44 - Fukuda Takeo (1905-1995): Japanese Prime Minister who Spent Three Years in London

Summary

INTRODUCTION

FUKUDA TAKEO WAS Japanese Prime Minister for almost two years from 24 December 1976 to 7 December 1978. Like many other Japanese post-war politicians he began his career as a bureaucrat, only entering politics in 1952. He was a conservative who learnt to manage his way among the factions of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which dominated Japanese politics for over half a century in the twentieth century.

Fukuda spent three years in London before the war and was impressed by British political institutions. He became an Anglophile throughout his life, but recognized that Japan's primary interests in the second half of the twentieth century depended on the successful management of its relations with the United States and Asian countries including China.

CAREER UP TO 1952

He was born on 14 January 1905 as the second son of Fukuda Zenji at Kaneko, Takasaki in Gunma prefecture northwest of Tokyo. His father was the mayor of the town. For generations the family was proud of its inherited social status and influence. As a school boy Fukuda commuted to the Takasaki junior high school walking every day eight kilometres each way. This was conducive to building up his physique and enabled him to live a long and healthy life. He was an exceptionally brilliant student and surpassed all his classmates through primary, middle and the high school in Tokyo before entering Tokyo Imperial University where he did equally well.

He passed the higher civil service examination after graduation in autumn 1928 and, as he had hoped, was appointed to the prestigious and influential Ministry of Finance which controlled the Japanese budget. His professors would have liked him to remain at the University and become a member of the faculty. They were greatly impressed by the outstanding quality of Fukuda's matriculation dissertation on the Constitution of Japan. Fujii Keinosuke (1892– 1959), a diplomat who came from Fukuda's home, wished Fukuda to follow him into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but later changed his mind and endorsed Fukuda's joining the Ministry of Finance.

Fukuda now belonged to a small elite group. He was well aware of the status he had achieved and he was proud of what he had achieved. He had a sharp logical mind. But he was easily approachable with personal warmth.