Word: kishi
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Pearl Harbor Days. In Manchuria, Kishi found himself among friends and relatives. His uncle ran the Manchurian railways; Kishi brought over Steelmaker Aikawa to take charge of factory construction, and became closely connected with General Hideki Tojo, commander of the Kwantung army. Returning to Japan in 1939, Kishi could say complacently: "Manchurian industry is my development. I have an infinite affection for this industrial world I have created." Today, Kishi's lost "creation" provides arms and economic muscle for Red China...
...While Kishi had been climbing the bureaucratic ladder, Japan was convulsed by a struggle between parliamentarians and militarists. Two Prime Ministers were assassinated by nationalist gunmen, and other top officials killed and wounded. The government struck back by executing 13 army officers for conspiracy, and sending Kishi's discarded hero, Kita Ikki, to a firing squad. But victory went to the militarists. Ignoring orders from Tokyo, the Kwantung army occupied all of Manchuria. By 1937, when full-scale hostilities with China broke out, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet could only be appointed with the approval of the army...
Back in Tokyo, Kishi had a run-in with yet another Minister of Commerce. While the minister was absent on a tour of the Dutch East Indies, Kishi and one of his former Manchurian aides drew up a drastic plan to increase bureaucratic control of Japanese industry and to draft into the factories some 250,000 women, ranging from housewives and geisha girls to prostitutes and the actresses of the Takarazuka Girls Opera-an outfit that was owned by Kishi's boss. The Commerce Minister raced back to Tokyo and denounced the plan as "sheer Communism!" Kishi again resigned...
...Kishi served the Japanese war machine faithfully and well, and he makes no bones of it. When a newsman tactfully suggested in 1957 that Kishi had no option but to accept the Emperor's decision to go to war, he replied curtly: "I have no wish to defend myself that way. All the state ministers were responsible for assisting the Emperor to make the decision." As always, Kishi had a practical plan. Japan, he argued, was using only 10% of its production in the war with China ("Chicken feed!"), and by properly organizing the remainder could win quick military...
...Kishi was right about the quick victories (Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines), wrong about being able to get a quick peace. As the fortunes of war worsened, he reacted just as had his Choshu clansmen in the affair of Shimonoseki Strait. At a Cabinet meeting in April 1944 he told Tojo: "Saipan is Japan's lifeline. If Saipan falls, surrender. It is the silliest thing on earth to keep fighting after that." Tojo shouted angrily: "Don't poke your nose into the affairs of the supreme command!" Thirteen days after the bloody U.S. conquest of Saipan, Tojo...