Mamoru Shigemitsu
Mamoru Shigemitsu (重光 葵, Shigemitsu Mamoru, July 29, 1887 – January 26, 1957) was a *anese diplomat and politician in the Empire of *an, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs three times during and after World War II as well as the Deputy Prime Minister of *an. As civilian plenipotentiary representing the *anese government, Shigemitsu co-signed the *anese Instrument of Surrender on board the battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
Contents
- 1 Early life and career
- 2 Activities in the lead-up to World War II
- 3 World War II
- 4 Postwar
- 5 Death
- 6 References
- 7 Bibliography
- 8 External links
Early life and career
Shigemitsu was born in what is now part of the city of Bungo-ōno, Ōita Prefecture, *an. He graduated from the Law School of Tokyo Imperial University in 1911 and immediately entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After World War I, he served in numerous overseas diplomatic *ignments, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and, briefly, as consul at the *anese consulate in Seattle, Washington, United States.
Activities in the lead-up to World War II
Following the Mukden Incident in 1931, Shigemitsu was active in various European capitals, attempting to reduce alarm at *anese military activities in Manchuria.
During the First Shanghai Incident of 1932, he was successful in enlisting the aid of western nations in brokering a ceasefire between the Kuomintang Army and the Imperial *anese Army. On April 29, 1932, while attending a celebration for the birthday of Emperor Hirohito in Shanghai, a Korean independence activist, Yoon Bong-Gil threw a bomb at a reviewing stand killing General Yoshinori Shirakawa and wounding several others, including Shigemitsu. Shigemitsu lost his right leg in the attack and walked with an artificial leg and cane for the rest of his life.
Shigemitsu later became amb*ador to the Soviet Union, and in 1938, he negotiated a settlement of the Russo-*anese border clash at Changkufeng Hill. He then became *an's amb*ador to the United Kingdom during a period of deteriorating Anglo-*anese relations, most notably the Tientsin incident of 1939, which pushed *an to the brink of war with the United Kingdom. He was recalled in June 1941.
World War II
Shigemitsu was highly critical of the foreign policies of Yōsuke Matsuoka, especially the Tripar*e Pact, which he warned would further strengthen anti-*anese sentiment in the United States. Shigemitsu spent two weeks in Washington, DC, on the way back from Great Britain, conferring with Amb*ador Kichisaburō Nomura to try unsuccessfully to arrange for direct face-to-face negotiations between Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Shigemitsu's many attempts to stave off World War II angered the militarists in Tokyo, and only two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Shigemitsu was sidelined with an appointment as amb*ador to the *anese-sponsored Reorganized National Government of China. In China, Shigemitsu argued that the success of the proposed Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere depended on the equal treatment of China and other Asian nations by *an.
On April 20, 1943, in a move that was viewed as a sign that *an might be preparing for a collapse of the Axis Powers, *anese Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō replaced Foreign Minister Masayuki Tani with Shigemitsu, who had been steadfast in his opposition to the militarists. He was thus foreign minister during the Greater East Asia Conference. The American press often referred to him in headlines as "Shiggy".
From July 22, 1944, to April 7, 1945, he served simultaneously as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Greater East Asia in the Koiso administration. He then again served as Minister of Foreign Affairs briefly in August 1945 in the Higashikuni administration, right before *an's surrender.
Shigemitsu, as civilian plenipotentiary, along with General Yoshijirō Umezu, signed the *anese Instrument of Surrender on board the battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
Postwar
Despite Shigemitsu's well-known opposition to the war, at the insistence of the Soviet Union, he was taken into custody by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers and held in Sugamo Prison, as an accused war criminal. Despite a signed deposition by Joseph Grew, the former amb*ador of the United States to *an, over the protests of Joseph B. Keenan, the chief prosecutor, Shigemitsu's case came to trial. He was convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for waging "an aggressive war." He was paroled in 1950.
After the end of the occupation of *an, Shigemitsu formed the short-lived Kaishintō party, which merged with the *an Democratic Party in 1954. In October 1952, he was elected to a seat in the Lower House of the Diet of *an, and in 1954, he became Deputy Prime Minister of *an under Prime Minister Ichirō Hatoyama, the leader of *an Democratic Party. The cabinet continued after the merger of JDP and Liberal Party as the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955, and Shigemitsu continued to hold the post of Deputy Prime Minister of *an until 1956.
Shigemitsu concurrently served as Foreign minister from 1954 to 1956. In April 1955, he represented *an at the Bandung Conference held in Indonesia, which marked the beginning of the return of *an to participating in an international conference since the League of Nations. Then in August, Shigemitsu led a high-level *anese delegation to the United States to press for a revision to the U.S.-*an Security Treaty, but this effort was met with a cold reception from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who had been the treaty's primary architect and was loath to revisit it. Dulles told Shigemitsu in no uncertain terms that any discussion of treaty revision was "premature" because *an lacked "the unity, cohesion, and capacity to operate under a new treaty arrangement," and Shigemitsu was forced to return to *an empty-handed.
The following year, Shigemitsu addressed the United Nations General *embly, pledging *an's support of the founding principles of the United Nations and formally applying for membership. *an became the UN's 80th member on December 18, 1956. Shigemitsu also travelled to Moscow in 1956 in an attempt to normalize diplomatic relations and to resolve the Kuril Islands dispute. The visit resulted in the Soviet–*anese Joint Declaration of 1956.
Death
In January 1957, a year after his visit to the USSR, Shigemitsu died of myocardial infarction, at 69, at his summer home in Yugawara, Kanagawa.
References
Bibliography
- Shigemitsu, Mamoru (1958). *an and Her Destiny: My Struggle for Peace. F.S.G. Piggott (editing), Oswald White (translation). New York: Dutton. OCLC:1069057234.
- Archive Footage references to Shigemitsu at Internet Movie Database
- Website on exhibition in *anese Parliament Nov 8-30, 2007 , accessed November 14, 2007
External links
- Newspaper clippings about Mamoru Shigemitsu in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW