was a Japanese politician who served in the cabinets of multiple conservative administrations. In the 1980s, it was revealed that the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

considered him to be an agent of the Soviet Union.

Early life

Born in

Noshiro, Akita Aerial photo of Noshiro city center is a city located in Akita Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 49,150 in 24,079 households, and a population density of 120 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geogra ...

, Ishida entered

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

, where he majored in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and economics. After graduating in 1939, he joined '' Chugai Shōgyō Shimpo'' (later renamed ''

Nihon Keizai Shimbun ''The Nikkei'', also known as , is the flagship publication of Nikkei, Inc. (based in Tokyo) and the world's largest financial newspaper, with a daily circulation exceeding 1.73 million copies. The Nikkei 225, a stock market index for the Tokyo ...

'') and was appointed as its chief correspondent in Shanghai.

Political career

In 1947, Ishida was elected to the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

. He joined the

Liberal Democratic Party Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Liberal Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties have usually followed liberalism as ideology, although they can vary widely from very progr ...

(LDP) in 1955, serving as Chief Cabinet Secretary under two prime ministers,

Tanzan Ishibashi was a Japanese journalist and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1956 to 1957. Born in Tokyo, Ishibashi became a journalist after graduating from Waseda University in 1907. In 1911, he joined the ''Tōyō Keizai Shimpo'' ("Ea ...

and

Nobusuke Kishi was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan, prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He is remembered for his exploitative economic management of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in China in the 1930s, ...

, from 23 December 1956 to 10 July 1957. Widely viewed as a friend and proponent of labor unions (an unusual stance in the pro-business LDP), he was also appointed to five terms as minister of labor under four different prime ministers, in addition to one term as minister of transport. While minister of labor under Prime Minister

Hayato Ikeda was a Japanese 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 the size of Japan's economy in 10 years, and for presiding over the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. ...

in 1960, Ishida successfully negotiated the end of the 1960 Miike Coal Mine Strike, which remains the largest labor-management dispute in Japanese history. In January 1963, Ishida published an article in '' Chūō Kōron'' predicting that the Liberal Democratic Party would lose power to the

Japan Socialist Party The was a major socialist and progressive political party in Japan which existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was the primary representative of the Japanese left and main opponent of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party for most of its ex ...

by 1970 due to ongoing changes in Japanese society, including urbanization, increasing education, and the decreasing number of farmers, who were generally seen as fundamental supporters of the LDP. Ishida's article shocked the LDP, but was hailed as perceptive, and stimulated the party to make a number of reforms, including to changing its policies to increase its appeal among urban workers.

KGB agent

Ishida had formed and chaired the Japan-USSR Friendship Parliamentarians' Union in 1973, visiting Moscow in 1973, 1974 and 1977. In 1982

Stanislav Levchenko Stanislav Alexandrovich Levchenko (, born July 28, 1941) is a former Russian KGB, KGB major who defected to the United States in 1979. He obtained U.S. citizenship in 1989. Levchenko was born in Moscow, obtained an education at the Institute of As ...

, a

Major who had defected to the United States in 1979, testified before the U.S. Congress that Ishida was an

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

for the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, codenamed "HOOVER". This was later confirmed in the "Mitrokhin Documents" smuggled out of the Soviet Union by Vasily Mitrokhin, a former KGB employee who fled to England in 1992. In response to Levchenko's revelations, the CIA and the Japanese police launched an investigation, and Ishida abruptly left politics in November 1983. However, the investigation ultimately concluded that Ishida had not leaked any sensitive information.

Ishida Rose Garden

An amateur

rosarian Some Garden rose, rose growers are known for their particular contributions to the field. These include: A *David C.H. Austin (1926–2018), British breeder of English-style roses including the Rosa 'Wife of Bath', 'Wife of Bath' B *Barbier ...

, Ishida planted the yard of his house with various kind of

rose A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

s. Two years after his death, his rose garden was donated to the City of Odate and named . It is since opened to the public every June.

Honours

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight ...

(1987)

References

External links

* , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Ishida, Hirohide Labor ministers of Japan Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun Japanese spies for the Soviet Union People from Noshiro, Akita Waseda University alumni 1914 births 1993 deaths Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Politicians from Akita Prefecture Ministers of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism of Japan