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Sato Eisaku (佐藤 栄作
March 27,
1901 -
June 3,
1975) was a Japanese politician and the 61st, 62nd and 63rd
Prime Minister, elected on
November 9,
1964, and re-elected on
February 17,
1967 and
January 14,
1970, serving until
July 7,
1972.
He was born in
Tabuse in
Yamaguchi prefecture, and studied
law at
Tokyo Imperial University, becoming a
civil servant in the Ministry of Railways. In 1948, he was named
vice-minister for transportation.
He entered the Diet in 1949 as a member of the
Liberal Party, and gradually rose through the ranks of Japanese
politics, becoming Chief Cabinet Secretary to
Yoshida Shigeru, and in 1952, minister of construction. After the
Liberal Party merged with the
Democratic Party to form the
Liberal Democratic Party, Sato became Minister of Finance in the
governments of
Kishi Nobusuke (his brother) and
Ikeda Hayato.
Sato succeeded Ikeda after the latter resigned due to ill health. His
government was one of the longest-lived in Japanese history, and by the
late 1960's 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. In
1969, Sato struck a deal with U.S. president
Richard Nixon to repatriate
Okinawa 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.
After three terms as prime minister, Sato decided not to run for a
fourth. His heir apparent,
Fukuda Takeo, won the Sato faction's support in the subsequent Diet
elections, but the more popular
MITI minister,
Tanaka Kakuei, won the vote, ending the Sato faction's dominance.
Sato shared the
Nobel Peace Prize with
Seán MacBride in
1974, in recognition of Japan's entry into the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He died in
Tokyo the following year.
He married Hiroko in 1926 and had two children, Ryutaro and Shinji.
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