third in his district after a strategy targeting rural voters. He took his Diet seat that year as a member of the new Democratic Party
(Minshuto). In the Diet, he became friends with former prime minister Kijūrō Shidehara
and joined Shidehara's Doshi Club. Then in 1948, the Doshi Club defected to the new Democratic Liberal Party
, and Tanaka instantly won favor with the DLP's leader, Shigeru Yoshida
. Yoshida appointed Tanaka as a Vice Minister of Justice, the youngest in the nation's history.
Then, on December 13, Tanaka was arrested and imprisoned on charges of accepting ¥1m (US$13,000) in bribes from coal mining interests in Kyūshū
. Yoshida and the DLP dropped most of their ties with Tanaka, removed him from his official party posts, and refused to fund his next re-election bid. Despite this, Tanaka announced his candidacy for the 1949 general election, and was released from prison in January after securing bail
. He was re-elected, and made a deal with Chief Cabinet Secretary
Eisaku Satō
to resign his vice-ministerial post in exchange for continued membership in the DLP.
The Tokyo District Court
found Tanaka guilty in 1950, and Tanaka responded by filing an appeal. In the meantime, he took over the failing Nagaoka Railway that linked Niigata to Tokyo, and through a combination of good management and good luck, brought it back into operation in 1951. In that year's election, he was re-elected to the Diet in a landslide
victory, and many of the railroad's employees came out to campaign for him. That year's election was also the first in which he was supported by billionaire capitalist Kenji Osano, who would remain one of Tanaka's most loyal supporters to the end.
projects. In turn, the local villagers all financially supported Etsuzankai, which, in turn, funded the re-election campaigns of local Diet members, including Tanaka. At its peak, Etsuzankai had 100,000 members.
The projects funded by Etsuzankai included the Tadami River hydroelectric power project, the New Shimizu Tunnel, and, perhaps most infamously, the Joetsu Shinkansen
high speed rail line.
During the 1950s, Tanaka brought Etsuzankai members to his residence in Tokyo by bus, met with each of them individually, and then provided them with tours of the Diet and Imperial Palace. This practice made Etsuzankai the most tightly-knit political organization in Japanese history, and it also furthered Tanaka's increasingly gangster-like image.
Tanaka became a member of the Liberal Democratic Party
in 1955, when it absorbed the DLP.
When Nobusuke Kishi
became prime minister in 1957, Tanaka was given his first cabinet post, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. He already carried great influence in the LDP, despite his lack of seniority: this was partly because of his friendship with future prime minister Eisaku Satō, and partly because his stepdaughter had married future prime minister Hayato Ikeda
's nephew, giving him a personal relationship with both key heads of the party.
Under Ikeda's cabinet, Tanaka became chairman of the Policy Affairs Research Council, and eventually Minister of Finance. When Satō became prime minister in 1965, Tanaka was slated to become the LDP's new secretary general, but the emergence of the Black Mist Scandal, where Tanaka was accused of shady land deals in Tokyo, meant that Takeo Fukuda
got the job instead.
Fukuda and Tanaka soon became the two battling heir apparents of Satō's faction, and their rivalry was dubbed by the Japanese press as the "Kaku-Fuku War." Despite the scandal, Tanaka made a record showing in the 1967 general election, and Satō re-appointed him as secretary general, moving Fukuda to the post of finance minister. In 1971, Satō gave Tanaka another important stepping stone to taking over the government: minister of international trade and industry (MITI).
As head of MITI, Tanaka gained public support again by standing up to U.S. negotiators who wanted Japan to impose export caps on several products. He had so many contacts within the American diplomatic corps that he was said to have played a larger role in the repatriation of Okinawa than Satō himself.
Although Satō wanted Fukuda to become the next prime minister, Tanaka's popularity, along with support from the factions of Yasuhiro Nakasone
and Masayoshi Ōhira
, gave him a 282-190 victory over Fukuda in the LDP's 1971 party president election. He entered the office with the highest popularity rating of any new premier in Japanese history.
Tanaka's foreign policy mirrored that of Richard Nixon
, and his most notable achievement was the normalization of Japan's relations
with the People's Republic of China. On the domestic front, he proposed an enormous infrastructure investment program that never got off the ground, primarily because it required more money than Japan had at the time.
and used her name for a number of shady land deals in Tokyo during the mid-sixties.)
