was a Japanese politician.

Early life

Born in

Noshiro, Akita 270px, Rice fields in the Noshiro Plain 270px, Yoneshiro River is a city located in Akita Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 49,935 in 24,200 households. Geography Noshiro is located in the flat coastal plains north ...

, Ishida entered

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

, where he majored in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

and economics. After graduating in 1939, he joined '' Chugai Shōgyō Shimpo'' (later renamed ''

Nihon Keizai Shimbun ''The Nikkei'', also known as , is the flagship publication of Nikkei, Inc. (based in Tokyo) and the world's largest financial newspaper, with a daily circulation exceeding 1.73 million copies. The Nikkei 225, a stock market index for the Tok ...

'') and was appointed as its chief correspondent in Shanghai.

Political career

In 1947, Ishida was elected to the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

. He joined the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955, serving as

Chief Cabinet Secretary The is a member of the cabinet and is the leader and chief executive of the Cabinet Secretariat of Japan. The Chief Cabinet Secretary coordinates the policies of ministries and agencies in the executive branch, and also serves as the government ...

under two prime ministers,

Tanzan Ishibashi was a Japanese journalist, Nichiren Buddhist priest, and politician who was Prime Minister of Japan for two months from 1956 to 1957, before resigning due to illness. He simultaneously served as Director General of the Japan Defense Agency. F ...

and

Nobusuke Kishi was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Known for his exploitative rule of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Northeast China in the 1930s, Kishi was nicknamed the "Monster of the Shō ...

, from 23 December 1956 to 10 July 1957. Widely viewed as a friend and proponent of labor unions (an unusual stance in the pro-business LDP), he was also appointed to five terms as minister of labor under four different prime ministers, in addition to one term as

minister of transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government agen ...

. While minister of labor under Prime Minister

Hayato Ikeda was a Japanese bureaucrat and later politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1960 to 1964. He is best known for his Income Doubling Plan, which promised to double Japan's GDP in ten years. Ikeda is also known for repairing U.S.-J ...

in 1960, Ishida successfully negotiated the end of the 1960 Miike Coal Mine Strike, which remains the largest labor-management dispute in Japanese history. In January 1963, Ishida published an article in ''

Chūō Kōron is a monthly Japanese literary magazine (), first established during the Meiji period and continuing to this day. It is published by its namesake-bearing Chūōkōron Shinsha (formerly Chūōkōron-sha). The headquarters is in Tokyo. ''Chūō ...

'' predicting that the Liberal Democratic Party would lose power to the

Japan Socialist Party The was a socialist and progressive political party in Japan that existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was founded as the Social Democratic Party of Japan by members of several proletarian parties that existed before World War II, including ...

by 1970 due to ongoing changes in Japanese society, including urbanization, increasing education, and the decreasing number of farmers, who were generally seen as fundamental supporters of the LDP. Ishida's article shocked the LDP, but was hailed as perceptive, and stimulated the party to make a number of reforms, including to changing its policies to increase its appeal among urban workers. Ishida formed and chaired the Japan-USSR Friendship Parliamentarians' Union in 1973, visiting Moscow in 1973, 1974 and 1977. Stanislav Levchenko, a

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

Major who defected to the United States in 1979, revealed that Ishida was an

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...

for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Ishida left politics in November 1983.

Ishida Rose Garden

An amateur

rosarian Some rose growers are known for their particular contributions to the field. These include: A * David C.H. Austin (1926–2018), British breeder of English-style roses including the 'Wife of Bath' B * René Barbier (1870–1931), of '' Bar ...

, Ishida planted the yard of his house with various kind of

rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

s. Two years after his death, his rose garden was donated to the City of Odate and named . It is since opened to the public every June.

Honours

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight f ...

(1987)

References

External links

* , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Ishida, Hirohide Labor ministers of Japan Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun Japanese spies for the Soviet Union People from Noshiro, Akita Waseda University alumni 1914 births 1993 deaths Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Politicians from Akita Prefecture Ministers of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan