was the Governor of

Hiroshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Hiroshima Prefecture has a population of 2,811,410 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 8,479 km² (3,274 sq mi). Hiroshima Prefecture borders Okayama ...

from October 1945 to 1950. Kusunose was appointed to his position as governor at a time when the city 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 ...

was in destruction following the first use of the nuclear bomb in August 1945. He was appointed by the Japanese government to fill that position upon the expiration of the appointment of his predecessor Genshin Takano. In 1947 he was elected to the same position and thus became the first elected governor of Hiroshima Prefecture. As part of his efforts to reconstruct the city, he held on February 22, 1946, a conference on the future of Hiroshima with the participation of historian Yoshirō Saeki, novelist Yoko Ota, deputy Mayor of

Kure is a port and major shipbuilding city situated on the Seto Inland Sea in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. With a strong industrial and naval heritage, Kure hosts the second-oldest naval dockyard in Japan and remains an important base for the Japan M ...

Tomiko Koura and others. As governor, he followed a policy of refraining from antagonizing the US military authorities in control of Hiroshima at the time, and supported the suppression by US and Australian troops of the workers' strike in June 1949 in protest of the dismissal of workers of Nihon Seiko company, an event known as the Nikko Incident. In 1950, he resigned his post as governor to run for a vacant seat in the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, ...

. He was elected, and served until losing in the 1953 election. During his term in the House of Councillors, in 1952, was one of the initiators of a visit of sympathy by a group of survivors of the atomic attack on Hiroshima to the war criminals kept at

Sugamo Prison Sugamo Prison (''Sugamo Kōchi-sho'', Kyūjitai: , Shinjitai: ) was a prison in Tokyo, Japan. It was located in the district of Ikebukuro, which is now part of the Toshima ward of Tokyo, Japan. History Sugamo Prison was originally built in 1 ...

."Hibakusha recounts meeting war criminals" ''Japan Times'', April 25, 2010
/ref> Died in 1988 of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

References

Yoshiteru Kosakai, ''Hiroshima Peace Reader'' (Hiroshima, 1980)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kusunose, Tsunei 1899 births 1988 deaths People from Hiroshima Hitotsubashi University alumni Governors of Hiroshima Members of the House of Councillors (Japan)