His state visit to Indonesia
as invited by President Soeharto to discuss Indo-Japanese trade relations was protested by a number of local anti-Japanese sentiments denying international investment, which occurred on January 15, 1974. Japanese-manufactured materiel and buildings were destroyed by Indonesian protesters. 11 people were dead, a further 300 were injured, and 775 protesters were arrested. As a result, the Soeharto regime dissolved the president's private counselor constitution and took control of the national security leadership. The incident henceforth became well known as the 'Malari Incident
' (Peristiwa Malari).
The Diet commission called Etsuzankai's treasurer, Aki Sato, as its first witness. Unknown to the committee members, Sato and Tanaka had been involved in a romantic relationship for several years, and Tanaka took pity on Sato's troubled upbringing. Rather than let her take the stand, he announced his resignation on November 26, 1974.
The Tanaka faction supported Takeo Miki
's "clean government" bid to become prime minister, and Tanaka once again became a rank-and-file Diet member.
Then, on February 6, 1976, the vice chairman of the Lockheed Corporation
told a United States Senate
subcommittee that Tanaka had accepted $1.8 million in bribes during his term as prime minister, in return for having Japan's parastatal airlines purchase Lockheed L-1011
aircraft (the Lockheed bribery scandals
). Although Henry Kissinger
tried to stop the details from making their way to the Japanese government, fearing that it would harm the two countries' security relationship, Miki pushed a bill through the Diet that requested information from the Senate. On July 27, Tanaka was arrested: he was released in August on a ¥200m (US$690,000) bond. Tanaka was located in the Tokyo Detention House
.
In retaliation for Miki's actions, Tanaka persuaded his faction to vote for Fukuda in the 1976 "Lockheed Election". The two old rivals did not cooperate for long, however: in 1978, Tanaka threw his faction behind Ohira's. After Ohira died in 1980, the Tanaka faction elected Zenko Suzuki
. Suzuki hated his position so much that he resigned in 1982: Tanaka responded by re-electing him.
The Lockheed trial ended on October 12, 1983. Tanaka was found guilty and sentenced to 4 years in jail. Rather than cave in, he filed an appeal and announced that he would not leave the Diet as long as his constituents supported him. This sparked a month-long war in the Diet over whether or not to censure Tanaka; eventually, Prime Minister Nakasone, himself elected by Tanaka's faction, dissolved the Diet and called for a new election.
In the "Second Lockheed Election," Tanaka retained his Diet seat by an unprecedented margin, winning more votes than any other candidate in the country. Nakasone placed six members of the Tanaka faction on his 1984 cabinet, including future prime minister Noboru Takeshita
.
and hypertension
, and he suffered a stroke
just three weeks after Takeshita's departure. His daughter Makiko spirited him from the hospital after authorities refused to give the former prime minister an entire floor, and the Diet session halted entirely while details of Tanaka's condition leaked out to the press.
Tanaka remained in convalescence through the election of 1986, where he retained his Diet seat. On New Year's Day of 1987, he made his first public appearance since the stroke, and was clearly in poor condition: half of his face was paralyzed, and he was grossly overweight. In that year's election, virtually all of his faction members joined behind Takeshita, and Etsuzankai lost five of its twenty seats in Niigata.
The Tokyo High Court
dismissed Tanaka's appeal on July 29, and the original sentence passed down in 1983 was reinstated. Tanaka immediately posted bail and appealed to the Supreme Court.
While his appeal lingered in the Court's docket, Tanaka's medical condition deteriorated. He resigned from the Diet in 1989, was diagnosed with diabetes, and finally died of pneumonia
at Keio University
Hospital at 2:04 p.m. on December 16, 1993.
Makiko Tanaka
, who was not associated with Etsuzankai, was elected to her father's old seat in Niigata in 1991, and became foreign minister in the cabinet of Junichiro Koizumi
in 2001.
Tanaka's LDP faction has survived beyond his death. Its support base, which flocked to Takeshita in the late 1980s, coalesced during Tanaka's convalescence. After Takeshita was sidelined by the Recruit scandal
, the Tanaka faction rallied behind Ryutaro Hashimoto
, who led the Tanaka faction (now called the Hashimoto faction) until scandal forced him to resign his leadership position in 2004.
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and the 64th and 65th Prime Minister of Japan
Prime Minister of Japan
The is the head of government of Japan. He is appointed by the Emperor of Japan after being designated by the Diet from among its members, and must enjoy the confidence of the House of Representatives to remain in office...
from 7 July 1972 to 22 December 1972 and from 22 December 1972 to 9 December 1974 respectively. He was also the most influential member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party
Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...
until the mid-1980s, when he fell from power after a long series of scandals, leading him to be described as "that paragon of post-war corruption."
