Kakuei Tanaka
Japanese politician
Died when: 75 years 226 days (907 months)Star Sign: Taurus
Kakuei Tanaka (田中 角栄 or 田中 角榮, Tanaka Kakuei, 4 May 1918 – 16 December 1993) was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1947 to 1990, and was Prime Minister of Japan from 1972 to 1974.
After a power struggle with Takeo Fukuda, he became the most influential member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party from the mid-1960s until the mid-1980s.
He was a central figure in several political scandals, culminating in the Lockheed bribery scandals of 1976 which led to his arrest and trial; he was found guilty by two lower courts, but his case remained open before the Supreme Court through his death.
The scandals, coupled with a debilitating stroke he suffered in 1985, led to the collapse of his political faction, with most members regrouping under the leadership of Noboru Takeshita in 1987.
He was nicknamed Kaku-san and was known as the "Shadow Shōgun" (闇将軍, Yami-shōgun). (The title of "Shadow Shōgun" has since been used to describe Ichirō Ozawa.) His political-economic direction is called the construction state (土建国家, Doken Kokka).
He was strongly identified with the construction industry but never served as construction minister.His daughter Makiko Tanaka and son-in-law Naoki Tanaka remain active political figures in Japan.
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