Koichi Kido

Kōichi Kido was a Japanese statesman who served as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan from 1940 to 1945, and was the closest advisor to Emperor Hirohito throughout World War II. He was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment, of which he served 6 years before being released in 1953. Kido was born on July 18, 1889, in Akasaka, Tokyo to Marquess Takamasa Kido and Sueko Yamao. He was the grand-nephew of Kido Takayoshi, one of the leaders of the Meiji Restoration. After graduating from the Gakushuin Peer's School in Tokyo, he went to the law school of Kyoto University, where Marxist economist Hajime Kawakami was one of his professors. After graduation in 1915, he held numerous minor bureaucratic posts in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, followed by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Together with Shinji Yoshino and Nobusuke Kishi, he was one of the architects of the Strategic Industries Control Act on 1931, which set the stage for state control of numerous industries during the increasing militarization of Japan in the 1930s. Kido became chief secretary of the Home Ministry in 1930. When his long-time friend Fumimaro Konoe became Prime Minister of Japan in 1937, Kido was named Minister of Education. From January 1938, he concurrently held the post of Minister of Health and Welfare. In January 1939, Kido was appointed Home Minister in the Hiranuma Cabinet. As Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan from 1940, Kido became one of the most influential advisors to Emperor Hirohito following the death of Saionji Kinmochi. He recommended to Hirohito that Konoe succeed Mitsumasa Yonai for a second term as Prime Minister of Japan and was active with Konoe in the movement to replace the existing political parties with the Taisei Yokusankai (Imperial Rule Assistance Association) to form a single party state. In 1941, Kido recommended that Hideki Tōjō become Prime Minister after Konoe's third term in office, as being one of the few people eligible who might be able to maintain control over more radical elements within the Imperial Japanese Army. However, Kido remained one of the more cautious advisors to Hirohito at the beginning of World War II, [citation needed] and is known to have advised the emperor against attacking the Dutch East Indies in 1941, explaining that such an attack might provoke the United States into war, and that any oil obtained by taking the East Indies would still have to be transported, and would be subject to blockades and attacks by plane and submarine. [citation needed] Kido played a key role in the events leading to the end of the war. He was the first to suggest to Hirohito that Japan should surrender unconditionally, and he drafted the imperial rescript announcing the surrender. He also persuaded the emperor to make a personal radio broadcast to announce the surrender to the Japanese people. He was one of the few people who supported the emperor's decision to retain the imperial system after the war. After the war, Kido was arrested by the Allied occupation forces and tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for war crimes. He was found guilty of waging wars of aggression, and of war in violation of international law. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1948. He was paroled in 1953, and spent the rest of his life in relative obscurity. He died of cirrhosis on April 6, 1977, at the Imperial Household Agency hospital in Tokyo. He was buried at the Tama Cemetery in Fuchū, Tokyo.