Tanaka, nicknamed Kaku-san, was known as the "Shadow Shogun
Shogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
" (闇将軍 Yami-shōgun. literally, "Shadow Shogun" or "Shogun of Darkness").
His political-economic direction is called .
Early life
Tanaka was born into a rural family with seven children in Nishiyama, Niigata PrefectureNishiyama, Niigata
Nishiyama was a town located in Kariwa District, Niigata, Japan.As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 6,712 and a density of 118.52 persons per km². The total area was 56.63 km²....
. His father was involved with a disastrous venture to start Niigata's first dairy
Dairy
A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting of animal milk—mostly from cows or goats, but also from buffalo, sheep, horses or camels —for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on a dedicated dairy farm or section of a multi-purpose farm that is concerned...
farm, and so the family scraped by in abject poverty. Kakuei left school after the equivalent of the eighth grade and went to work in the construction
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
business, and soon moved to Tokyo.
In 1937, while running errands for a construction firm, Tanaka ran into an elevator occupied by the Viscount
Viscount
A viscount or viscountess is a member of the European nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, above a baron, below an earl or a count .-Etymology:...
Okochi Masatoshi, head of the Riken
RIKEN
is a large natural sciences research institute in Japan. Founded in 1917, it now has approximately 3000 scientists on seven campuses across Japan, the main one in Wako, just outside Tokyo...
corporation. Okochi, apparently impressed with Tanaka's energy and ambition, agreed to help the young man start a drafting office in Tokyo.
The drafting office only kept Tanaka busy for two years: he was drafted into the army in 1939 and sent to Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, where he served as a clerk in the Morioka Cavalry. After two years in the military, he contracted pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
and was returned to Tokyo to recover; he never re-enlisted.
Back in Japan, Tanaka ended up at the Sakamoto Civil Engineering firm, looking for office space to restart his drafting business. There, he met the late company president's widow, who not only gave him the real estate he needed, but also asked him to marry her daughter, Sakamoto Hana. Tanaka accepted, and married his way into the upper class.
Rise into politics
In 1942, Tanaka took over the Sakamoto company and renamed it Tanaka Civil Engineering and Construction Industries. He soon had two children: a son named Masanori Tanaka in 1942 (d. 1948), and a daughter named Makiko TanakaMakiko Tanaka
is a Japanese politician, the daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.Tanaka attended high school at Germantown Friends School in the United States and graduated from Waseda University...
in 1944.
Luck favored Tanaka during the endgame of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. None of his major buildings were damaged in the firebombing of Tokyo, and just weeks before the Japanese surrender, he travelled to Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
and cashed in ¥15b (about US$78m) in Japanese war bond
War bond
War bonds are debt securities issued by a government for the purpose of financing military operations during times of war. War bonds generate capital for the government and make civilians feel involved in their national militaries...
s. In December 1945, as the first postwar Diet
Diet of Japan
The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...
was being planned by the American occupation authorities, Tanaka was able to give generous donations to an associate affiliated with the Japan Moderate Progressive Party (Nihon Shinpoto).
In 1946, he moved from Tokyo to Niigata to prepare his first bid for a Diet seat: he worked around the election laws of the time by buying buildings throughout the district and placing large "TANAKA" signs on them. However, his bid unraveled at the last minute when three other JMPP candidates entered the race. Tanaka only captured 4% of the vote in the general election.
In 1947, however, he placed third in his district after a strategy targeting rural voters. He took his Diet seat that year as a member of the new Democratic Party
Democratic Party of Japan
The is a political party in Japan founded in 1998 by the merger of several opposition parties. Its socially liberal platform is generally considered center-left in the Japanese political spectrum...
(Minshuto). In the Diet, he became friends with former prime minister Kijūrō Shidehara
Kijuro Shidehara
Baron was a prominent pre–World War II Japanese diplomat and the 44th Prime Minister of Japan from 9 October 1945 to 22 May 1946. He was a leading proponent of pacifism in Japan before and after World War II, and was also the last Japanese prime minister who was a member of the kazoku...
and joined Shidehara's Doshi Club. Then in 1948, the Doshi Club defected to the new Democratic Liberal Party
Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...
, and Tanaka instantly won favor with the DLP's leader, Shigeru Yoshida
Shigeru Yoshida
, KCVO was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1954.-Early life:...
. Yoshida appointed Tanaka as a Vice Minister of Justice, the youngest in the nation's history.
