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Mitsujirō Ishii
Mitsujirō Ishii
石井光次郎
	Mitsujiro Ishii in 1960
Speaker of the House of Representatives
	In office; 15 February 1967 – 16 July 1969
Monarch	Emperor Shōwa
Preceded by	Kentarō Ayabe
Succeeded by	Takechiyo Matsuda
Minister of Justice
	In office; 3 June 1965 – 3 December 1966
Prime Minister	Eisaku Sato
Preceded by	Hitoshi Takahashi
Succeeded by	Isaji Tanaka
Minister of International Trade and Industry
	In office; 19 July 1960 – 8 December 1960
Prime Minister	Hayato Ikeda
Preceded by	Hayato Ikeda
Succeeded by	Etsusaburo Shiina
Deputy Prime Minister;
	In office; 20 May 1957 – 12 June 1958
Prime Minister	Nobusuke Kishi
Preceded by	Mamoru Shigemitsu
Succeeded by	Shūji Masutani
Member of the House of Representatives from Fukuoka
	In office; 1 October 1952 – 13 November 1972
	In office; 11 April 1946 – 24 May 1947
Constituency	3rd district
Personal details
Born	August 18, 1889; Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan
Died	September 20, 1981 (aged 92)
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party
Alma mater	Tokyo Higher Commercial School

Mitsujirō Ishii (石井光次郎, Ishii Mitsujirō, 18 August 1889 – 20 September 1981) was a Japanese politician who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1967 to 1969. A member of the House of Representatives from 1946 to 1947 and 1952 to 1972, he served in several cabinet positions throughout his career, such as Deputy Prime Minister under Nobusuke Kishi.

Early life

Mitsujiro Ishii was born on August 18, 1889, in Kurume, Fukuoka. Ishii was childhood friends with Shojiro Ishibashi, the founder of Bridgestone, and the two men remained close all their lives. Ishii went on to study at Kobe Commercial High School and afterwards at Tokyo Higher Commercial School, where he graduated in 1914.^[1]

After graduating, Ishii was employed as an inspector in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. In 1915 he was assigned as secretary to the Governor-General of Taiwan. In 1922 he joined the Asahi Shimbun, where he became colleagues with Taketora Ogata and Ichirō Kōno. Ishii had married a daughter of the businessman and politician Fusanosuke Kuhara.^[1]

Ishii became a disciple of Morihei Ueshiba in 1928 and was an early supporter of Aikido. He was also an avid golfer. Golf was nearly suppressed in Japan during the war, but Ishii, who represented the golf association, convinced the authorities that golf was resurrected form of the ancient game of Dakyu.^[2]^[3]

Political career

After the war, Ishii was elected to the House of Representatives for the Liberal Party in the 1946 general election. In January 1947, Ishii joined the cabinet of Shigeru Yoshida as Minister of Commerce and Industry, but in May he was purged from public office by the GHQ.^[4] Ishii became president of the Japan Golf Association when it was re-founded in 1949. He served briefly as the first president of the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation from 1951 to 1952, but when the purge had been lifted, he returned to political life in the 1952 general election. Ishii then served as Minister of Transport under Yoshida from 1952 to 1954.^[1]^[3]

When Yoshida resigned in 1954, Ichirō Hatoyama of the Japan Democratic Party became prime minister and Taketora Ogata became president of the Liberal Party. Ogata appointed Ishii as Secretary-General. As such, he played a large part in the merger of the two parties which founded the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955. Ishii became the first Chairman of the General Council for the new party.^[1]

Ogata died unexpectedly in January 1956 and Ishii inherited his faction in the LDP. In April of the same year, Ishii led a delegation friendship delegation to Taiwan and met with Chiang Kai-shek. Ishii came to be a notable pro-Taiwanese figure in Japanese politics.^[1]

In December, Ishii became a candidate in the LDP leadership election to succeed Hatoyama. He placed third after Nobusuke Kishi and Tanzan Ishibashi. The Ishii camp preferred Ishibashi in the runoff vote, narrowly electing him over Kishi. However, Ishibashi resigned due to poor health a few months later and Kishi became prime minister.^[5]^[6]

Ishii became Deputy Prime Minister when Kishi reshuffled the cabinet in May 1957. Initially he was without portfolio, but in July he was made Director General of the Administrative Management Agency and the Hokkaido Development Agency. He served in these roles until June 1958. In 1959 he again became Chairman of the General Council.^[1]^[7]

