Sōsuke Uno

was a Japanese politician and former Prime Minister of Japan.

Born in Shiga Prefecture, Uno enrolled in the Kobe College of Commerce before he was conscripted into the army during World War II. In 1960, he entered politics and was elected to the National Diet, becoming a leading Liberal Democratic Party member and a key ally of Yasuhiro Nakasone. Uno served as director of the Defense Agency under Kakuei Tanaka, as director of the Science and Technology Agency under Takeo Fukuda, and as director of the Administrative Management Agency under Masayoshi Ōhira.

He was briefly international trade and industry minister in 1983, and foreign minister in 1987–1989. In 1989, Uno became prime minister but served for only two months before he resigned after a poor showing in that year's upper house election, influenced by the lingering Recruit scandal and public financial scandal with an outspoken geisha.

Early life and education

Uno was born in Moriyama, Shiga. His family owned a sake brewery called Arachō, and had served as town officials (Japanese: ''Toshiyori''). The family had previously ran a hotel and a general store in his birth home.

In 1943, he graduated from Hikone Commercial College (later, Shiga University) where he led Hikone Commercial College to the national champion of Kendo among the commercial universities and colleges in Japan and attended the Kobe College of Commerce but had to leave the University two months later after the enrollment because he was called into the Imperial Japanese Army as an officer during World War II.【滋賀・近江の先人第120回】滋賀県初の第75代内閣総理大臣・宇野宗佑（守山市）
/ref>政治家の履歴書・総理編 ～宇野宗佑～
/ref> After the war, he was sent to Siberia as a prisoner. He never came back to Kobe College of Commerce again. In 1949, he married Chiyo Hirose, a housewife and raised two daughters.

As well as a politician, Uno was an accomplished writer, who wrote a book considered classic in Japan about his experiences as a prisoner of war in Siberia.

Political career

In 1960, he entered politics, winning election to the Diet of Japan. Six years later, he was promoted to Vice-Minister at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, then similar positions with the Science and Technology Agency, then the Administrative Agency until earning his place in Cabinet as Minister for Trade and Industry and then Foreign Secretary until he was Prime Minister. Whilst Foreign Secretary (in what were conflicted times) he was applauded for his tact as foreign secretary, navigating international demands for increased Japanese contributions to international commerce with stern loyalty to his own nation's interests.

In 1974, he served briefly as Director General of the Japan Defense Agency. As the Foreign Minister under then-Prime Minister Takeshita, Uno became the first Japanese Cabinet member to visit Israel since the 1973 oil crisis. Uno's career reached a peak in the most fraught times his party had seen, as he took the reins of his party after the Recruit Scandal, when 47 Japanese MPs (including mostly other members from his own Liberal Democrat Party) were found guilty of taking bribes and unfair trading. Of all prime-ministerial candidates, only Uno was free of blame from them, and he was given charge over the party, the government, and Japan. By this stage he had served his country for almost fifty years, and was placed in office on 3 June 1989.

Geisha affair

Uno encountered public scandal in 1989, when accused by the Geisha entertainer Mitsuko Nakanishi of being "immoral" and ungenerous in his financial support during their four-month affair in 1986. Nakanishi would claim in following newspaper interviews that Uno had treated older geisha with arrogance and contempt, had not paid the appropriate fee of ¥300,000 per month (roughly US$2,100 at the time) for her company of four months, and had not provided a traditional parting gift (a further monetary fee) as had been customary in geisha etiquette.

A ''Washington Post'' article published in July 1989 brought international attention to the affair, with some senior geisha denouncing Nakanishi as a whistleblower, effectively compromising the discreet nature of the profession and violated the traditionalist norms by engaging with political and economic affairs in the public sphere.

Nakanishi later quit the profession after she was vehemently criticized by the Geisha Gion Committee who began to shun her from further client engagements to avoid scandal. She later remarried another man and divorced, attended a Shingon Buddhist school temple in Shiga Prefecture, and held various secretarial jobs unrelated to the geisha community. Due to the severity of the scandal, Nakanishi's own son disowned her during this time.

Uno was highly criticized in public not for having a Geisha mistress, as it was a traditional leisure practice expected of politicians and wealthy men but instead due to relating his poor financial habits in the Japanese Diet as compared and paralleled to the ungenerosity towards his former Geisha mistress. Furthermore, the Geisha was outspoken in public and even made allegations and political suggestions in properly handling the Japanese economy, an unconventional behavior not expected of a traditionalist woman (Geisha culture) in which further exacerbated the situation.

To avoid further scandal, Sōsuke Uno resigned as prime minister on 10 August 1989 after just 68 days in office, but continued to serve his country in various government posts until he retired fully in 1996. On 29 April 1994, he was awarded with the highest possible honour for an ordinary civilian, the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers.

Death

At 72 years of age, Uno then enjoyed a peaceful retirement in Moriyama city. He died on 19 May 1998 in his private home. He had two daughters from
his wife, Mrs. Chiyo Hirose Uno. He published two collections of Haiku poems, as well as his book on prisonership in Siberia, along with painting, poetry, and music. A year later in 1999, his Geisha affair was highlighted in the ''Secret Life of Geisha'', a TV documentary.

Honours

* Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers - (29 April 1994)

References

Further reading

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1922 births
1998 deaths
20th-century prime ministers of Japan
Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians
Presidents of the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
Liberal Democratic Party prime ministers of Japan
Ministers for foreign affairs of Japan
Ministers of defense of Japan
Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers
Kobe University alumni
Imperial Japanese Army officers
Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II
Siberian internees
Politicians from Shiga Prefecture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uno, Sosuke