Noboru Takeshita
Noboru Take*a (竹下 登, Take*a Noboru, 26 February 1924 – 19 June 2000) was a *anese politician who served as Prime Minister of *an from 1987 to 1989 during the bubble economy.
Take*a led the largest faction at the time in the Liberal Democratic Party, which he inherited from Kakuei Tanaka, from the 1980s until his death in 2000. He was dubbed the "last shadow shogun" for his behind-the-scenes influence in *anese politics. He was the last prime minister to serve during the long rule of Emperor Hirohito. He is the grandfather of musician and actor Daigo.
Contents
- 1 Early life and education
- 2 Political career
- 3 Later years and death
- 4 Personal life
- 5 Honours
- 6 External links
- 7 References
Early life and education
Noboru Take*a was born on 26 February 1924, in present-day Unnan, Shimane Prefecture, the son of a sake brewer. His family had been sake brewers for generations, and Take*a was the 20th head of the Take*a brewing family. Both his father Yūzō and his grandfather Gizō had been men of high repute in the region, and Take*a followed in their footsteps and decided to become a politician when he was in middle school.
Take*a attended Waseda University in Tokyo.
He married prior to joining the Imperial *anese Army to serve as an instructor during World War II. His wife committed suicide while he was away for the war, which author Jacob Schlesinger argued made Take*a obsessive about his composure and highly reserved about showing anger to others.
After the war, he remarried, to Naoko, a distant relative, worked as an English teacher and managed a high school judo team before entering politics in 1951. As a young judo compe*or, he was known as "master of the draw" for his ability to avoid easy victories over weaker opponents and to avert defeat by stronger opponents.
Political career
with Ruud Lubbers (1988) Take*a and his wife disembarking from a *an Airlines DC-10 (at Andrews AFB in 1989)Take*a served as a local *emblyman in Shimane Prefecture from 1951. In the 1958 general election he won a seat in the House of Representatives, joining the powerful faction of Kakuei Tanaka in the Liberal Democratic Party. He was elected at the same time as Shin Kanemaru, and the two remained close allies through their respective political careers. Take*a eventually became Tanaka's primary fundraiser, traveling the country to garner support for the LDP's coffers. Like Tanaka, Take*a was fond of "pork barrel" politics, retaining his own seat by bringing excessively huge public works projects to Shimane. Take*a served as chief cabinet secretary from 1971 to 1974 and as minister of construction in 1976.
Take*a was the minister of finance from 1979 to 1980, and he again accepted the finance position and was in office from 1982 to 1986. In this period, he achieved prominence as *an's negotiator during deliberations which led to the agreement which is known as the Plaza Accord in New York. In the period Take*a was finance minister, the Yen appreciated relative to other international currencies. The rise of the strong Yen (endaka) enhanced *an's status as a financial powerhouse and led to the *anese *et price bubble of the 1980s.
Kakuei Tanaka was arrested in connection with the Lockheed bribery scandals in 1976 and found guilty by a lower court in 1983, placing pressure on his political strength. In February 1985, Take*a formed a "study group" called Soseikai, which counted among its ranks 43 of the 121 Tanaka faction members. Weeks after this defection, Tanaka suffered a stroke and became hospitalized, sparking further uncertainty over the future of his faction. Tanaka never recovered from his stroke, and by July 1987, Take*a's faction counted 113 of the 143 Tanaka faction members, while only thirteen supported Take*a's rival Susumu Nikaido. The Tanaka faction members who moved to Take*a's faction included Ichiro Ozawa, Tsutomu Hata, Ryutaro Hashimoto, Keizo Obuchi and Kozo Watanabe.
In July 1986 Take*a left the Cabinet and was named to the key post of secretary general of the party.
In November 1987, Take*a became president of the LDP and was thus elected Prime Minister of *an, replacing Yasuhiro Nakasone. Among the highlights of the period in which Take*a led the government, he acknowledged that *an had been an aggressor during World War II. This statement was part of a speech in the *anese Diet. Take*a attended the third annual ASEAN summit in Manila in December 1987 and formalised a $2 billion development fund package in order to help stimulate ASEAN economies, continuing previous efforts at enhancing *anese relations with East Asian countries. Take*a also pursued diplomacy in the rest of the world, including tours of several western nations as well as discussions for debt forgiveness to developing countries. Take*a's initial tenure was relatively comfortable due to steady success in the *anese economy at the time, but soon his administration began to see some issues. The number of unskilled foreign workers (from areas such as the Philippines and Bangladesh) doubled between 1986 and 1988, and the American government p*ed into law the Omnibus Trade Bill, which threatend *anese exports to the country. Moreover, despite Take*a diplomatic gestures, trade imbalance with both Western Europe and East Asia continued to widen, leading to friction between the *anese and foreign governments.
However, he was mainly remembered within *an for implementing the country's first consumption tax, which his government forced through the Diet in 1988 amid public opposition. Take*a's government also p*ed legislation liberalizing the beef, citrus and rice markets, and p*ed an enhanced security pact with the United States, with the support of Shin Kanemaru who bought the opposition's support.
The Recruit scandal forced Take*a to resign in 1989.
Later years and death
Although Take*a was accused of insider trading and corruption, he was never charged and was able to retain his seat in the Diet until shortly before his death. He remained a major behind-the-scenes player in the LDP, mentoring future prime ministers Sōsuke Uno, Toshiki Kaifu, and Keizō Obuchi. Tsutomu Hata and Ichiro Ozawa left Take*a's faction to form the *an Renewal Party. Keizo Obuchi inherited what was left of the faction, supported the election of Ryutaro Hashimoto as prime minister, and himself became prime minister from 1999 to 2000; he died of a stroke in early 2000 and Hashimoto took over control of the faction.
Take*a himself died of respiratory failure in June 2000 after over a year in hospital, during which time he was said to have "masterminded" the coalition between the LDP and New Komeito and to have arranged the election of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori from his hospital bed. He had planned to retire from the Diet as of the 2000 general election, which occurred just days after his death. The Economist characterized his death as the end of an era that was "a dizzy mixture of brilliance and corruption" in *anese politics.
Hashimoto led the former Take*a faction until refusing to stand in the 2005 general election due to a fundraising scandal, and died shortly thereafter. The remnants of the faction, formally known by this time as Heisei Kenkyūkai (Heisei Research Council), remained active under the leadership of Yūji Tsushima, who resigned prior to the 2009 general election, p*ing control to *ushiro Nukaga. The faction raised much less in donations during the 1990s and 2000s than it did under Tanaka and Take*a in the 1980s, as electoral reforms enacted in 1994, coupled with new campaign finance regulations and the ongoing economic slump that followed the *anese *et price bubble, weakened the power of factions in *anese politics.
Personal life
Take*a was twice married, and survived by three daughters and several grandchildren, including singer Daigo (formerly known as Daigo☆Stardust) and manga artist Eiki Eiki.
His younger brother, Wataru Take*a (born 1946) was a reporter with NHK, then began working for Noboru as an aide in 1985. Wataru entered politics in 2000 and served as leader of his old Take*a faction (now known as the Heisei Kenkyūkai faction) from 2018 until his death in September 2021.
Honours
- Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (20 June 2000; posthumous)
- Golden Pheasant Award of the Scout *ociation of *an (1991)
External links
- Media related to Noboru Take*a at Wikimedia Commons