In May 1960, at the height of the massive Anpo protests against the US-Japan Security Treaty, Ishii banded together with fellow faction leaders Ichirō Kōno, Kenzō Matsumura, Takeo Miki, and Ishibashi Tanzan to try to bring down the Kishi cabinet in response to Kishi's mishandling of the protests and especially his unpopular way of ramming the treaty through the Diet in the "May 19 Incident".^[8] When Kishi finally resigned in disgrace in July 1960, Ishii ran in the leadership election to replace him. Hayato Ikeda was the favorite, but still had a public image as a haughty bureaucrat.^[9] Many felt that Ishii would have a better chance of reconciling the nation following the protests. Most of the faction heads who did not support Ikeda came to rally behind Ishii, including Banboku Ōno, Ichirō Kōno, Kenzō Matsumura, and Takeo Miki. However, Kishi could not forgive Ishii for having plotted against him, and thus threw the support of his still-powerful faction behind Ikeda, as did Kishi's brother Eisaku Satō. Thus, Ikeda prevailed in the end, but he still made Ishii Minister of International Trade and Industry in his first cabinet as a gesture of reconciliation. However, Ishii soon left the cabinet due to a reshuffle in December.

Ishii returned to the cabinet under Ikeda's successor Eisaku Satō as Minister of Justice from 1965 to 1966. After the 1967 general election he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. He resigned two years later. As an elder statesman, he tended to support Takeo Fukuda, who shared his pro-Taiwanese leanings. Ishii declined to run in the 1972 general election, retiring from politics.^[10]

Ishii had served as president of the Japan Golf Association from its foundation in 1949 until 1971. He was president of the Japan Sport Association from 1962 to 1975. He was also Chairman of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council from 1976 until his death.^[3]^[11]

Ishii died of heart failure on September 20, 1981, at the age of 93.

Personal life

Ishii and his wife had two sons and two daughters. Their eldest son, Kōichirō, was employed at the Bridgestone Corporation founded by his father's friend Shojiro Ishibashi. Kōichirō married Ishibashi's fourth daughter Tamako. After holding several executive positions, he became president of the subsidiary Bridgestone Cycle.^[12]

Their daughter Yoshiko was a famous singer in Japan.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Welfield, John (2013-12-17). An Empire in Eclipse: Japan in the Post-war American Alliance System: A Study in the Interraction of Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy. A&C Black. p. 125-127. ISBN 9781780939957.
^ "Interview with Moriteru Ueshiba by Stanley Pranin". Aikido Journal. 2023-05-18. Retrieved 2022-10-24.
^ ^a ^b ^c "History". Japan Golf Association (in Japanese). 2023-05-18. Retrieved 2022-10-24.
^ "Relations between the Occupation Authorities, Conservative Politicians and Behind-the-Scenes Financiers in Postwar Japan". www.japanesestudies.org.uk. 2011-05-31. Retrieved 2022-10-24.
^ Watanabe, Akio (2016-04-29). The Prime Ministers of Postwar Japan, 1945–1995: Their Lives and Times. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-1-4985-1002-8.
^ Itoh, Mayumi (2017-07-03). The Making of China's Peace with Japan: What Xi Jinping Should Learn from Zhou Enlai. Springer. ISBN 978-981-10-4008-5.
^ Neary, Ian (2021-08-26). Dōwa Policy and Japanese Politics. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-43067-7.
^ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-0674984424.
^ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-0674984424.
^ Growing Democracy in Japan: The Parliamentary Cabinet System Since 1868. University Press of Kentucky. 2014-06-19. ISBN 978-0-8131-4502-0.
^ "JSPOのあゆみ". Japan Sport Association (in Japanese). Retrieved 2023-05-18.
^ "ブリヂストンサイクル元会長、石井公一郎氏死去教育分野で功績" (in Japanese). Sankei Shimbun. 2023-05-18. Retrieved 2022-10-24.

Political offices
Preceded by Kentarō Ayabe	Speaker of the House of Representatives 1967–1969	Succeeded by Takechiyo Matsuda
Preceded by Hitoshi Takahashi	Minister of Justice 1965–1966	Succeeded by Isaji Tanaka
Preceded by Hayato Ikeda	Minister of International Trade and Industry 1960	Succeeded by Etsusaburo Shiina
Preceded by Mamoru Shigemitsu	Deputy Prime Minister 1957–1958	Succeeded by Shūji Masutani
Preceded by Tomejirō Ōkubo	Director General of the Administrative Management Agency 1957–1958	Succeeded by Kikuichirō Yamaguchi
Preceded by Morinosuke Kajima	Director General of the Hokkaido Development Agency 1957–1958	Succeeded by Kikuichirō Yamaguchi
Preceded by Giichi Murakami	Minister of Transport 1952–1954	Succeeded by Takeo Miki
Preceded by Jirō Hoshijima	Minister of Commerce and Industry 1947	Succeeded by Chōsaburō Mizutani
Party political offices
Preceded by Shūji Masutani	Chairman of the General Affairs Council of the Liberal Democratic Party 1959–1960	Succeeded by Shigeru Hori
New office	Chairman of the General Affairs Council of the Liberal Democratic Party 1955–1956	Succeeded by Shigemasa Sunada
Preceded by Hayato Ikeda	Secretary General of the Liberal Party 1954–1955	Office abolished