Then, on December 13, Tanaka was arrested and imprisoned on charges of accepting ¥1m (US$13,000) in bribes from coal mining interests in Kyūshū
Kyushu
is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....
. Yoshida and the DLP dropped most of their ties with Tanaka, removed him from his official party posts, and refused to fund his next re-election bid. Despite this, Tanaka announced his candidacy for the 1949 general election, and was released from prison in January after securing bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
. He was re-elected, and made a deal with Chief Cabinet Secretary
Chief Cabinet Secretary
__notoc__The of Japan is a Minister of State who is responsible for directing the Cabinet Secretariat. The main function of Chief Cabinet Secretary is to coordinate the policies of ministries and agencies in the executive branch...
Eisaku Satō
Eisaku Sato
This article is about the Prime Minister of Japan. For the governor of Fukushima Prefecture of Japan of the same name, see Eisaku Satō ....
to resign his vice-ministerial post in exchange for continued membership in the DLP.
The Tokyo District Court
Tokyo District Court
is a district court located at 1-1-4 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. -References:...
found Tanaka guilty in 1950, and Tanaka responded by filing an appeal. In the meantime, he took over the failing Nagaoka Railway that linked Niigata to Tokyo, and through a combination of good management and good luck, brought it back into operation in 1951. In that year's election, he was re-elected to the Diet in a landslide
Landslide
A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...
victory, and many of the railroad's employees came out to campaign for him. That year's election was also the first in which he was supported by billionaire capitalist Kenji Osano, who would remain one of Tanaka's most loyal supporters to the end.
Etsuzankai
Tanaka's most important support base, however, was a group called Etsuzankai (越山会, lit. "Niigata Mountain Association"). Etsuzankai's function was to screen various petitions from villagers in rural parts of Niigata. Tanaka would answer these petitions with government-funded pork barrelPork barrel
Pork barrel is a derogatory term referring to appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district...
projects. In turn, the local villagers all financially supported Etsuzankai, which, in turn, funded the re-election campaigns of local Diet members, including Tanaka. At its peak, Etsuzankai had 100,000 members.
The projects funded by Etsuzankai included the Tadami River hydroelectric power project, the New Shimizu Tunnel, and, perhaps most infamously, the Joetsu Shinkansen
Joetsu Shinkansen
The is a high-speed railway line connecting Tokyo and Niigata, Japan, via the Tōhoku Shinkansen, operated by the East Japan Railway Company .-History:The program was initiated in 1971 by Niigata-born prime minister Tanaka Kakuei...
high speed rail line.
During the 1950s, Tanaka brought Etsuzankai members to his residence in Tokyo by bus, met with each of them individually, and then provided them with tours of the Diet and Imperial Palace. This practice made Etsuzankai the most tightly-knit political organization in Japanese history, and it also furthered Tanaka's increasingly gangster-like image.
Consolidation of power
Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...
in 1955, when it absorbed the DLP.
When Nobusuke Kishi
Nobusuke Kishi
was a Japanese politician and the 56th and 57th Prime Minister of Japan from February 25, 1957 to June 12, 1958 and from then to July 19, 1960. He was often called Shōwa no yōkai .- Early life :...
became prime minister in 1957, Tanaka was given his first cabinet post, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. He already carried great influence in the LDP, despite his lack of seniority: this was partly because of his friendship with future prime minister Eisaku Satō, and partly because his stepdaughter had married future prime minister Hayato Ikeda
Hayato Ikeda
born in Takehara, Hiroshima, was a Japanese politician and the 58th, 59th and 60th Prime Minister of Japan from July 19, 1960 to November 9, 1964....
's nephew, giving him a personal relationship with both key heads of the party.
Under Ikeda's cabinet, Tanaka became chairman of the Policy Affairs Research Council, and eventually Minister of Finance. When Satō became prime minister in 1965, Tanaka was slated to become the LDP's new secretary general, but the emergence of the Black Mist Scandal, where Tanaka was accused of shady land deals in Tokyo, meant that Takeo Fukuda
Takeo Fukuda
was a Japanese politician and the 42d Prime Minister of Japan from December 24, 1976 to December 7, 1978.He was born in Gunma Prefecture and attended Tokyo Imperial University. Before and during World War II, he served as a bureaucrat in the Finance Ministry and as Chief Cabinet Secretary...
got the job instead.
Fukuda and Tanaka soon became the two battling heir apparents of Satō's faction, and their rivalry was dubbed by the Japanese press as the "Kaku-Fuku War." Despite the scandal, Tanaka made a record showing in the 1967 general election, and Satō re-appointed him as secretary general, moving Fukuda to the post of finance minister. In 1971, Satō gave Tanaka another important stepping stone to taking over the government: minister of international trade and industry (MITI).
As head of MITI, Tanaka gained public support again by standing up to U.S. negotiators who wanted Japan to impose export caps on several products. He had so many contacts within the American diplomatic corps that he was said to have played a larger role in the repatriation of Okinawa than Satō himself.
Although Satō wanted Fukuda to become the next prime minister, Tanaka's popularity, along with support from the factions of Yasuhiro Nakasone
Yasuhiro Nakasone
is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from November 27, 1982 to November 6, 1987. A contemporary of Brian Mulroney, Ronald Reagan, Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, and Mikhail Gorbachev, he is best known for pushing through the privatization of...
and Masayoshi Ōhira
Masayoshi Ohira
was a Japanese politician and the 68th and 69th Prime Minister of Japan from December 7, 1978 to June 12, 1980. He is the most recent Japanese prime minister to die in office.He was born in present day Kan'onji, Kagawa and attended Hitotsubashi University....
, gave him a 282-190 victory over Fukuda in the LDP's 1971 party president election. He entered the office with the highest popularity rating of any new premier in Japanese history.
Tanaka's foreign policy mirrored that of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, and his most notable achievement was the normalization of Japan's relations
Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China
The Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China was signed in Beijing on September 29, 1972. This established diplomatic relations between Japan and the People's Republic of China and resulted in the severing of official relations between Japan...
with the People's Republic of China. On the domestic front, he proposed an enormous infrastructure investment program that never got off the ground, primarily because it required more money than Japan had at the time.
Scandals
In October 1974, the popular Bungei Shunju magazine wrote a critical article of Tanaka's business practices, which inspired his LDP rivals to open a public inquiry in the Diet. (Among other things, Tanaka had purchased a geishaGeisha
, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...
and used her name for a number of shady land deals in Tokyo during the mid-sixties.)
His state visit to Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
as invited by President Soeharto to discuss Indo-Japanese trade relations was protested by a number of local anti-Japanese sentiments denying international investment, which occurred on January 15, 1974. Japanese-manufactured materiel and buildings were destroyed by Indonesian protesters. 11 people were dead, a further 300 were injured, and 775 protesters were arrested. As a result, the Soeharto regime dissolved the president's private counselor constitution and took control of the national security leadership. The incident henceforth became well known as the 'Malari Incident
Malari incident
The Malari incident was a student demonstration and riot that happened from 15 to 16 January 1974. In reaction to a state visit by Japan Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, students held a demonstration protesting corruption, high prices, and inequality in foreign investments...
' (Peristiwa Malari).
The Diet commission called Etsuzankai's treasurer, Aki Sato, as its first witness. Unknown to the committee members, Sato and Tanaka had been involved in a romantic relationship for several years, and Tanaka took pity on Sato's troubled upbringing. Rather than let her take the stand, he announced his resignation on November 26, 1974.
The Tanaka faction supported Takeo Miki
Takeo Miki
was a Japanese politician and the 41st Prime Minister of Japan.-Background summary:Born in Awa, Tokushima, Miki graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo...
's "clean government" bid to become prime minister, and Tanaka once again became a rank-and-file Diet member.
Then, on February 6, 1976, the vice chairman of the Lockheed Corporation
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
told a United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
subcommittee that Tanaka had accepted $1.8 million in bribes during his term as prime minister, in return for having Japan's parastatal airlines purchase Lockheed L-1011
Lockheed L-1011
The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, commonly referred to as the L-1011 or TriStar, is a medium-to-long range, widebody passenger trijet airliner. It was the third widebody airliner to enter commercial operations, following the Boeing 747 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Between 1968 and 1984, Lockheed...
aircraft (the Lockheed bribery scandals
Lockheed bribery scandals
The Lockheed bribery scandals encompassed a series of bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft....
). Although Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
tried to stop the details from making their way to the Japanese government, fearing that it would harm the two countries' security relationship, Miki pushed a bill through the Diet that requested information from the Senate. On July 27, Tanaka was arrested: he was released in August on a ¥200m (US$690,000) bond. Tanaka was located in the Tokyo Detention House
Tokyo Detention House
The is a correctional facility in Katsushika, Tokyo. A part of the penal system of Japan, it is operated by the Ministry of Justice.One of Japan's seven execution chambers is in this facility. Hanging is Japan's method of execution. The execution chamber in Tokyo has a trap door...
.
In retaliation for Miki's actions, Tanaka persuaded his faction to vote for Fukuda in the 1976 "Lockheed Election". The two old rivals did not cooperate for long, however: in 1978, Tanaka threw his faction behind Ohira's. After Ohira died in 1980, the Tanaka faction elected Zenko Suzuki
Zenko Suzuki
was a Japanese politician and the 70th Prime Minister of Japan from July 17, 1980 to November 27, 1982.Suzuki graduated from Tokyo University of Fisheries in 1935...
. Suzuki hated his position so much that he resigned in 1982: Tanaka responded by re-electing him.
The Lockheed trial ended on October 12, 1983. Tanaka was found guilty and sentenced to 4 years in jail. Rather than cave in, he filed an appeal and announced that he would not leave the Diet as long as his constituents supported him. This sparked a month-long war in the Diet over whether or not to censure Tanaka; eventually, Prime Minister Nakasone, himself elected by Tanaka's faction, dissolved the Diet and called for a new election.
In the "Second Lockheed Election," Tanaka retained his Diet seat by an unprecedented margin, winning more votes than any other candidate in the country. Nakasone placed six members of the Tanaka faction on his 1984 cabinet, including future prime minister Noboru Takeshita
Noboru Takeshita
was a Japanese politician and the 74th Prime Minister of Japan from November 6, 1987 to June 3, 1989.Takeshita was also the last Prime Minister during the long rule of the Emperor Shōwa.-Early years:...
.
Fall from power
Early in 1985, Tanaka finally lost his power. Takeshita formed a "study group" called Soseikai, and this group quickly won over 40 of the faction's 120 Diet members. The split in Tanaka's faction aggravated his existing problems with alcoholismAlcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and hypertension
Hypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
, and he suffered a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
just three weeks after Takeshita's departure. His daughter Makiko spirited him from the hospital after authorities refused to give the former prime minister an entire floor, and the Diet session halted entirely while details of Tanaka's condition leaked out to the press.
Tanaka remained in convalescence through the election of 1986, where he retained his Diet seat. On New Year's Day of 1987, he made his first public appearance since the stroke, and was clearly in poor condition: half of his face was paralyzed, and he was grossly overweight. In that year's election, virtually all of his faction members joined behind Takeshita, and Etsuzankai lost five of its twenty seats in Niigata.
The Tokyo High Court
Tokyo High Court
is a high court in Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The Intellectual Property High Court is a special branch of Tokyo High Court....
dismissed Tanaka's appeal on July 29, and the original sentence passed down in 1983 was reinstated. Tanaka immediately posted bail and appealed to the Supreme Court.
While his appeal lingered in the Court's docket, Tanaka's medical condition deteriorated. He resigned from the Diet in 1989, was diagnosed with diabetes, and finally died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
at Keio University
Keio University
,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...
Hospital at 2:04 p.m. on December 16, 1993.
Makiko Tanaka
Makiko Tanaka
is a Japanese politician, the daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.Tanaka attended high school at Germantown Friends School in the United States and graduated from Waseda University...
, who was not associated with Etsuzankai, was elected to her father's old seat in Niigata in 1991, and became foreign minister in the cabinet of Junichiro Koizumi
Junichiro Koizumi
is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics when his term in parliament ended.Widely seen as a maverick leader of the Liberal Democratic Party , he became known as an economic reformer, focusing on Japan's government debt and the...
in 2001.
Tanaka's LDP faction has survived beyond his death. Its support base, which flocked to Takeshita in the late 1980s, coalesced during Tanaka's convalescence. After Takeshita was sidelined by the Recruit scandal
Recruit scandal
The was an insider trading and corruption scandal that forced many prominent Japanese politicians to resign in 1988.Recruit is a human resources and classifieds company based in Tokyo. Its chairman, Hiromasa Ezoe, offered a number of shares in a Recruit subsidiary, Cosmos, to business leaders and...
, the Tanaka faction rallied behind Ryutaro Hashimoto
Ryutaro Hashimoto
was a Japanese politician who served as the 82nd and 83rd Prime Minister of Japan from January 11, 1996 to July 30, 1998. He was the leader of one of the largest factions within the ruling LDP through most of the 1990s and remained a powerful back-room player in Japanese politics until scandal...
, who led the Tanaka faction (now called the Hashimoto faction) until scandal forced him to resign his leadership position in 2004.