was a Japanese politician who served as

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

from 1964 to 1972. He is the third-longest serving Prime Minister, and ranks second in longest uninterrupted service as Prime Minister. Satō entered the National Diet in 1949 as a member of the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

. Gradually rising through the ranks of Japanese politics, he held a series of cabinet positions. In 1964 he succeeded

Hayato Ikeda was a Japanese bureaucrat and later politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1960 to 1964. He is best known for his Income Doubling Plan, which promised to double Japan's GDP in ten years. Ikeda is also known for repairing U.S.- ...

as Prime Minister, becoming the first Prime Minister to have been born in the 20th century. As Prime Minister, Satō presided over a period of rapid economic growth. He arranged for the formal return of

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

(

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yona ...

; occupied by the United States since the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

) to Japanese control. Satō brought Japan into the

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation ...

, for which he received the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...

as a co-recipient in 1974.

Early life

Eisaku Satō, Shigeru Yoshida, Saeki Ozawa 1953

Satō was born on 27 March 1901, in Tabuse,

Yamaguchi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Yamaguchi Prefecture has a population of 1,377,631 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 6,112 km2 (2,359 sq mi). Yamaguchi Prefecture borders Shimane Prefecture t ...

, 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 a

sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

brewing business in Kishida, Tabuse. The family had a history in sake brewing and had held the right for sake brewing for generations. Sato's great-grandfather was a

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

of the Chōshū Domain, with their outsized influence in Meiji era Japan, with more Meiji and Taisho prime ministers coming from Yamaguchi than any other prefecture. His older brothers, Ichiro Sato, would become a rear admiral, and Nobusuke Kishi, a prime minister from 1957-1960. Satō studied

German law The law of Germany (german: das Recht Deutschlands), that being the modern German legal system (german: Deutsches Rechtssystem), is a system of civil law which is founded on the principles laid out by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of G ...

Tokyo Imperial University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

and in 1923, passed the senior civil service examinations. Upon graduation the following year, he became a civil servant in the

Ministry of Railways A Ministry of Railways is a Cabinet department that exists or has existed in many Commonwealth states as well as others. It generally occurs in countries where railroad transportation is a particularly important part of the national infrastructur ...

. He served as Director of the Osaka Railways Bureau from 1944 to 1946 and Vice-Minister for Transport from 1947 to 1948. Satō entered the

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

in 1949 as a member of the

. He served as Minister of Postal Services and Telecommunications from July 1951 to July 1952. Sato gradually rose through the ranks of Japanese politics, becoming chief cabinet secretary to then prime minister

Shigeru Yoshida (22 September 1878 – 20 October 1967) was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1954. Yoshida was one of the longest-serving Japanese prime ministers, and is the third-long ...

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 the Japan Democratic Party to form the Liberal Democratic Party, Satō served as chairman of the party executive council from December 1957 to June 1958, followed by a post as

minister of finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

in the cabinet of his brother Nobusuke Kishi from 1958-1960. As minister of finance, Sato requested the US to fund conservatives. Satō also served in the cabinets of Kishi's successor as prime minister,

. From July 1961 to July 1962, Satō was Minister of International Trade and Industry. From July 1963 to June 1964 he was concurrently head of the Hokkaidō Development Agency and of the

Science and Technology Agency Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

Prime minister

Satō succeeded Ikeda after the latter resigned due to ill health. His government was longer than many, 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. Student political radicalization led to numerous protests against Satō's support of the United States–Japan Security Treaty, and Japanese tacit support for American military operations in Vietnam. These protests expanded into massive riots, which eventually forced Satō to close the prestigious

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

for a year in 1969. After three terms as prime minister, Satō decided not to run for a fourth. His heir apparent,

Takeo Fukuda was a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1976 to 1978. Early life and education Fukuda was born in Gunma, capital of the Gunma Prefecture on 14 January 1905. He hailed from a former samurai family and his father was mayor ...

, won the Sato faction's support in the subsequent Diet elections, but the more popular MITI minister, Kakuei Tanaka, won the vote, ending the Satō faction's dominance.

Relations with China and Taiwan

Satō is the last Prime minister of Japan to visit

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

during his term. In 1965, Satō approved a US$150 million loan to

. He visited

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

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 the Nixon visit to China. Satō also bitterly opposed the entry of the PRC into the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

in 1971.

Nuclear affairs

In the 1960s Sato argued that Japan needed nuclear weapons to match those of China, but the United States opposed such. The Johnson administration pressed Japan to sign the

, ending, for then, Japan's nuclear ambitions. Satō introduced the Three Non-Nuclear Principles on 11 December 1967, which means non-production, non-possession, and non-introduction of

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...

s. He later suggested the "Four-Pillars Nuclear Policy". During the prime ministership of Satō, Japan entered the

. The Diet passed a resolution formally adopting the principles in 1971. For this he received the

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 the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. 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 in

once it was restored to Japanese sovereignty.

Okinawa issues

Since the end of the

had been occupied by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. While visiting the

in January 1965, Satō openly asked President Lyndon 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. president

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

to repatriate

and remove its nuclear weaponry: this deal was controversial because it allowed the U.S. forces in Japan to maintain bases in Okinawa after repatriation. Okinawa was formally returned to Japan on 15 May 1972, which also included the Senkaku Islands (also known as the Diaoyu Islands in China and the subject, since 1971, of a Sino-Japanese sovereignty dispute; see Senkaku Islands dispute).

Relations with Southeast Asia

During Satō's term, Japan participated in the creation of the

Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The bank also maintains 31 field offic ...

in 1966 and held a ministerial level conference on

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

n economic development. 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 visit

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. He was largely supportive of the South Vietnamese government throughout the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

Later life

Satō shared the

with

Seán MacBride Seán MacBride (26 January 1904 – 15 January 1988) was an Irish Clann na Poblachta politician who served as Minister for External Affairs from 1948 to 1951, Leader of Clann na Poblachta from 1946 to 1965 and Chief of Staff of the IRA from 19 ...

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. He was the first Asian to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. (In 1973, Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho had become the first Asian to ''win'' the prize, but Tho had rejected it.)

Death

While at a restaurant on 19 May 1975, Satō suffered a massive stroke, resulting in a coma. He died at 12:55 a.m. on 3 June at the Jikei University Medical Center, aged 74. After a public funeral, his ashes were buried in the family cemetery at Tabuse. Satō was posthumously honored with the Collar of the

Order of the Chrysanthemum is Japan's highest order. The Grand Cordon of the Order was established in 1876 by Emperor Meiji of Japan; the Collar of the Order was added on 4 January 1888. Unlike its European counterparts, the order may be conferred posthumously. Apart fr ...

, the highest honor in the Japanese honors system.

Personal life

Satō married in 1926 and had two sons, Ryūtarō and Shinji. Hiroko's father, Matsusuke Satō, was Eisaku's paternal uncle. After Matsusuke died in 1911, Hiroko was raised by her maternal uncle, diplomat

Yōsuke Matsuoka was a Japanese diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Empire of Japan during the early stages of World War II. He is best known for his defiant speech at the League of Nations in February 1933, ending Japan's participation in the organ ...

. 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 the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, or ...

, and formerly worked as an aide for his cousin-in-law, Eisaku's grandnephew,

Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...

. In a 1969 ''Shukan Asahi'' interview with novelist Shūsaku Endō, Hiroko accused him of being a rake and a wife-beater. His hobbies included golf, fishing, and the Japanese tea ceremony. Nobusuke Kishi (his older brother) and

Shinzō Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...

(his grandnephew) were also both former prime ministers.

Honours

Satō received the following awards: *

Golden Pheasant Award The is the highest award for adult leaders in the Scout Association of Japan. It is awarded by the Chief Scout of Japan, awarded for eminent achievement and meritorious service to the Association for a period of at least twenty years. It may be ...

of the

Scout Association of Japan , headquarters = Hongō, Bunkyō, Tokyo , country = Japan , f-date = 1922 , members = 109,528 (2017) , website = http://www.scout.or.jp , affiliation = World Organization of the Scout Movement , pattern_head1 = baseball cap , color_hea ...

(1970) * Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (3 November 1972) *

(12 May 1974) * Collar of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (3 June 1975; posthumous) * Junior First Rank (3 June 1975)

Foreign honours

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (23 February 1965) * : Honorary Grand Commander of the

Order of the Defender of the Realm The Most Esteemed Order of the Defender of the Realm ( ms, Darjah Yang Mulia Pangkuan Negara) is a Malaysian federal award presented for meritorious service to the country. The Order Motto are 'Dipeliharakan Allah-Pangkuan Negara' (By the Grace ...

(S.M.N.) (1967) * : The Order of Temasek (25 September 1967) * : Sash of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (9 March 1972) * : Grand Cross of National Order of Merit (5 April 1972) * :

Order of Diplomatic Service Merit The Order of Diplomatic Service Merit (Hangul: 수교훈장) is one of South Korea's orders of merit. It is awarded by the President of South Korea for "outstanding meritorious services in the interest of enhancing national prestige and promoting ...

(1969)South Korean Government Decorated 12 Japanese Extreme Right Figures
/ref> * : Order of the Million Elephants and the White Parasol (1966)

References

External links

Film Footage of Eisaku Sato's State Visit to Washington DC
* including the Nobel Lecture 11 December 1974 ''The Pursuit of Peace and Japan in the Nuclear Ageää
Satō Eisaku EB article

Brief summary of the debate around Eiskau Sato's Nobel Prize at OpenLearn
, - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Sato, Eisaku 1901 births 1975 deaths 20th-century prime ministers of Japan Prime Ministers of Japan Japanese Nobel laureates Nobel Peace Prize laureates Ministers of Construction of Japan Ministers of Finance of Japan Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Japanese anti-communists Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians Liberal Party (Japan, 1945) politicians University of Tokyo alumni Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic 20th-century Japanese politicians Recipients of the Darjah Utama Temasek Japanese diarists Tabuse, Yamaguchi Politicians from Yamaguchi Prefecture 20th-century diarists