was the Mayor of

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

from 1967 until his death.

Career

He served as member of the Upper House of the

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

in the early years after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and in that capacity helped in 1949 to pass the law proclaiming Hiroshima a city of peace. He was elected mayor of Hiroshima in May 1967, as

Shinzo Hamai ''Shinzo'', known as in Japan, is an anime television series produced by TV Asahi, Toei Advertising, and Toei Animation. It was directed by Tetsuo Imazawa, with Mayori Sekijima handling series scripts, Sachiko Kamimura designing the charact ...

stepped down. As Mayor of Hiroshima he worked to promote the peace messages of his city overseas, which resulted in establishing in October 1967 a new department within the Hiroshima municipality, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Center, to disseminate the message of

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the Atomic nucleus, nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear ...

to the rest of the world. In September 1968, sent a letter of protest to the French government, protesting its nuclear tests, thus starting the tradition of such protest letters by the following mayors of Hiroshima. It was under his administration that Japanese Prime Minister

Eisaku Satō was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1972. He is the third-longest serving Prime Minister, and ranks second in longest uninterrupted service as Prime Minister. Satō entered the National Diet in 1949 as a membe ...

participated in the memorial ceremony on August 6, 1971, the first time such ceremony was attended by a Japanese Prime Minister. As part of his commemoration policies, decided to add to the official list of casualties also the US prisoners of war held in

Hiroshima Castle , sometimes called , is a castle in Hiroshima, Japan that was the residence of the ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the Hiroshima Domain. The castle was originally constructed in the 1590s, but was destroyed by the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. ...

during the war and killed in the

nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...

. In May 1974 sent a letter of protest to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, protesting the first Indian nuclear test. He continued to approach the US government on matters of nuclear disarmament, and on June 19, 1974, addressed a cable to US President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

as follows:

"On the occasion of the summit meeting with Soviet leader Brezhnev in Moscow late this month, I have learnt you two world leaders would deliberate Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In the light of the fact of a series of recent atmospheric nuclear tests by France and China, I on behalf of Hiroshima citizens strongly beseech your Excellency and his Excellency Brezhnev to take full initiative in making greatest efforts to convene an international conference, with all nuclear club members present, for the talks of an immediate signing of treaties of complete suspension of nuclear testing and annihilation of nuclear weapons. Also, I sincerely solicit your Excellency to take resolute measures in avoiding current touch-and-go crisis of human holocaust. Yours Respectfully, Setsuo Yamada. Mayor of Hiroshima, Japan".

He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a

World Constituent Assembly The World Constitutional Convention (WCC), also known as the World Constituent Assembly (WCA) or the First World Constituent Assembly, took place in Interlaken, Switzerland and Wolfach, Germany, 1968. The convention aimed to foster global coopera ...

convened to draft and adopt the

Constitution for the Federation of Earth A world constitution refers to a proposed framework or document aimed at establishing a system of global governance. It seeks to provide a set of principles, structures, and laws to govern the relationships between states and address global iss ...

Death

He died of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamada, Setsuo Mayors of Hiroshima 1898 births 1975 deaths World Constitutional Convention call signatories